Chapter 546: Kaiser (3)

The name Lennok had finally brought forth as a proposal for research collaboration. Had that word finally solidified Kaiser’s wavering judgment?

“…!!!”

Kaiser couldn’t hide his agitation, staring intently at Lennok. Simply hearing that name, Kaiser seemed to understand and accept the current situation to some extent.

“I see… Olivera also mentioned she’d made contact once. So, he’s brought in new development personnel in the meantime?” Kaiser mumbled to himself, then slowly nodded.

“I thought he wasn’t interested in this kind of research…” His guard wasn’t completely down, but there was an an air of understanding and acceptance of the current situation. It was proof that the name Alkaid carried such weighty and profound significance.

“The fact that you know that name is proof enough that you’re no outsider. Fine.” Without hesitation, Kaiser pulled something from his pocket and tossed it to Lennok.

Lennok immediately tried to catch it and step forward, but its unexpected weight caused him to drop it.

“Hm?” CLANG!

It fell with a solid metallic clang – an Allen wrench as thick as Lennok’s forearm.

As Lennok stared down at the wrench with a slightly bewildered expression, Kaiser said in a gruff tone.

“You can’t even catch that, and you’re offering to help?”

“No, what is this…?”

“Stop talking nonsense and just get up here. Are you trying to act like you’re doing me a favor after making the offer yourself?”

With that, Kaiser turned his back without a care.

His attitude was utterly natural, almost as if he hadn’t just made a decision. It was as if he had already half-accepted Lennok as a colleague for this research.

Was this his disposition – once he’d made up his mind, he harbored no regrets about his decisions?

Kaiser, struggling slightly with the wrench in hand, just like Lennok, climbed onto the giant egg-like machine and said.

“We have to finish the adjustments and tighten all the screws by the end of today. Prepare for an all-nighter.”

“…”

Helping with the research wasn’t supposed to mean doing manual labor. The situation had deviated a bit from his expectations, but if he had to do it, there was nothing he couldn’t handle.

Lennok sighed, picked up the wrench, and stood up.

The adjustment work began with Kaiser Bajur, the deceased ruler of the underworld. It was a task undertaken jointly by the Black Consumer Project’s originator and a wizard who wielded transcendent talent.

The theme was spacetime research, whose success couldn’t be guaranteed even after intricate thought experiments and discussions of high-dimensional magical theory. Yet, the ceaseless back-and-forth between them, amidst the egg-like machine, was mostly grumbling laments rather than exchanges of intellect.

“So, if you don’t completely tighten this circuit to block the flow, you won’t be able to control the recoil.”

“Eventually, as the circuit unlocks over time, the magic flow on the other side will activate too.”

Even as they steadily worked and cooperated, their conversations were turning into arguments rather than exchanges of opinions.

It was mostly Kaiser, not Lennok, who was doing the grumbling.

“In that case, it’s better to leave it loose from the start and minimize circuit damage.”

“What’s the point of suppressing circuit damage if you don’t get the desired performance anyway?”

“My point is, the solution you’re looking for is wrong from the start.”

To Kaiser’s question, Lennok replied with an expressionless face, twirling the wrench.

“Even thinking positively, tampering with the source is suicide. Unless you want the entire power plant to explode and kill us, you need to look elsewhere.”

“Dammit, I hate opposition without alternatives more than anything. Did you know that?”

“You, on the other hand, seem to like groundless approval.”

“You…”

Kaiser let out a deep sigh and looked up at the thousands of sparkling magic circuits and insertion pipes.

Kaiser’s face was thickly smeared with soot, ash, and all sorts of dust.

Lennok looked down at Kaiser with a somewhat intrigued gaze.

…

To be honest, Lennok didn’t feel the current situation was so bad.

Kaiser’s understanding of spacetime was truly immense; Lennok was learning so much just by debating and exchanging theories with him.

All Lennok had to do was understand Kaiser’s existing designs and suggest alternative approaches.

Just by doing that, he could tangibly feel his understanding of space and and time manipulation rapidly increasing.

If he didn’t have to resolve the exposure phenomenon and the spacetime distortion, he would have stayed up all night debating Kaiser’s ideal magical theories, just as Kaiser suggested.

Kaiser, who had been intently staring at the magic flow with his dark, sparkling eyes, finally opened his mouth after a long while.

“You’re very different from that guy I knew.”

