26
Chapter 26
To my respected teacher.
Professor, a Risk Level 4 Anomaly manifested in our country recently. It happened because four Error NPCs gathered due to a terrorist attack by the Doomists.
Fortunately, it occurred in a city with a small population and only lasted for a short time, so there was no severe damage, but I am afraid.
Is the world we live in truly reality? Could it be a high-level simulation?
Do we actually exist? Or are we merely part of a simulation?
Isn't the very fact that Anomalies, which defy the laws of the universe, exist proof that our world is a lie?
Since I learned about the existence of Anomalies and saw a city overflowing with errors caused by NPCs, I cannot stop this fear. If our existence is a lie, if the world we have lived in and protected is nothing but a simulation.
Professor.
I heard you worked for a long time at the Meta-Literature Research Society, which studies the possibility that our world is a creation within a frame. Please, tell me the truth.
Whether I, we, and the world truly exist. Whether our lives have any value.
From your former disciple, seeking only the truth.
***
To my former disciple.
I see such a thing happened. I offer my deepest condolences to the deceased.
Getting to the point, doubts regarding existential reality and human dignity are common to everyone. This is especially true for Company Employees who deal with Anomalies.
Could our world be a simulation? Could it be part of a novel written by someone? Could it be that humans have no free will? Could humans be nothing more than biological robots made of organic matter moving by electrical signals?
These are topics being diligently researched across various laboratories and departments. And they are topics that have reached a certain level of fruition.
If you truly want the truth, I will invite you. To the department that explores the world beyond the fourth wall, beyond the frame.
If you wish to accept, please reply with a date that works for you.
P.S. It would be better to come sooner rather than later. The day our long research bears fruit is not far off.
From your old teacher.
***
To the Professor.
The department... so the Nameless Department truly exists. I thought it was just a common urban legend within the company. But if the department truly exists, then the answer I seek must be there as well.
All right! I will go! Any time is fine! Right now would be great!
I look forward to your fastest possible reply.
From your old disciple.
***
The invitation was rough.
"Wake up. We have arrived."
His body was shaken violently.
The Doctor blinked his hazy eyes and recalled his memories.
'I received an invitation...'
An Agent, wearing a black suit and belonging to an unknown unit, had appeared, blindfolded him, forced him to change clothes, and aggressively told him to take a Sleeping Pill. They claimed the location was confidential.
He thought about protesting, but since discovering the truth was the priority, he reluctantly swallowed the pill.
'I remember now. So, is this the department?'
The Doctor slowly looked around.
It was a hallway in some building. A stark white hallway. Two Agents, who had essentially hauled him there, were supporting him from either side.
"He's awake."
The Doctor pushed the Agent's arm away with force. Emotion leaked into the movement. The coercive attitude had been unpleasant, and unpleasant memories are not easily forgotten. If he hadn't wanted something so badly...
The Agent, pushed back sharply, stepped away in silence.
Just then, an elderly woman's voice sounded softly.
"You seem quite upset. But please understand. This facility is that important."
"Ah, Professor."
From the end of the white hallway, a gracefully aged, healthy elderly woman walked slowly toward him. The professor whose lectures he once attended, and now, the person holding the answer he desired.
The Professor welcomed the Doctor with a kind smile.
"It has been a long time. I hear you've become a Doctor and are working at the company?"
"It's been quite a while since I joined the company. More importantly, Professor. The answer I want—"
The Doctor takes a bold step forward but stumbles, still affected by the lingering Sleeping Pill. An Agent quickly approaches to grab his arm, but the Doctor swings his hand and brushes the Agent away.
The Professor gives a troubled smile.
"You seem to be in quite a hurry."
"Of course I am! Do you have any idea how much it eats away at a person to think that this world—that I—might be nothing more than a delusion!"
A voice filled with a whirlwind of emotions fills the hallway. Though stumbling, the Doctor manages to walk on his own two feet until he reaches the Professor. Looking up at her, he shouts.
"That's why I'm here! Even putting up with the rude attitude of that Agent or whoever he is! Now, hurry up and give me the—"
"Please calm down. You don't know anything about the department, do you? Wouldn't it be better to learn some background knowledge first to properly understand?"
The Professor soothes the Doctor, as if dealing with an impatient student. Her demeanor is calm and serene.
The Doctor gasps for air, then bows his head deeply.
"I'm sorry. I went too far. I... I just feel like I haven't really been living lately."
"I understand. This field is always like that. It's one of the subjects with a particularly high suicide rate. Still, you've endured well."
"...No, I haven't."
Perhaps the Professor's comfort reached him, as the Doctor's breathing settles, following her pace.
The Professor waits for the Doctor to calm down, then turns and begins walking down the hallway.
