Chương 24: Exchange
At that moment, his arm began to ache, causing Noah to bring his gaze to it.
__________________________
[Notice: The "??? of the Roses" has offered an exchange to the "Host".]
[The "??? of the Roses" offers: [Spiritual Artifact: Earthly Codex].
The "Host" must deliver: [Mortal Heart: One quarter of life remaining]]
[Do you wish to accept the exchange?]
[Y/N]
__________________________
A couple of seconds passed, with the young man hesitating whether he should accept this deal or not. Until finally, he made a decision.
"I do not accept."
__________________________
[The "Host" has declined the exchange of the "???? of the Roses."]
__________________________
His voice echoed loudly in this entity-created space, a statement that the system did no more to reinforce, making it clear that as appealing as what it offered was, it was not enough.
"...I see."
Though its voice was still just as melodious as before, the disappointment was palpable, apparently not expecting the human to reject its deal.
With Noah's decision made, the entity then ceased to maintain the Hollow Garden, having no more to talk to the young man about.
At the same time, Noah could feel an unknown force begin to make his body heavy, making it quite hard for him to even stand.
It really didn't take much to realize what was happening, he was being ejected from the Hollow Garden.
"If you change your mind-"
"Wait!"
However, just as he felt his body was about to be banished from this space, the young man interrupted the entity.
"I do not accept the deal you are offering me, but I do want to make an exchange with you."
With these words, this time it was the entity's turn to raise an eyebrow, being surprised again by the human.
"Earlier, you said that there are things I wasn't supposed to make contact with, that it wouldn't be possible in my current state, that my human body wasn't made for it." Noah continued, each of his words being listened to carefully by the entity. "But I want to change that, as I don't plan to stop investigating the mirror world."
Having finished saying that, Noah then began to approach the flower bed, "The knowledge you offer me is valuable, but if I can, I want to be the one to figure it all out on his own. So if you want to make a trade, what I want from you is an eye, so I can see what my human body won't allow me to, in exchange, I'll give you one of mine."
Already standing directly in front of the flower bed, Noah stretched out his hand, in his eyes a look full of determination.
"If it's good enough for you, do we have a deal, ancient unknown entity?"
As he finished asking that question, Noah felt something inside him stir, similar to when he breathed, but what came out in this case was not his breath, but something else, much more personal and deeper.
The next moment, without giving him time to notice what he lost, a system notification came in.
__________________________
[Notice: The "Host" has offered an exchange to the "??? of the Roses"].
[The "Host" offers: [Mortal Heart: Left Eye].
The "??? of the Roses" must deliver: [Prophetic ??? Heart ???: Left Eye]]
[Waiting for answer...]
__________________________
Apparently, just as the entity was able to make the system react, he was also able to do so.
For a while, there was no movement in this silence-filled space, causing the young man to doubt for a moment whether he had overstepped his bounds.
After all, despite knowing he had the power to make demands, who he was dealing with was still a mirror world entity.
"...Ha, haha!"
Laughing lightly, the space around again began to shake, but this time with a rhythm similar to the entity's laughter.
BAM!
"!"
Suddenly, Noah felt the hand he had stretched out being gripped tightly by something he couldn't see.
"We have a deal, human child!"
Shk!
__________________________
[Notice: The "???? of the Roses" has accepted the "Host's" offer].
__________________________
Immediately, at the same time as the system prompt appeared, starting from his hand, a small electrical spark ignited, creating a sense of deja vu for Noah because this seemed similar to a past experience.
BOOM!
The spark then exploded, becoming first two, then four, then eight, until after a couple of seconds, there were no longer sparks, but an electrical storm all around.
The intensity of this storm was such that even when compared to the moment Noah activated the Horrendous Web, the latter was visibly inferior.
"ARGH!"
At the same time, Noah let out a cry of pain due to the fact that his hand was receiving a good part of the electricity, which was coursing down his arm and up to his shoulders.
For a moment, it seemed that this electricity was going to do the same thing to him that happened to the Faceless Wraith, but under the entity's attentive control, the electricity just kept on going, finally reaching Noah's face.
Tsss!
__________________________
[Notice: The exchange is about to take effect. It is recommended not to lose consciousness or the process will have to start all over again].
__________________________
Barely reaching to read the message on his arm, a change filled Noah's body.
"AHHHH!!!
The sound of something being burned then was heard coming from the young man's left eye, accompanied by a scream of pain that even though the system had warned him, he couldn't help but let out.
Electricity surged in and out of Noah's face, focusing almost entirely on his left eye, inserting itself deep into his gray iris.
