Ch.357[Epilogue] Even Across Dimensions (1)

The “Demon of Laplace” is a demon who knows the exact position and momentum of all particles. If this demon were to exist, we could perfectly predict when and where all natural phenomena on Earth would occur.

Since it knows the movement of neurons, it could accurately predict what kind of life a person would lead, we wouldn’t get caught in the rain due to incorrect weather forecasts, and we could even know when and what content the next edition of our favorite novel would contain.

To put it simply, it was impossible. It has already been proven that the Demon of Laplace cannot physically exist.

Strictly speaking, it’s not quite a “proof,” but science that has undergone numerous verifications doesn’t easily collapse.

So I placed my bet at the final moment.

An exception.

That an exception would occur that contradicts the causality it had deduced.

And perhaps, I seemed to be luckier than I thought.

At some point, the dark world brightened. At first, I thought it was radiation emitted by a black hole. But I soon realized the cause lay elsewhere.

A graviton cannon, pulled up from a lower dimension ignoring causality, penetrated the Outer God. Thus, it created a small flaw in the probability of my life ending in a futile defeat to a transcendent being.

That flaw grew uncontrollably, and soon stirred up the black hole that was the universe and escaped.

The problem was that it stirred through my body as well.

After a moment of intense pain, I felt better. I probably died.

Perhaps this is the flashback of my life. Should I call it an epilogue? Anyway, I’m going through the grand finale of my life…

“…that’s the dream I had.”

“What a weird dream.”

Senior Lee Taeyeon sat down next to me.

“When you stay in graduate school for too long, you end up having all sorts of strange dreams. Like suddenly being abducted to another world, becoming a girl, or turning into a mythical spirit.”

This person was my senior by two years in the physics department. Somehow we found out we were distant relatives, and we became close after that.

“Anyway, congratulations on graduating, jerk.”

My gaze naturally fell downward.

Black, yellow, white, blue, and black again.

It was quite a stylish academic gown. Especially those three lines embroidered on the forearm…

[“Three lines represent joint pregnancy.”]

“…Huh?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Didn’t you just hear something?”

My senior looked at me. It was the kind of look that suggested he thought this idiot had finally gone crazy on graduation day after working on unprofitable particle theory.

“Young-il.”

“I’ve repeatedly asked you not to call me by that nickname.”

“Binary.”

“Sigh.”

“Siiigh.”

We sighed simultaneously.

The day was chilly but clear. It was the kind of weather that made you look forward to the approaching spring. If I graduate like this, a pleasant journey awaiting professor appointment would be waiting… yeah right.

“Whew, it’s damn cold.”

“Is this the employment cold wave I’ve heard so much about?”

“Could you be quiet for a bit?”

“Hey, telling your senior to be quiet…”

“What about you, senior? Have you found somewhere to make some money for a while?”

“I’ll enter a research institute. It’s in nuclear fusion, so there’s still demand.”

Senior Taeyeon glanced at me with pitiful eyes. With his personality, this wasn’t just meddling but genuine concern. He was originally someone who found most human relationships bothersome.

“What will you do in nuclear fusion? You must have some mid to long-term research goals or important plans, right?”

“I’ll make nuclear bombs. Something that puts the Tsar Bomba to shame.”

“What?”

“I’m joking.”

“It doesn’t sound like a joke.”

My senior laughed as he gulped down his coffee.

“I don’t have any grand goals. If I’m lucky, I’ll become a professor, otherwise I’ll bounce around government research institutes until the end of my life. If things go really well, I might settle abroad.”

A professor, huh.

I recalled what happened before I woke up. In that cursed world dominated by Outer Gods, I had worked hard and somehow managed to become a professor.

Ah.

My graduate student conscription rights are gone.

I’m not sure if that experience was a dream or reality. But it was too vivid to dismiss as just a dream, and it was also a regrettable experience. I even remembered the specific flow of events in detail.

Something feels off.

“Let’s stop sitting around and go get some food.”

Senior Taeyeon got up and dusted off his seat.

“Since you got your degree, you’re paying.”

***

Traditionally, at graduation ceremonies, one would receive congratulations from their advisor and lab colleagues while committing a small embezzlement with the lab’s corporate card.

But well.

In theoretical research labs, everyone tends to have strong independent streaks, and my advisor was always busy, leaving for a business trip as soon as the graduation ceremony ended.