Lennok’s hands, which had been struggling to turn the wrench with both hands, stopped.

“What do you mean?”

“I feel like I’m actually having a conversation with someone.”

“…”

“A feeling of truly being grounded in this world. Do you understand what I mean?”

Kaiser said that, then gripped and loosened a pipe filter, and chuckled.

“I don’t even know what I’m saying. It’s just a figure of speech.”

“You seem to have gone half-mad, completely absorbed in the project.”

Lennok pondered for a moment, then maintained a nonchalant response. He instinctively knew that such an attitude would make Kaiser feel comfortable and open up.

But Kaiser couldn’t laugh off that answer.

“Yes. Maybe I really have gone mad… I truly think that sometimes.”

“…”

“Perhaps even you, whom I’m speaking with now, are just a hallucination I’ve created. If someone else saw me, wouldn’t they think I’m just mumbling like a madman to myself?”

Kaiser mumbled with a blank expression.

“It’s something I started to change the world, but as the end approaches, it’s getting harder and harder to remember the beginning… When I feel like I’m getting closer to the truth, I feel myself moving further away from myself.”

Without waiting for Lennok’s reply, he continued.

“Does an end truly exist? Can we truly reach something beyond a predetermined conclusion?”

“Are you afraid of the project ending without any meaning?”

“I’d be lucky if it just ended like that.”

Kaiser’s smile turned cold.

“But what if it gets worse from here? What if we are hastening the world’s destruction right here and now?”

“…”

“I don’t think things can get worse than this, but the monsters swimming in the Outer Sea have always brought about the worst, defying human understanding. If everything we’ve done isn’t preventing destruction but accelerating it, what should I do?”

Kaiser’s shoulders, gripping the wrench, seemed to slump weakly.

“I’m losing confidence… Alkaid’s advice, Olivera’s insight—they no longer reach me. How, then, can I tell this to the colleagues who follow me?”

“…”

The mere fact that he was confiding such worries to Lennok, whom he’d never met before, proved how mentally cornered Kaiser was at the time.

Even the trivial arguments he’d just shared with Lennok while adjusting the equipment were evidence that it felt like a brief moment of peace for Kaiser.

But Lennok understood why Kaiser was adopting such an uncertain attitude.

The man standing beside him now was one of the geniuses in history who had come closest to the world’s secrets. Precisely because of that, he was even more anxious and mentally cornered.

Because he knew he had truly reached a level where he could tamper with the world’s end.

He also understood that even a small mistake could make the situation worse than it already was.

Kaiser’s anxiety and impatience, close to madness, were, paradoxically, proof that he was an excellent and superior project manager and originator.

“The very fact that you can suspect yourself of being mad means you’re not completely finished yet.”

Lennok picked up the wrench again and replied as he tightened a screw.

“Then just succeed with the plan before you go completely mad. I don’t know why you’re wasting so much energy when there’s such a simple solution.”

“…Are you serious right now?”

Kaiser let out a hollow laugh.

Lennok knew. He knew how irresponsible and thoughtless his answer was.

But Kaiser, paradoxically, seemed to snap back to his senses halfway at Lennok’s irresponsible answer.

He rubbed his soot-stained face with his bare hands, then started grinning with an even blacker face.

“Well, at least I know you’re not a hallucination. A hallucination I created wouldn’t say something so absurd.”

His dark eyes, which crinkled in a smile, were shining much more clearly than before.

“…”

“Alright. We’ve talked enough nonsense, so let’s finish this quickly. At this rate, we can probably get it roughly done before Olivera returns.”

Instead of answering, Lennok stared idly at Kaiser, who was scurrying around below.

Kaiser in life wasn’t a person who frequently displayed overwhelming charisma or dignity, as Lennok had imagined.

He was just a man who, like others, lacked conviction in his own answers, wavered, hesitated, and procrastinated.

As Kaiser said, the machine’s adjustments would be finished shortly.

Even as they endlessly engaged in arguments masquerading as discussions, they steadily eliminated problematic areas and adjusted the device.

Kaiser’s spacetime research, completed somewhat early, a result that would never have existed in this timeline originally.

“…”

He wasn’t worried. What was happening in this Sealed Zone wasn’t something happening in the real past.

He wasn’t flying back to the past to meet people from that era; he was merely confronting distorted memories within this zone’s timeline.

Even if Lennok directly intervened and changed a part of the past, there was no possibility of a time paradox.

