CH 230

The time Aracelli spent in the different world was different from Yoo Seodam. While it didn’t take long for Yoo Seodam to travel from one world to another, Aracelli could only move to another world years after Yoo Seodam disappeared. 

And so, it could be said that her last meeting with Princess Sahar was ages ago. So, it was only natural for her to be surprised when she met her after such a long time. But before she could dwell into the nostalgia of meeting an old friend, her curiosity took over.

“Can, can you tell me what method you used to travel between dimensions?” she asked.

“Huhu, you are still the same. As curious as ever.” Empress Sahar got up slowly from her seat and walked towards the window. Although it was clearly a tower located in a coal mine, different spaces were projected through the windows. It was as if it was a CCTV screen.

Some windows displayed the seashore, some the cliffs, some the ruined city, and some showed the night sky full of machines.

She caught the view of the destroyed world in her purple eyes.

“Aren’t you the one who told me?”

“Pardon?”

“To work hard all my life in order to meet that man again…”

“Ah…”

It was then that Aracelli realized what she had told Sahar.

“So I worked really really hard. Fortunately, I realized that, as a saintess who worshiped the Goddess of Time and Seasons, I have already experienced going back in time twice.”

“Then, as expected, did you travel using the power of faith?”

At Aracelli’s words, Sahar burst out laughing.

“No way. Amongst all the hard work I put in, I worked extra hard trying to understand divine power and faith as logically as possible.”

“Logically…”

“That’s right. I tried to logically understand how Goddess Kader sent me back in time, and whether there was a being higher than the Goddess?”

In other words, on what kind of ‘principle’ does the divine power work?

There was not a single person who had succeeded in analyzing God scientifically, or even magically. It would still be the case even if you looked at any dimension. However, there were a huge number of philosophers and priests who tried to dig into the cause and truth of the manifestation of that divine power.

Why do I believe in them? In what ways do they give me strength, and how do they affect the world?

Sahar Serenity studied it all.

Holy scriptures? Faith? God? 

Turns out, it wasn’t like that.

The existence of divine beings, or rather, those who exist in a higher dimension than humans and granted power to humans, who lived in a three-dimensional world, was what Sahar was actually studying.

In order to answer the ‘why’, it was necessary to understand the entire process involved.

“I had to approach what I thought of as ‘fantasy’ from an academic point of view, and I realized that the power of faith, which I had received and used without cost, was actually no different from magic.”

And the very day when she came to understand such a simple yet incomprehensible truth.

“I lost all my divine powers.”

“Pardon?”

“The moment I uncovered the identity of the divine power used by the gods, the moment I realized the truth behind the existence of the divine power which was stronger than anything else, and the moment I understood its essence… I lost it all.”

In other words, she could no longer receive divine power by believing in God.

Sahar spread her palm. Then, on top of her palm, a subtle divine power shone

“Now, I use divine power in a pretty logical and rational way. Just like how magicians use magic.”

“The divine power contains the power to manipulate time and space.”

“That’s right. Thanks to that, I was able to travel through space and time. It was truly a mysterious and beautiful experience. I felt like I knew a little bit about that man’s life that I had never been able to understand. It was interesting and quite enjoyable.”

But a problem arose.

“I tried to pursue him, but I had no idea where he came from.”

“Ah…”

Aracelli received a bullet from Seodam, therefore, she was able to track his trace down using it.

But Princess Sahar couldn’t do that, as she has no such thing as Aracelli’s bullet to be a hint.

“However, I still had hope. It’s the energy of another world that you and that man scattered into my world. I tracked it again and again. As a result…”

Sahar pointed to the window. There, the terrible condition of the Vivienda Empire occupied by machines was shown.

“I reached your hometown.”

“….” Aracelli looked out the window without saying a word. As she stared blankly at that mysterious window that transcended even space, complex emotions ran rampant in her heart.

“You once protected my world with that man. In order to repay that kindness, I also desperately tried to protect your world.”

Sahar gathered all the scattered magicians and built a fortress in the coal mine and covered it by distorting the space around to prevent the machines from finding it.

“But… I don’t have enough strength to stop them.”

