"Teacher, don't you think the king's death was very sudden?"
I asked with a muffled voice; a result of my face still being buried in the cradle of her chest.
"No, it wasn't sudden," replied my teacher. She then released her grip, allowing me to break free from the hug.
"How can you be so sure of that?" I had my own opinion about the king's death, which was so very sudden; we hadn't even met for a full day.
"Get your book and open page 014."
"Fine." I took the book and opened page 014, which contained:
APPELLATION: Scarlet
TITLE / EPITHET: The Web of Destiny, The Red Weaver, The Heart of Causality
CLASSIFICATION:
Primer: Mythological
Status: Active
Scale: Cosmic
Level: Abstract
ORIGIN: Scarlet was not born. It came into existence along with the first law of cause and effect. When the first action in the universe triggered the first consequence, an invisible "thread" formed between them. From the central point where all these threads converged, Scarlet's consciousness awoke. It is the embodiment of the principle that every action has an equal and opposite reaction; a natural law made alive.
FORM / ESSENCE: Its essence is a Living Causal Structure. It is not a spider that weaves the web of fate; it IS the web of fate itself. Its "body" is a nexus outside of space and time, resembling a giant spider woven from crystalline red light and shadow. The infinite millions of threads of destiny are extensions of its body, connecting it to every living being.
APPEARANCE & PERCEPTION: Scarlet itself is almost never seen. What can be sensed by those with sensitivity is its Web. For most, this is just intuition or a premonition. But for those who "see," every living being is connected to a thin, glowing red thread, which stretches from their heart toward an unseen horizon. This thread will glow brightest at crucial moments in a person's life: at the moment of falling in love, at a great sacrifice, or at the moment of death. The air around these threads vibrates with the energy of potential.
DOMAIN / INFLUENCE: Its domain is destiny and consequence.
Passive Influence: It is the mechanic of fate. It does not decide a person's fate, but it maintains the structure that ensures all choices have consequences. Every decision made by a living being sends a vibration along their thread back to it, and it reflexively balances the web in response.
Anomalous Influence: Its Web can be disturbed. With enough power, a thread of fate can be "plucked" or even "cut."
Plucking a Thread: Will cause a sudden and dramatic fated event in someone's life (a chance encounter, a freak accident, etc.).
Cutting a Thread: A forbidden act. This will release a person from the law of cause and effect. They become a walking anomaly, a pure agent of chaos whose actions no longer have predictable consequences, which can damage the fabric of reality around them.
VULNERABILITIES / COUNTERMEASURES: It is a system, not an omnipotent god.
Mechanic, Not Will: Scarlet has no consciousness, desire, or intent like a human. It is a process. It cannot be persuaded, threatened, or negotiated with. It is a cosmic reflex.
Reflexive Reaction: Disturbing its web will trigger an automatic and devastating defensive response. Scarlet, out of pain from its damaged "thread," will instinctively create a "Fate Tangle"—a storm of bad luck and causal paradoxes around the disturber to neutralize them and repair the web.
Blindness to the Unbound: Its web is only connected to beings bound to the cycle of cause and effect. Entities like Neira (Folio 000) have no thread, so to Scarlet, they do not exist.
ECHOES IN HISTORY & MYTH: The myths of the Three Fates who spin, measure, and cut the thread of life are human attempts to personify and understand the singular, incomprehensible work of Scarlet. The seers and oracles of the past were not seeing the future; they were people sensitive enough to feel the vibrations in the Red Threads.
WHISPERS / FRAGMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE:
"Never try to cut someone's red thread. You will not like the earthquake it causes in the web."
"Destiny is not a pre-written path. It is the thread that stretches between your choice and its consequence."
"It is said that at the center of the web, near the Weaver, there are threads connected to nothing. Those are the fates of worlds yet unborn."
Scribe's Note: Chronicling Scarlet makes me grapple with the question of free will. Is our life predetermined, or do our choices create the vibrations in the web? I came to an unsettling conclusion: both are true. We are free to pluck our own string, but that string and the note it produces are an inseparable part of Scarlet's symphony. The true horror is not being trapped in the web, but imagining what would happen if the Weaver ever stopped weaving.
"It mentions Scarlet here," I said after reading page 014. I looked at her. "Is it a spider?" I asked.
"Yup, it's a spider. Go on, tell me what you want to ask about it."
She asked me to ask something, about the figure mentioned as Scarlet; if so, I probably only have one question. "What does it have to do with my previous question?"
"Here, hold this." My teacher didn't answer. Instead, she asked me to hold a rope that appeared from who-knows-where.
"Okay, so what do I do?"
