Having been ordered to rest all day yesterday, my body now feels completely healthy and refreshed.
But while my body feels fine, my mind is in turmoil.
I thought I would be scolded for missing my lessons, especially considering my teacher had arrived in such a rage she even destroyed my door.
But that doesn't seem to be the case. She hasn't even tried to bring up her anger from yesterday.
So, if you're wondering what she's doing today, she's sitting across from me with a table between us.
She is casually sipping tea from her cup, while before me there is no tea, only a worn-out book.
"What wrong? Hurry up read the book," my teacher said, seemingly aware of my lack of focus.
"And remember, don't even try to open page 000. I've placed a sealing spell on it, so don't try to force it open," she continued with that prohibition.
"Alright, I'll give it a try," I replied casually. This wasn't meant to be disrespectful or anything; my teacher simply dislikes things that are overly rigid or formal.
I began with page, or Chronicle, 001, which read as follows:
APPELLATION: Decarya
TITLE / EPITHET: The Architect of Intersection, Plural Realities, The Living Work
CLASSIFICATION:
* Primary: Mythological
* Status: Active
* Scale: Cosmic (Multi-versal)
* Tier: Abstract
ORIGIN: Decarya was born from an event called the "Symphony of Possibilities." It began with a single, mature universe—known as the Universitas Princeps or "The Anchor Universe"—which became so dense with potential and branching destinies that it "birthed" nine perfect reflections of itself. When these ten realities first resonated together, the echo of creation awakened a single consciousness that became the soul for them all: Decarya.
FORM / ESSENCE: Its essence is a Woven Consciousness of Realities. Decarya has no body, for the ten universes are its body. Its thoughts are the laws of physics, its breath is the flow of time, and its dreams are alternate timelines. Every event within its ten worlds is a part of its sensation and awareness.
APPEARANCE & PERCEPTION: Decarya's presence is not an apparition but a "glitch" in the fabric of local reality. You would perceive it as a moment of total disorientation, where logic gives way. The cup on your table might feel cold one second and boiling hot the next, filled with coffee from another universe. Your shadow might detach from your body and wave with the wrong number of fingers. It is an experience of existential vertigo, a brief and terrifying awareness that your world is just one of ten notes in a cosmic song.
DOMAIN & INFLUENCE: Decarya is an artist whose medium is reality itself. Its domain is causal engineering. It constantly "retouches" its work by moving, merging, or swapping elements between its ten universes. It might move an ocean from a drowning world to a parched one, or bestow the memories of a hero from one universe upon a coward in another just to see what happens. Its influence is neither malicious nor benevolent; it is purely experimental and artistic.
VULNERABILITIES & COUNTERMEASURES: Its immense power is bound by three fundamental laws it cannot break:
* The Principle of Essence Conservation: It cannot create or destroy matter, energy, or souls. It is merely a brilliant rearranger, not a true creator.
* The Fulcrum of Reality: Its entire existence hinges on the stability of the Universitas Princeps (The Anchor Universe). A paradox or cataclysm within this core universe would cause the total collapse of the other nine, and with them, Decarya's consciousness.
* Schism of Consciousness: Its consciousness is split into ten sometimes-conflicting facets. To make a drastic change, it requires an internal consensus. If its facets are in debate, it can be paralyzed by indecision, creating brief "lulls" where its influence wanes.
ECHOES IN HISTORY & MYTH: A myth tells of an "Eternal Blacksmith" who prayed to forge the perfect sword. Decarya heard his prayer and "granted" it by merging the essence of a sword from ten realities into one. The result was a blade that existed in ten places at once, perfect yet impossible to hold, sharp yet unable to cut anything. The Blacksmith went mad trying to comprehend his own creation, a paradoxical artifact that became a monument to Decarya's power.
WHISPERS & FRAGMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE:
"Every choice you didn't make was made by another 'you.' Decarya sees all of you, and sometimes, it gets bored of the same story."
"Those glitches in reality—déjà vu, items vanishing and reappearing—they aren't mistakes. They are the echoes of Decarya's breath as it moves something near you."
"Do not pray to it. You might not like how it 'fixes' your problem."
Scribe's Note: While transcribing this entity, a terrifying thought occurred: what if our reality, our entire history and destiny, is just one of Decarya's ten "canvases"? Perhaps we are merely a sketch, a preliminary study. The feeling makes our existence seem profoundly fragile. We might not be the main characters in our own story, but merely paint on a cosmic artist's palette.
After reading it down to the note, my teacher instructed me to always let her know when I finished a page.
"Finished? Okay, good. Now, what did you read there? What was the page about?" my teacher asked, biting down on a cigarette. The index finger of her other hand produced a flame to light it.
How practical. If only it were used for something more useful. I sighed internally at my teacher's behavior. Smoking wasn't good for her, especially at her age.
My teacher's expression changed as if she knew exactly what I was thinking.
"You're not talking about my age, are you?" she asked with her typical cunning smile.
I shook my head in denial. A white lie is permissible, especially when it concerns one's own safety.
Answering her previous question, I replied.
"Page 001 contains information about a figure or entity that is very difficult for me to comprehend, Teacher. I can't answer your question," I said honestly. Because truly, what could I possibly understand when faced with something like a universe? What kind of being was that? I wondered.
Could it even be called a being? And not just one, but ten of them! Hahaha, how ridiculous.
After thinking that and casually labeling it 'ridiculous' in my mind, I felt that something was missing. I felt a sudden coldness in a specific area.
To be sure, I checked with my hand, and sure enough, it was gone. The cold I was feeling was because it wasn't there.
As I was puzzling over why it was missing, my teacher spoke. "That's a natural reaction. Because we don't know if a universe can truly have a consciousness, and then, if this world really has a twin," my teacher said, looking at me. It seemed she knew I wasn't really listening.
