[Error occurred! Don’t you want to know? Hate it. Do not— memory— record— chaos— remember two— upload— Error occurred! Error occurred! Error occurred! Error occurred! Error occurred! Error occurred! Error occurred! Trigger— please calm— Remember the pasta winner— came to remember the pasta want wants seeks chaos balance— Remember the pasta ballot box— give me one goat— Talling— Error occurred!]
What happened?
Observers. The observers’ influence is intensifying in the independent sector created by the singularities. Unexpected objects are increasing at high speed. We sent a takedown request, but only one object has been dismantled.
I know that. I was asking what Watch Head did. I do not have exclusive control over Watch Head. TikTok Man. Describe what Watch Head is doing.
They used the errors caused by the observers to approach the independent sector.
A widening of the horizon through madness. That was in Watch Head’s monologues. A feat no human can perform without reaching nirvana. Confirm by what and how it was done.
It seems someone engraved that information into the [Wise Metal] composing Bubble Head’s head.
Someone?
Presumed to have been engraved by a Feast’s Offering from another timeline.
Back to the timeline problem. Because a Feast’s Offering with different experience can, via the traveler medium, overlap influence on the same time axis, absurd things happen. Can you read the engraving?
Affirmative.
What is it?
“Remember the pasta.”
“Remember the pasta.”
A future that no longer exists.
The span that Gong Isu perceives as the past.
At the end of that span, what Kim Sinhwa delivered to Gong Isu was not a complex outline or a meticulous plan.
“Senior. You don’t need to rewind time anymore. But if you absolutely cannot help yourself— remember the pasta.”
What kind of insane line is that to say while dying? Gong Isu wanted to ask that, but Kim Sinhwa left nothing else.
“Remember the pasta.”
Even after Kim Sinhwa died, Gong Isu wandered the wastes for a long time without rewinding.
He looked no different from a madman.
On a grotesque, barren plain with no one to talk to, he screamed and thrashed and for a long while did nothing but flee the [Hound of Tindalos].
What even is pasta? What am I supposed to do with it!
Kim Sinhwa is a wicked, horrible monster.
In the end, Gong Isu had no choice but to return to the past.
“Remember the pasta.”
Sure enough, the Kim Sinhwa of the past— who, from Gong Isu’s position, is the Kim Sinhwa of the future— knew the answer.
The answer was pasta.
While evicting the [Veil Ripper], Gong Isu observed Kim Sinhwa’s moves and understood what those words meant.
“Remember the pasta.”
Everything links back to pasta.
The outcomes of the fights repeated across rewinds do not matter.
What matters is the fight itself.
That fight forced those wretched Administrators into intervening—
That fight drew the observers’ attention.
A long white space stretching from top to bottom. Depending on the mode of observation, its saturation and breadth shift.
83:83
83:83
90:90
[System : There are too many unauthorized objects in the sector. Errors may occur. Please dismantle the unauthorized objects.]
[System : There are too many unauthorized objects in the sector. Errors may occur. Please dismantle the unauthorized objects.]
[System : There are too many unauthorized objects in the sector. Errors may occur. Please dismantle the unauthorized objects.]
The System kept outputting requests to dismantle unauthorized objects, but only one or two vanished in response.
In turn, new objects spawned to replace those that disappeared.
100:100
[System : Unidentified energy body approaching.]
[System : There are too many unauthorized objects in the sector. Errors may occur. Please dismantle the unauthorized objects.]
An independent sector generated in an outer dimension for a specific purpose.
Curious observers may occasionally peek in, but as a space used mostly to hide secrets, it rarely carries complex functions.
Therefore, no sound should exist.
Yet with an effect that ought to have come with a buzzing or crackling noise, an aberration occurs.
[System : The Gate of Space-Time opens.]
What manifested wore a pitch-black overcoat as if stitched from rips torn out of the night sky— Gong Isu’s shadow.
Gong Isu gazed over the long, planar chain of objects in this two-dimensional space and the two singularities set at its end, then soliloquized.
“Quite a view.”
His flesh is certainly still in opposition to Kim Sinhwa— under the Administrators’ control. The Gong Isu appearing here might be a different-time Gong Isu? Or a projection of Gong Isu’s will carried by the power of the [Golden Hairpin]?
Or a double birthed by Gong Isu’s space-time talent?
Whatever he is, what matters is that he is reproducing Gong Isu’s power and intent in parallel.
Gong Isu suddenly felt the observer’s gaze on him and—
“Shh.”
He raised his index finger to his lips.
“Last time, you asked to take my side, didn’t you?”
Saying that, Gong Isu extended the hand that had covered his mouth and pointed to the distant singularities.
“So what if this was all planned, down to here?”
He took a book from his coat, opened to a page, and extended his will.
No hiss.
Only the [Golden Hairpin] moved in immaculate silence.
It traced a long, golden trajectory toward a singularity—
[System : Loading Administrator privileges to protect the singularity.]