The process was something strange and mystical, with every ten electrical currents that came in contact with his eye, only one of these managed to remain truly attached to the organ.
In order for the exchange between the two to take place properly, this process had to have at least one hundred electrical currents together in Noah's eye, otherwise, Noah's body simply would not accept it.
This process was slow and painful, so much so that the entity came to think that the young man would regret it halfway through.
However, despite expecting him to kick or strongly resist the process, the human's only reaction, aside from screams of pain, was to simply increase the strength of his grip on the entity's hand.
Finally, after an amount of time that felt like hours to Noah, the process was over, his iris being the same gray color as before but now with each of the tiny optic nerves glowing with the same intensity as one of the electric currents.
__________________________
[Notice: The exchange between the "???? of the Roses" and the "Host" has concluded.]
__________________________
"With that, the exchange is then complete, child." Said the entity, releasing Noah's hand.
Still feeling the pain on his face, the young man looked up, barely finishing reading what the system had written.
It was information he had to take into account, but just at that moment, the young man managed to catch in his field of vision something moving away from his own hand.
It was a slender and delicate hand, as white as porcelain but whose proportions were unusual, as they seemed to belong to someone of a completely different size than him.
Raising his gaze, a long white arm appeared, attached to what appeared to be a slender woman with long black hair covering certain parts of her body that would not be wrong to call that of a giant.
However, what most indicated to Noah that this woman was not human, was the fact that several wounds that would normally be fatal were present on her body.
From a large hole in her abdomen, to broken and protruding bones in both her shoulder and ribs, all were striking.
Though of course, these lost in comparison to the massive sword that lay across her torso, pinning her to the ground, keeping her lying on her side.
As for her face, both eye sockets were empty, while the corners of her lips were broken, allowing her to open her mouth to a degree that no person could.
But even with all these wounds on her body, the woman in question did not even show a single sign of pain, as if these had nothing to do with her.
"Ahah!"
Letting out a small laugh, the woman brought her right hand, the same one with which she had waved Noah's hand, to her face.
Opening her long fingers, it was possible to see an entire eye in the palm of her hands, the iris being a gray color that the young man could instantly recognize as his own.
Suddenly, the direction in which the woman was looking changed, from the eye to Noah, her mouth twisting into a wide smile that expressed her happiness.
"Thank you."
With those words, watching as the woman brought the eye towards one of her empty sockets, Noah then felt his consciousness fade, being ejected from this mysterious space.
__________________________
[Notice: The "Host" has been forcibly ejected from the [Special Space: Hollow Garden]]
__________________________
---
"..."
Noah, after being expelled from the Hollow Garden, lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling of his room, a vacant expression being present on his face.
Although a pain in his head was telling him that being in the aforementioned space for so long was not advisable, that was not what he was thinking about.
Now that he was not under the influence of the woman's space, his curiosity, as well as other aspects of his personality had returned to normal, being something Noah could control.
As a result, this had caused the young man to think about whether he had done the right thing in making a deal with the mirror world entity.
Placing a hand over his left eye, Noah couldn't help but feel that truly, something had changed with him.Not only could he still see, but he could see with greater clarity than before, being able to see those details that would normally escape him even though he wasn't actively looking for them.
At the same time, he also seemed to have received a slight increase to his overall perception, being able to more clearly have his surroundings, the effect being similar to when he received the [Permanent Grace: Third Eye Perception].
As for the effect he had accepted the deal for, which was "seeing what humans were not supposed to see", he didn't think he would be able to test it here, but would have to go to the Mirror World for it.
"Haa..."
Letting out a sigh, the young man got up from the floor and after cleaning himself up a bit, sat down at his desk, determined to write down what had happened.
As his pencil twitched, and the pages filled with letters and drawings, what the entity had said before the deal was still present in his mind, something that due to its seriousness, had to become his priority from now on.
He wrote down the three rules and although at first he tried to make sense of them, he decided to leave it for when the entity communicated with him.
Half an hour passed when he finished adding the entity to his notebook, which indicated that it was time for him to begin his new task.
Standing up, the young man then made his way to his bed, sitting down as he raised his left arm.
"Well, let's get started then." Noah said, his gaze watching his arm with great attention.
Still fresh in his mind was the encounter he had with the entity, and in the midst of everything that happened, one thing that had managed to particularly stick in his mind were the unfamiliar terms of the system.
So far he had been ignoring them, but it was clear that if he wanted to get to know himself and the system better, he had to start finding out what they meant.
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