Whiiiiing-!!

On the window, a huge battleship was being shown flying through the sky. Then, hundreds, or even thousands of humans appeared through it.

No, looking closely, Aracelli realized that they weren’t humans, but androids–an existence with the looks of humans but were built with mechanical devices rather than flesh and bone.

They shot missiles from their finger tips, fired lasers from their eyes and mouth, and held lightsabers, which appeared from their own hands. They smashed through mana barriers and smashed the places where the wizards hid.

Their power was simply overwhelming.

“At the very least, each of those androids have the power of a 5th circle or more.” Sahar sighed. “The commander level is even more powerful than that. Currently, the strongest magician in this world has barely crossed the 7th circle. Yet, the strength of someone like that can be found easily within their army…”

Therefore, when a war broke out, the magicians of Vivienda had no choice but to be defeated.

“…”

“…”

When Aracelli was silent, Sahar forced a smile.

“It’s not like there’s no way at all, though.”

“Do you have any other way to win the war?”

“No. Winning the war is simply impossible. But… there is a way to bring this world back to the way it was before the war.”

“Ah!!!!”

Come to think of it, wasn’t Princess Sahar a time traveler?

Hope flashed in Aracelli’s eyes for a moment. But it extinguished soon after.

It was because,

‘If she could have done that, why wouldn’t she have done it already?’ 

“Is there a reason why you haven’t done it yet?”

“There is. There are two main reasons.” Sahar takes a deep breath. “The first time these things appeared was more than 100 years ago. Traveling back in time that far is not yet possible with my abilities.”

Just as Aracelli was unable to travel long distances to reach Earth, Sahar also had limits on her abilities.

And the second reason is,

“They are also capable of time travel.”

It was like a bomb had been thrown. Aracelli almost collapsed to the floor due to her wobbling legs.

“Wait a minute… Does that make sense?”

“It seemed like it was an easy task for science. When I generated a time force field, the ‘scientists’ in their ranks scanned it with a device called a computer and calculated it. They keep track of where I time-traveled to change history.”

“Nonsense…”

What is this power? Science? How can it rival the power of magic and faith alike?

“The computer solved what I had been thinking about all my life in just one second. We need billions of humans to think together at the same time to fight against their absurd computational speed.”

“Nonsense…”

“Even though my time travel can go back a week, or at most 10 days… they used overwhelming equipment to make a passage back to the 112 years ago”

“Huh? Wait. Don’t tell me that’s why…”

“Yeah, that’s the case…”

Sahar’s shoulders, who had always been held high, drooped at that moment.

“They have already changed the past once. They went back to 112 years ago and scattered a lot of advanced technologies there. The result of that, is this current timeline, where magicians are dominated by science.”

That was the horror of science and time travel.

Despair ran through her body, and Aracelli, unable to bear the pain, had no choice but to look at the floor and kneel with her head in both hands.

She was silent for a long time. Neither Sahar nor Aracelli opened their mouths any more.

Then, after a lot of time has passed.

Aracelli barely pulled her lips apart.

“Exactly when did this first happen?”

Princess Sahar reached above her and literally pulled out a book from thin air. There, history about how the Vivienda Empire changed into something like now was recorded.

She opened the first page and read the first date written there.

“31th day of the 8th month, year 597.” It was the day when the world of magic ended, the day when science first broke out, and the beginning of how science would destroy magic.

“It all started then.”

Aracelli swallowed her saliva. “Didn’t you say earlier it was impossible to send someone to 112 years ago?”

“That’s right.”

“Then, why don’t we just send a ‘consciousness’?”

“If it was only consciousness… it would be possible. You might be able to have a conversation with someone in the past. But that still won’t resolve the problem. What can you do with just your consciousness?”

“I can do something.” Aracelli closed her eyes and focused. Although she had traveled the dimension with him, somehow his aura couldn’t be felt at all.

However, she had experienced this same situation before.

“Did you know that, Professor can also time-travel?”

“!!!…That man can time travel???”

“Yes. If Professor had arrived on that day 112 years ago…”

Sahar and Aracelli’s gazes collided.