That’s why I was flipping meat in front of Senior Taeyeon, who was from a different lab.

“Hmm.”

“What, why, what.”

Two physics graduates from Nakseongdae.

“Don’t we have nothing to talk about?”

Games? Don’t play them.

Novels? I don’t read much either.

Sports? Talking about the Korea-Postech games or competitions would be a major development.

“Just pull out a paper. Let’s look at it on the tablet.”

“Ah, the dried pollack meta?”

“Take a bite of meat, read a paragraph.”

Eventually, the conversation had to drift to physics. And quite deeply at that. While browsing through various papers for fun, I came across one.

[Dimensional Leap Using Anti-Gravitons]

“Wow, this looks interesting.”

“Look at the page count. Makes my mouth water.”

As if entranced, I clicked on the paper about gravity. While reading a bit, I brought up my dream story again.

“Gravitons aren’t my specialty, so I don’t know much.”

“Simply put, it’s about whether gravity can affect parallel universes or multiverses. Do you think it’s possible as written here?”

“Multiverse, huh.”

Senior Taeyeon rolled his eyes as he put down his beer glass.

“This paper is a bit ambiguous too. It’s much better than some weird paper I saw before… but anyway, you can’t experiment with it, right? I think there’s not much point in discussing something that can’t be proven experimentally.”

“I guess that’s true?”

“No, I’m not criticizing you…”

My senior scratched his head.

“Remember that experiment Stephen Hawking did?”

“You mean when he threw a party and waited for time travelers?”

“No one showed up. So it intuitively showed that you can’t travel back in time. But I don’t think that’s a perfect proof. If science were to draw conclusions based on just one or two experiments, it wouldn’t be science, right?”

“That’s true.”

“Maybe someday in the distant future, we’ll find out that the data obtained then was wrong. Or there might be hidden variables we don’t know about.”

Senior Taeyeon continued while flipping the meat.

“And in some parallel universe or multiverse, Hawking might still be alive, or he might have met a time traveler and by now it would be headline news all over the world.”

My senior’s explanation was concise and easy to understand. If there exists a universe with slightly different laws than ours, time reversal or spatial leaps might be easier to accomplish in that universe.

Just like the world of “Outer God Slayer” I saw in my dream.

Come to think of it, that novel.

“Indeed. That could be possible.”

“It’s not a mainstream opinion, though. Well, rather than that, I’m going to try to complete nuclear fusion power. If that works out well, humanity’s energy problems would… hueeeeh.”

By the way, this senior can’t handle alcohol. And when he gets drunk, he has a habit of pulling out papers.

While my senior was staggering, I put my chilled beer glass to my lips and tapped on my smartphone. When I entered the serialization site, there was a familiar title in my preferred works section.

[Surviving the Outer Gods]

With an excited feeling of “what if,” I clicked on it.

But.

[This work is scheduled for a remake.]

With just that notice, all episodes had been deleted.

I was dumbfounded. There were over 1,000 episodes, and they deleted them all at once? What about the readers who had been following it all this time?

Of course, I’ve already read it all so it doesn’t matter to me now, but still.

However, there was a notice.

[The remade episodes will be uploaded at midnight today. We ask for your continued interest.]

How shameless. There’s no apology in the notice, just this one sentence.

Naturally, the comment section would be on fire… but it wasn’t. Strangely, no one seemed to be reading the notice.

Why? It wasn’t so unpopular as to have zero comments despite its frustrating plot…

“That’ll be 308,000 won.”

“Hey, am I paying for this?”

“What?”

When I came to my senses, Senior Taeyeon had already fled to the counter with the bill. Before I could even take out my wallet, he had swiped his card. The receipt was printed with a rattling sound.

“Sigh, I’m drunk.”

That senior is at it again. No wonder he always complains about 50,000 won disappearing from his wallet.

I quickly tidied up and followed after him.

“Shall we go for round two?”

“Are you okay in this state?”

“Well, I could crash at your place.”

“I don’t have a separate place.”

“…”

A moment of silence.

“…Look, Jinsoo. Where is your home and mine? Right there, Gwanak. Both you and I, if we’ve decided to live as scholars for life, then the university is our home. So let’s go there for round two.”