"Shall we walk for a bit? It will take some time to reach our destination, so I'll give a brief lecture."
The Doctor quickly follows the Professor, feeling frustrated by her slow pace.
***
The Professor and the Doctor walk through the stark white hallway.
There were Agents following them, but since they moved like shadows without making a sound, only the conversation between the two continued quietly.
"Frame narratives. A story within a story. A play within a play. The fourth wall. Movie characters speaking across the screen. Meta-fiction. Familiar, isn't it?"
"...I know. But Suddenly a Ninja. Isn't that Anomaly Entity similar? A character who is nothing more than a sentence speaks to us, or moves into other books or paintings."
"Then it should be easy to understand."
The Professor continued her lecture in a tone as slow as her gait.
"That is what our department researches. We drew inspiration from Anomalies that are creations of our world yet interact with our reality."
The Professor pauses for a moment to catch her breath. She looks healthy, but her breath is short.
The Doctor, anxious, paces back and forth beside the Professor.
"I already know that. You said you worked at the Meta-Literature Research Society, which studies the possibility that our world is a world within a frame. Stop the things I already know and get to the point—"
The Professor gives a warm laugh.
"This is the department. Not the Meta-Literature Research Society. Naturally, we would be researching something different, wouldn't we?"
"That... yes."
A basic mistake. The Doctor's face turns red. No matter how rushed he was, to make such a mistake.
The Professor starts walking again. The Doctor quickly catches up.
"We researched how to advance into the world outside the frame. How to interact with the world beyond the frame."
"...."
This time, the Doctor stops in his tracks. The Professor walks a few more steps, and when she notices the sound of the Doctor's footsteps has ceased, she looks back.
The Doctor was standing there.
His face was pale. His eyebrows trembled incessantly. In an instant, cold sweat poured over his entire body as if all the moisture had been drained.
The Doctor opened his mouth. After letting out a groan that wasn't quite a word, he barely managed to move his stone-stiff tongue to speak.
"That. Means. That means... we are characters... inside a frame...?"
"Don't be so shocked."
"How. How. Then. Then."
He cannot continue. His dilated pupils stared into the void; he stumbled like a drunk man before leaning against the wall and hunching over.
The Professor slowly approached and patted the Doctor's back.
"I understand your thoughts and worries. However, we exist, and our world is real."
"Don't lie to me!"
The Doctor suddenly straightened his body and screamed. Exhausted in a flash, he grabs the Professor by her collar.
Two Agents move in nimbly, but the Professor holds up a palm to stop them. She meets the Doctor's eyes.
"Just because our world exists within a frame doesn't mean our value or our existence becomes meaningless."
"How can you say that! If my life is nothing more than a few lines of text written by someone! What meaning could there possibly be—"
"Think of the universe."
An abrupt statement.
The Professor looked up at the ceiling as if she could see the sky. She continued in a voice that sounded like she was dreaming.
"We leave Earth, leave footprints on the moon, establish bases on Mars, and even send probes beyond the solar system."
"What does that have to do with anything right now?"
"It's the same with frames and the meta."
The Doctor slowly lets go of her collar. The Professor looked at the ceiling once more before facing the Doctor again.
"Just as we venture into space after living only on Earth, we venture outside the frame after living only within it."
"Outside the frame...?"
"Our technology has simply advanced that far. Enough to step outside on a meta-level. Shall I explain it more simply?"
The Doctor nodded blankly.
"Like But Suddenly a Ninja. We interact with the world outside the frame just like that Anomaly. Even so, do you still believe your life has no meaning?"
If one can interact with the world outside the frame, can they still be called a mere character in a novel? Can they be called nothing more than a figure crafted by someone's hand?
The Doctor looked at the Professor with trembling eyes and asked in a voice filled with a glimmer of hope.
"Is that actually possible?"
"Of course. We've almost arrived."
The Professor pointed to the end of the hallway. Following her finger, the Doctor looked toward the end of the corridor.
"But that's a wall."
"The fourth wall is also a wall."
The Professor took the Doctor's hand and led him toward the wall. She spoke.
"We are going to step outside the frame for a moment."
"Outside."
"We have to go through the outside to reach our destination. Let's go."
***
"We have arrived."
"Already?"
The Doctor looked at the Professor with bewildered eyes. Nothing remained in his memory. He hadn't seen a thing. Simply, when he opened his eyes, the space had changed.
The Professor sighed as if feeling pity.
"You have no aptitude.... You have no aptitude for interacting with the outside world...."
"Are you joking with me? With something like teleportation."
The Doctor expressed his disbelief, doubting the Professor.
The Professor no longer met the Doctor's eyes. She simply explained while looking at something behind him.
