26 - Extra Story: Plus Conversion

TL/Editor: raei Schedule:

Illustrations: None.

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Dear Respected Teacher,

Professor, a Level 4 anomaly recently manifested in our country. This was due to a terrorist attack by a doomsday cult, which caused four error NPCs to gather.

Fortunately, it occurred in a sparsely populated city and only for a short time, so there wasn't severe damage, but I am afraid.

Is the world we live in real? Or is it a sophisticated simulation?

Do we truly exist? Or are we just part of a simulation?

The very existence of anomalies that defy the laws of the universe—isn't that proof that our world is false?

Since learning about the existence of anomalies and seeing a city overrun by error NPCs, I have been unable to stop feeling fear. If our existence is a lie, if the world we've lived in and protected is just a simulation...

Professor,

I heard that you have long worked at the Metaphysical Literature Society, which studies the possibility that our world is a work of fiction within a frame. Please tell me the truth.

Do I, do we, does this world truly exist? Is there value in our lives?

Your former student, seeking only the truth.

---

---

To my former student,

I am sorry to hear that such an event occurred. My deepest condolences for the deceased.

To get to the point, questions about the existence of being and human dignity are natural. Especially for an employee dealing with anomalies.

Is our world a simulation? Are we part of someone's novel? Do humans lack free will? Are humans nothing but bio-robots made of organic material, moving by electrical signals?

These are topics studied diligently by various research institutes and departments. And there has been some progress.

If you truly want the truth, I invite you. To the department that explores the world beyond the fourth wall, beyond the frame.

If you wish to accept the invitation, please respond with a suitable date.

P.S. It would be best to come quickly. We are close to seeing the fruits of our long research.

Your former teacher.

---

---

Professor,

The department… So the nameless department truly exists. I thought it was just a common company myth. But if the department is real, the answers I seek must be there too.

Alright! I will come! Any time is good! Even right now is fine!

Please respond as soon as possible.

Your former student.

---

---

The invitation was rough.

“Wake up. We have arrived.”

His body was roughly shaken.

The doctor blinked several times, recalling his memory through a foggy mind.

‘After receiving the invitation….’

A black-suited agent, whose affiliation was unknown, had appeared, blindfolded him, changed his clothes, and forcefully gave him a sleeping pill, citing the location's secrecy.

He had considered protesting but decided that knowing the truth was more important, so he reluctantly swallowed the pill.

‘I remember. So, is this the department?’

The doctor slowly looked around.

It was a corridor in some building. A pristine white corridor. On either side of him, the two agents who had practically dragged him here were supporting him.

“He is awake.”

The doctor forcefully shook off the agent's arm. It was a gesture filled with emotion. The coercive attitude had been unpleasant, and unpleasant memories are hard to forget. If he hadn't wanted something so badly….

The agent who had been pushed away stepped back silently.

At that moment, a grandmotherly voice spoke softly.

“You seem quite upset. But please understand. This place is that important.”

“Ah, Professor.”

At the end of the white corridor, a gracefully aged, robust grandmother walked slowly toward him. The professor he had taken lectures from in the past, the person who now held the answers he sought.

The professor greeted the doctor with a kind smile.

"It's been a while. I hear you're working as a doctor for the company?"

"I've been with the company for quite some time. But Professor, what I want here—"

The doctor took a bold step forward but staggered, still feeling the effects of the sedative. An agent quickly approached to grab his arm, but the doctor swung his hand, knocking the agent's arm away.

The professor gave an awkward smile.

"You must be in a hurry."

"Of course I'm in a hurry. How can you not understand how the thought that this world, that I, might be an illusion eats away at someone!"

His voice, filled with mixed emotions, echoed through the corridor. Despite staggering, the doctor managed to walk up to the professor. Looking down at the professor, he shouted.

"That's why I came here! I put up with the rude behavior of these agents or whatever! Give me the answers quickly—"

"Calm down. Don't you know nothing about the department? Shouldn't you learn the background first to properly understand?"

The professor soothed the doctor as if dealing with an impatient student. Her demeanor was calm and serene.

The doctor took a deep breath, then bowed his head.

"I'm sorry. I was too much. I, I, lately, it doesn't feel like I'm really living."

"I understand. This field is like that. It's one of the topics with a particularly high suicide rate. But you've endured well."

"...No, I haven't."

The professor's comfort seemed to reach him, and the doctor's breathing gradually steadied.

The professor waited for the doctor to calm down before turning and starting to walk down the corridor.

"Shall we walk for a bit? It takes a while to get to our destination, so I'll give you a short lecture."

