"Simon, I'm back..."
Stelle approached slowly, her steps light. She lifted a small hand in a timid wave, her hair still slightly messy from all the running around and fighting.
Simon's expression brightened. He briefly pushed the matter of the Stellaron Hunters to the back of his mind.
"Oh, hey." He waved back and shifted on the bench, patting the space beside him. "Come on. Sit."
Stelle obeyed quietly, settling down next to him.
"So," Simon leaned in slightly, "how'd it go? Herta didn't do anything too horrifying, right? No needles?"
Stelle stiffened just a little. "No…nothing like that. She just had me try something called the Simulated Universe."
"Sounds about right for Herta." Simon chuckled quietly, feeling her lean against him subconsciously. He rested a hand lightly on her head so she could relax. "Well? Was it fun?"
Stelle thought for a moment before nodding. "Mm. It was interesting. And… she said she'd give me lots of rewards if I come back for more testing."
"Oh?" Simon raised a brow. "Already bribing you, huh? Guess we'll have to ask Himeko to make a few extra stops here."
He snorted under his breath, wondering what "rewards" meant in this world. In the game, Herta just threw stellar jades at you and called it a day.
"And also..." Stelle hesitated slightly. "She told me to call you in for 'an actual experiment.' But the look on her face was scary..."
Simon hummed, far too intrigued for someone being potentially marched into a mad scientist's dungeon. His mouth tilted into a grin he didn't bother hiding. "Tell me more."
"Okay...?" Stelle blinked at him, confused by his enthusiasm. "It was after she finished reviewing the footage of our fight. She mumbled something like 'why didn't I think of that earlier?' and kicked me out."
"I see..." Simon's eyes narrowed with interest.
Getting on Herta's radar had been within his expectations, but what sudden epiphany she had was beyond him. All that occupied his mind now was how to use this opportunity to keep her interest in him from waning and turn it into a stable source of long-term benefits.
The reason? He could go on a tirade about connections, resources and exploit his meta-knowledge to highlight how vital Herta's existence is for the prevention of Irontomb's birth, but it all boiled down to one simple thing.
Madam Herta as a sugar mommy.
Enough said.
His phone pinged in a timely manner, shattering his daydream. He clicked his tongue and checked the message.
...
You've received a message
Herta: Digger boy, it's me, Herta.
Simon: To what do I owe the honour?
Herta: Forget about my office. Get over here, ASAP.
Your friend has sent their location
Simon: Where is this? I didn't see this place on the blueprint...
Herta: [Hi, I'm currently unavailable and won't be replying]
Herta: It's just a makeshift lab. Hurry up.
Herta has started sharing their location
Herta: It's better than anything else you'll find.
Simon: I like the idea of shady activities in a sparsely populated area!
Herta: [Hi, I'm currently unavailable and won't be replying]
Herta is offline
Herta is online
Herta: Funny.
Herta is offline
...
"...Are you really going?" Stelle asked with barely hidden concern.
"Yes." Simon flashed her a wide, confident smile, totally ignoring the way she was shamelessly leaning over his shoulder and peeking at his screen.
She opened her mouth to say something, but struggled to get it out. In the end, she chose to nod hesitantly.
Noticing her reluctance, Simon took a deep breath and sighed. It dawned on him just how much she had come to rely on him in this short time.
"Just what kind of impression did she leave on you?" He smiled wryly and ruffled her ashen hair. "Trust me, in this universe of unending conflict and schemes, Herta can definitely be considered to be on the good side..."
Stelle didn't respond, but her golden eyes lowered.
He patted her a little longer, until she relaxed. Only then did he pull away.
She watched him walk off. A strange, warm ache twisted in her chest.
"…It's not her I'm worried about," she whispered to herself, resting a hand over her heart as if trying to catch that odd, unfamiliar rhythm. "It's you. Maybe Kafka will know what this means…"
...
As Simon walked deeper into the station and the crowd of researchers greeting him thinned out more and more, his thoughts drifted naturally back to the Stellaron Hunters.
Lagann waddled slower to match the pace of its pilot.
