Chapter 72
Chapter 72
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 72
Chapter Title: Event Horizon
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“…Are you calling yourself a god right now?”
The square thing that calls itself the law of causality.
People call it fate, and sometimes they call it a god.
So doesn’t that mean it’s ultimately claiming to be a god?
[ I am not a god. ]
But it denies it.
It flatly denies it, as if that much is absolutely certain.
“…Then what are you? You think that’s the answer I want to hear right now?”
Not fate, not a god.
To begin with, the answer I want isn’t some philosophical bullshit.
The identity of this bizarre pain right now.
It knows what it is but keeps its mouth shut and forces a mask on me.
The square that calls itself a god.
Who the hell is inside that thing?
[ Unable to answer. ]
Its continued evasion made my blood boil.
…And with the agony of my insides being squeezed, I vomited blood again.
“Puk…”
Sss…
Along with the blood… something blooms.
Smoke rising creepily from my body.
The color, as if the abyss itself had been embedded… it was ominous and alien.
“…Mana?”
I lay on the floor, staring blankly at the creeping flow.
I couldn’t clearly distinguish if it was mana or magic power.
But common sense said humans couldn’t handle mana directly.
So I concluded… it was just magic power.
“…But.”
Then, a sudden thought.
“…Did I even have magic power?”
Only then did an inexplicable unease crawl up my spine.
Magic power is something all living beings naturally possess.
Like the heart beating and blood circulating…
It flows naturally and as it should.
But right now…
I, who am clearly a ‘living being’… why does the magic power inside me feel so alien?
[ Danger! ]
[ Danger! ]
[ Danger! ]
[ Danger! ]
As I kept staring at that abyss-like flow, the square in front of me flashed warnings one after another.
“…Shut up.”
If it’s so dangerous, then what the hell am I supposed to do?
Don’t just throw warnings—give me a solution.
If you keep your mouth shut and just repeat that it’s dangerous, aren’t you basically telling me to die?
[ Equip the 【Mask of Silence】 immediately! ]
That guy’s mask…
The square that keeps telling me to wear the mask.
Is that mask the key to stopping this pain?
But…
“To begin with… where the hell is the mask?”
I don’t even know where the mask is.
I don’t know what it looks like.
Does it even really exist?
Crack…
I raised my hand in front of my vision.
The tips of my fingers… were splitting.
Dark purple cracks were spreading along my skin.
“What the hell is this now….”
Not content with making me vomit blood, now my body… is breaking apart.
Literally.
My body was crumbling from the inside out.
[ ! ]
[ Attempting synchronization! ]
[ … … … ]
[ Target does not exist in the reverse world! ]
The square blaring dings beside me.
Even that sound feels like noise to me right now.
I just stared blankly…
At the magic power filling the room… like the abyss itself.
***
Carnel stood at the center of the room.
Magic power swirled quietly at her fingertips.
Whooo—
In that instant, the air stilled.
Time held its breath.
“Hoo…….”
Carnel’s magic power flowed through the room like gentle waves.
She tuned it like a melody.
As if someone somewhere were playing mana…
Following him, she played her magic power.
“…….”
Sensation warped.
Up became down, down became up.
Cold air cooled into heat, and the heartbeat grew distant.
Alien contradictions intersected, reality beginning to slip away.
And finally…
“…!”
Carnel shed the shell of reality, stepping outside the structure called ‘time.’
“…Back here again.”
Outside of time.
The clock hands no longer turned, the sun neither rose nor set.
“…It’s too lonely here.”
Carnel didn’t like this place.
Here existed only ‘cause’ and ‘effect,’ with no room for emotions or warmth that should fill the gaps.
…This place was far too cruel.
“Hoo… This isn’t the time.”
Carnel exhaled, closing her eyes briefly in the silence.
Then she lightly slapped her cheeks with both hands to pull herself together.
“What I need to find… is the cause.”
She had to find the root that led Adel’s mind into the reverse world.
She cautiously reached into the layered flows of causality before her.
Sss…
The moment her fingertips touched the flow, fragments of time crashed in like waves.
“…Ugh.”
Her mind twisted.
Memories of countless beings, fragments of countless lives poured into her consciousness like a storm.
Countless times, emotions, connections.
All of it crushed down on her mind.
“…….”
Carnel gritted her teeth, holding her center.
Keeping her consciousness from being dragged, her memories from overlapping…
In that myriad flow, she grasped a single name.
Adel.
His trajectory, his life.
She picked out only the times he saw, felt, and endured.
“Found…it!”
The result of Adel lying there.
The cause that created that Adel.