The doctor quickly followed, feeling frustrated by the professor's slow pace.

---

---

The professor and the doctor walked down the white corridor.

An agent trailed behind them, but they made no sound, like shadows, leaving only the quiet conversation between the two.

"Frame narrative. A story within a story. A play within a play. The fourth wall. Characters in a movie talking to the audience. Meta-narrative. You're familiar with these?"

"...I am. But suddenly, a ninja appeared. Isn't that anomaly similar? Characters in the narrative talk to us, move to other books or paintings."

"Then it should be easy to understand."

The professor continued her lecture in a slow, deliberate tone, matching her slow pace.

"Our department studies that. We got the idea from anomalies that are our world's creations but interact with our reality."

The professor paused to catch her breath. She appeared healthy, but her breathing was strained.

The doctor anxiously paced around the professor.

"I know that. You worked at the Metaphysical Literature Society, studying the possibility that our world is a framed world. I know that story, so get to the point—"

The professor smiled warmly.

"This is the department. Not the Metaphysical Literature Society. Naturally, we study something different, right?"

"Well, yes."

A basic mistake. The doctor blushed. Even in his urgency, such a mistake.

The professor resumed walking. The doctor quickly followed.

"We studied ways to venture beyond the frame. To interact with the world outside the frame."

"..."

This time, the doctor stopped walking. The professor walked a few more steps before realizing the doctor wasn't following and turned around.

There stood the doctor.

His face was pale. His eyebrows trembled ceaselessly. In an instant, he broke into a cold sweat, as if his body had expelled all its moisture.

The doctor opened his mouth. Only groans came out at first, but he finally managed to speak, moving his tongue with effort.

"That. That means. That we are characters in a frame…?"

"Don't be so shocked."

"How. How. Then. Then."

He couldn't continue. His dilated pupils stared into space, and he staggered like a drunk, leaning against the wall for support.

The professor slowly approached and patted the doctor on the back.

"I understand what you're thinking and worrying about. But we exist, and our world is real."

"Don't lie to me!"

The doctor suddenly straightened up and screamed. Exhausted in an instant, he grabbed the professor by the collar.

The two agents moved quickly, but the professor raised a hand to stop them. She met the doctor's eyes.

"Even if our world exists within a frame, it doesn't mean our value and existence are meaningless."

"How can you say that! If my life is just a string of words written by someone else, what meaning does it have—"

"Think about the universe."

It was an unexpected statement.

The professor looked up at the ceiling as if she could see the sky. She continued in a voice that sounded like she was dreaming.

"Leaving Earth, setting foot on the moon, building bases on Mars, sending probes beyond the solar system."

"What does that have to do with anything right now?"

"It's the same with frames and meta-concepts."

The doctor slowly released his grip on the professor's collar. She stopped looking at the ceiling and faced the doctor again.

"Just as we venture into space after living only on Earth, we can move beyond the frame into the world outside it."

"Beyond the frame…?"

"Our technology has advanced that much. To the point where we can move beyond in a meta-dimensional sense. Shall I explain it more simply?"

The doctor nodded blankly.

"Think of anomalies, like when a ninja suddenly appears. These anomalies interact with the world outside the frame. Does this still make your life meaningless?"

If they could interact with the world beyond the frame, could they still be considered mere characters in a novel? Could they be simply the creations of someone's imagination?

The doctor looked at the professor with trembling eyes and asked in a faintly hopeful voice.

"Is that possible?"

"Of course. We're almost there."

The professor pointed to the end of the corridor. The doctor followed her gesture to see the corridor's end.

"It's just a wall, isn't it?"

"The fourth wall is a wall too."

The professor took the doctor's hand and led him toward the wall. She said,

"We're going to step outside the frame for a moment."

"Outside."

"We need to go through the outside to reach our destination. Let's go."

---

---

"We've arrived."

"Already?"

The doctor looked at the professor with bewildered eyes. He had no memory of the journey. He hadn't seen anything. He had just opened his eyes, and the space had changed.

The professor sighed with pity.

"You lack the aptitude…. You don't have the aptitude to interact with the world outside."

"You're joking, aren't you? This is some sort of teleportation trick."

The doctor couldn't believe it and distrusted the professor.

The professor no longer made eye contact with him. She looked at something behind him and explained.

"If our world were a novel, the process of our movement just now wouldn't have been written. Because we stepped outside the narrative."

"What do you mean. Prove it. Prove it to me. I still can't believe it."

The doctor was flustered. If he couldn't interact with the outside world, then his life… He couldn't accept such a reality.

