Chapter 13
“Sound can exist while also not existing, you know.”
“Hm, how is that possible?”
“Ah, you don’t know? This is why primitive medieval people are so….”
I said, puffing out my chest confidently.
Let me show you the greatness of modern civilization.
This is called noise cancelation.
It gets rid of noise.
“It’s simple. If you play the exact same sound at the same time, tada! They interfere with each other and the sound disappears!”
Of course, I didn’t know the detailed principle either.
It was nothing more than knowledge I’d picked up from YouTube and Shorts, dressed up to sound plausible.
But even without complicated electrical engineering knowledge, we can use computers and smartphones just fine.
Results are all that matter.
Who gives a damn about theory?
As for the principle, you can just talk your way around it.
As long as it works, that’s enough.
Anyway, to this crazy old geezer who probably didn’t know a thing about physics, anything would sound new.
“Interesting…. Let’s try an experiment.”
The old man nodded as if intrigued by my words. He snapped his fingers lightly.
A translucent face appeared in midair.
The ghostly face began to hum.
Vwoom-.
A low, strange sound reverberated through the space.
The old man snapped his fingers once more.
Vwoom-.
This time, the exact same sound came from the opposite side.
Two sounds filled the space.
“It’s a spell used for multi-casting. I never thought I’d use it for something like this.”
The old man added an explanation I hadn’t asked for.
But the result was a failure.
The sound didn’t disappear. Instead, the two sounds overlapped and became a louder, more unpleasant resonance that shook the cave.
“…Hm?”
The old man’s questioning gaze turned to me.
Cold sweat ran down my spine.
‘Uh, was that not it?’
My mind went blank. It felt like my heart had dropped.
‘Shit. What? What? I’m screwed.’
“How did this happen?”
The old man’s voice was calm as he asked.
But I felt no relief at all.
Because if it was that old man, he seemed like the type to kill me calmly.
Alarm bells blared in my head.
If I answered wrongly here, it wouldn’t end with my arm being dismantled like before.
I might end up completely taken apart, one of the organs in a collection of jars.
I desperately racked my brain and blurted out whatever came to mind.
“A-ah! I think I said it wrong! So, um, you have to say the opposite sound! The opposite!”
“The opposite sound? What’s that?”
A faint wrinkle formed between the old man’s brows.
“Um… well… sound is a wave, right…? And waves can be flipped upside down…?”
Damn it. I don’t know. I’m a humanities major.
My shallow knowledge picked up from the internet had already run dry.
But the crazy old man was smarter than I’d expected.
After listening to my rambling, he fell into thought for a moment, then slapped his knee.
“Hmm, I think I understand what you mean. You see sound as both a substance and energy, don’t you?”
“Huh? Yes….”
“What’s interesting is this point. You didn’t see the opposite of existence as nothingness.
Until now, I thought all things had only existence and nonexistence.
What exists exists, and what doesn’t exist doesn’t. Isn’t that right?”
“….”
“But hearing you, that doesn’t seem to be the case. You’re saying this:
If matter exists, then antimatter exists too…. Fascinating, very fascinating.”
The old man had accepted it all on his own.
“If the positive and the negative combine and return to nothingness…. A new theory. Good, let’s try again.”
After concentrating for a long while, the old man snapped his fingers once more.
A strange murmur, different from before yet somehow similar, echoed through the space again.
Then the thing I wanted happened.
The moment the two sounds collided, they vanished as if it were a lie.
Perfect silence.
Inside the cave, only my rough breathing remained.
“…It opened.”
I didn’t know what was going on, but anyway, it had worked.
The box opened quietly, without a sound.
The old man looked at me with glittering, madness-filled eyes.
“You truly are amazing. Your idea is outstanding. Reclassifying all things as positive and negative?
It’s a concept I’ve never seen in my life. It’ll be worth researching from here on out….”
I had to force myself to stay calm under his praise, because I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Thanks to you, the contradiction has been resolved. Born from sound, yet the result is nothingness.
It has become possible to speak of nothingness perfectly. How did you come up with this?”
“Just… by instinct.”
I brushed it off.
In truth, I had nothing else to say.
But that answer seemed to satisfy the old man greatly.
The old man burst out laughing.
“Kahahaha! Instinct! Good, very good! That’s an answer I like…
Magic is, after all, the realm of sensation and intuition, not reason and logic. But fools only like formulas….
Yes, it’s been a long time since I met a wild genius like you. This is very enjoyable.”
The old man, looking delighted, took out the item in the box and tossed it to me.
I caught it reflexively. A heavy weight in my palm.
A skill book, huh?
What landed in my hand was the gleaming golden Golden Skill Book he’d said was a hidden piece that boosted magic attack power.
My reward had finally appeared.
I’d been through hell, but this one skill book would more than make up for all that pain.
But why was that old man still just standing there?
If he’d given me my reward, he should get lost already.
As if he had read my thoughts, the old man spoke again.
“You didn’t give me an answer. You gave me a new problem.
This is a kind of teaching that can’t be repaid with a simple reward.”
The old man stepped closer and said,
“So I’ll give you a gift as well. I’ll teach you one spell you want. Say anything.”
