Ch.132We Will Not Be Defeated (2)

“Dabin.”

During the days when preparations for raiding the Professor’s lab were in full swing, Choi Serim called out to me from a corner of the hallway. It had been a while since we talked one-on-one like this. She approached me with the same mysterious aura she had when we first met.

“I wonder,”

Though she didn’t have her laptop with her now, I could almost hear the sound of keys being typed. The Serim from when we first met. Choi Serim from the time when she was still carrying the role of the Wanderer’s Library’s Librarian, sitting in the hallway.

I quietly crouched down beside her.

Choi Serim stared at the middle of the hallway for a moment, then,

“…Never mind.”

She withdrew her words.

It must be confusing.

Since passing the Librarian role to me, Choi Serim had been quickly forgetting about the “truth.” About what dangers this world faces. About what happens in the future. And about the “Seven.” But it seems some memories remained.

“I wonder,”

The question began again.

“Can you see what happens after that?”

Without any detailed explanation, Choi Serim simply threw out the question. A question that hung in the air without an answer. Her uncertain voice added afterward:

“I thought you might know.”

“…”

I silently looked at her.

In truth, there was no need to explain. The thing that Serim and I shared—I knew better than anyone else about that.

The Infinite Archive.

Or the Wanderer’s Library.

Or the place where all information gathers.

There, the stories of the world are expressed as books.

Countless worldlines that branch according to choices.

Numerous narrative layers stacked upon each other.

Vast and dangerous information that ordinary people cannot read.

But it’s possible for the Librarian of the Wanderer’s Library.

Of course, with the proper authority, they can open a book and read the information they want.

So I already knew what Serim was asking about.

The future.

Choi Serim was asking about what would happen next.

Would we be able to safely find the Professor’s lab?

Would we succeed in ambushing the Professor and stopping his plans?

Would anyone die or get hurt in the process?

And after that? What happens then?

To get straight to the point,

“We’ll succeed.”

We will succeed in stopping the Professor.

No matter what choices we make.

Even if we do nothing.

The Professor’s plans will be blocked by fate.

“…I see.”

“Up to that point, it has to happen that way. If there are cases where we make different choices, those worldlines…”

I hesitated for a moment.

“Will disappear. I still remember.”

I responded with the same bitter smile that Choi Serim showed me.

This is an infinite loop.

If we fail to stop the Professor, the world rewinds.

Again and again, until we make the right choice.

But we can’t be completely at ease.

The more we repeat the regression, the more unstable the world’s existence becomes.

And at some point, instead of rewinding, it will completely disappear.

We don’t have many chances.

“What about after that? Do you know what happens?”

“I don’t know either.”

The last scene I can see is pulling the trigger against the Professor’s head.

That moment is the end.

Nothing beyond that is written in the book.

“So it really ends there.”

“Yes.”

“Then, Dabin. Does everything end there for everyone?”

I shook my head.

“No.”

Just because I can’t see it doesn’t mean we can’t move forward.

“From that point on, we have to figure it out ourselves.”

Everything is just chaos. We might stumble countless times in the darkness.

This apartment where we’re trapped. Meeting the Professor who was inside, stopping his plans, and pulling the trigger.

I have no idea about the world after that.

Rather, the chances of it being a normal world are slim.

Time and space. Logic might not work properly.

However.

If we want to survive, we have no choice but to succeed.

Just as we’ve done until now.

“Oppa?”

A somehow excited, lively voice.

I turned my head in surprise.

Yoon Daju was looking down at us, half-bent at the waist.

“Serim unni is here too. What are you two doing?”

“Nothing, just…”

There was no need to make excuses.

As if something urgent had come up, Daju grabbed my wrist and pulled me to my feet.

“Come quickly. I just found something unbelievable.”

“Huh?”

“You come too, unni. Haewon found something really amazing.”

The place we arrived at with Daju was, as expected, in front of a hotel room door.

Jung Haewon’s room.

Knock knock knock-

“Oh. Noona, just a moment.”

A voice that seemed deeply focused on something.

Soon the door opened, and Jung Haewon appeared.

His eyes fixed on his phone, unable to look away.

I stretched my neck to peek at the screen over his shoulder.

“What is it? An internet broadcast?”

“Yes.”

