Chapter 1274 — The Front End

Amorn looked in surprise at Milmina, who had already risen from the tall stone "throne," a flicker of confusion passing through eyes like molten crystal: "Why did you recall your avatar ahead of schedule? Did something go wrong with the exploration over there?"

"No... the exploration is still going on; I came back early." Milmina stood in the Courtyard of Defiance like a lighthouse, countless magical runes flickering in and out of existence, overlapping and recombining within her cloud-like skirts—but unlike before, those runes now all wore a "double image," their hazy edges radiating layer upon layer of illusions. The "Master of Magic" turned her head to glance at the sacred great stag beside her and rubbed her forehead lightly. "Ran into a bit of trouble. I need to readjust myself..."

"Something went wrong?! Are you all right?" Amorn tensed at once. "Did something in the Divine Kingdom of the God of War affect you?"

"Nothing to do with the Divine Kingdom of the God of War." Milmina stepped down from the dais; the rune bands coiled about her body, used to suppress and isolate mental contamination, silently came apart in the air, scattering into motes of starlight. "...We completed the You-field test. In the course of it we confirmed the wave nature manifested by magic."

"...Ah, the wave nature of magic..." Amorn hesitated half a second, nodded slightly, and said, "Then what you are doing now is..."

Milmina looked at him in silence, hesitated two or three seconds, and then said with a helpless air, "With your intelligence, it would be very hard to explain it clearly to you..."

Amorn: "..."

What vulgarity is this—he had meant to rebuke her loudly, but he suspected Milmina had a point. If this "Master of Mysteries" really dumped a ton of theoretical jargon on him, he, a God of Nature, would certainly not survive it, and would end up humiliated besides.

Having confirmed that Milmina did not intend to explain the matter in detail, Amorn took it philosophically. He merely swayed his head left and right, and once he had made sure that this "uninvited freeloading tenant" showed no abnormality beyond looking a little tired, he relaxed. Heading toward the spot where he usually sprawled out to browse the web, he said, "Since you are finishing early on your side, I will go back and rest too. Leave the equipment here for now—those technicians said we could just ignore it... If we ever want to send an avatar 'out' for some fresh air in the future, the apparatus here can still be put to use."

Milmina stood before the dais, noncommittal. She had not explained the magic-observation experiment to Amorn in any detail, but just as he was about to turn and walk away, she could not help speaking: "Amorn, have you ever been curious about all things in the world—curious about the... explanation hidden beneath the surface of this world?"

"You mean curiosity?" Amorn stopped, turning his head toward Milmina. "Of course I am curious. Every sentient being is curious, though what I am curious about may differ from yours. You wonder at the mysteries of magic and the order of the elements; I attend to the transformations of life and the laws of evolution... but in essence, we are both curious about the 'explanation' behind all things in the world... Even the most inflexible God of War, I believe, has things He has been curious about."

At this the God of Nature paused, gazing into Milmina's eyes: "Why do you ask that all of a sudden?"

"I was only thinking about the form in which this world we live in persists and operates... how all these seemingly unrelated things come to exist in this dimension in harmony and consistency; the boundary between magic and matter seems clear yet is in truth blurred; the power of the mind can interfere with the state of the material world... Behind these phenomena that everyone takes for granted, might there be a unified, wholly self-consistent explanation?" Milmina said softly, her voice carrying a faint tremor—a tremor that was somehow like a kind of "awe." "Amorn, is the world presenting itself to us in its present form a necessity or an accident? Or merely an exceedingly brief instant within some grander system of evolution?"

Amorn kept his posture: "...Huh?"

But Milmina seemed not to notice her old friend's reaction. She was like one caught in some uncontrollable vortex of the mind, letting her thoughts run free: "Perhaps we are like a tiny insect living in a vast pond, drifting aimlessly upon the water, our lifespan no more than a single instant. A wind blows, rippling the pond into layer upon layer of waves, and in that instant we feel we have glimpsed the truth of the universe, and believe the universe to be a water surface covered in waves—but the wind will soon die down, the ripples will gradually smooth away, and our limited lifespan and understanding will never be able to perceive it..."

Amorn came to a complete halt in his departure. He turned around, his light-filled eyes resting on Milmina for a long while, and suddenly felt that with his intelligence he really could not make out what she was saying...

But soon the "God of Nature" gave his head a slight shake. He did not understand what deeper meaning lay in the "scene" Milmina had described, but he seemed to guess the reason for her sighing so. He lowered his head slightly and said in a very serious tone, "You glimpsed certain truths in that 'experiment,' but those truths do not fit your 'common sense,' and so you are doubting whether there is something wrong with your understanding of this world—or doubting whether there is something wrong with this world?"

Milmina's expression froze for a moment, as though she had not expected Amorn to pierce straight through to her state. Then she laughed, a little self-mockingly: "...That really does not sound like a thought a 'god' ought to have, does it?"

"But it is a feeling mortals have all the time—whenever they advance along the road of exploration, whenever they come into contact with something entirely new, whenever their civilization takes another step forward... Mortals, weak from birth, are used to the vastness and breadth of this world and to the 'surprises' that await at every step they take. It is we so-called 'gods' who are thrown into helpless confusion like this when faced with a new truth. But... Milmina, your present state is actually a good thing."

"A good thing?"

"You have come into contact with something beyond your understanding, and from the sound of it, that thing has overturned your understanding enormously. Now you have come back, your head full of curiosity and doubt, and you can still sigh over all this with me—think of the God of War, who went mad in the face of the 'trade war'; think of the dragon gods who lost control back then... You are lucid and sane right now. Have you not noticed that?"

Milmina's eyes widened slightly, as though waking from a long dream, and only after some time did a smile slowly spread across her face.

She looked at Amorn, recalling the "scene" she had seen and the conjectures she had formed in that wondrous state not long ago. She imagined, she sketched out a view from a higher dimension—and from that vantage she seemed able to see another "appearance" of the old friend before her: this being named "Amorn," composed of countless quantities and variables, a ripple pattern crossed and influenced by countless ripples while itself trembling ceaselessly... drifting in the omnipresent cosmic background radiation.

...

Firna raised her head and gazed at the foul, heavy clouds high above that blotted out the sunlight, watching the thin, feeble radiance of the sun struggle down to the base of the clouds and form a dim, twilight-like curtain across the sky. Amid the drifting of the high clouds, she suddenly broke the silence in a soft voice: "The wind up high has changed direction again..."