In Another World with Absolute Awareness

Shredded vegetables and a roasted hundred-year-old Elemental Pheasant.

That was what Hau’goth had prepared for me today.

"...Hau, is there something you need from me?"

As the scholarly minotaur chef served me my expensive breakfast (on the house), I tilted my head.

[Absolute Awareness] already swept past the magical protection of his golden fur and scanned him for any anomalies.

There didn’t seem to be any.

So, I checked his thoughts. At the same time I did, Hau’goth spoke.

"I need your help with something. It’s... something hard to explain."

His tone was rather grim, and a mild discomfort plagued his mind struggling to come up with the words he needed.

Since I read his thoughts, I decided to help.

"...Is it about that weird group of tenants?"

Hau’goth froze for a moment.

"What? How did you know?"

I shrugged. "I’m pretty perceptive as a person, you know? Also, I work as an Info-Hunter—people go to me to find lost souls and misplaced things."

What more was there to say?

Realization dawned on my landlord’s bull-like yet scholarly features. His eyes, slightly distorted by the lenses perched on his snout, regained clarity.

"Right. Well, I’ve had a bad feeling about them, and I don’t want anything bad happening in my territory. Is it alright if you take a look? Of course, I’m willing to pay you for—"

"No," I stopped Hau’goth from continuing. "I also live in the area, so I’ve already taken a look. They were indeed a bit weird."

By a bit, I meant... disgustingly weird.

However, that was what triggered my suspicions the most. The problem wasn’t with them, but with what was coming after them.

They were all dragging around bundles of <Fate’s> threads, entangling their fates with those of others.

I found it intriguing—but not intriguing enough that I would prioritize it over my current studies.

Now that Hau’goth brought it up, though...

It was time to take a look.

"...How long will it take you?" Hau’goth asked, his expression tensed.

Seeing this, I grinned.

"Give me a few hours."

All I needed was enough mana to trace those <Fate> threads back to where they all came from.

That was their most suspicious point.

A singular origin yet bearing many different histories, cultures, and lifestyles.

It was truly an odd influx of new tenants... but only to me. After glancing through Hau’goth’s worries, I realized that he was acting purely on intuition.

How terrifyingly keen was that?

The intuition born from a long life of handling a fiefdom with hundreds of millions of residents, all moving about. To think that their landlord was a pastry chef...

’Well, Hau is a pastry chef with the organizational skills of a highly competent king.’

His senses were so keen that he could literally spot a few dangerous needles in a haystack. A few hundred odd tenants among millions.

Terrifying.

Still, I had a bad feeling that something was brewing around the area I lived in.

***

As I walked home, that bad feeling grew.

Despite the mana costs, I used [Absolute Awareness] to get a glimpse of the chaotic web of <Fate> entangling my surroundings.

To be as efficient as possible, I isolated only the foggy wisps of grey and white. The little traces here and there, connecting everyone and everything.

There were only so many entanglements strong enough to form threads. Everything else was a blurry haze of connection.

Nothing like the multitudes that bound Taylor to many different people, objects, and future events.

Or perhaps the threads that had once wound around Melia and the <Sword of Light> before the latter became a part of my collection.

However, there were a lot of unfamiliar threads creating a mess of the area.

"Hm,"

With a hum, I silenced my modified senses, and the world returned to how I usually viewed it under the influence of [Absolute Awareness].

It was then.

I felt a chill run down my spine.

"What..."

In my senses, over a hundred different faces were staring straight at me. All across a radius of 500 meters, in the towering buildings that stood on both sides of the road, and among the flowing crowd.

I sensed a hundred gazes.

...And cold sweat dripped down my back.

[Absolute Awareness] peered into their minds.

"Blank,"

I clicked my tongue.

Next, I scanned their bodies. There, I gained a hint.

A faint connection that bound all of their limbs, their organs, and even their minds.

’Puppetry?’

[Absolute Awareness] flooded my surroundings, dipping into the worm’s reserves to supplement my senses. I confirmed their shared characteristics.

All bound somehow, bearing marks on the inside of their skin.

—[ HM? THIS PRESENCE. AHA, YOU BASTARD SON OF CHICKENS—HOW DID YOU ANNOY THAT WEIRD STALKER? ]

My brow twitched. So the <Wyrm With No Name> knew something?

’So you recognize this entity? That’s good.’

[Absolute Awareness] invaded the Wyrm’s memories, digging into its mind and excavating everything connected to the descriptor, <Weird Stalker>. I read through what I could as images and sensations flowed past me like a raging storm.

<Perfect Estimate> barely supplemented my mind-reading abilities, but I was already used to having these difficulties.

It took me four seconds to understand just who I had provoked.

<Bliekon the Manipulator>

An old Spindeiron—an animated doll, wielding darkness-attributed mana like it was a part of them—had sensed a tremor along the threads I used to locate her.

How?

Well...

I wish I had the mana to figure that out...

<Power of Death> activated, and I vanished.

The shadows surged all around me, hiding me deep within their embrace.

<Power of the Sky> caused the winds to swirl, distorting the traces of my presence and creating false movements all across the Soulless City.

Then, I rose into the air. A Mana Potion appeared in my hands, taken straight out of my <Sub-Dimensional Ruby Ring>.

I downed the transparent liquid without hesitation.

Mana flooded my body, and I began to observe my enemy once more.

I spared no effort to maintain my sustainable practices. This was the reason I had been saving up a lot of cash.

Scrimping on resources when an unknown threat was standing right beside me...

Such foolishness would not be my end.

Thus.

[Absolute Awareness]!

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