Surviving Among the Entities

I did not rashly insert the stone tablet into the altar.

‘Using an entity without information brings about death.’

If it were just me alone, it might have been fine, but now there is someone I must protect.
According to the information he shared, the entity Professor Roland possessed for self-defense was an entity that allowed instant movement to a space he remembered, making it excellent for self-defense but not invincible.

[“It’s a jewel called Bastet’s Navel. As an entity, it allows the owner to move to a place they are thinking of. The drawback is that only the owner can move.”]

Physical attacks could be avoided.
But I didn’t think the ability that destroyed a civilization, a city without physical destruction, was a simple physical attack.

‘Perception alteration, or mental corruption.’

Or it could be reality manipulation.
I needed information to respond with certainty.

“First, I will measure the age of these using carbon dating.”

I observed Professor Roland’s experiment from behind.
While it involved complicated foreign languages and technical terms, the shady dealer’s translation effect seemed to be maintained even here, so I had no major issues understanding it.

“When the radiation emitted from the Geiger counter passes through the sample scraped from the stone tablets, it will cause ionization. By measuring the energy released here, we can measure the carbon age and determine when the stone tablets were created.”
“Is it possible without an accelerator mass spectrometer?”
“It would be difficult if these weren’t entities. But it’s possible since they are entities.”

Curiously, in the case of entities, enough carbon or organic matter remains for age measurement with a Geiger counter, allowing easy observation.

“Then……”

He scraped a sample from the surface of the stone tablet depicting soccer and inserted it into the device to operate it.
After a moment, when the results were outputted, Professor Roland was left speechless.

“……1863.”
“Pardon me, I must have misheard.”
“No, you heard correctly. This stone tablet was created in 1863.”
“Sarang-a, did you hear that? Tell me the connection between 1863 and soccer.”
[“Yes.”]

Sarang-a quickly responded.

[“The soccer-related history that occurred in 1863 would be the emergence of the Football Association (FA) in England. While soccer has existed from the past, many view the birth of modern soccer as starting from the emergence of the English Football Association.”]
“The beginning of modern soccer.”

I’m slowly getting a sense of it.

“Professor, let’s measure the age of the other stone tablets too.”

Stone tablets depicting pigs.
Beasts.
Wheat.
Grains, and so on were, as expected, stone tablets created in the distant past.

“Some seem to have been made before Göbekli Tepe was established.”
“Does that mean this facility existed before Göbekli Tepe was formed?”
“That’s correct. The ancients did not use entities to create Göbekli Tepe. They discovered this place and built the city on top of it. The true Göbekli Tepe is right here.”

However, the stone tablets depicting modern objects all measured as being recently created.

“The car is from 1769.”
[“In 1769, Nicolas Joseph Cugnot invented the first steam-powered automobile.”]
“The airplane is from 1903.”
[“In 1903, the Wright brothers successfully conducted the first powered flight with the ‘Wright Flyer.'”]
“The stone tablet depicting what seems to be a computer game measures as 1998.”
[“Due to lack of information, the exact details cannot be known. If the image is a game, it could depict games released in 1998 such as StarCraft, Rainbow Six, Ys Eternal, or Resident Evil 2 with a high possibility. If not a game, it may have depicted Taiwan university student Chen Ing-hau embarking on creating the Chernobyl/CIH virus in 1998, the first major virus spread through peer-to-peer file sharing, which can be seen as the beginning of cyber terrorism.”]

After various observations, Professor Roland and I reached one conclusion.

“It seems these stone tablets appeared with a specific concept whenever it emerged in reality.”
“We need to find out whether the stone tablets appeared first, causing those concepts to emerge in the world, or if the concepts emerged first, leading to the creation of the stone tablets.”
“If it’s the former, then it makes sense that this facility is the center of the world.”

If so, creativity is not the exclusive domain of humans.
The concepts were merely created by this facility, the entity tentatively called the “center of the world.”

“If it’s the latter, then human creativity was recorded on stone tablets like records, but what does that mean?”
“Could it be that if these stone tablets were destroyed, problems would arise with those concepts?”
“Is it possible to destroy the stone tablets?”
“Let’s experiment.”

I grabbed a corner of the stone tablet depicting soccer and attempted to break it.
I only tried to break off the edge, but it didn’t break at all.