"Elio..." Simon mused.
He still didn't know what his prophecy had in store for him, as evidenced by Silver Wolf's interference earlier having genuinely rattled him,
Granted, it was his inability to keep his promise that had actually triggered him.
And he had ended up saying some bold words in that state...
Overthrowing an Aeon, huh...
It was a heat of passion thing, but a man with ambition had to back up his words.
Otherwise, what was the point?
The Aeon themselves...they all reminded him of the Anti-Spiral too much, anyway; restricting humanity in more ways than they helped them.
Silver Wolf definitely deserved some spankings, however. Even if she was only following the script.
Or was she?
He didn't know if he was even a part of so called 'destiny' and if that was a genuine attempt at his life on her part in an attempt to get rid of an unknown and uncontrollable variable.
But he gravitated towards the former. He hadn't felt any hostility or anything when he was being observed by the genius hacker, and he trusted his gut feeling more than ever with spiral energy coursing through him.
Maybe to Elio, Simon's every step twisted the timeline out of shape. But he doubted Elio understood what spiral power meant.
The more Simon believed, the more fiercely he lived, the more spiral energy grew, and the closer his desired future came to reality.
Unless Simon died here and now, the future belonged to him.
In other words, whatever future Elio foresaw would never come to pass.
He didn't need to guess it.
He would make it.
He wasn't pulling this out of his ass either, the spiral energy within him was speaking to him, telling him that he had the potential to change anything and everything.
"Heh, you bet your ass I will." Simon clutched the glowing core drill tightly, feeling his spiral reserves growing in response to his intense desires.
Honestly, he was probably more in tune with it already than the original Simon this early on.
Lagann suddenly sped up, as if fired from a booster. Simon almost face-planted off its back, then burst out laughing, hair whipping in the wind.
...
"Madam Herta, what should we do about the people hounding us regarding the Nanook situation?" Asta asked, hurrying after Herta as she tapped away on a tablet. "Among the countless requests, we've received messages from the Intelligentsia Guild, the IPC, the Xianzhou Alliance, and a few Galaxy Rangers."
"Those are the most interesting ones? How boring." Herta scoffed without looking up. She set the tablet aside and began tweaking the settings of several hard-light projections. "Well? Go on. Tell me what they want."
Asta finally relaxed a little. At least they would not be kept waiting indefinitely this time. "Most of them are business offers. They want to buy or sponsor this 'new technology'. As for the Xianzhou, and especially the Galaxy Rangers, they keep asking about the young man who piloted the machine that 'challenged a god'. Apparently his words struck a chord with them."
Herta stopped adjusting the console.
She glanced back at Asta with one eyebrow raised. "That's all? What a disappointment. They can't even identify the most important part."
Asta tilted her head. "Which is…?"
Herta's lips curved into a confident smirk. "Why, obviously, it is—"
"Herta! My body is ready!"
Simon burst through the lab doors, skidding to a dramatic stop with Lagann right at his heels. "Eh?"
He blinked rapidly. He had expected to see Herta alone. Instead…
Asta was here.
And so was Welt.
"Mr. Yang? What are you doing here?" he asked, genuinely surprised. This didn't look like his kind of hangout spot at all.
Welt rose from his quiet little corner of the room. "It's...good to see that you're well rested. I am here to supervise the process at March's behest, which Madam Herta graciously accepted. However, if you, as the subject, would rather I leave so as not to witness anything sensitive…"
"No way." Simon cut him off. "I don't have much to hide. Well… maybe a little. But this is the perfect chance to show you how cool and reliable Lagann and I are."
"I understand." Welt nodded. He still looked uncertain about being here, but the chance to study Lagann's capabilities clearly tempted him.
Herta suddenly leaned in close enough for Simon to feel her breath. "Are you quite done? 4 minutes and 32 seconds, that's how long it took you to get here. Do you not know the meaning of ASAP?"
"The problem with being faster than light," Simon said as he tapped her nose, earning a glare, "is that you can only live in darkness. So, what do you need me to do?"
