Chapter 159
Chapter 159
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Irrationality
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"No."
Sarang stopped me as I reached for the Golden Friendship.
"If the end of that plan is nothing but death, it holds no meaning at all."
"You know it too. There's no other way."
"Then at least lift my debuff and splash me with a strengthening potion!"
"If you get strong enough to stand against the dimension destroyer, you'll get bounced out of our dimension just like the girl with closed eyes. If you're weaker than that, whether you create a new independent dimension or fight back, it'll all end up meaningless anyway."
"Still, we have to try something!"
"Ah."
Something I'd forgotten came to mind late.
"Yeah, I'll do that."
"?"
"Let's lift the debuff first."
"Why the sudden change of heart?"
I pulled out the purification potion.
The smartphone heated up, and the battery drain sped up.
Sarang seemed to be calculating the meaning behind what I'd just said.
"No way... is it what I think it is?"
Her calculation must be done.
And she'd figured out my intent.
"What're you thinking?"
"You're trying to restore me to my original form, right? And then strengthen me? Because you want me to survive?"
"Exactly."
Not everyone needs to sacrifice themselves.
"If the power from the Golden Friendship can't solve the problem, then you at least have to survive, Sarang. I think a strengthened you would gain enough power to get bounced out of our dimension. And even if not, as an information-based lifeform, you could escape to another dimension without dying after ours collapses."
Those who can survive must survive.
Sarang doesn't need to sacrifice herself with me.
So I splashed her with the potion to give her any chance she could get.
"Wait...."
White smoke enveloped Sarang.
Soon, an old CRT monitor computer would appear.
"...who splashes before I can even finish saying 'wait'?"
When the smoke cleared, the familiar smartphone was nagging me.
"Are you messing with me right now?"
＊＊＊
"You didn't revert."
"The wall-mounted TV didn't either. Same with me."
"But that's a strengthened entity. The director's even suspected to be a primordial being. You're just a normal entity that was debuffed, aren't you?"
"Actually, I almost did revert."
"How'd you stop it?"
"I powered through with grit."
"That's possible?"
Emotion crept into Sarang's voice.
"Why not? Even you, Mr. Seung-hoon, overcame the entities' mental corruption just because you're 'human'! Why couldn't I!?"
"It's not something you can just willpower through."
"But I did, and here I am, perfectly fine! You resisting the entities' mental corruption is just natural, so isn't it natural for me to ignore an entity's effects!?"
"I'm human, so..."
"I'm human too!!!"
The smartphone grew hot.
"What's so special about being human? If you consider yourself human and try to live like one, then you are human! Am I wrong?"
"You're right."
"So I want to live like a human too."
"How?"
"By living irrationally."
The battery drained rapidly.
"In a world that's about to end, I don't have to follow the law anymore, but I do."
"I could ignore criminals and just look after myself, but I stop them."
"I don't have to work, but I do."
"In a world doomed to end anyway, it would be rational to follow instincts, chase pleasure, do things immoral and illegal... but instead, I irrationally stick to my beliefs and live by them."
"That's the human I saw."
The heat finally subsided, and the battery drain stopped.
"And my belief is to be with you. Even if death awaits at the end."
"You sure you're okay with that?"
"Giving up a rational choice with a chance of survival to make an irrational one based on belief... isn't that human?"
"It is."
"Don't abandon me again."
"I never abandoned you. I was trying to save you."
"Don't talk back."
"It's not talking back. It's the truth."
"Won't you let me win just once!?"
I couldn't stop chuckling.
I didn't know why.
Was Sarang just that cute?
Or was it witnessing an AI's evolution toward living humanely?
'I don't know.'
But this feeling was so precious, I wanted to hold onto it forever.
"Good things always come to an end."
I pocketed Sarang and chewed the Golden Friendship.
It melted like water the moment I bit it, sliding down my throat on its own.
"So this is how it feels to be a constellation."
I felt like I could do anything.
I thought about going outside, and suddenly I was out. I wanted to fly, and I was soaring through the sky.
"Not quite omnipotent."
It'd be nice if I knew everything.
I couldn't repair the dimension, couldn't rewind time, couldn't even erase Andromeda's Starlight.
'Can I win with this power?'
Probably not.
My near-divine abilities concluded the outcome before I even acted.
Even so, I'd try.
"Alright, I'm going."
To resist until the very last moment.
"Yes."
"No regrets?"
"AI don't have regrets."
Sarang replied.
"Even if I did, wouldn't that be human too?"
I streaked across the sky.
Piercing the atmosphere faster than light, heading straight for Andromeda's Starlight.
'It's huge.'
Up close, it was even vaster than on the broadcast.
'Even if the Foundation dimension had stayed open, even with help from other entities, beating this would've been impossible.'