“When you scraped a sample earlier for observation, it didn’t seem to scrape off, did it?”
“That’s true, but now the scratches where I scraped the sample have completely disappeared.”
“Destruction is impossible, and scratches are quickly restored.”
“Now there’s only one thing left to check.”

Professor Roland and I turned our heads toward the altar.

“That’s as far as we need to confirm. Whichever of the two hypotheses is correct, our curiosity has been satisfied.”
“You’re not going to try inserting it into the altar?”
“The center of the world we’ve learned about so far seems capable of exerting global influence, so we shouldn’t carelessly activate it. The world could be destroyed, couldn’t it?”
“Why don’t you just take any stone tablet and try? If it seems like the world will be destroyed, I’ll let you know.”
“How can you say that?”

I winked my right eye at the professor.

“My right eye can see the destruction of the world.”

My right eye can see the destruction of the world.
Even if not the destruction of all humanity on Earth, it automatically shows the future whenever a certain level of cataclysmic disaster unfolds.

“The starting point for seeing destruction is the branching point of that choice. When I witness the possibility of disaster occurring based on the choice.”
“So even for the stone tablets?”
“It would be regrettable to come this far without verifying it for certain, wouldn’t it? If my right eye activates on the way to insert a stone tablet into the altar, we stop there. If it doesn’t activate, we insert it.”
“Hmm, we’ll need to carefully choose the stone tablet.”

The professor and I selected a stone tablet to insert into the altar.

“When it disappears, it must not pose a threat to humanity.”
“And when a change occurs, it must not threaten human life.”
“We need to choose something that would be harmless even if it disappeared……”

After searching for a while, we found such a stone tablet.

“A stone tablet whose meaning we cannot discern.”
“A monster? A dinosaur? But there’s a human next to it.”

The dinosaur, human, and monster existed on the stone tablet, depicted within a framed painting.

“A stone tablet within a stone tablet? If it’s a portrait, then someone’s artwork?”
“Let’s measure the age.”

The measured age was 1996.

“Modern, then.”
“But not that long ago. Could it be referring to a specific manga or anime?”
“If so, there must have been countless manga and anime depicted on stone tablets.”
“It could be a special concept we’re unaware of.”

I asked Sarang-a, but with so many manga, anime, and movies released in 1996, it was impossible to specify.

“Shall we try? Will you be able to lift it?”
“Well, it’s heavy… but I can manage.”

Perhaps because he handled entities, the professor was quite strong too.

“Alright, then……”

Standing in front of the altar with the heavy stone tablet, the elderly professor looked at me.

“You can proceed. My right eye did not activate.”
“Yes, then where should I……”

The elderly gentleman exerted his strength to lift the stone tablet.

“!?”

At that moment, the stone tablet rose by itself and lodged into the altar.
It happened in an instant, too fast even for me to react.

“It’s not coming out.”
“Let me try.”

I tried exerting my strength, but the stone tablet did not budge at all.
With my current physical abilities capable of exerting tons of force, the fact that it didn’t work likely meant it could not be conceptually removed.

“It seems there’s nothing more for us to investigate here for now.”
“If the stone tablet lodged in the altar affected the world, wouldn’t there be issues outside?”

Leaving our equipment behind, the professor and I headed to the nearby village.

“There don’t seem to be any major changes.”
“Indeed, but let’s look around some more.”

As we wandered through the village, a group of youths turned a corner and collided with Professor Roland.

“Are you alright?”
“Ugh! This old geezer!”

The ones who fell were the youths instead.
With his robust physique and strength, Professor Roland extended his hand to help the fallen youths up, but they rudely brushed it off.

“Trying to mess with us? Knocking us down?”
“It was an accident. And you were the ones who came running, but…”
“We should get a proper apology, huh? This should do.”

Rubbing their fingers, demanding money, the elderly professor’s brow furrowed at the youths’ behavior.

“Oh dear, a gang?”
“Not a gang, just getting what we’re owed.”

The gang members put their hands in their pockets.
I tried to step forward, but Professor Roland extended his arm to stop me.

“Let me handle this.”

The professor also put his hand in his pocket.

“It is an old man’s duty to guide the youth.”

The gang and the professor simultaneously pulled their hands out of their pockets.

