What Is God (3)
Shirone wore a vacant expression.
'It's not my imagination.'
Even that thought felt as if time itself were running backward.
"Huh? Huh?"
After a moment of stunned confusion, Shirone steadied himself and checked his condition with cold clarity.
'Now that I think about it...
When I experienced the multiverse and when I was in the outside world, my thinking was exactly reversed.
'Inside and outside flip the frame of reference. In other words...
Time runs backward.
"Hmm."
Lost in thought, Shirone walked straight through a space that defied definition.
'I'm walking forward.' Is that really so?
'What if, in fact, I'm walking backward—and it's the direction of time that's reversed?'
Let's try a thought experiment.
'If you record someone walking forward and then play the footage backward, the movement looks awkward.'
'But it looks awkward because we're used to our time. If you were in a world where time itself flowed the opposite way...
You'd find Shirone walking forward to look odd.
'I think I get it.'
Shirone exhaled deeply.
'Why time reverses.'
Because this world is made of two signals—the combination of photons and quanta.
'That's the pupils. The eye that looks from the inside out, and the eye that looks from the outside in. Depending on that perspective... the direction of time flips.
'For example.'
Shirone pictured a puppet.
'The puppet is connected to a rod, and the control key that manipulates that rod floats above its head. And the puppet has a will of its own.'
At least he was sure of that.
'The key that moves the rod moves. The puppet raises its right arm. Now, here's the problem.
'The puppet thinks the key moved because it raised its right arm.'
That's the human way of seeing the world.
'Put more simply... I dug the ground, so the ground must have been dug.'
In other words, the puppet raising its arm is the cause, and the key moving is the effect.
'From the outside world's point of view...'
The key's movement is the cause, and the puppet raising its right arm is the effect.
'It depends on the viewpoint. Cause and effect are completely reversed, so...
The whole cognitive system flips.
'The sense by which time is perceived is reversed too.'
Shirone felt a chill.
'For a god...
Time runs backward.
'Ikael said that to me. Vediwim's final words. That's what they were.'
The pieces were closing in.
'God is time. So how does a god think?'
What is our effect is their cause.
'We marry because we love. That's human logic. But...
A god would say:
'We will marry—because we will love.' That sort of inversion.
'We can use magic—because we will learn magic. I became the world's greatest swordsman—because I will strive that much. I went to prison—because I will be a murderer.'
Results that humans must achieve through countless acts of will are already realized from the start, reversed.
What is a god.
'The end of all time.'
A result.
'God is the result to us.'
Expanding that thought lets you infer what the outside world of reality must be.
'They know all history—the Omega. If you flip the world from a god's perspective...
Civilization decays, life vanishes, the universe contracts, and finally you arrive there.
'There must be a moment when the beginning itself occurs. And if you apply a god's perspective there...
Shirone bit his lip.
"There's another universe that has negative time."
The outside world.
'Some amplification birthed a universe. But that universe wasn't one—
it was two.'
If time has two directions, it's reasonable there should be two universes.
'And that universe has inverted causality. From that...
He felt crushed by the horrible truth.
"The final point of the world we live in—its result—becomes the beginning in the outside world."
Why is that dangerous?
'Someday humanity will conquer the universe.'
When humanity reaches the same position as the Creator—exhausts everything that exists—they become gods.
'Paradoxically, that god stands at the birth of the negative universe.'
What kind of god would that be?
"What we ultimately become is a machine."
Like High Gear—the apex of a machine civilization with no lifespan, no aging, no disease.
'A program.'
He inferred that's what the administrators sent from the outside world meant when they said they acted out of a mission.
'Why would administrators be necessary?' It's only a hypothesis, but oddly their reasoning made sense.
Because it's seen from a god's viewpoint.
'There are two universes. The problem is, the outside world's universe knew everything from the start.'
Because it began as a god.
'But in that world, the god is heading toward extinction.'
It becomes human, becomes life, becomes matter, and ultimately reaches its end.
'Even gods can't stop time. A god is time. So what choice does such a god make?
"We can control the result of the world we live in."
The multiverse.
"Keep it from ever reaching its final result—spread this world out like bubbles so it never resolves."
The whole diagram of the cosmos unfolded in his head.
'In the beginning there was light.'
Around that light, the universe spreads in both directions—plus and minus time racing outward.
'One side follows human causality. The other follows godly causality.'
In the coordinates where human causality holds, infinite universes bubble up like foam.
'In other words, a god manages this place. And as long as those bubbles are maintained and don't vanish...
The god on the opposite side is eternal.
'It never falls to being human and keeps expanding endlessly. In the end it controls our causality.'
What personal vendetta would a god have?
'Cold calculation. Pure logical judgment—that's all. After all, a god is... our final form.'