“Maybe, returning the world to how it normally is…”

“…It may really be possible.”

*

[Day 31 Month 8 year 597 of Rinekal Calendar]

“Buy lamb skewers! lamb skewers! Buy lamb skewers with plenty of ferben sauce!”

“The fish skewers are delicious! Ah! tasty! Come and buy!”

No matter where you go, there is always a fantastically built city, and there is always something behind it. I explored the back streets with a bunch of lamb skewers in my hands. It’s a place where the lower classes of the citizens of the empire, who received little benefit from magic, lived.

“I don’t think there is much difference between this and old neighborhoods in our country……”

No matter how much magic develops, in the end, the benefits would not spread far enough to the lower classes.

<By the way, how long do you plan on eating those skewers? Didn’t you say that it was a ‘preliminary exploration’? Do you need that many skewers for a preliminary exploration?>

“Of course.”

<…just say you like lamb skewers.>

“Hahahaha. It’s very nice here. They even sell lamb skewers on the street.”

Well, it’s not because I like lamb skewers that I am neglecting my research. I was just walking around the market street and had nothing on hand, so I got bored and just decided to buy lamb skewers. (T/N suddenly tsun tsun?)

“By the way… since we arrived here, far away from the timeline in which Aracelli is, wouldn’t there be a reason?”

<That’s right.>

It was due to the fact that right here, right now, I had the highest chance of hunting the protagonist. Which means, the protagonist must be somewhere nearby.

“What was the plot?”

<I’ll show you…>

『The Magical World, Ruled By Science!』

#Sci-Fi_Fantasy #$^&#@*!&^ #Tyrannical

#<onopoly #Development #Conquest

–

<Synopsis>

One day, a piece of paper accidentally fell. It contained amazing power, but it was not magic.

The sad life of the lower classes who were ignored and persecuted for not being able to use magic!

From now on, I will pay you back with science!

–

From the title and introduction, it’s clear that the protagonist was bloody violent since I think I’ve never seen ‘Tyrannical’ tags until now.

“By the way, what’s with that weird tag?”

<Uh… I don’t know either.>

“Hmmm…”

I was going to take a closer look at it, but suddenly I felt something ominous behind me and turned around.

“Huh?” The feeling came from deep within the alley. As I walked there, I could see someone in that dark alley filled with only piles of garbage and the sound of a meowing cat.

<There’s someon->

“Shhhh.”

<Even if I’m being loud, no one can hear me.>

Ignoring the system’s words, I hid behind the wall, and the identity of that someone was revealed.

[Protagonist Fiore]

It was a little child. At most, he was just eight years old. He was dressed in ragged clothes and his body was riddled with scars from being beaten by someone. And beside him, there was someone else.

Giiiiing-!!

‘What is that?’

When I looked closely, it was an awkward thing to call it ‘someone’. It was in the form of a man, but it was… a machine. In other words, a humanoid machine.

“Android?”

That very thing which was the furthest from the setting of magical worlds was passing something to the kid. It was clear that the scene in front of me could be considered as the <Prologue>.

‘I have to stop it!’

As soon as I had that thought, I ran into the alley, pulled out a pistol from my pocket, and was about to shoot the kid.

At that moment, the kid raised his head and looked at me.

‘Huh?’

For a moment, I stopped. It was only for a very fleeting moment, but Fiollen’s face, the protagonist of Vivienda Academy, overlapped with the little boy’s face for a moment.

It wasn’t an illusion. Because I could vividly feel his existence. However, his face disappeared in an instant, and the face returned to the face of the bloody little boy.

[Protagonist Partellian]

“Who are you?”

The moment the little boy’s frightened voice came out, an android stepped in front of him.

– Discovery of risk factors. I will rule out the irregular.

“Damn it!”

Android’s technological prowess was clearly far ahead of Earth’s science, but I had no desire to lose here. 

I have to kill the kid and get rid of him no matter what.

At that moment.

-Professor! No! If you kill that kid now, a ‘paradox’ will occur!

“Huh?”

A familiar voice echoed in my head.

It was Aracelli’s voice.