I remembered when I first met Haewon.

Back then, he was filming an internet broadcast for abandoned building exploration content, and that’s how he drifted into this apartment and got trapped.

“My channel. I just thought about it and checked. But, look at this.”

“The internet is connected? No, wait. Is it not? There aren’t any channels?”

“No. There’s one.”

Jung Haewon tapped his phone.

“Now that noona is here, I’ll check again.”

After a moment.

On his phone, which was flipped toward me, there was one internet broadcast channel.

[Live] ■■■

If we connected to the channel, there should definitely be a video.

But nothing appears on the empty screen.

“What? There’s nothing there.”

“You see the same thing, noona?”

“…Yeah. I don’t get it either.”

It seems Jung Haewon called me just in case.

My aptitude for anomalous observation—the ability to see what others cannot.

I’m quite good at it.

No, rather than being good at it, it’s more accurate to say no one has a higher aptitude than me.

I was already naturally sensitive, and now I have the Librarian’s abilities on top of that.

Yet I can’t see anything.

We can only connect to the channel, nothing more.

“Still, it’s not dangerous.”

Danger can only exist if interaction is possible in the first place.

This mysterious broadcast channel that suddenly appeared only shows a black screen, nothing more.

Crackle, crackle…

“Huh?”

Yoon Daju reacted to the sudden static, but that was it.

Now truly nothing appears on the screen.

It almost seemed like the phone screen had turned off.

“…?”

Everyone is looking at me, creating an atmosphere where I feel like I should explain something.

I scratched my head awkwardly and spoke.

“It might be due to worldline interference.”

All events are connected by cause and effect, progressing according to the flow of time.

But this apartment is like a tangled knot in a ball of thread.

Events that have lost their cause or whose results have disappeared can appear and disappear like fragments.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

Jung Haewon asks, sounding somewhat disappointed.

“It could be traces of someone who tried to broadcast from here. Or,”

I was answering half-heartedly, but then I realized.

Even I can’t see the future beyond escaping the apartment. Because from that point on, countless possibilities remain alive.

In this apartment where the sequence of events is completely tangled, it might not be difficult to discover traces left in that future.

“It could be a possibility from a future that hasn’t been realized yet.”

At that moment.

Static rose again from Jung Haewon’s phone.

Crackle, crackle…

Everyone held their breath, wondering if a human voice might suddenly emerge.

Choi Serim, who had been quietly observing the situation, softly spoke up.

“Dabin. Could this be a poor connection?”

“What?”

“Like how a broadcast doesn’t show well when the internet signal is weak. This feels similar.”

“Signal…”

Jung Haewon, who had been eavesdropping on our conversation, stretched out his arm and moved his phone around.

Now he’s even standing on his tiptoes. It doesn’t seem like the signal would improve by going higher, but he’s quite dedicated, perhaps because he’s serious about internet broadcasting.

“Noona! Will this help catch the signal?”

“Um… I’m not sure.”

Serim, lacking confidence, trails off.

But her words aren’t completely without basis.

“Wait.”

If the connection is poor, we need to go where the signal is better.

And what we want to discover is an event from another worldline.

In other words, the signal strength might vary depending on space or time.

Crackle, crackle…

“Oh? It’s working! I guess we need to go higher!”

For space, that level of movement is meaningless.

Jung Haewon would be disappointed to hear that.

But he’s excitedly running around looking for the highest place possible.

“Daju noona, come here.”

“What? What are you going to do?”

“Carry me on your shoulders.”

“No way. You should carry me.”

“What? But noona, you’re stronger.”

“Exactly.”

“Huh?”

“That’s why I can make others do hard work. If you’re weak, you can’t ask others to do this kind of thing.”

“But that doesn’t make any…”

Unlike the urgent Jung Haewon, Yoon Daju just keeps smiling.

“Give me the phone. Bend down.”

After taking the phone, Yoon Daju jumps onto Jung Haewon’s shoulders.

Jung Haewon screams.

“Ahhh!”

Even so, his desperate attempt to catch the signal looks pitiful.

Crackle. ※§★＠◎

Crackle-!

Regardless of Jung Haewon’s antics, the signal gradually strengthens.

The important factor isn’t space but time.

And according to the flow of time, the broadcast frequency begins to align little by little.