That’s why, rather than obstructing Kaiser’s research, Lennok had intended to resolve the situation by cooperating and quickly bringing the research to an end.

He believed that helping with the research and gaining Kaiser’s trust was an efficient way to both uncover the project’s secrets and resolve the spacetime distortion phenomenon.

But was there any meaning in this moment, where he listened to Kaiser’s worries and momentarily eased his mind?

Before this strange phenomenon in the Sealed Zone ended, could Lennok hear the secrets and truths he desired from Kaiser?

Why a timeline from decades ago was being reproduced in the Sealed Zone at this specific moment, and why the resulting exposure phenomenon was becoming even more violent.

Lennok still hadn’t fully understood or grasped any truth.

Helping Kaiser complete this research now was just the first step to resolving the series of problems occurring in this zone.

‘I don’t know how much others have realized about this situation…’

All Lennok could do was what he could.

“Looks like we’re mostly done.” WHIRRRR!

Only after covering the steel plates that formed the giant egg’s surface and tightening the screws, did Kaiser wipe away sweat and retreat with a satisfied look.

“Still, I’m glad we finished much faster than I thought. We can return to the front lines at least a week earlier with this.”

“…”

“I don’t know why you decided to help with the research, but there aren’t many who properly understand this field… you were a great help.”

Kaiser turned to Lennok, coughed a few times, then grinned.

“I’m grateful for that. Is there any specific reward or compensation you want?”

“Compensation…”

“Right now, I’m holding a wrench and covered in soot, but even so, I carry some weight out there.”

Kaiser let out a hearty laugh, wiping his face with the end of his sleeve as he spoke.

“Well, I’m not famous or rich, but I can grant you one request.”

“…”

“Don’t feel pressured, just think about it. If you came here with a message from Alkaid, I’d like you to keep cooperating with the project going forward.”

‘Compensation.’

Lennok delayed his answer, unfastened the suspended rigging, and slowly descended to the ground.

Standing beside Kaiser, Lennok quietly looked up at the machine and asked.

“The tablet. Didn’t you break it earlier?”

“I did.”

Kaiser awkwardly scratched his cheek.

“You’ll need a terminal to control the entire facility, but there doesn’t seem to be any other control equipment near the power room.”

“Oh, you were thinking about that?”

Only then did Kaiser nod, as if he finally understood Lennok’s understated demeanor.

“You have good focus. It’s not easy to find team members with this kind of capability. I’m starting to covet you more and more…”

“…”

“My friends and colleagues are good at fighting and breaking things, but they’re sorely lacking when it comes to delving deep into knowledge.”

Kaiser said that and walked without a care towards where the tablet had shattered.

He placed his hand over the shattered fragments of the tablet that he himself had thrown at Lennok and destroyed, then mumbled lowly.

“I wish there were more trustworthy people among the project’s development team. I can’t trust the Elder Council at all… Well, alright.”

Kaiser grinned and turned his gaze to Lennok.

“You were watching how my magic flowed earlier, weren’t you? Now I’ll tell you why.”

As Kaiser slowly elevated his consciousness, purplish magic surged over his hand.

The moment magic, flowing backward and reversing internal life activity, coiled around the tablet fragments and surged upwards.

SHIMMER!

The completely shattered tablet fragments, with their components and internal structure exposed, began to reconstruct themselves in reverse, as if time were rewinding right there.

As Lennok turned his gaze with a slightly surprised expression at the unexpected sight.

Kaiser casually picked up the reassembled tablet from his hand and turned it on.

WHIRR!

“Still, my condition isn’t bad. I haven’t used magic for this purpose recently.”

“…”

“From the start, I linked the device’s functions only to this one tablet. It also reduces the risk of unnecessary leakage of classified information, you see.”

Lennok quietly watched Kaiser, who was smiling and shaking the tablet.

The phenomenon of the tablet automatically restoring itself as if time were rewinding. He was certain that it was no miracle Kaiser had created by chance.

Magic flowing backward, reversing life activity. His casual attitude, continuing to work despite shattering the tablet.

Why he, who was close to being a boss of the underworld, came to be at the center of such a significant project and research.

All those questions felt somewhat answered by that one miracle.

Kaiser Bajur’s magic was not merely flowing against internal life activity. It was a power that went beyond reversal, denying the very concept of time and defying heaven [逆天].