Ch.5858. Variables and Singularities

After awakening her power to see the future, Kathy’s life turned into hell.

The servants who had always given her warm smiles could kill her.

Even her family members each harbored the possibility of killing or betraying her.

It happened only once in thousands of futures, but once she saw such scenes, she couldn’t trust anyone.

But the world wouldn’t leave her alone.

Whether by coincidence or fate, eventually one of the many futures became reality.

In this timeline, her own brother attempted to take her life.

Fortunately, her companions saved her, but that relief was short-lived.

Through Amon’s words, she learned of her mother’s acts of madness.

She fell apart.

She could no longer believe in reality.

Why did the timeline she existed in have to be like this? Before that, did a timeline where she could be happy even exist?

She turned away from reality and imagined countless parallel worlds.

In truth, this too was an excuse.

If she were to see a future where her companions betrayed her, she wouldn’t have the courage to go on living, so she secluded herself in her room and refused to meet anyone.

“Kathy. Let’s go eat!”

Unaware of her feelings, the kind voice calling her in the morning kept bringing tears to her eyes.

The kinder they were to her, the more afraid she became of the futures she might see.

But her companions were beyond imagination in many ways.

“Tsssss!”

By the time she came to her senses at the familiar sound of a fuse burning,

BOOM!

Her companions had instantly entered the room and grabbed her.

No matter how she tried to keep her eyes closed, her companions held her jaw and forced her to open her eyes.

And before her eyes, her companions’ threads unfolded.

*

The future sight of the Requetio family might seem invincible at first glance, but it has too many weaknesses.

Taking her father as an example, he can hear conversations from the future.

More precisely, he can hear in the present what his future self hears.

In other words, her father cannot know facts that his future self doesn’t hear.

Kathy was no exception.

She could read the threads of fate connecting her to people she made eye contact with.

Since she could read what kind of relationship the other person would have with her future self, she could perfectly analyze anyone she made eye contact with even once.

But if she never met someone, she couldn’t know their future.

This was why she couldn’t read her brother’s assassination attempt, or predict that the chef would be hired to kill her.

Unlike her father, she had to meet someone at least once.

But she quickly overcame this weakness.

Threads can be woven into fabric.

The same applies to threads of fate.

By reading the threads of individuals one by one and weaving them together, she could indirectly read the threads of people she hadn’t met.

Reading her brother’s actions from the threads of the assassins he hired was an example of this.

So when she made eye contact with her companions, she instinctively wove numerous fabrics from their threads.

But the completed fabric was strange.

It was unnatural, as if the fabric had holes punched through it.

Some things were visible, others weren’t.

But she had no capacity to notice this strangeness.

‘They’re not there…’

The futures she had feared weren’t there.

‘No one… betrays me…’

Her companions didn’t betray her in any future.

Though the details differed, their fates broadly split into two paths:

Either they lived with her, or they died saving her.

Kathy’s gaze naturally turned toward the tragic futures rather than the happy ones.

In those futures, Kathy couldn’t trust her companions and ran away, abandoning them.

But her companions willingly sacrificed themselves for her.

The white mage died first.

“Haha. Will I be recorded as the genius mage who outwitted a megacorp?”

He was shot by a sniper after being caught manipulating her illusions.

The ogre died second.

“VALHALLA!!”

He gloriously self-destructed along with a tunnel while blocking assassins pursuing her.

The mute sniper died third.

“*Cough* *Spit*”

Before being captured and having his mind read, he flipped off the security team, put a gun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

The buffalo tanker died last.

“Let me pay for not trusting you in the dungeon last time.”

He took Kathy to the airport, then ran in the opposite direction hugging a doll that looked like her.

Enraged at being fooled by four people, Owen beat their corpses and threw them into the sea.

Thus, the four disappeared without even leaving graves.

But something was strange.

In this tragic future, Amon was nowhere to be seen.

More precisely, she couldn’t see futures where Amon should have been, as if they had been cut out.

In the intermittently broken threads, future Kathy suddenly had plane tickets from an unknown benefactor, or was crying on a hill holding Amon’s sword.

In some futures, she worked as a mercenary using Amon as an alias.

But in all those futures, Amon himself was not visible.

When she realized this, she found herself focusing on Amon’s eyes.

It was a kind of compulsion.

Partly because she couldn’t believe the tragic futures, partly because she wanted to confirm them anyway,

And above all, it was her desperation to gain certainty from him.

In Amon’s ordinary eyes, she could see her own reflection.

The Kathy in Amon’s eyes made eye contact with her.

Then, as if falling into a hallucination, she looked into the eyes of the Kathy in his eyes, and then deeper still.

‘What… what is this…?’

She was bewildered.

Like mirrors facing each other creating countless reflections, the eyes formed numerous images.