"Hmph." Herta finally backed up, arms akimbo. "Get your little friend and yourself in there."
She pointed at the center of the room. The space was wrapped in a containment field, surrounded by equipment so advanced most researchers would not recognize half of it.
The machine that resembled the one used for the Simulated Universe drew Simon's eye immediately.
"You heard her, buddy." Simon grabbed Lagann's handles, executing a perfect jump and landing in the middle of the circle.
He dismounted Lagann.
...
The sterile hum of high-dimensional containment rings echoed through the lab.
Lagann sat suspended in midair, disassembled into hundreds of floating components, each piece turning slowly inside a lattice of Imaginary energy.
Simon stood nearby, arms crossed, surrounded by holographic projectors tracing his biological, psychological, and metaphysical parameters.
Asta monitored the data nervously from a terminal. Herta, of course, was thrilled.
"…No matter what we isolate, the readings are inconclusive. Lagann's core remains inert unless he's near it." Asta said, fascinated by what she was seeing. "When Simon steps back more than ten meters, power output drops to zero."
Simon lifted his head. "Lagann only listens to me."
"Listens? Machines don't listen. They respond to stimuli within definable parameters. Yet Lagann's systems exhibit no measurable correlation to Imaginary flow or quantum variance," Herta muttered quietly.
Welt stepped forward, watching with a hint of curiosity, but mostly anxiety. "Then what is the driving factor?"
"The driving factor… is him." Herta's tone sharpened.
She snapped her fingers. The containment field around Lagann collapsed; its lights dim instantly. At the same moment, every sensor around Simon went berserk , energy readings spiking far beyond the measurable scale.
Asta was startled. "Wh–what?! The power signature jumped! It's radiating directly from Simon, not the machine!
Herta's eyes widened as she muttered to herself, "Of course… of course. The Spiral energy doesn't reside within the construct. It's emitted by the pilot.A self-originating causal paradox. A force without an external vector."
She paced around, voice rising with manic fascination.
"Energy cannot be created or destroyed, yet this… creates itself." Herta muttered frantically. "It has no reference point in the Imaginary Tree, no place within the Aeons' design. It doesn't exist within the circle of universal knowledge, which means it shouldn't exist at all. I wonder if the Lord of Silence is already aware..."
"So you're saying I'm breaking physics?" Simon asked calmly.
Herta looked up, smiling too brightly. "You're violating ontology. You, Simon Teppelin, are a localized breach in the structure of reality itself. Not even the Aeon of Erudition could have predicted this."
"Madam Herta, are you… smiling?" Asta whispered nervously.
"Of course I'm smiling. Do you have any idea what this means?" She scoffed. "An energy state independent of quantum probability!"
She calibrated the main console.
"Subject: Simon Teppelin. Variable: Spiral Power. Objective: replication and containment."
She glanced up, eyes sharp as twin lenses. "You said this power reacts to your will, correct? Let's test that hypothesis."
"I dunno if that's smart." Simon scratched his head unbothered. "Every time I use it, things kinda… escalate."
Herta smiled thinly. "That's precisely what makes it interesting."
She activated the simulation. The air vibrated as digital particles swarm around Simon's form, converging into Lagann's silhouette.
"Simulation initialized! Energy stability at 89% and dropping!" Asta's voice crackled through the intercom from the control room.
"Stabilize the Imaginary flux. Compensate for recursive drift." Herta adjusted parameters rapidly. "The model must not collapse before baseline reading!"
Simon closed his eyes. The simulated Lagann flared to life, emerald spirals bursting outward, tearing through the coded void.
"Energy output exceeded 400% of projection!" Asta shrieked. "The simulation's trying to recalculate reality constants!"
"What…is he doing?" Welt asked grimly.
"He's...rewriting the laws of this world from the inside." Herta said in awe. "Fascinating… the construct isn't disintegrating, It's learning to accommodate his existence!"
Her words were immediately betrayed as the data walls began melting, entire equations unraveling like silk threads being devoured by something.
[Warning: Recursive paradox detected. Definition failure. The term "energy" no longer valid.]
