Mr. and Mrs. Anthian had arrived together, and Okimoto witnessed a scene of chaos unfold in the living room from the stairs.

  Mrs. Anthian, a sharper, more jagged version of her daughter, tore off her fur coat and threw it on the floor.

  “BURN IT!” She howled. “TAKE IT OUTSIDE AND BURN IT RIGHT NOW!”

  “What’s going on with her now?” Crystella muttered beside him, covering her mouth in shock.

  Mr. Anthian rolled his eyes and continued towards the stairs as two dolls rushed by him to aid his wife.

  “Is something the matter?” Crystella asked as he came up to face the two of them.

  The Anthian family patriarch was as tall as Okimoto and much broader at the shoulders. He had a bald head that shone like polished bronze. He had naturally pouty lips and snake-like beady eyes. He wore a traditional robe over casual attire. On his right cheek, the rosette appeared identical to his daughter's, somewhat blob-shaped.

  “Greetings, Mr. Anthian, sir,” Okimoto said, somewhat nervous. “I’m Okimoto D. Cheffei.”

  “Greetings, young man.” He answered indifferently before answering his daughter’s question. “Your mother’s been gifted that coat by one of her friends at her book club. She only realised that it wasn’t authentic troll hide and actually faux fur a few minutes ago, and as you can see, she didn’t take kindly to it.”

  “Oh no.” Crystella said, sorrowfully. “Mother’s allergic to poverty. She should be more careful with who she trusts.”

  “I’m breaking out into a rash all over!” She screamed. “How dare that bitch trick me into wearing poor people's clothes! I’ll make sure she gets kicked out, the blasted cow! My goodness, I can’t breathe. Honey please! Help me, I’m actually suffocating.”

  Mr. Anthian sneered, turning to some nearby dolls. “One of you blasted things, go get the bitch her inhaler.”

  As the dolls rushed off, he continued on his way, passing Okimoto and Crystella, his shoes clacking on the marble tiles as he went.

  “Wait!” Crystella called out to him. “There’s something Okimoto and I would like to speak with you about.”

  “Not now, darling. The bank and your mother have already caused me enough of a headache. It’s not a pressing matter, I presume?”

  She looked at Okimoto.

  “It sort of is,” Okimoto said. “I’m assuming you’ve seen the Tunsihaba show? Or at least have seen the ether sprite Odiggan used at the examination?”

  Mr. Anthian paused his stride.

  Slowly turning to face them again, he said, his words hard to hear over Mrs. Anthian’s howling downstairs, “That wretched thing? What about it? I’ve indeed seen the boy Odiggan show off that insect on the television. It’s already causing a massive disturbance in the stock market and causing me a lot of stress.”

  “Okimoto’s the one who actually made the sprite!” Crystella said. “The Orion family stole it from him, and now they're claiming it as Odiggan’s.”

  “What?” Mr. Anthian gasped. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes,” Okimoto said. “They kicked me out of school unjustly and blacklisted me from getting a job. If you’re willing to give me a chance, I could detail the entire breeding process to prove myself. If you were to ask Odiggan to explain the same thing, he won’t be able to. I guarantee that.”

  “That’s quite something, lad. But I don’t see how this is my problem.”

  “Think of it from a business perspective!” Crystella reasoned. “If he’s able to sue the Orion family and claim all of the royalties from whatever they plan to do with the creature, you can get a big stake in his future business endeavours with it.”

  “I also plan on making a far better version of the sprite,” Okimoto explained. “As I'm sure you know by now, it can manipulate ether freely, shaping it into almost anything. But its limit lies in shaping non-ether-based matter. I can make a much better version of it, capable of manipulating matter in its entirety. If you support me and use your power to unblacklist me, you’ll have a handsome share of whatever profits I’m able to get out of it. And trust me, those profits will be breathtaking. Imagine Infinite matter at our fingertips, absolute monopolies over all resources. I imagine you’re a man who loves that kind of thing, considering you're a banker and all.

  “That’s right!” Crystella added. “Think of the profits, Dad! That’s what you always do, and it’s always brought us success!”

  Mr. Anthian pinched his brow and groaned. “What sort of nonsense is this? Listen, I need five minutes to have a smoke in my study. I’ll invite you in after I’m done, and then we can discuss all of the melarkey you’ve just thrown in my face.”