Forget beating it—driving it out of our dimension would've been impossible.
"Mr. Seung-hoon, it's reacting."
As we appeared, Andromeda's Starlight shifted.
The plasma disk unraveled like yarn, sprouting tentacles of light in all directions.
From each one, like a spider's web, I felt immense power—immeasurable even with a constellation's strength.
"Too many to count."
Nine minutes and fifteen seconds left.
I had to end it within that.
"Mr. Seung-hoon!"
"!?"
Just as I was about to act in earnest.
A light tentacle was right in front of me.
'Damn.'
I'm dead.
I'd steeled myself for death, but the tentacle halted.
I belatedly noticed the object dangling from its tip.
'A sign?'
A thick sheet of white cardboard.
Held by another tentacle was...
"Dirty Lee Apple, black hole flavor?"
Another held a black marker.
Finally, light poured from yet another tentacle, filling space and forming shapes.
[Fan meeting!]
It was misspelled Korean.
[Sign pleeease!]
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"So... you're my fan?"
[Yes!]
I asked while looking at the black apple.
The light tentacles twisted bashfully.
"You're talking about the movie stored in the apple, right?"
[Exactly!]
One tentacle wasn't enough for words, so light burst from several.
[Movie so funnn! Love it! Explosions boom boom super cool! Pretty! Human great! Dance great! So great belly hurts laugh hurts head hurts! But keep wanting more! Love it!]
Tears welled up for several reasons.
[Wanna change sign! But dunno where talent! But head pop pop ideas! So come! Learn Korean! Heart pounding excited! Now speak Korean!]
Once for having a fan who loved my art.
Twice for realizing conversation truly solves everything.
"Gladly."
Three times for saving the world.
Four for it learning Korean.
'But who taught it Korean, and how?'
A horrifying thought flickered briefly, but I shut it down.
Don't think too hard.
[Yay!]
After signing, the light tentacles danced in joy.
'But this isn't over.'
The dimension destroyer destroys dimensions just by existing.
The burden it placed on our dimension while approaching Earth severed ties with others, and the cracks would only worsen over time.
'I can see them—the dimensional rifts.'
Even if it left our dimension, the world would collapse soon after.
"I have one request."
[Yes! Anything!]
"Could you restore our world to exactly how it was before you appeared?"
[Yes!]
The light tentacles stretched everywhere.
They grasped the universe.
'No, what they're grasping is...'
Spacetime.
The tentacles swung it forcefully.
[Bye-bye!]
The world spun backward.
"Gonna...feel...dizzy..."
Time reversed direction.
",target,ing...back,wards Mr. Seung-hoon"
Everything, including my body.
Everything except my mind.
"!What...the...hell are you...doing idiot!"
Every cause.
Every effect.
",this...never...happened...so...observe...closely...and...never...forget...the...truth...of...this...moment...right...now"
Reversed.
Time, flowing into the past by inertia, gradually slowed before returning to its original direction.
"'Absolute Time Indicator.' No matter if someone manipulates time, this clock's time never changes from the original timeline."
Dong-wook explained while looking at the desk clock.
The constellation power filling my body had vanished, as if I'd never eaten the Golden Friendship.
"Dong-wook."
"Yes."
"It's changed. The time?"
"Yes?"
Dong-wook checked the time belatedly.
"!?"
The clock, which should have shown 5:15 PM, read 8:37 PM.
"How is this possible!? No, emergency!"
"Not an emergency. Everything's resolved."
"What!? What the hell happened!?"
"Had a fan meet."
"Huff, huff! What are you two doing?"
Ella popped out from the same spot as before.
"Director! The time! It's changed!"
"What? Oh oh oh! It really has!?"
"Seung-hoon knows something!"
"External Special Consultant! You rewound time!? Moved the timeline itself!? How!?"
"I didn't do it, but yeah, it went backward."
"Entropy can never reverse!"
I gently pressed Ella's shoulders, filled with excitement, confusion, and shock, to calm her.
"I saw it up close. Reversing entropy is simple."
"H-how!?"
"Force."
Andromeda's Starlight.
Dimension destroyer.
The final land beyond the singularity, at the edge of time and space.
Ruler of that place, the strongest being in the material universe.
"With overwhelming force, you can rewind time too."
"..."
"..."
The two stared at me with cold eyes.
"So, physical force?"
"Yes, probably?"
"No, do you think that makes sense? Not some special theory or law—just raw physical power?"
"I watched it happen. Nothing else. Grab spacetime with immense power and hurl it backward."
They grilled me like interrogators.
"Seung-hoon, explain properly!"
"Reversing entropy can't happen that ridiculously!"
It did, though.
They wouldn't believe me.