"The simulation's naming conventions are collapsing! The data doesn't know what he is!" Asta said with disbelief.
The spirals wrapped around Simon, expanding endlessly, piercing the boundaries of the simulated space.
Worlds flickered into being, then vanished. A million versions of Lagann roared in unison, drilling through dimension after dimension, each iteration more impossible than the last.
Welt shielded his eyes. "What is happening?!"
"It's trying to expand beyond the simulation!" Herta let out a childlike laugh. "Magnificent! He's not following the Imaginary Tree's branching pattern, he's creating his own! A self-replicating informational fractal…!"
The entire simulated realm shook violently as something colossal began to form, an infinite spiral of light spanning countless virtual universes.
"If this keeps going, it'll consume the base layer servers! It needs to be shut down!" Asta pleaded, looking at Herta urgently.
Herta whispered in awe. "Just what is the true nature of this power…a force of limitless potential, driven not by logic…"
She hesitated for a moment, trembling between terror and excitement. Then she raised her hand and cut the power.
The spiral collapsed.
Asta panted. "…Simulation terminated. Reality baseline restored."
"...Did he just almost overwrite reality...?" Welt wiped the sweat forming on his forehead.
"He did. For a moment, the simulation wasn't following my design. It was following his." Herta said, an unreadable look crossing her face. "That… shouldn't be possible."
She turned to him, her voice soft.
"You understand what this means, don't you? Your power isn't energy or matter. It's…either concept….or almost narrative."
Simon grinned faintly. "That's the point of a spiral, right? It never ends."
"Simon Teppelin… you might just be the proof that the universe isn't finished constructing itself." Herta stepped closer, her eyes gleaming. "And I intend to watch what happens next."
She approached Simon, circling him like a predator examining prey.
"Lagann was just a vessel… a mirror reflecting you. It doesn't generate power, it channels the infinite recursion that originates from your consciousness." She pointed an agitated finger at him. "You are the constant, Simon."
"You're making it sound like I'm some kind of lab rat." Simon chuckled.
Herta stopped, her eyes glinting. "'Lab rat' is such a small-minded term. I prefer the perfect experimental subject."
Simon finally took a wary step back.
But Herta ignored him, muttering excitedly to herself, "No simulation can reproduce this. I tried embedding his neural pattern into a simulated universe, and the construct collapsed. The equation diverged to infinity. Even the simulated Aeons rejected it. How thrilling! The universe itself refuses to contain him!"
Welt crossed his arms. "Is that supposed to be a compliment...?"
"Oh, but it is! Don't you see, Welt? This man is beyond definition." She turned to him erratically. "He doesn't draw power from the Imaginary Tree. Self-realization as an energy source! The purest form of ego entropy inversion!"
Asta whispered aside. "She's getting that tone again… the 'I want to dissect it' tone."
"Yeah…" Simon replied dryly. "I noticed."
"Don't worry, I won't kill you. Probably." Herta said sweetly. "But if I could just borrow you for a few days of experimentation—"
"Hard pass." Simon replied bluntly.
"You evolutionary anomalies are always so uncooperative." Herta sighed, pouting slightly. Still…she looked at him with an unnervingly fond smile. "You're my new favorite variable, Simon Teppelin.The universe can't explain you… but I will."
She turned away, muttering complex equations under her breath, the walls filled with formulae as holograms lit up again.
Asta gave him an apologetic smile on behalf of her boss, making Simon shrug and accept his fate.
He sat down together with Welt, waiting for the genius to finish her calculations.
"By the way..." Welt whispered, afraid to disturb the woman working. "Do you mind if I note down that quote about speed...?"
"Be my guest. It's not like there's any copyright laws here." Simon slumped in his chair, watching Herta's puppet strut around.
He couldn't help wondering how much more impressive the real Herta's presence must be.
...
"Fascinating… utterly fascinating. I've run this data set through the Simulated Universe thrice, and the outcome remains a statistical impossibility." Herta blurted out eagerly to their perplexity. "This energy, it truly violates every known principle of mass-energy conservation."