  “We're being sincere.” Crystella urged. “Okimoto’s a trusted friend of mine. He's done absolutely nothing that would lead me to doubt his words. Even Kariggan, Oddon Orion’s air is on Okimoto’s side. The two of them are practically best friends.”

  Her father sighed. “I’ll address his claim once I'm through with smoking.”

  With that made clear, the patriarch of the Anthian family entered a pair of double doors to the side of the corridor and closed them behind him.

  Crystella held his hand. “I have a feeling it will work out well for you. He's just tired; if he really thought you were full of it, he'd have the dolls kick you out.”

  Okimoto turned to look at her, his eyes meeting her’s before passing over her and meeting another pair that squinted mockingly at him from a shadowed corner, a pair of rainbow eyes that only he could see.

  Christopher stepped out from the corner, turning to point to the Corridor’s end where Crystella’s bedroom was.

  “I need some fresh air,” Okimoto said.

  Crystella nodded. “If you need me, I'll be downstairs in the kitchen.”

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  Out on the balcony overlooking the city nightscape, Okimoto said. “What makes you appear all of a sudden? You only ever seem to come to tell me off, as if you have any stake at all in how my life goes, whoever or whatever you are.”

  Christopher was chewing on a piece of wheat, half sitting on the ornate balcony railing as he gazed out to who knows what.

  The first time Okimoto had seen him was back when he returned to where the mages had found him along the railway. There was a town not too far from the rail embankment; its name was Utero. It didn't seem too special, a typical imperial town centre with bombastic architecture, perhaps fewer than five churches, all to different gods, pastel houses speckling the hills to the west under a golden evening haze, the chilly breeze sweeping over the stench of cow shit and chicken shit and all other kinds of shit from the countryside farms in the east. The train station near the centre, the local trains to even more remote areas, and the intercity trains to the big cities along the coast. They thought they'd find his family there; he thought so, too. When they asked around, nobody had ever seen Okimoto there before; his face was one of many new faces among the mages who had gone there with him.

  None of the schools had any records of him, and no yearbooks had his photo. All the missing-kid posters belonged to children who had already been found.

  On the final night of his visit to that place, he went for a pointless walk alone through the town centre, eyeing Christopher standing alone on a street corner, staring up at some moths orbiting a lamplight. It was raining, and Christoper just stood there, soaked and unfazed.

  He had caught Okimoto’s attention for two reasons: the absence of a Coronatian rosette on his right cheek immediately distinguished Christopher as a foreigner, and like Okimoto, his eyes were empty; hollow, void, as if he too had ventured to that town searching for something in vain and would soon leave, wondering what the point of it all was.

  Okimoto didn't speak with him. He returned to the hotel the mages were all staying in, packed his things, then boarded the overnight train back to Toaddor with them.

  In the following days, he saw Christopher occasionally. He'd always be at a distance, always watching. There one second, gone the next. Okimoto found it strange that this man was seemingly following him around, and always with this hollow expression, but he soon came to realise that Christopher was no man, or at least no human one, for Christopher had no ether, not a single trace. Perhaps more strangely, no one besides Okimoto could see him.

  Okimoto began to fear that he was being haunted, but quickly realised that whatever this existence was wasn't any mere ghost, as even spirits would have ether that he could see. Okimoto also knew that this couldn't be a hallucination. He wasn't exactly the most stable of people, but certainly not insane enough to be seeing things.

  One day, Okimoto came across a foreign woman on the opposite street performing tricks and casting illusions with sprites that flew in circles around her. She was beautiful: radiant brown skin, amber eyes. As she danced, the many tails of her colourful robes fluttered like wings in the wind. After Okimoto had been watching for a while, he saw that Christopher had appeared right beside him at some point, and it was the closest to him he'd ever been. Christopher was watching the woman perform, and it was then that Okimoto heard him speak for the first time.

  “What’s your name?” He asked. He spoke with a strange accent, one Okimoto had never heard before.

  “My name?” Okimoto scoffed. “With how much you've been stalking me, shouldn't you have overheard it by now?”

  Christopher smirked. “Oh? Looks like someone’s got an attitude problem.”

  “Why don't you tell me who you are first?”

  “Who am I?” Christopher said, then held a finger over his lip in a hushing gesture. “Let’s just say I'm a man who likes seeing interesting things.”