Kathy peered into all of them.

It was incomprehensible. Her eyesight couldn’t possibly be that good.

But that’s how it appeared.

Beyond those countless reflections, Kathy discovered one uniquely different image.

A woman she had never seen before, neither Kathy nor Amon.

Though she was surely seeing this woman for the first time, a warmth spread through her chest.

It’s difficult to describe, but perhaps this was the sensation of being held in a mother’s arms as a baby.

The woman she was seeing for the first time opened her mouth with an infinitely merciful smile.

[Witch who spins the thread. Why do you peer into this place? Did I not warn of taboos when I blessed your blood?]

Kathy knew nothing about the taboo the woman spoke of.

But her mouth moved regardless of her will.

“To complete the fabric I will weave with my most precious one.”

[Poor child living in the future. What is that child to you that you would break even taboos?]

“My everything.”

[Feverish daughter. Do you speak knowing the weight of love?]

“I swear on my heart.”

At those words, the unidentified woman nodded with satisfaction.

[Blood of David, descendant of Solomon. I permit you to open the door and enter.]

With those words, the woman disappeared.

Before Kathy could question the woman’s identity, the memory of their conversation vanished from her mind.

And as if it had never happened, she could now read Amon’s future that had been erased.

Amon charging into an army for her sake.

Amon creating a fake identity for her.

Amon forming a resistance with her and finally avenging their companions 30 years later.

In no future did Amon betray her.

Even at the end of what she thought was a tragic future, there was hope.

A tear rolled down her cheek.

Returning to the present, she made eye contact with her companions.

Somehow, she could now control her ability.

But she didn’t stop using it.

Instead, she turned her gaze away from the tragic futures.

She wasn’t denying the future.

It was to avoid making wrong choices in the present by being consumed by tragic futures.

All these tragedies began because she couldn’t trust her companions.

The first step to erase that future was a simple phrase.

“Thank you.”

With that one phrase, numerous tragedies were erased.

And when she embraced her companions, most of the tragedies disappeared.

Finally.

“It’s shameless, but I need to ask. Please help me.”

With that, the futures where Kathy sacrificed herself alone also vanished.

She looked into the future again.

“I’ll make sure we all have a happy ending.”

All for the best happy ending.

***

Unlike the power to see the future, a computer calculating the future is not perfect.

Rather, it has many flaws compared to the power.

Since calculations are based on pre-given information and variables, variables not entered are not derived in the calculation results.

So when the report came in that the assassination of Kathy had failed, Owen wasn’t surprised.

“I already anticipated this. I forgive your failure, team leader.”

From Owen’s perspective, forgiveness was all he could offer.

The team he sent to the mansion with the team leader had been annihilated.

Owen finished his reflection and immediately leaned back in the chairman’s chair, closing his eyes.

He added the variables of the team’s annihilation and Kathy’s companions.

Numerous futures were calculated and transmitted to his mind.

Multiple futures appeared along with their probabilities.

He couldn’t prepare for every future.

Ultimately, the future is about choices.

If you choose a future with a 0.01 percent probability, you must abandon other futures.

The president formulated plans based on rational calculations.

Plan A with the highest probability, Plan B with the next highest…

He could cover about 20 plans.

‘This should be enough.’

He immediately contacted the security team and external intelligence department.

Within hours, a hunting team was organized to hunt Kathy and her companions.

“Depart immediately.”

Following the president’s order, the hunting team set out.

Success rate: 100 percent.

Owen had no doubt about the hunting team’s success.

How could just six people possibly stand against them?

That thought vanished in less than an hour.

[Mr. President! Intruders!]

He couldn’t rationally understand the strategy of prey attacking the hunter’s base,

[There are 7 enemies!]

He couldn’t imagine Sonia, whom he thought was Amon’s wife, becoming a variable,

[The enemies’ breakthrough speed is alarming! Evacuate quickly!]

And he couldn’t believe they were gaining the upper hand against the security team.

Variable upon variable upon variable piled up.

‘Why? How?’

Owen never naively assumed they would be easily hunted.

He had calculated that they might attack the company while the hunting team was away.

That’s why he left considerable forces within the company. Just in case, he arranged for the hunting team to return immediately.

Though he had prepared for it, he didn’t consider it highly probable.

Yet that low probability became reality.

Neutralizing his countermeasures as if to mock them.

‘Why would such a strategy…?’

He couldn’t understand why such a near-suicidal strategy was succeeding, nor how they had acquired such combat power.

The only thing he knew was that all the computer’s calculations had been neutralized.

Owen added the new variables and ran the computer again.

The wet computer ran furiously.

As the computer ran, Owen recalled a question he had once asked his father.

“What happens when two prophets start seeing the future simultaneously?”

At that time, his father answered:

“The prophet with more singularities wins, son.”