"Let's take turns pulling."
My teacher and I each held one end of the rope. Then I pulled my side, while my teacher just stayed still; as a result, her body was pulled closer. Then we took turns; she pulled, and my body was pulled.
"So, what does this mean, Teacher?"
"Try pulling it."
I pulled it one more time, but then...
"Thud!!!"
I fell because she let go of the rope just as I was pulling it.
"Why did you let go?" I got up and rubbed my butt, which was now throbbing with pain.
"Now, that's what the king experienced." She didn't apologize. Instead, without any guilt, she diverted my focus with a statement.
"What do you mean?"
"Try pulling this." She asked me to pull the rope again.
I wouldn't be fooled this time; so I refused to pull it voluntarily. I stared sharply at her eyes, as if to say, "Don't make me angry."
"Fine, we'll forget this."
Her arms folded, and she turned her back to me. This wasn't good. I never thought my teacher would act like this towards me; she was angry, or more accurately, pouting.
I have to persuade her, I thought. I approached; walking to the side she had turned to. But as soon as we were face to face, she deliberately turned her face away; refusing to look at me.
"Teacher, come on." I shook her body from the side, but she still didn't budge or look at my face.
"You refused earlier, so this is what you get."
Huh... no luck. I probably can't win just by pleading or forcing her. Honestly, I really want to continue our chat, but after being played with earlier... ah, whatever. I'll try something.
"Alright, I won't ask for free," I said. It seems she was hooked; her face slowly turned towards me. "You talk, and I'll grant your request." I'll grant it, because I figured she would probably just ask for something like a hug, or maybe just want to mess with me.
"Really?" She turned around. The fish takes the bait, I thought.
"Yup, really. So what do you want?" I was sure she would just ask for a hug or maybe nothing at all, until finally:
"Ho…oh, alright then... your fishnet underwear."
Oh... crap. My whole body shivered hearing that. Did I mishear? Or is she just joking to tease me? To be sure, I tried asking, "Teacher, can you repeat that one more time? And make sure that's really what you want, because if not... there's no second chance."
She smiled widely, looking very happy, and then replied, "Your fishnet underwear."
It seems I dug my own grave. I never thought she would be curious or even want me to show it. I thought she only used it as a joke to tease me.
"But Teacher, those are all in the back." Honestly, I did put them in the luggage compartment with some other things.
"I'm not asking for those." Her gaze went downwards.
I reflexively covered myself with both hands. Even though I was wearing a skirt, I felt like she could even see right through it. After that, her face turned dark again. She turned away again, refusing to look at me.
"Huuu… fine, just this once."
I tried to take off my underwear. "Don't look over here," I forbade her from turning around, because I saw her gaze trying to steal a chance; peeking at the process of me taking them off.
"Here." I gave her my underwear, the one I had just been wearing.
"Wow… it really is a fishnet, and it's black, hahaha…"
What she did next was; laugh, and then use my underwear like a flag; she waved it back and forth.
"So what is that for?" I asked. I sat with my legs folded back on the chair.
"What's with your face? Are you sick?" She didn't answer. Instead, she asked and held her hand to my forehead.
"No, I just want you to be serious," I said.
"Ah… alright. Now, hold this with both hands."
Oh, come on. I didn't expect her to use my underwear to continue the previous tug-of-war session.
She stretched my underwear wide and asked me to hold both sides with both hands.
"Now, you are the king, and I am Scarlet," said my teacher. She was serious this time. "Now, pull." She asked me to pull.
"And then, pull again." She asked me to pull one more time, and:
"Thud!!"
I fell for the second time; with my skirt flying up. I hurriedly fixed my position. I was sure she saw it. I couldn't lift my face.
"What just happened is what happens when Scarlet's web breaks," said my teacher. She wasn't laughing or teasing. She was serious this time. I dared to lift my face.
"So, Scarlet doesn't cut the web?" I concluded, after seeing that she hadn't let go of the underwear; my underwear had ripped in two.
"Yup, I didn't let go, but your underwear ripped," she answered, twirling the tattered remains of the underwear on her finger.
"Scarlet doesn't cut it? But because its web was already fragile, it broke?" I asked.
"Yes, like that. Now, do you remember who was in the king's room?" My teacher replied, then asked me to remember.
"Four people. And with us two, that makes six," I answered.
"You're half right and half wrong. Try opening page 016."
