Chapter 518, The Whole Story (5) |
Chapter 518, The Whole Story (5)
To think that time isn't always the same. I pondered, chewing over what Kang Changho had said. Of course, I was aware that the length of a day on Earth and Alphaui was different. Still, shouldn't the unit of a single second itself apply equally to everyone?
As I harbored such doubts, Kang Changho, who was sitting across from me, soon changed his posture.
“There was a time when I, like you, didn't understand the principles of the world.”
With that, he briefly stood up from his seat. It was to take out some documents he had placed in a nearby drawer.
“Documents?”
I wondered why A4 papers were coming out of a piece of furniture meant for storing towels, but a quite unbelievable story was found within those papers...
***
Alphaui.
However, the very magic that allowed the planet's civilization to flourish eventually caused problems due to its overwhelming allure. Materializing the imagination that only existed in one's mind. When such immense power was granted to living beings, the Alpha-Aurians had no choice but to bow their heads at a rapid pace.
Down, down, down.
Because they had to constantly lower their gaze to observe the center of the planet that radiated magic power. Alphaui's inevitably found it difficult to chase after stars and romance. If they studied magic in that time, they could create a blazing phenomena with their own hands; how many scholars would have given up this omnipotent sensation to indulge in things like constellations?
There was a reasonable explanation as to why Alphaui didn't develop much scientifically. Besides, the fact that the dominant species living on that planet were severely nearsighted was also a problem in its own way. It would have been better if the starlight densely embroidering the black night sky could at least be seen with the naked eye, but Alphauians had to develop telescopes suited for their eyes just to see even that.
“Lemming. Come to think of it, wasn't our home planet too barren an environment for aerospace technology to develop?”
They barely figured out the fact that the universe didn't revolve around them. They were a race that only thought of interstellar travel after closely analyzing the behavior of the Gisimche. At the very least, Alphauians didn't view space as an explorable region. Even though right now is an era where the Voyager probe even enjoys traveling alone.
“To attach the title of barren to a place so rich in mana resources...”
But well. Surprisingly, even if Alphauirns had paid attention to the stars earlier, nothing much would have changed. Space navigation was actually structurally difficult for them.
Mana. This is, fundamentally, not a power exclusive to living beings. Rather, the coordinate for energy generation itself is strongly bound to the planet. It's as if a base station that can never be moved by the power of living creatures alone is embedded in one space; how could those squishy marine creatures blinded by magic even dream of communicating with the extraterrestrial?
“It feels somewhat awkward to call Alphaui barren, but still, I can't deny it.”
“Hmm.”
“Unlike the [Gisimche], all our civilizational resources were tied to the planet, so it was truly difficult to resolve to travel between stars.”
“That's why our Archmage here and I had to use an even more absurd method called soul manipulation.”
“Anyway, since it was mentioned, I'll continue, but how did those things called Gisimche actually move across planets?”
“Who knows?”
“Honestly, I still think they condensed the power of their original parent planet to reach the neighboring region. If they consumed an immense amount of resources to the point of destroying their home, they could probably move that much.”
“Since their bodies are uniquely composed, I think it might surprisingly be physical movement...”
The scholars of the alien planet fell into conversation for a moment. In terms of space, the planet Alphaui was blind to the point that it could be described as a 'total mess.' However, since those gathered in this mansion were individuals who had succeeded in handling souls.
“Anyway, that's enough background explanation on why Alphaui was reluctant to sail to other worlds.”
At this point, the Chief Engineer added his testimony.
“Lemming.”
“What?”
“Since you've already traveled all the way here in the form of a spiritual body, you must have definitely figured out this fact.”
“What fact?”
“That the soul was actually a complex of will and matter.”
“Ah.”
“There just isn't a proper observation method yet. But the souls we possess are definitely made of a small amount of particles.”
“What does that have to do with time?”
“For now, let's start with the assumption that the soul has 'weight'.”
Although it was a body utilizing incomplete knowledge, the other party had also directly manipulated his own soul anyway. So, thanks to his past experience, the Engineer realized a part of the essence of this world. He could also unfold the above argument.
“But if a soul is a concept formed by clumping up some particles, there's a high probability that it's at least heavier than light.”
“Light?”
“Yeah, Lemming. Actually, the soul had more mass than light...”
The introduction was a bit long. The alien creature that occupied Kang Changho's body was mentioning the part where Alphauirns were scientifically behind, as well as the characteristics of interstellar travel and souls, and then-.
Thud.
He unfolded the documents he had brought and showed them to the kidnapped target. In the center of that white document, a sentence was written in a language both of them could read.
[Theory of Relativity]
A phrase that any Korean around this age group would have probably heard at least once. However, only the Archmage tilted his head upon seeing it. He was busy struggling with an F-rank body that hadn't undergone the 2nd Awakening. And even after his power bloomed into a complete S-rank, there were so many incidents that Earth science was always out of his mind.
‘The intelligence itself is actually quite decent, but this body has too little knowledge...’
Moreover, the real Kim Giryeo, the body's owner, had suffered severe shock from starvation, leaving a blank space in his mind to the point where even completely obvious information didn't come to mind at all.
“Don't panic and listen.”
That was when Kim Giryeo started reading the other contents of the document with his eyes. The man holding the A4 paper with his hands calmly opened his mouth.
“You probably remember the process of traveling across planets as being very short. And in reality, the flow of time that hit the soul travelers was indeed a mere instant, but...”
“_ _”
“That only felt short to us; in fact, outside in the mortal world, time flowed extremely fast.”