—“Fall asleep….”
—“Into a dream from which you’ll never wake….”
—“To the abyss where your ideal sleeps….”
The faint echo of whispers, repeated like a curse, leaked from the gaps in causality.
Click.
Carnel carefully lifted that single flow.
A single cause, freed from the ring of time and causality.
“I’ll erase the cause….”
The flow of time is absolute.
Normally, an immutable frame no one can touch.
But… Carnel was chosen by causality.
Even ‘time’… was hers to target.
Flick.
Her magic power tuned at her fingertips.
It drew lines, but not following a fixed magic circle frame.
Instead, densely etching magical circuits within the lines… a formation for manifesting unique magic.
“…This is a first.”
She’d peered into time or rewound it before.
But… erasing time was new.
Such magic might not even exist.
But she remembered.
Someone somewhere… maybe right in front of her now… wielded magic that erased even the concept of existence.
Then… she could erase this cause too.
─────!!
The ‘cause’ freed from causality writhed and thrashed.
Sss…
Carnel quietly raised her hand, drawing line after line over the magic circle.
And… unconsciously, she touched her lips.
As if mimicking a familiar someone’s habit.
Flick!
One final line.
It was the beginning and the end.
“…Event Horizon.”
In that moment, the ‘cause’ stopped struggling.
In the midst of massive ripples, Carnel’s consciousness rang out.
《Time / Unique Magic》
「Event Horizon」
Like a dragon biting its own tail, achieving start and end simultaneously.
The ring of causality closes, and the ‘cause’ vanishes.
“Ah…….”
Carnel closed her eyes… then slowly opened them.
Adel still lay before her.
“…….”
But defying causality came at no light cost.
Even if she was chosen by it, the responsibility… was unavoidable.
Knock knock.
“Carnel? Can I come in now?”
Violet’s voice from outside the door.
Instead of answering… Carnel collapsed forward.
“…Bleh.”
A fishy groan from somewhere.
Carnel flopped straight onto Adel’s chest.
Clunk!
The sound of the door opening.
“Huh…? C-Carnel?!”
For tampering with causality, Carnel would keep her eyes closed for days.
But…
Better than staying awake, watching Adel who might never wake…
She’d rather close her eyes, then open them to find him there.
With that thought, she smiled faintly and quietly let go of her consciousness.
***
[ ! ]
[ Do not let go of your consciousness! ]
…Shut up.
No matter how much you worry about me, no matter how much you babble about what’s best…
In the end, you’re just another person.
I can never know the truth in your heart.
[ ! ]
[ Attempting synchronization! ]
[ … … … ]
[ Failed! ]
No matter who moves for what reason, at the root it’s all others, and others’ true feelings… can never be seen.
And…
That went for me too.
“…….”
Look in the mirror, and a stranger stares back.
Someone who looks just like me, but whose depths I can’t fathom, gazes at me.
Reach out my hand—it’s within touching distance.
Close enough to feel breath.
But… I don’t know who he is.
[ ! ]
[ Attempting synchronization! ]
[ … … … ]
[ Failed! ]
He didn’t know me either.
If even I and I can’t understand each other…
Then understanding between others might be impossible from the start.
Words become different languages.
Meanings twist into different truths.
In the end, understanding might just be an illusion.
Sss…
The abyss magic power filling the room before I knew it.
I slowly raised my hand.
My arm’s veins had all turned dark purple, trailing afterglow like light.
[ Snap out of it! ]
Snap out of it and what?
Will this situation get better? Will the pain stop?
Better to just stay still like this… until the blood stops, doing nothing…
[ You will die. ]
…That’s a shame.
But… is dying really that bad?
Truth is, the existence called ‘me’ faded long ago.
Whether ‘I’ am Adel, or ‘Adel’ is me.
I don’t even know anymore.
- Crackle…!
The room shook once, cracks flashing across the wall.
“…….”
A glint in ‘Adel’s’ eyes in the mirror.
“…Cough.”
A handful of blood poured from my mouth.
Familiar.
This pain was all too familiar now.
I slowly rose to my feet.
And without hesitation, manifested my will.
✦━━━━━━━━━━━━✦
【Bloodfall Blossom】
Fallen blood reverts to life, blooming into flowers once more.
: Absorbs spilled blood to recover stamina.
The circulation of blood rejects death, and life blooms anew.
✦━━━━━━━━━━━━✦
The blood flowing from my body rose like flowers blooming against providence.
Then seeped back into me.
Rustle…
I raised my hand.
My arm… for some reason, was covered in dark purple cracks.