As instructed, I opened page 016:
APPELLATION: The Walking Man
TITLE / EPITHET: The Key Witness, The Decider of Possibility, The Final Step of Fate
CLASSIFICATION:
Primer: Mythological
Status: Active
Scale: Cosmic
Level: Abstract
ORIGIN: He is a fundamental component of reality, born alongside the first choice. When the universe was still in a fluid, quantum state—where all possibilities happened simultaneously—a principle was needed to create a single, stable, coherent timeline. The Walking Man manifested for this purpose. He is the universe's pen, whose job is to underline one sequence of events, making it definitive "history."
FORM / ESSENCE: His essence is Causal Actuality. He is a living catalyst that turns probability into actuality. His form is always the same: an ordinary man in simple, dark clothes. His face, his posture, and his walk are so mundane as to be forgettable. One could pass him on the street and a minute later be unable to recall a single detail about him. His anonymity is a necessity, as his purpose is to observe, not be observed.
APPEARANCE & PERCEPTION: His presence is almost never noticed until an event reaches its climax. The only sign is a sense of "inevitability" that settles over a place, as if all other doors of possibility have closed. He will be seen standing still at the periphery of significant events: on a hill overlooking a battlefield, in the back of a lab as a great discovery is made, or in the crowd as a historic treaty is signed. He never interacts. Once the event is complete, he will turn and continue his journey, and whatever just happened is now permanently etched into the fabric of reality.
DOMAIN / INFLUENCE: His domain is probability and actuality. His influence is singular and absolute: where he walks and what he witnesses becomes the One True History. Before he arrives, a battle could be won or lost. After he witnesses the victory flag being raised, that outcome is the only one that was ever possible. He does not choose the winner; he is drawn to the timeline with the highest probability and "locks" it into reality.
VULNERABILITIES / COUNTERMEASURES: He is a law, and is strictly bound to his function.
Witness Only, Not Actor: He is fundamentally passive. He is bound by a cosmic law of non-intervention and cannot influence the events he witnesses. Attacking him is as useless as trying to punch the concept of "observation" itself.
Blind to Pure Chaos: His function is to select one timeline from several possibilities. He is conceptually blind to absolute chaos—events with infinite, equal possibilities, or the actions of beings unbound from cause-and-effect (like those whose threads have been cut by Scarlet). He cannot choose one path if there are no paths at all.
His Path is Determined: He does not choose his destinations. He is pulled along the "path of greatest probability." In theory, one could massively manipulate events in an area to make one outcome overwhelmingly likely, thus "forcing" The Walking Man to walk in that direction.
ECHOES IN HISTORY & MYTH: Myths of a quiet, dark-robed figure appearing before historic moments are echoes of his existence. People mistook him for a good or bad omen, when he was merely the universe's auditor, logging the event into the ledger of reality. The modern archetype of the "Man in Black" in folklore could be a contemporary interpretation of his unexplainable presence.
WHISPERS / FRAGMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE:
"History isn't written by the victors. It's written when the Walking Man stops to watch."
"You can change the past, but only until you see him in the crowd. Once he's there, the ink is dry."
"He doesn't walk on the path. The path forms beneath his feet."
Scribe's Note: Chronicling this entity evokes a sense of awe and existential terror. The Walking Man erases all "what ifs" from history, which is on one hand comforting, and on the other, terrifying. I wonder, is my act of writing this codex an event he will one day witness? If so, then the existence of all the horrific anomalies within it will become an absolute fact of reality. The burden of responsibility from that thought... is immense.
"Who is he, and what's the connection?" My gaze was still focused on the page. It mentions "Walking Man" here with the title "Key Witness." I looked at my teacher.
Then she said, "Do you remember the man leaning against the window?" Her hand reached for a cigarette in her pocket.
"Could it be... that was the Walking Man?" She nodded. I was shocked; how could I have not noticed the strangeness of the figure at the window. The man I saw this morning at the window of the king's room was the Walking Man.
"Then what was he doing there, Teacher?" I asked, and then my teacher told me, "Focus on the domain and influence section."
I read that part again and found something about "probability and actuality... what does that mean?" I asked.
My teacher then took out a piece of paper, complete with ink and a quill pen. She wrote: fishnet underwear and torn fishnet underwear. Then she underlined the words torn fishnet underwear using red ink.
"You see this?" She asked me to look at her writing. Why did it have to be fishnet underwear? I nodded to answer her.
"Scarlet is the ink, these two writings are the possibilities, and the underline is the Walking Man."
"So, the Walking Man and Scarlet can't be separated?" I asked.
"Yes, it's like that." My teacher looked at me with a smile. "Scarlet without the Walking Man is like you without underwear... no protection down below."
This is so embarrassing, I thought. My whole body felt cold, as if I needed a place to hide. I was helpless right now. Just you wait, I'll get you back for this.