So the place we ended up going was a school bench. We each bought an ion drink and sobered up under the dark sky.

“Senior.”

“What.”

“Don’t you want to get a girlfriend?”

“I don’t have the luxury for that.”

“Now that you’ve graduated, what are you going to do with your life?”

“Do you ask me these questions every time we meet?”

I clicked my tongue.

“It’s because I’ve lived poorly. With pride despite my circumstances. Majoring in something that doesn’t even put food on the table. But somehow I managed to get by with scholarships…”

“Keep living like that in the future too.”

“Are you drunk?”

“I’d say the same thing even if I wasn’t drunk. Live like that, be yourself. Is money that important in this world? What’s important is living freely doing what I want to do. And Jinsoo, with your brain, you won’t starve to death wherever you go.”

“I guess that’s true?”

“Hmm, looking again, particle theory might be a bit risky.”

“Ha.”

I rubbed my face.

“I’m joking. What, are you going to be like history or philosophy majors? You’re damn good at math, so if things really don’t work out, study a bit more and get another master’s in CS. Why, even von Neumann did that.”

“That guy… got doctorates in mathematics, physics, and chemistry, and then got another master’s in chemical engineering because his father told him to do something profitable. He was a monster.”

“In my eyes, you’re a monster too.”

Senior Taeyeon nudged my shoulder.

“You could do the same, couldn’t you?”

Afterwards, we talked until just before midnight and then parted ways. Among the advice Senior Taeyeon gave, what resonated most was:

“…Focus only on what you can do right now. And when an opportunity comes, be sure to grab it.”

It’s a simple statement. Anyone could say it. But depending on who says it, the weight of those words differs.

Focus on doing my best at what I can do right now, huh.

“Tsk.”

I guess I should look for postdoc recruitment notices.

Winter was passing.

***

A year had passed since that day. The seasons had come full circle, and it was time to eat tteokguk.

“Dried pollack, dried corvina, fish sauce… Ah, I’ll just order… Delivery fee is fucking…”

I’m giving up on tteokguk.

I roughly prepared some rice and tore open a packet of ramen. I remember learning cooking from Sonia, but most of the recipes didn’t match reality.

Pasta?

Isn’t that just boiling it in water and pouring some raw cream sauce on top before inhaling it?

Anyway.

I was still diligently honing my academic skills, but my actual position remained that of a post-doctoral researcher.

My research results were decent, but the problem was money. Since my main topics were gravitons, string theory, and the origin of the universe, the country provided almost no support.

In the end, I had no choice but to work part-time jobs personally to conduct my research. Since I didn’t have a family to provide support, my days were arduous.

Still, I’m somehow saving money despite my meager living. It’s a small amount, but it’s okay. If I don’t get a girlfriend and avoid unnecessary expenses like eating out, I can at least afford to live in a monthly rental room.

Plus, the occasional lecture fees or appearance fees I get from being invited by popular science YouTubers are quite substantial.

Yes, somehow I’m making a living.

The ramen was finally cooked. I rubbed my eyes and took a deep breath.

“Ugh.”

I’ve eaten so much ramen that just looking at it makes me want to gag.

[“Are you pregnant?”]

“…Huh?”

Did I just hear an auditory hallucination?

“…”

There were two possibilities. Either I had developed a mental illness, or Cartesia was really speaking to me.

The former seemed more likely.

But I don’t have money to go to a psychiatric hospital. Well, if it gets really bad, I should go, but spending money just for occasional auditory hallucinations would be too painful for my wallet.

Then I suddenly remembered.

Surviving the Outer Gods.

I had forgotten that the novel had been remade. That day, I had gone to the work introduction page but dismissed it as a dream, so I never read it.

I set the table and sat down in a chair, opening my phone.

“They wrote a lot.”

It seems to be over 700 episodes.

And the view count is.

0.

None at all.

Really?

They wrote this much when no one is reading? Is this author rich? No, before that, it’s been a year since the remake started serializing, and not even one person has clicked on the first episode?

Something was strange.

[RE 762. Please, I Hope You See This (584)]

The same subtitle continued for nearly 600 episodes. The remaining 100 or so episodes had different subtitles, mostly about research and papers.

I scrolled down to the first episode to check its subtitle.

[RE 001. Peace Without You (1)]

“…”

It seems I’ll have to pull an all-nighter today.