[ Equip the 【Mask of Silence】! ]
The system blinked in the corner of my vision.
Puzzled, I touched my face.
‘…No mask?’
When did it happen?
I’d been without the mask.
But… I only realized it now.
‘…Wait, where the hell am I even?’
Memories up to just before… were hazy somewhere.
The room suddenly shook hard, the shock sharpening my mind.
I instinctively got up and used 【Bloodfall Blossom】.
And…
“Puh…!”
Vomited blood again.
‘…Why?’
I hadn’t spoken.
I wasn’t even wearing the 【Mask of Silence】, so the 【Stigma】 shouldn’t have triggered.
And yet.
Why.
Am I vomiting blood?
“Guh….”
Seized by inexplicable pain, I clutched my abdomen and dropped to my knees.
Rustle…
The dark purple cracks spreading over my body were growing larger.
[ Equip the 【Mask of Silence】! ]
Still the same message.
The system repeating only to wear the mask.
With a hunch, I opened my inventory.
Thud.
…The all-too-familiar texture at my fingertips.
‘But… put it back on?’
I’d finally taken it off.
Not by my will, but it was off anyway…
I was free.
[ You will die. ]
The word ‘death’ trampling my hesitation.
I silently gazed at the 【Mask of Silence】 in my hand for a moment…
…And put it back on.
[ Equipped 【Mask of Silence】! ]
In that instant.
The abyss magic power swirling the room halted.
The moving flow… went quiet as if by magic.
[ 【Mask of Silence】 unique skill 【Magic Power Suppression】 activated! ]
[ 【Mask of Silence】 unique skill 【Stigma】 activated! ]
Crack.
The dark purple cracks running over my body.
Slowly… the split skin sealed back as if suturing.
‘…Haa.’
I sighed inwardly.
I had no idea what the hell was going on.
‘I definitely remember up to getting hit by the witch.’
The legendary artifact 【Bellamir’s Eye】.
I clearly remembered the moment it activated on me.
But…
After that, memory cut off, and my mind cleared only moments ago.
‘Wait… Isn’t this the dream world?’
I recalled 【Bellamir’s Eye】’s description mentioning guiding the mind into a dream.
If so… I’m trapped in a dream, not reality…
Meaning the real me is still wearing the mask.
‘…Maybe that’s a relief?’
No need to cycle from despair to hope to despair again.
Nothing changed, so just accept reality.
But…
‘How do I get out of here.’
My unique magic 「Event Horizon」 works based on ‘space.’
It probably won’t function on concepts like ‘otherworlds’ or ‘dreams.’
…That was when.
- Thud.
A shock to my abdomen.
It felt like someone fell on me, but I was standing now.
…Nothing on my chest.
[ ! ]
A sudden system message.
[ Attempting synchronization! ]
[ … … … ]
[ Success! ]
[ Synchronized with entity ‘Carnelia von Delbar.’ ]
[ Player temporarily acquires attribute 「Star」! ]
The confusion didn’t stop.
What does synchronizing with Carnel mean?
Did I sync with her?
Or… did the system sync with her?
I had no way to know.
‘But this means….’
Hope sparked.
「Space」 interferes with physical space.
But 「Star」 interferes with ‘worlds.’
If this space is a ‘dream,’ I can recognize the ‘dream’ structure, interfere, and carve a way out.
Without hesitation, I raised my hand, tracing a trajectory of light in empty air.
Flick.
This time, not 「Space」, but 「Star」.
The mass in the mana warped the air, the ‘world’ twitching.
- Crackle…
Silence etched into the world’s seams.
A singularity opened.
The center sucking in light, sound, consciousness.
A point of ‘nothingness’ before existence itself could linger.
I slowly touched the mask’s lips.
And clearly… opened my mouth.
“…Event Horizon.”
With those words…
Everything collapsed.
《Star / Unique Magic》
「Event Horizon」
The ‘dream’ sucked into the void.
The mental thread to the reverse side snapped one by one.
Everything twisted like yarn atop it vanished…
In the empty singularity, one thing remained to the end.
‘Me.’
Only I remained inside.
And I… stepped forward.
Crossing the boundary of dream and reality.
[ Escaped reverse world 「Reverse Dream」. ]
[ Releasing synchronization. ]
[ Attribute 「Star」 has vanished. ]
I opened my eyes.
“…….”
“O.”
The first thing in my vision… a fish.
Chomp chomp chomp chomp chomp!
On my face.
Precisely, perched on my mask, mouthing ‘O.’ emphatically.
Vigorously… no, passionately slapping both my cheeks was a carp.