Chapter 360. The Other Eye
Charles pressed his eyelids gently. His excitement had led to him ignoring the fact that he could only see through his left eye. In other words, the Pope had only restored one eye rather than both eyes. His right eye socket remained empty.
"One eye should be enough, my child. Are you not aware of the massive undertaking necessary to restore that eye of yours? You have to figure out how to restore your remaining eye by yourself," the Pope replied with his signature business-like tone of voice.
Charles frowned slightly. For some reason, Charles felt like the Pope could restore both his eyes but had deliberately restored only one to be a thorn in his side.
Of course, Charles had his own reservations, but he knew how to be grateful. It would be ungrateful of him to grumble when the other party had to have paid a huge price to restore one of his eyes.
Charles' emotions had reached an all-time low at Laesto's death, but the fact that his vision had been restored, albeit partially, was a fact worthy of celebration. Charles felt great, and he thought briefly over something before pulling out a nautical chart.
Charles then handed the nautical chart to the Pope and said, "I found this during my last voyage. Take a look."
The nautical chart marked the exit to the surface world, and the Pope's figure quivered as soon as his eyes landed on the coordinates; every single wrinkle on his face rippled with excitement as he whipped around and rushed toward the cathedral with the nautical chart in hand.
The excitement on his face and his frantic dash to the cathedral made him look like a child about to tell his parents how he had just gotten candy from a kind stranger.
Soon, Charles heard a cacophony of cheers and shouting from inside the cathedral, and it only got louder as the seconds went by. Eventually, a crowd emerged from the cathedral, and the Pope emerged from the crowd with a face flushed red in excitement.
"Why did you not tell me this news sooner?! Do you not have any idea what this means?!" the Pope exclaimed.
"Well, all that matters is that it's in your hands now. I also had no idea that it would take you so long to find a method to restore my eyes. I thought I only had to wait one or two days at most," Charles replied. He then reached out to take the nautical chart away.
"Wait!" However, the Pope pulled it away and said, "I still have to make copies of this nautical chart. This is of utmost importance, and it is practically more precious than an island made out of gold!
"Charles, you did great—no, you did an extremely excellent job!"
Roughly eight pairs of hands started passing around the nautical chart, and the sight made Charles too lazy to wrestle the nautical chart away. He decided to give the nautical chart to them, as his crew had already made three copies of it.
In addition, what mattered was the information, not the tattered paper where it was written.
"Okay, just keep it, then. You don't need to return it," Charles said. He waved his hand at them before turning around to leave. His biggest concern at the moment was restoring his missing right eye.
"When will you be setting sail again? I'm going with you the next time you set sail," the Pope said after chasing after Charles.
"Hold on, my crew needs ample rest, and I'm not in a rush as well," Charles replied. He turned around and jumped onto a nearby rooftop beneath the gazes of the followers of the Light God.
After a while, Charles received an intelligence report saying that the Divine Light Order was making strange, abnormal movements.
However, Charles decided to ignore the report. In fact, he believed that their reactions had been a bit too mellow; those fanatics should have appeared more exhilarated after finding the exit to the surface world.
Anna, come here, quick! I have something important to tell you.
Charles wrote a telegram to the World's Crown.
It didn't take long for Anna to appear before Charles. Today, Anna was wearing a form-fitting purple dress with a plunging neckline and a dangerously high slit and paired with black stockings.
"That actually exists here? What are they made of? Silkworm silk?" Charles asked as his hand naturally made its way onto her thigh.
"It's made from a specially cultivated spider silk," Anna said. She slapped his hand away and glared at him. "You better have a great reason for summoning me here; otherwise, don't blame me for getting angry."
Charles smiled wryly and took out two palm-sized boxes housing the spiders Anna had given to him back then. "I'm still missing an eye, and I want to replace that missing eye with one of these spiders.
"I had to summon you here because you only gave me these spiders without telling me how to use them," Charles explained.
"Why are you asking me instead of Elizabeth?!" Anna exclaimed. She kicked Charles' shin with the top piece of her high heel and continued, "I already told you that I'm busy, but you actually made me run all the way here for such a trivial matter?!"
Charles remained calm in the face of Anna's outburst. He stepped forward and pulled her into an embrace before looking down at her fondly and saying, "I did it because I was missing you, too, Jiajia."
Anna flushed slightly and avoided Charles' affectionate gaze.
A few seconds of silence later, Anna turned fiercely toward Charles with brows knitted in displeasure. "Why did you stop? We were just getting started. Keep the sweet nothings going!"
Charles chuckled wryly as he let go of her and presented the palm-sized boxes again to Anna. "Hurry up, please. It's hard living with just one eye."
Anna took the boxes away and opened one to see a spider scurrying around inside with a pattern resembling an eye on its back. Anna's expression turned to that of displeasure as she said, "Jerk. A good man would have replaced the spider here with a huge diamond ring."
"Do you even need something like that? You can easily buy one with the Echoes you can whip out anytime you want," Charles replied.
"It's a sense of ritual for a reason. Do you even know what sense of ritual means?" Anna retorted.
Anna's right hand then transformed into multiple ink-black hollow tentacles. The tentacles left blurry afterimages as they carved a complex formation on the nearby table.
Anna then placed the palm-sized box in the middle of the formation. The spider soon crawled out of the box, but for some reason, it couldn't escape the complex formation.
"Open your eyes... I need just a little bit of your flesh and a tiny piece of your soul," Anna said. Her ink-black hollow tentacles then dug into Charles' right eye socket.
Charles was instantly inundated by excruciating pain as blood dripped out of the eye socket. After a while, Charles suddenly felt a strange sense of loss and a hollowness within him.
The tentacles soon retracted, and Anna tossed a tiny piece of flesh as well as a hazy blue-colored wisp toward the spider. The complex formation lit up in response.
Meanwhile, Charles was gasping for breath at the intense pain coming from his right eye. He turned to Anna and saw her grinning wickedly at him. "Oopsie, it's been a while since I did something like this, so that one just now ended up failing.
"It's fine; we just need a fresh medium for another attempt."
"Was that on purpose, Anna? It really hurts, you know?!" Charles exclaimed.
"Well, I don't think it's my fault. I think I know as much as you when it comes to these parlor tricks," Anna replied. Then, her tentacles burrowed into Charles' right eye socket once more.
Fortunately, the second attempt succeeded. Anna chanted a strange incantation, and the spider with a red pattern resembling an eye abruptly went stiff.
Charles' right eye no longer showed pure darkness; he could vaguely make out blurry shapes from his right eye. After a while, he closed his left eye and found himself staring at Anna's face in a monochrome world.
"How is it? Is it usable?" Anna asked.
Charles then saw Anna blowing a kiss toward his eye. He then opened his left eye and found that Anna had lifted her hair and had planted a kiss on the spider's back.
Charles managed to confirm it right there and then—his vision was linked to the spider's pattern, and the connection was more than just sight. Charles willed, and the spider scuttled swiftly across the table and made a beeline for him.
It came to a halt at the table's edges, and then it leaped into the air before landing on Charles' prosthetic. Charles then carried the spider to his face and made it burrow behind his sunken right eyelid.
Once the spider ceased all movement, Charles opened both eyes to stare at the beautiful woman before him. Although the left eye showed him an oversaturated world while the right eye showed him a monochrome world, he could at least finally see Anna with both eyes.
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