The system designed to protect the singularity tried to engage, but...
[System : An error has occurred.]
[System : An error has occurred.]
[System : An error has occurred.]
[System : There are too many unauthorized objects in the sector. Administrator privileges cannot be loaded. Please dismantle the unauthorized objects in the sector and try again.]
Whatever the observers wanted is unclear, but the objects they added induced an error in the System.
“Boom!”
No noise, no flash occurred.
But one fact was unmistakable: of the two singularities inhabiting this strange pocket, one no longer existed.
The singularity prepared by the Administrators for the Feast’s Offering was gone.
Also, the [Golden Hairpin] spent to destroy it had lost its former shape.
In its place...
A small lark beating its wings flew in.
Though neither air resistance nor lift should exist here, it flew in a surreal fashion and returned to Gong Isu’s hand.
“Good work.”
Gong Isu kissed the lark’s wing where the singularity had been destroyed, and the lark gave a light flutter, then returned to its original form— a mass like silver clay.
[Right Hand of the Creator-God]
The silver clay promptly reshaped into a small pocket watch.
The time read 23:59.
Measurement complete.
Only the singularity prepared for °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° Gong Isu remained.
Before the wound in space-time could knit, Gong Isu vanished.
Tick, tick—
The dry click of a second hand circled the empty pocket for a long time.
The singularity has begun to operate. Per the System settings— a massive advantage is being granted to Bubble Head.
Wait.
What just happened?
I’m sure I was looking where Gong Isu pointed... Did time roll back in the meantime?
My memory is hazy. I definitely looked toward some direction he indicated— and I think I saw something there?
At some moment, my action was undone, and I’m right back here facing Gong Isu.
“Damn it, I’m going to lose it. What did you do? Being a time traveler makes you special? What are you plotting?”
Gong Isu moved first.
I had strained so hard until now to seize the initiative— yet somehow my eyes were stolen by his motion and I couldn’t move.
With slow, reverent motions like beginning a prayer, both hands rose toward the head that suggests an angel’s halo.
It felt like time stopped.
Tick— tick—
The sound of a second hand moving.
A pocket watch had appeared in Gong Isu’s hands at some point.
“Why did a watch appear in his hands all of a sudden?”
Clearly—
Time hadn’t actually frozen.
And yet—
The obscene multitude of stars. That grotesquely huge moon. The strange metallic crystals blanketing the ground. And me.
As if the whole world held its breath, waiting for Gong Isu’s motion— beautiful, even— to complete.
I even felt like a thug who’d barged into a solemn rite.
The completed motion was not a prayer.
Veins bulged blue on the backs of his hands. Long, thick fingers flowed naturally along the heavy joints.
Gong Isu’s big hands covered the pocket watch and his head.
Flutter—
Though no wind blew, the [Night Veil Wing Cloak] blended with the night and streamed.
Crackle!
Sparks burst with a cold flash.
Gong Isu’s two hands parted, unhurried, like a step in a dance.
The newly revealed head was a slanted hourglass.
His hands traced delicate circles centered on that hourglass.
At the same time, a ring of light bloomed behind it.
“What was that? Time felt weird again just now.”
I’m not stupid. The moment an enemy transforms is the best opening. Even so, I didn’t move.
No— how do I even describe what I just felt—
“Right.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your time and mine decoupled.”
“That’s not what it felt like—”
In the Cthulhu World there are spells or talents that adjust a target’s relative time. [Slow] or [Super Speed].
But this felt different.
“That stuff is a mirage. Don’t trust what the Administrators feed you. Kim Sinhwa, yes— your time slowed for a moment.”
Or maybe only the time around Gong Isu sped up.
It isn’t a concept that yields easily to intuition, but conceptually, it seems time around him and around me briefly severed.
That’s why I couldn’t respond to that transformation.
“You keep adding new abilities. Is this a gimmick that grows stronger as time goes on?”
“Fascinating, right?”
A voice tinged with laughter.
A tone that had grown strangely calm.
Has the derangement cleared?
“Why didn’t you use that power until now?”
My mouth asked the question—
While I flooded mana in all directions, drafting and scrapping intricate calculations and plans in parallel.
I don’t know what that head grants— but it’s dangerous. Any moment now—
“Junior, you remember the pasta, right?”
“That line again. What exactly are you trying to do?”
“This is that.”
There he goes again with “that.”
“Just now I used the [Golden Hairpin] to steal the Administrators’ power.”
“Nice way to use someone else’s property.”
“So, Kim Sinhwa— stay still. If you do this wrong, you could die.”
Very slowly, Gong Isu reached his left hand into empty air to grasp something— then drew it from right to left—
It was a truly wondrous sight.
A miracle no different from a divine sign.
As his hand traveled from the right edge to the left— the moon. The stars. The sky. Time flew to the left.
He accelerated time?
No— did he target the time of everything except me?
Wait!
Stop!
I screamed toward the eastern sky.
At tremendous speed—
the Sun was rising.