Asta tapped rapidly at her own console. " I thought the readings were wrong at first, but… they're consistent. Energy output exceeds input by an infinite factor. The entropy curve even reverses momentarily before restabilizing."
"Precisely. When it forms those oversized drills, it isn't redistributing internal matter; it's generating new baryonic mass ex nihilo. In simple terms, it's creating energy and matter from nowhere." Herta tore her heated eyes away from the machine, turning to look at Simon with endless curiosity.
"That's impossible." Welt added, somewhat understanding where they were going with this. "Even Imaginary energy obeys conservation laws, unless...it's drawing from a higher-dimensional source."
He suddenly gaped at Simon, realising what that could entail.
"Indeed. How absurd. The existence of an entity beyond the reach of the imaginary tree and the Aeons...how utterly absurd." Herta smiled uncharacteristically. "At first, I hypothesized it was tapping into Imaginary space through quantum tunneling, similar to the Aeons' manifestations, but the quantum signatures don't match. Instead, what I'm seeing is… resonance."
"Resonance?" Simon asked, curious about her interpretation of spiral energy.
"Yes. When you activate this mechanism inside you, Lagann's power output correlates directly with your psychological confidence index. In other words, its energy density scales with your willpower and potentially this unknown entity through dimensional tunneling." Herta crossed her arms with absolute confidence in her analysis.
Asta's eyes widened. "That would make it a self-referential energy loop! The pilot's conviction amplifies the output, which reinforces the conviction, which amplifies again. An infinite feedback cycle! No wonder it almost destroyed the simulation!"
Herta nodded. "Exactly. A theoretically unstable, but closed motivational singularity. No entropy, no decay. The only limiting factor is the pilot."
Welt rubbed his temple. "You're saying this machine converts spirit into substance."
"If you want to sound poetic, yes." Herta smirked. "In empirical terms: Lagann's engine manifests a non-Imaginary energy state I'm classifying as Self-Actualized Matter. It exists only while the pilot's existential vector maintains coherence."
Simon raised his eyebrows knowingly. "…So if I start doubting myself, it stops working?"
Herta tapped at her tablet. "Statistically speaking, yes. If your neural confidence falls below 20%, Lagann's core enters thermodynamic collapse, followed by spontaneous mass reversal. Translation: you'll implode into negative existence."
"That's...nice to know." He replied with a deadpan look. Was spiral energy truly that dangerous at this stage...or was he being swept away by Herta's misunderstanding?
"You're no fun." Herta sighed, disappointed at seeing him not panicking. "Still an object that weaponizes human determination as an energy source… perhaps this power is a new fundamental force altogether. I'll need to rewrite several universal models to account for this. How exciting."
"Glad to help." Simon smirked. He didn't even have to do anything to attract Herta's curiosity, after all. "But what do I get out of this?"
Herta looked up, a strange glint passing through her eyes. "You want a reward?"
"Well...it's a little embarassing but there are some things I want your help with." Simon replied happily, content with not being rejected right away. "Like, fitting Lagann with some more tech and whatnot."
"Then become mine, Simon Teppelin. I'll make sure you lack for nothing in this lifetime." Herta said bluntly, staring straight into his eyes with no shame whatsoever.
Asta and Welt were taken aback.
Simon only smirked wider. This was progressing even faster than he ever expected, but he didn't dislike it. "I might consider it if you ask me in person."
"Say the word and I will deploy my space folding technology right now." Herta pressed on without missing a beat.
Simon just chuckled at her enthusiasm. It felt great to be desired by such a genius. "But I don't think staying cooped up inside a monotone environment like a lab is conducive to my growth."
"Hmm, fine, you're right." Herta nodded seriously, much to Asta's astonishment. "I'm looking forward to your growth. Be glad, you've caught the attention of a one of a kind genius."
...
A/N: Writing this chapter was pure pain.
PS: Do any of you actually read the author's thoughts section? Or should I just write everything I want to say at the start or end of a chapter?
PPS: Belobog next chapter