Chapter 19
Chapter 19
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 19
Chapter Title: Epilogue and Prologue
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“If someone dies, someone is born. If someone is born, someone dies.”
I wiggled my fingers back and forth, muttering something incomprehensible.
Time had proposed a deal, only to suddenly spout cryptic nonsense.
The lights that had been sequentially illuminating the book-making process now focused on one spot.
There sat a Viking ride.
The dwarves on the higher side were pale with terror, while those on the lower side wore relieved expressions.
“If someone is unhappy, someone else is happy. If someone is happy, someone else is unhappy.”
Amid the screams and laughter of the amusement park, her words carried profound weight.
“That sounds forced.”
“Does it? But it's the truth. Happiness is close at hand, misfortune far away, so we simply don't notice. Or maybe it's the opposite.”
She tilted her head as she spoke.
“Nothing runs without a price. If you haven't paid any, it's because someone else has footed the bill out of sight.”
She spread her arms wide and flashed a brilliant smile.
“So, what will you offer to turn back time? Give up your most precious possession and claim what you desire most.”
Then, like slipping on a new mask, her expression turned deadly serious in an instant.
“Before that, let me explain causality. It's like a tangled skein of thread—so knotted you can't even tell where it begins.”
She produced a red skein from who-knows-where and began unraveling it strand by strand.
The hopelessly tangled mess refused to come undone, its original shape lost beyond recognition.
“Which came first, the chicken or the egg? A classic question. What do you think?”
I began pondering the question seriously.
The chicken first?
Chickens lay eggs, and eggs hatch chickens, so maybe the chicken?
The very word "egg" only makes sense if chickens exist first, right? A chicken can stand alone as a word, but "egg" needs "chicken" to define it.
But then, where did the first chicken come from?
Maybe the egg after all? Chickens hatch from eggs, don't they?
So does that mean the egg came first?
My mind was a whirlwind. It was hard to settle on an answer.
Beside me, Time was knitting with fresh thread.
She shaped it into a chicken, then an egg, over and over.
Her distracting antics made it impossible to focus.
“I don't know.”
“Whoa, correct! Applause~!”
Not teasing me or anything, but she clapped as if I'd nailed the answer.
What was even more absurd was the dwarves—all dropping their work to turn and applaud in unison.
“Cycles have no beginning or end.”
The spinning mug-cup ride whirling round and round, the Ferris wheel turning up and down, the carousel revolving around its central pillar.
Just as you can't pinpoint the start of a circle, we can't find the start of a cycle.
“The notion of 'front' doesn't apply to cycles. It only exists in linear progression.”
Maybe that's why "beginning is end, end is beginning" doesn't sound so strange.
“Causality is the same. Hard to tell which is front and which is back.”
The girl spun her neck in circles, chirping, "Which is front?"
Now she was twisting her own body too.
Her head went left, her body right.
“So, which is cause and which is effect?”
It was a bizarre, frenzied sight, yet I couldn't look away.
Somehow, it evoked the graceful flap of a swan's wings.
“To sever the thread called causality, you must identify the cause. Cut it before the effect manifests.”
But the thread I need to cut isn't just one. It's a tangled mass of many.
The causes I must sever are themselves someone's effects.
And again, effects can't be severed.
"If you don't find the root cause, you can't resolve it."
“Correct.”
Once more, applause from the dwarves.
It was a sound straight out of nightmares, enough to give me neurosis.
“You really know your time.”
“I've studied it plenty.”
“Oh my. How embarrassing.”
She covered her body and blushed.
Watching her mannequin-like form do that just made my blood boil.
Her blush didn't look human—it was like lights flickering on, which only creeped me out more.
Ding-dong-ding-dong. The clock tower bells rang, and the amusement park's dazzling lights began winking out one by one.
The background music box melody faded to a halt.
Like office workers clocking out, the dwarves filed away in orderly rows.
Somehow, they moved faster than when they arrived. Probably just my imagination.
Silence and desolation settled over the darkened park.
Thorny vines descended once more, like a curtain call.
There sat the girl, primly in place as if nothing had happened.
I could hardly believe she was the same wild clown from moments ago.
“Time is the flow of countless causal chains. Like a clock, in a way.”
Gears and cogs meshing to drive a clock—time flows the same way, propelled by interlocking causes.
“I can't control that flow. I just let it drift by.”
Not that she couldn't, but that she chose not to.
She could intervene but refrained.
“I merely record. When the river stalls, pooling without advancing, that's when I rise to document the world.”
She observes the world and logs her observations.
That was Time's role.
“At first, I intervened actively. One cause, one effect. Clear-cut, right?”
She clacked her fingers together and apart as she spoke.
She wagged both index fingers to continue.
“But it got boring. No fun. No variables!”
Her voice rose from a whisper to a shout.
“Whoa! You scared me.”
“Heehee. Did I startle you much?”
“Nah, not really?”
She flashed an unsettling grin and pressed on with her explanation.
“So I stepped back. Suddenly, all sorts of outcomes emerged. Causality diversified. Individuals gained personalities.”
She reminisced with evident delight.
“But even that grew stale over time. I could see it all coming. Experience-based predictions piled up until they rivaled precognition.”
She propped her chin, face blank with boredom.
“Cliches, you call them? Predictable patterns lost their spark. Sure, a rare gem popped up now and then, but only rarely.”
She sighed at the books stamped out by the dwarves.
“Repetitive stories bore me. I crave ones with flair. Can you deliver that?”
“Is that the condition?”
“Nah, just my hope. A little cheer for you to break free of causality? Gotta keep work and wishes separate.”
She snapped her fingers, and a massive scale descended beside her.
“Shall we get to the deal properly? I'll start by placing my side.”
She juggled three weights as she spoke.
“There are three main points to rewind to: when the Tower was newly built, after your disciples died, and the present.”
“Obviously the first.”
“Yeah, figured. As you know, that tips the scales heavily.”
Thud. A weight rose on the opposite pan, tilting the balance.
My desired condition now sat on the other side. Time for me to offer equivalent value.
This first step was always the hardest. Rewinding such vast time demanded it.
But I had my Wish Ticket.
When I first heard of it, I had no clue what it was...
I placed the Wish Ticket—earned when my climbing rights were revoked—onto the scale.
A scribbled scrap of paper matched the immense worth of eons.
“Thinking about it, was climbing even that big a deal?”
“It was. It snuffed out even your potential.”
“I thought saving my life was thanks enough.”
“Once you're bound to the Tower, your life isn't just yours. The world's fate hangs in the balance.”
Time lightly tapped the scale as she continued.
“You were the human with the highest potential. Foreseen to have the best shot at conquering the Tower.”
“Potential in the end. It never bloomed, just faded—what value is that?”
“Unopened boxes are always the most regrettable... and the most valuable.”
She spouted more enigmatic words.
Tapping her lips lightly, she added,
“Gacha pulls, loot boxes—they peak in value right before you open them.”
People chase that 0.01% dream, only to pull duds most times.
“The anticipation, the thrill—those count toward the value too.”
And
“You might've been the protagonist of that impossible probability. Nothing's certain until observed.”