Shirone drew a deep breath.
"I found it, Mr. Gaold. I know where God is."
But you can't meet it.
'To meet a god you have to leave reality and enter the outside world. Now I understand why we mustn't approach the outside world. Why Argones activates.'
Because it's an act of killing a god.
'Has Nade already met them? Probably. Yet he doesn't come... -Am I Nade who swallowed Anke Ra's dream? Or Anke Ra who swallowed Nade's dream?'
Shirone shook his head.
'No more idle thoughts. I can think about that later. For now, get back to the original world.'
He had a rough idea of the method now.
'It can be reversed.'
If a minus exists in the direction of time, the mind can become a signal that reverses too.
'Using a god's perspective, a god's thought.'
Invert causality.
"Ughhh!"
It was a task that would overturn the world's standards and human nature, but Shirone was Yahweh.
'I can do it. If it were impossible, I wouldn't have even noticed this inversion of thought here.'
He began with the smallest thing.
'I exist.'
Countless thoughts starting from that point began to invert as if turning time backward.
"Uggghhh!"
Shirone's five-dimensional multi-cube—the knowledge base he relied on—was shaken as if under a massive bombardment.
'I'll go back.'
To the people he loved.
'I will go.'
As his mind slowly inverted, faint light began to seep into that indefinable space.
His head felt like it would split.
"Arghhhh!"
Darkness fell in shards, and through the cracks light suddenly surged in with fierce force.
'Inversion of causality.'
Shirone remembered entering the Taeguk when he fought Giyorugi.
'The message Gephin left.' — They are watching you. Trust nothing. Save yourself from the terrible truth.
'That was it.'
In the perfectly inverted five-dimensional multi-cube, Shirone defined a god's thought with one word.
Ouroboros.
"We won! We won!"
Amid the wreckage of Dr. Martin's craft crashing to the ground, the users erupted in cheers.
"There's no service shutdown after this, right? My parts almost flew off."
"Are parts that important? This is our hideout. What fun is there without High Gear?"
As users from East and West chatted warmly, some stood silently.
'Yahweh.'
They were the users who had shared minds with Shirone in the High Gear world.
The operator looked up at the sky.
'Where did they go?'
Leaving the High Gear world abnormally wasn't unrelated to reality.
Fermi approached Uorin.
"This is getting serious. I always thought leaving was still within reality, but he hasn't woken."
The Golden Wheel's subordinates confirmed Shirone was still asleep.
"He'll be fine."
Uorin's voice trembled.
"He'll come back. That's who he is. He wouldn't abandon this world no matter what."
"And if he doesn't come back?" She had never thought about what she'd do in a world without Shirone.
"She'd probably get angry." Her voice was calm, but the little witch who turned her head looked twisted with feeling.
"I don't know what comes after that."
Putting expression on a machine face meant the signal itself was warped.
'Eve was originally Gaia.'
For some reason Ultima had disappeared, and Eve's current appearance was chilling.
"Th-There!"
Destruction Demon 707 pointed at the sky.
Everyone craned their necks, and the operator's shoulders began to tremble.
"Aaaaaah???" The sky seemed to be sucked into a vortex, and a familiar craft began to appear.
The result came first.
"Yahweh!"
As if gravity had collapsed, a hole opened in the sky and light shot up from the ground.
"Oh? You're back?"
The moment Fermi said it, Uorin sprang up.
"Aaaah!"
What was she about to do?
'Yes—if you're here, that's enough. You don't have to be loved. It's enough that you're in this world.'
Compared to the despair she felt when Yahweh disappeared, this was a blessing.
Landing on the ground, Shirone was certain.
'He's back.'
Even if other delusions were possible, his heart clearly declared this place home.
Uorin ran toward him.
"Here! Here!"
Just as she was about to throw herself at him, the operator came from the side and grabbed Shirone.
"Hey...
Uorin's steps halted, and the users looked at her in stunned disbelief.
"You idiot!"
The operator snapped.
"Why be so reckless? What's Dr. Martin to you? You can build another High Gear. But if something happens to you...
Then you'd really have nowhere left to go."
Perhaps she felt the fear of losing parents, so Shirone understood her.
"Sorry. But I'm back now."
Destruction Demon 707 and the others, along with the users, surged forward.
"That was the best. This solar battle was the best experience of my life! Thanks to you!"
"Wanna swap contacts outside? Oh, you're human, right? I'll give you my address…"
Fermi patted Uorin's shoulder.
"Don't be too heartbroken. It's not love, after all. Though the future is uncertain."
"Huh, what do you take me for? Ten thousand years is nothing. My feelings won't be shaken over one kid."
"Well, true."
Fermi smiled in satisfaction, and Shirone led the users and said,
"Let's go back."
Back to the world we live in.