It looked like a legendary event had just triggered.
I nodded at once.
To be able to choose the magic I wanted!
Then didn’t that mean I could even get a rainbow-grade skill?
No. Maybe the magic this man could teach me wasn’t limited to that level.
I had a strong feeling he might teach me magic beyond the Tower’s rules.
“Can I think about it for a bit?”
“Of course. But your time doesn’t seem infinite.”
At that, I flinched and looked at the timer.
[Time remaining: 1 minute 30 seconds]
Damn it, I didn’t have much time.
I quickly sorted out my thoughts.
What magic mattered most?
The first thing that came to mind was something simple and powerful.
Could a spell like this work too?
“Instant-kill cheat. Is there no spell that lets me kill an opponent the moment I see them?”
“Of course there is. I can say with certainty that if this spell existed, it could kill even demigods.
But the price is your lifespan. Each time you use it, you’ll age ten years. Would you still learn it?”
I recoiled and shook my head. Ten years? Was he joking?
But there was a payoff.
To my knowledge, there is absolutely no such spell on the skill book list.
This old man could really give me ‘any spell at all.’
[Time remaining: 1 minute]
I had no time. I started naming the things I’d always dreamed of.
“Immortality?”
“If what you want is a curse that makes you unable to die no matter what wound you suffer or what pain you endure, that’s entirely possible.”
The old man’s black eyes gleamed ominously.
At that terribly sinister voice, I immediately backed off.
[Time remaining: 45 seconds]
“What about a money-duplication spell?”
“In exchange, everyone in the world will know your existence and location.”
“Shit, if they’re all like this then there’s nothing to choose from. Are you kidding me?”
Whatever powerful magic I named, the old man always rattled off the horrific risk that came with it.
Thanks to that, I couldn’t make a choice.
[Time remaining: 30 seconds]
The old man looked at me and said in a low voice,
“You need to choose what you truly want, what you truly need. There’s no point just trying to pick a strong spell.
Strong magic comes with a strong price. That’s a fundamental law of the world. And you’re not yet prepared to pay that price.
Pick a spell that suits you. Choose the power you can handle.”
At the old man’s words, I fell into thought again.
What did I want to do right now? What did I need most at this moment?
It definitely wasn’t power or wealth or anything like that.
Those were tools.
But tools for what?
Why was I climbing the Tower again?
Why had I become a mage?
Suddenly, one scene flashed through my mind.
Me clutching my phone all day, letting out meaningless chuckles. My joy. My peaceful day.
“…Right, I started all this because I wanted to land a featured post.”
I understood everything in that moment.
Why I lived.
What I existed for.
At this moment, my mind leaped to a higher plane.
The logic behind everything in the world came to me as self-evident.
[Time remaining: 15 seconds]
Yeah. Forum life. Free forum life.
How many days had it been already? Ever since I’d been scared the National Intelligence Service might track me, scared that some bastard demigod would find me, I hadn’t been able to write even one post in peace.
I needed anonymity. Perfect anonymity.
The ability to browse the gallery in comfort without being traced by anyone!
That was the magic I truly needed.
I lifted my head and looked at the old man.
“Sir, do you perhaps… know what an IP is?”
***
The old man didn’t understand my question. That was only natural.
But it seemed he interpreted my request in his own fantasy-style way.
“Hmm. You want to erase your existence from all causality in the world.
As expected, you come up with amusing ideas.
You want to become a ghost free from fate’s pursuit?”
He looked at me with interested eyes for a moment, then snapped his fingers.
Black particles wrapped around my body.
It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation.
I only felt an odd sense of dissonance, as if a thin membrane had formed between the world and me.
“There. It’s done. You’ve now stepped outside causality.
You’ve become able to evade fate’s pursuit.
Unfortunately, it’s a spell I’ve never even tested myself, so it probably isn’t all that sturdy.”
“Uh… there’s no side effect, right?”
“Well, that depends on how you look at it. Everything is like the two sides of a coin—existing at the same time.”
The old man gave an incomprehensible answer and turned around.
His form began to fade little by little along with a scattering of light.
The walls and ceiling of the hidden cave were disappearing with it.
“For some reason, I feel like we’ll be seeing each other again soon.”
With those words as his last, the old man and the bizarre laboratory completely vanished.
[Time remaining: 0 seconds]
[Congratulations on clearing Tower 5th Floor (EXTREME).]
[First Clear Bonus has been applied!]
[Rank 1 Bonus has been applied!]
[All stats +10]
[Mana Stone 800g]
The familiar clear message appeared before my eyes.
It seemed I hadn’t leveled up, so there was no skill book.
But I didn’t care.
After all, I’d already gotten a gold skill book as a hidden piece, and more importantly, I’d obtained something far more valuable than a skill book.
As soon as I left the Tower, I ran straight home.
And without hesitation, I turned on the computer.
My heart was pounding like crazy.
I wondered how exactly this magic would work.
I logged into Hunter Gallery and wrote a post with my usual clickbait title.
[Title: Hunter bro’s little sister (17) got pregnant—what do I do?]
[(Cat photo staring with a pitiful expression)]
[Hunter bro… what were you expecting?]
And then, something unimaginable happened.