“Card battle!”
“?”
“Duel start!”

What?
Did I mishear just now?
A hologram appeared between the gang member who had pulled out a deck of cards and the professor.

“The first turn is decided by dice.”
“Let the youth go first.”
“I’ll choose Low.”
“Then I’ll choose High.”

The hologram dice rolled, and the number displayed was 5.

“Then I’ll go first.”

When Professor Roland placed the deck of cards into the air, they were absorbed into the hologram.
The automatically drawn cards appeared in the professor’s hand, which he immediately slotted into several slots in front of him.

“I summon Baby Dragon, and I’ll end my turn.”
“Using a trash card, huh?”
“Young man, there are no trash cards in this world.”

The hologram was like the law of the world itself.
If my memory wasn’t intact, I would have mistaken it for reality, as it was that realistic.

“I summon Sewage Warrior! And the magic card, Twin Revolvers! With Sewage Warrior’s fusion effect, I evolve it into Legendary Gunslinger!”
“Decent. But too hasty.”
“You’re the slow one!”

Witnessing this incomprehensible “card battle,” I thought:
This is clearly an abnormal phenomenon.

“Uhahaha! Now it’s over! Trap card! Wanted Outlaw activated! By tributing one monster with the Outlaw attribute on the field, I can summon a random Cowboy card from my deck! And then, magic card activated! Sunset Outlaw! For each Cowboy card summoned this turn, I can summon a random Cowboy card from the graveyard to the field!”
“The field is full.”
“Now it’s over, old man!”

When did the world start settling matters through card battles?
When did holograms start appearing without any specific machinery, physical cards get absorbed into holograms, and instantly move to the player’s hand?

It’s impossible. Without the intervention of an entity.
Therefore, this must have occurred due to the “center of the world.”

“Magic card activated, No Country for Old Men.”
“Wh-What!? What kind of card is that!?”
“It can be activated when there is only one monster remaining on the field. When activated, for each card sent to the graveyard last turn, the remaining monster’s attack power increases by 1,000 points.”
“What did you say!?”
“And one more, trap card activated. Old Man’s Full Power. It can only be activated when there is only one monster remaining on the field. All monsters with attack power lower than the remaining monster’s are excluded from the game.”
“Whaaaaat!?”
“This effect applies to all monsters on the field, in the graveyard, and in the deck.”
“That’s impossibleeee!!!”
“Young man, this is the power of an old man.”

What we did was insert the stone tablet depicting the monster, human, and dinosaur into the altar.
And the monster, human, and dinosaur on the stone tablet were depicted within a framed painting.

“Now, let me end this. Queen’s Guard, direct attack, Guard’s Great Sword!”
“Gaaaah!”

The fallen gang member’s cards scattered into the air.
Within them, I saw the images depicted on the cards.

‘They weren’t depicted within frames.’

They were depicted on the cards themselves.
And we had inserted the stone tablet with cards depicted on it into the altar.

“Sarang-a, was there any information related to cards in 1996?”
[“Search results show none.”]
“There must have been.”

Not perception alteration.
Reality manipulation.
Reality manipulation that even machines cannot avoid.
The reason I remained unaffected might be thanks to “My Notebook in My Head.”
Or “Dried Friendship”?
Or some other reason?

“My apologies for the wait.”
“Not at all, Professor. But what exactly is this ‘card battle’?”
“There’s no doubt you’ve been mentally corrupted. Isn’t this the solemn card law created by the spirits of cards that exist in this world?”
“The spirits of cards……”
“The fundamental law that forms the basis of the world, the beginning of all universes, is precisely the spirits of cards.”
“Do you remember Göbekli Tepe?”
“Göbekli Tepe? What is that?”

Göbekli Tepe was indeed the center of the world.
The stone tablet we inserted, the concept depicted on it, was made the ‘center’ of the world by that entity.

Surpassing perception alteration.
Surpassing mental corruption.
A powerful entity capable of reality manipulation.

“Come to think of it, why were we here? What were we searching for… Ah, I just forgot that we were searching for the card that caused the Big Bang. We were looking for the primordial card. Hahaha, after having a card battle after so long, I couldn’t control my excitement and made a fool of myself.”

Now, the world has become a ‘card battle story.’