“_ _”
“The method we used when settling on Earth is a kind of 'ultra-high-speed interstellar travel', but unfortunately, since the mass of the soul isn't lighter than light, perfect teleportation can't be achieved even with sorcery.”
“Wh-what?”
“And to put it out there in advance, during this time when time flowed so asymmetrically, a whopping 3,000 years or so had passed unilaterally on the home planet we left.”
3,000. Suddenly bringing up a unit like 3,000 years in a place like this?
“Furthermore, the reason this body, which was executed a long time before, exists in the same era as you is actually just a coincidence.”
“What does that mean now?”
“According to this logic that time flows differently when the soul moves, wouldn't there normally be a slight time gap between the two mages?”
“Damn it. That makes sense. But in reality, there wasn't even any sense of incongruity.”
“My guess is that because the paths we treaded through the darkness were different, we experienced time dilation differently purely based on luck.”
“What dilation?”
“Anyway, there's such a thing.”
“What kind of explanation is that?”
“Coincidentally, I haven't been able to clearly see through the cause of the margin of error yet.”
But the document the other party unfolded and showed was equally shocking anyway. Kim Giryeo put on a dumbfounded face.
“No, I mean... even so, I immediately accepted the meaning that time doesn't always flow the same way.”
“That's fast!”
“But even so, the number 3,000 years... is a bit...”
“But what can you do when that's the current truth? Fortunately, the daily standard is Earth. We even had our travel time greatly shortened for unknown reasons. Considering the distance gap, it wouldn't be strange if there was a massive time difference. So, I suspect this might be because our souls passed through some specific structure beyond that darkness. Assuming this, it slowly paints the background picture of why Alphauirans are observing Earth in real-time through something called [Gates].”
“That almost makes me chuckle.”
“Do you perhaps still not understand at all? To use another analogy, you can just sum it up as us riding a carriage that can only move toward the future, and we just arrived faster than expected.”
A whopping 10 years by Alphaui's standards. The Engineer, who had died much earlier than the Archmage, once again rustled the documents. It seemed he had researched a lot on his own while he was the first to settle on Earth. He then revealed an additional fact.
“By the way, to be completely straightforward, because so much time has passed, the new home planet project on our home planet succeeded.”
“Oh my...”
This meant that the Alphauirns had safely migrated to a neighboring planet. Put differently, it's the same as saying Earthlings migrated to Mars.
“Magic power is a force bound to a planet, so migrating was extremely difficult; did the surviving generation of Alphauirns somehow held on eventually solve the problem?”
“They even almost completed the planetary modification [=Terraforming] project.”
Kang Changho lightly shrugged and said.
“For your information, I obtained these facts by directly flipping open and examining the corpses of the Alphauirns who dared to wear human skin. So there's no mistake.”
“What did you say?”
“...Hmm, think back carefully to the story from that time when I told you I had met the gate creator. I definitely didn't lie about that.”
The Chief Engineer revealed the deception he had committed once again. But Kim Giryeo immediately focused on another topic.
‘Setting aside the authenticity of the claim just made, assuming the Alphauirns survived until a point where a lot of time had passed, there's a part that doesn't make sense.’
Therefore, a question popped out.
“They safely escaped the dying planet...”
“Hmm?”
“They also got a decent new planet. Then they should be busy building up their civilization there right now...”
“Mhm.”
“Why did the Alphauirns, who lived for 3,000 more years, suddenly take an interest in a place like Earth?”
It was a reasonable doubt. A race that almost perished once due to mana depletion was affecting a distant planet on an incomprehensible scale... For your information, after activation, [Gates] ran on Earth's magic power as its driving force.
However, just like how a certain Archmage cast the soul manipulation magic, if the starting point of the miracle was very far away, that technology fundamentally had to be completed using the resources of the binary star system.
“Could the Alphauirns perhaps be in Earth's atmosphere in an invisible state?”
“Haha.”
Kim Giryeo couldn't understand and expressed his small doubt. But the answer that came back to this was--.
“No. They are still within the range of that home with two stars, and they are consuming the binary star system's resources every time they open a Gate.”
The man with blue-purple hair continued.
“It probably doesn't make sense to your common sense.”
“_ _”
“But there's naturally a reason why they are committing such waste. You'll understand if you look at this page...”
“Why don't you just untie me from this chair first?”
Kang Changho ignored Kim Giryeo's remark and flipped the document over again in front of him. But the next A4 paper he showed contained quite basic materials.
[The Death of a Star]
[1. Stars with a mass similar to or smaller than the Sun]
[2. In the case of stars with a mass greater than the Sun]
They were concepts he hadn't managed to recall because he had been too busy surviving all this time.
‘Huh? This looks like a curriculum Kim Giryeo learned once when he was attending school...’
But just looking at the pictures would still be ambiguous. For the sake of the dim-sighted deep-sea creature, his compatriot soon offered some help.
“Lemming. First of all, the sun of the home planet we originally lived on was a case where its mass was heavier than the Sun.”
“Of course it would be.”
“But think about it based on this basic knowledge that Earthlings learn from their youth.”
“Hmm?”
“The phenomenon where the star's core density and temperature increase for unknown reasons, and the star's diameter gradually changes as if its balance has collapsed...”
“_ _”
“Come to think of it, wasn't that commonly seen in our home planet?”
The one tied to the chair gradually broke into a cold sweat.
Author's Thoughts
Hi, from now on, I will update this novel 3 chapters/week. Thank you for all your support so far:)