  Christopher pointed at the woman performing, the crowd tossing notes and coins into a cup on the ground beside her. “You see her. You see those insects around her. I believe you'll discover something very interesting if you question her about them.”

  After saying that, Christopher was gone.

  Okimoto indeed questioned the woman about her insects, learning that they could shape ether into powerful illusions but were otherwise useless.

  Upon returning to the University later that day, he discovered that an agriculture professor had some of those insects as live specimens for his classes. Okimoto acquired a few, intending to use them to play pranks on his friends, eventually leading him down a three-year rabbit hole that left him where he now stood, gazing at the city that betrayed him.

  “Why so quiet?” Okimoto asked. “Aren't you going to say anything?”

  Continuing to stare out at nothing, Christopher asked, “Okimoto, what kind of person do you want to become?”

  Okimoto said. “Someone who’ll be remembered by everyone forever.”

  “If that's the case, then why not kill as many people as you can and go out with a bang? That way, you'll be engraved in history as a maniac. Everyone loves to obsess over past evils and their perpetrators.”

  “There's no way I'm doing that.”

  “Oh?” Christopher chortled, raising an eyebrow. “So you don't just want to be remembered, then. Clearly, there's more to it, right?”

  “I want to be a great person.”

  “Do you think you're on the path to becoming someone like that right now? Remember what you said to that man a few seconds ago? That he'd get a big cut of your profits if he helps you? Is that really what you'll do with the sprites once everyone acknowledges you as the true maker of them?”

  “I just said that stuff to get him to help me.” Okimoto sighed. “Obviously, I won't only use them for personal profit.”

  Christopher chuckled tiredly. “What does it mean to be someone great? Is this greatness something you have because of your talents?”

  “If not that, then what else?”

  Christopher laughed more loudly. “That’s exactly what your problem is. You still don't get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “That there's something you’re not seeing. Remember what you said earlier about Francisco Orion when you were speaking with the Anthain daughter? You said you'd l like to think of him as a great man. Why did you say that?”

  “He is, isn't he? He revolutionised magical puppeteering. It's not much different from what the ether sprite's going to do.”

  “An Orion family doll costs three thousand, shingles,” Christopher said. They're widely used in households, middle-class and up.”

  “That's good, right?” Okimoto asked. “He made something that benefits thousands, if not millions, of households.”

  “But it came at the expense of others,” Christopher said. “Notice the lack of human staff? A doll is much cheaper than a human being who requires a livable wage. When Francisco’s contraptions became commonplace, millions of people lost their jobs around the world. Many industries also sought to replace their workers, but unions advocated on behalf of workers to stop it. People used to earn a living as maids, butlers, and housekeepers, as well as many other similar titles. They worked hard just to survive, and in the end, it was for nothing. Ultimately, Francisco Orion was not a great man, just a man who did great for himself. Talent, capabilities, even competence. These things are not virtues in and of themselves, but become so through their survice to others. It's not what you do for yourself, but what you do for others that makes you a great man. So what I want to know is, what kind of person do you see yourself becoming when this is all over, when all the power in the world is yours? When everyone celebrates you and your name is recognised, what happens next?”

  Okimoto didn't answer him; instead, he asked a question of his own. “What is it that you get out of all of this? Following me around, lecturing me. What's in it for you? Will you disappear when I achieve what I've set out to do? Will you follow the next big shot that pops up afterwards, forgetting me because I'm yesterday’s news?”

  Christopher yawned. “I might look the same age as you, but I'm actually a very old man. After living for so long, you start to get bored with the world. The mundane parts of life go by like leaves on the surface of a flowing river. Occasionally, echoes of things more interesting come drifting down the stream: a burning log, a mangled car, a soldier's dead body. Only then is my eye caught. In other words, I find you interesting; it's nothing more than that. My only hope is that you don't prove yourself to be beneath my notice. I want you to really think about what I've told you today and truly ponder who you want to be. I also have one last question for you, and when I see you again, I hope to get a satisfactory answer.”

  “What’s the question?” Okimoto asked.

  Christopher looked at him, a rare glimpse of warmth in his eyes as he smiled softly and asked him, “What gives Human life its value?”

  At the next second, Christopher was gone once more, off to do whatever an entity like him would do in their free time.