As the professor walked past the doctor, she spoke objectively, as if stating a fact.

"Unfortunately, Doctor, you will have to live within the framed world. You cannot go outside."

"Lies. Don't lie to me! The company's technology can't be this limited—"

The doctor turned to chase the professor, but he stopped speaking.

There stood a massive mechanical figure. It was only an upper body, the size of a small house.

Tap-tap-tap.

The mechanical figure was typing on a keyboard the size of a truck.

"What is that? Where are we?"

The professor, who had approached the mechanical figure, turned around from its center. With the giant keyboard and mechanical figure behind her, she spoke.

"Here is the frame. It is the intersection between the outer world and the inner world. And this is."

Her voice, filled with emotion, blended with the sound of typing.

"One of the extinction prevention devices. A meta-narrative machine created to interact with the outside world. We call it 'The Writer.'"

There was fervor in her eyes and voice. The doctor watched and listened, entranced.

"Even if our world is truly a novel, so what? If we hold the pen, if we are the ones typing on the keyboard, wouldn't our lives still be meaningful?"

The doctor was overwhelmed as he watched the machine's fingers continuously typing on the keyboard.

Then, a sudden thought surged.

'That machine is what makes our world a framed world. It's writing my life as it pleases. If I destroy that writer, I won't be a character in a frame anymore.'

Smack-!

Blood vessels burst in his eyes, turning his vision red. The doctor glared at the machine and charged with a scream.

The professor stepped aside calmly, watching him. The doctor reached the keyboard without any interference and swung his fist.

"...Huh?"

His fist passed through the keyboard as if it were a hologram.

The professor's voice reached him.

"I told you, Doctor. You don't have the aptitude to interact with the outside world. Naturally, you can't interact with the writer either."

The doctor pulled back his fist and stared at it blankly. The professor's calm voice echoed in his ears.

"Metaphorically speaking, you might be considered just an extra."

His entire body went limp. The doctor collapsed to the ground. The sound of typing on the keyboard echoed endlessly. His vision darkened.

---

---

The doctor lay unconscious in front of the keyboard, his face haggard as if his soul had left him. Blood trickled from the corners of his eyes.

"..."

The professor looked down at him. Over his face, she saw the faces of colleagues from long ago.

The end of the Metaphysical Literature Society had not been a good one.

Their research ultimately proved that their world was within a frame.

On that day, a day of thunder and lightning, when the lightning of wisdom struck their souls, what had happened?

"Many people left..."

The professor closed her eyes.

Faced with an unbearable truth, many colleagues took their own lives. Others drank memory erasers to escape reality, and only a handful gritted their teeth and took another step forward.

"If our world is just a story, let's hold the pen... If it's a painting, let's hold the brush. If it's a movie, let's write the screenplay..."

Let's write the story within the frame, ourselves. Let's go outside and shape our destiny with our own hands.

So they did just that.

They deleted the department's name, becoming the nameless department, and created 'The Writer,' successfully interacting with it.

Cough, cough.

The professor covered her mouth and coughed. After coughing for a long time, she wiped her reddened mouth and spoke to the doctor with earnest emotion.

"Doctor, overcome this. You are the only one who can succeed me. It's okay to be an extra. There's nothing as powerful as a living, moving character. So, overcome this and live. I don't have much time left."

Their research had finally borne fruit, but now there was no one left to see the beautiful sight.

Many from the nameless department had left. Some had reached the end of their lifespan, others had crumbled, and others...

Now, the only researcher left was herself.

Tap-tap-tap.

The machine continued typing on the keyboard.

The professor looked up at the machine. A faint smile appeared on her lips.

"Ah, it has begun."

The sequence to obtain sustainable power from the world outside the frame was in progress.

[Secured 965 continuous meta-observers]

[Meta power sponsors: Anonymous, Hair Loss Treatment, Nanisi, onlyjamie.]

[Plus conversion in progress]

[Serialization schedule and time: Sat-Wed at 00:05]

Watching the words being written by 'The Writer,' the professor closed her eyes and clasped her hands. She prayed, hoping sincerely.

'Please, let the beings outside the frame enjoy the story of our world.'

So that we can continue to write our story for a long time.

---

[raei: I was confused at first but... But plus conversion here is the author applying for plus which novelpia's subscription model. The meta power sponsors, I'm assuming, are currently the top supporters/donators? I recognize some of these names from when there was script credits in ch14. Also make sense as to why I have no idea how to interpret some of the names, my bad on that one. 965 continuous meta-observers would be readers staying.]

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