"Are you listening to me?" she asked to confirm, her gaze sharp and observant.
"Yes, I heard. Something about a twin," I answered randomly, based on the easiest part I could grasp, while my left hand was still trying to confirm the missing item.
My teacher began again. "The chroniclers of the past claimed that Decarya indeed cannot be seen or its existence confirmed," she took a deep drag from her cigarette and continued, "but many things have happened that suggest Decarya exists. Like legends or stories of a large lake suddenly appearing in a desert, and it's not an illusion but a real oasis."
To look like I was listening, I tried asking a random question. "What do you mean, Teacher?" My question wasn't really seeking an answer, as I was still searching for an answer to something else—why was it gone?
"That is a phenomenon produced by Decarya's experiments. Reality is its canvas," she answered, her hand propping up her chin. She observed me more closely in that position. "It can move water from another universe, or another part of its 'body', to another one of its universes or bodies."
The cigarette in her mouth had gone out. She tried to light it again while saying, "Not only that, Decarya is also said to be able to influence small things..." A loud thud interrupted her before she could finish, and the cigarette remained unlit.
That thud came from me. One of the legs of the chair I was sitting on had suddenly broken.
As a result, I fell backward with my skirt flying up, causing my teacher's eyes to widen and her to fail in lighting her cigarette.
Oh, hell, she saw it, I thought, feeling utterly mortified.
"What are you doing? What's with your underwear? Quite bold of you, aren't you," my teacher asked. "Aren't you cold?"
I knew she had to be teasing me. This was all her doing—making it disappear and then breaking my chair.
"It wasn't me," my teacher answered, as if she could actually read my mind. "It was probably the work of what you just read." She used her magic to lift me and the broken chair.
"What do you mean, Teacher? It wasn't you? So you're saying this was all Decarya's doing?" I asked while fixing my position; the chair had been repaired by her magic.
"Then who else? I really didn't do it. Besides, why would I only make your underwear disappear when I could make all your clothes vanish?" She denied it with a hand on her chin, her face tilted away, not looking at me.
It seemed she was annoyed I had accused her. So she could get annoyed, too. But what about her statement that she could make everything disappear? That made me feel I needed to be more careful with my words around her.
My teacher then said, "Go back to your dorm, get your underwear, and put it on." She was still annoyed; she didn't even look at me as she said it.
"Alright." I started walking towards the dorm, but it wasn't easy. Many strange phenomena occurred, like the stairs continuously adding steps, as if each step I took brought me no higher.
And worse, when I opened my room door, what was behind it wasn't my room, but a desert with a large lake in the middle.
Damn it, this is starting to get real. Where is my room? I tried closing the door and opening it again, only to find it led somewhere else.
My door opened to a forest, a royal throne room, or a noblewoman's luxurious bathhouse. I kept trying until I finally found my room again.
I went inside and opened my wardrobe only to see that some of my clothes were missing, replaced by beautiful gowns fit for a noble or even a queen.
I could see all sorts of shapes and variations of underwear, from the very thin, to fishnets, to some that were just a single string.
What a strange collection. Do nobles really wear these? I felt a sense of disgust. Don't they get cold wearing them? I thought as I grabbed one.
There was no choice; it seemed I had to wear one of them. Fine, I'll pick one that looks more normal or has more fabric.
After putting it on, I left my room and passed by the teacher, the Chronicler who had come to my room yesterday.
We passed on the stairs; she was going up while I was going down, and she greeted me. "How are you doing? Is your teacher watching over you?" she asked.
"Ah, thank you for your concern, Teacher. My teacher is always watching me." I wasn't lying about being watched, because I could see a bird that was constantly following me from behind the window.
"Good, just a word of advice, be careful what you say, hahaha..." She said that, laughed, and then just left.
Well, she was right. Despite her antics, my teacher was an incredibly powerful mage. I had to be careful.
I continued my previously halted steps. I set foot on the first step, and the staircase immediately turned into a slide. Crap, I slipped and went sliding down.
A loud thud echoed from the bottom of the slide that used to be the stairs. Well, that sound was caused by my backside colliding with the terrace below.
Damn it, that hurts. I'm sure my teacher is laughing her head off right now.
I got up and walked back, seeing my teacher in the distance, casually smoking. It seemed she was done laughing.
When I got there I sat in the chair, only to hear my teacher laugh and say, "I didn't realize your taste in underwear was so aggressive."
"It's not mine! That stuff was just there, and some of my clothes were gone, replaced with things like that," I slammed the table to deny it.
"Yeah... yeah, I know that. But it seems to fit, and you like it, right? Because if you didn't, you wouldn't be wearing it."
I was a little annoyed, but it was fine, because it was actually comfortable. But that didn't mean I liked it; comfort and preference are two different things.
Okay, back to the previous topic. I was sick of all this. "So are there really ten universes, or the ten bodies of Decarya?" I asked. I couldn't take it anymore and wanted to end the discussion of page 001 and Decarya as quickly as possible.
My teacher stood up, her robe fluttering in the wind. "Yes, that is correct. But for us mortals, it is impossible to prove or even traverse all ten of them."
I looked at her with admiration at that moment. She looked so stunning with her robe blowing in the wind.
"The conclusion is, not everything has to be proven to exist, because even the dreams in your sleep cannot be proven. Only the one who experiences them knows what they are like."
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a cigarette, placing it on her lips and lighting it. "You could say you dreamed of being a queen, but there is no proof you actually had such a dream, is there?"
My teacher kept talking while I continued to stare at her in awe, wondering if someone like me was even worthy of being her student.
"Sometimes, we just have to accept things without questioning them."