"If our world were a novel, the process of our movement just now would not have been written. Because we had stepped outside the novel."
"What does that... Prove it. Please prove it. I still cannot believe this."
The Doctor panicked. If he couldn't interact with the outside world, then his life... he could not accept this reality.
The Professor walked past the Doctor and spoke objectively, as if listing facts.
"Unfortunately, the Doctor will have to live only in the world within the frame. You cannot go outside."
"Lies. Don't lie to me! There's no way the company's technology is limited to only—"
The Doctor stopped mid-sentence as he turned to chase the Professor.
There stood a massive Automaton. An Automaton consisting only of an upper body, the size of a small house.
Clack— clack—
The Automaton was striking a keyboard the size of a truck.
"What is that? And where is this place?"
The Professor advanced to the front of the Automaton and turned around. With the giant keyboard and Automaton at her back, she spoke.
"This is the frame. The intersection between the outside world and the inside world. And this is..."
Her voice, filled with deep emotion, blended with the sound of the typing.
"One of the Extinction Defense Devices. This Meta-Narrative Machine was created to interact with the outside world. We call it the 'Author'."
Passion burned in the Professor's eyes and voice. The Doctor watched and listened, completely entranced.
"So what if our world is truly a novel? We are the ones holding the pen. If we are the ones typing on the keyboard, doesn't that make our lives meaningful enough?"
Overwhelmed, the Doctor watched as the 'Author's' fingers struck the keyboard in rapid succession.
Suddenly, a thought surged within him.
'That thing is what makes our world a world within a frame. That thing writes my life however it pleases. If I destroy that Author, I will no longer be a character in a frame.'
Thud—!
Blood vessels burst in his eyes, staining them red. Staring at the Automaton through a crimson haze, the Doctor charged forward with a wild scream.
The Professor watched him calmly and stepped aside. Without obstruction, the Doctor reached the keyboard and swung his fist.
"...Ah?"
His fist passed through the keyboard hollowly. It was as if he had struck a hologram.
The Professor's voice drifted over.
"I told you, Doctor. You have no aptitude for interacting with the outside world. Naturally, you cannot interact with the Author either."
The Doctor pulled back his fist and stared at it blankly. The Professor's serene voice echoed in his ears.
"In meta-terms, I suppose we could call you an Extra."
The strength left his body. The Doctor collapsed. The sound of typing echoed endlessly. His vision faded to black.
***
The Doctor lay unconscious before the keyboard. His face was haggard, as if his soul had been sucked out. Drops of blood leaked from his burst vessels.
"...."
The Professor looked down at the Doctor. In his face, she saw the ghosts of former colleagues.
The end of the Meta-Literature Research Society had not been a happy one.
Their research eventually proved, beyond a doubt, that their world was a world within a frame.
On that day, the day lightning struck. The day the lightning of wisdom struck human souls. What happened?
"So many people left...."
The Professor closed her eyes.
Faced with an unbearable truth, a significant number of colleagues took their own lives. Many others drank Memory Erasers to escape reality, and only a handful of people gritted their teeth and decided to take one step further.
"If our world is nothing more than text, let us hold the pen.... If it's a painting, let us hold the brush; if it's a movie, let us write the screenplay...."
Let the people inside the frame write the story within the frame. Let us go outside and weave our own destinies with our own hands.
And so, they did.
The department's name was deleted, becoming the Nameless Department, and they succeeded in interacting by creating the 'Author'.
Cough— cough—
The Professor covered her mouth and coughed. After coughing for a long while, she wiped the blood from her lips and spoke to the Doctor with desperate emotion.
"Doctor, persevere. You are my only successor. It's okay to be an Extra. By nature, they don't have as much power as characters who move on their own. So, overcome this and move on your own. I have no time left."
Their research had bloomed and the day finally arrived for the important fruit to be borne, but there was no one left to witness the beautiful sight.
Many in the Nameless Department had departed. Some had reached the end of their lifespans, some had broken down, and others... others.
Now, she was the only researcher remaining.
Clack— clack— clack—
The Automaton typed on the keyboard.
The Professor looked up at the Automaton. A faint smile touched her lips.
"Ah, it has begun."
The sequence to obtain sustainable power from the world outside the frame proceeded.
[965 Continuous Meta-Observers Secured]
[Meta Power Patrons: Anonymous, AlopeciaCureShave, Nanishi, onlyjamie.]
[Transition to Plus in Progress]
[Serialization Cycle and Time: Sat-Tue 00:05]
Watching the words written by the 'Author', the Professor closed her eyes and pressed her hands together. She prayed, wishing fervently.
'I hope the beings outside the frame like the story of our world.'
And so, may we continue to write our own story for a long time to come.