Adin pushed open the door of [ MP.05-Ω ] and stepped into the archive.

  The lamp on the desk was lit, but Jan, who usually kept watch, was not there. A vacuum-like silence, one that seemed to swallow all sound, pressed against Adin’s entire body.

  He moved soundlessly between the bookshelves, burrowing deeper.

  To find the 'Root Logic'—the architectural foundation of the Monolith—he scanned the serial numbers of the ledgers lining the walls. Each time his fingertips brushed the spines of the blank white books, the dry scent of paper stung his nose.

  Climbing a ladder, he rummaged through the corner of a high shelf.

  He pulled out leather-bound ledgers that bore the recent traces of a hand, devoid of dust, and inspected them one by one. Finding the words 'System-Origin' amidst the encrypted symbols, he focused and turned the pages.

  Only the rustling of paper carefully sliced through the archive’s stillness.

  Adin reached his arm deep into the shelves, tapping the walls to find any hidden compartments. His fingers met only cold metal plates and sequences of numbers with inscrutable meanings.

  Nothing was caught in his grasp.

  “Hmm.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  A dry voice pierced the silence from behind.

  Adin froze, then slowly turned around. Jan had appeared without a sound, standing at the doorway and adjusting his monocle as he observed Adin.

  He simply stood there.

  Jan was neither angry nor flustered. He merely stared with indifference at the shelf where the intruder's fingertips had lingered. The air in the room grew heavy and sank.

  Adin felt, perhaps, that this situation was for the best.

  What he needed now was not blind faith. He felt a desperate need for Jan’s cold intellect—a mind capable of dismantling this deceptive world and logically explaining the abyss he had witnessed.

  If it were Jan, he would provide the clearest answer, even if it led to ruin.

  Adin met Jan’s gaze directly and spoke.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “...To incinerate time. What does that mean?”

  Instead of answering, Jan walked slowly and took a seat at the desk. He adjusted the white cotton gloves on his hands and let out a light breath.

  “Hmm… Originally, time flows because it is light. It slides toward the downstream of the future without any resistance.”

  Jan picked up an old quill from the desk.

  “But the moments of intense pain or ecstasy felt by humans are so dense that they turn the flow viscous.”

  Jan drew a vertical line toward the floor with the tip of the quill.

  “Theoretically, the system must incinerate those lingering moments. By burning the information—the ‘memories’ and ‘emotions’ within that time—it completely eradicates the ‘momentum’ that tries to move toward the future.”

  “What do you think remains?”

  Jan stared at Adin. Adin recalled the vast underground space he had witnessed through Mimos.

  “Ashes would remain.”

  “Precisely. The pure debris of time left after all information has been consumed.”

  Jan paused, his eyes reflecting the dim lamp light.

  “Hmm… if my calculations are correct, these ashes, unable to flow, will sink to the bottom and form a massive mass. My hypothesis concludes that a gargantuan sewer must exist somewhere to pour these ashes into.”

  Jan set the quill down and narrowed his eyes.

  “The immense gravity created this way eventually traps this city inside a pit of warped time. That grotesque curvature, formed by tens of thousands of years of incinerated time, binds even the normal time that tries to flow horizontally, preventing its escape.”

  He leaned back slightly, the shadows deepening on his face.

  “The 'Eternal Today' we enjoy is, in fact, standing upon the crevice of that deep gravity, built by burning someone else’s 'Tomorrow'.”

  Warped time.

  Warped... time.

  Adin felt a chilling tremor. Jan had inferred the existence of that pit only through formulas, but Adin had already witnessed it beneath Mimos’s feet.

  (The vertical pressure I saw beneath Mimos… The shadows that were only falling downward were the ashes of time, driven deep to keep this city from drifting away. That was the anchor that fixed the Monolith in place.)

  Adin swallowed his monologue and looked straight into Jan's eyes. Jan, still unaware that Adin had seen the reality of that 'sewer', asked as if observing an interesting variable.

  “Well… now, I shall ask a question.”

  “Adin, are you a repairman who has come to manage this giant sewer, or are you just more dross to be sucked into that hole?”

  Adin’s lips trembled slightly before stopping. He felt the cold touch of the Solet in his pocket.

  “I am not being sucked in. I am sinking of my own accord.”

  Adin’s voice was low, yet heavier than the archive’s silence.

  “You call the things pouring down ‘dross,’ but to me, they look like the depth of time that has been endured. I intend to go and see for myself what lies at that bottom.”

  Jan stopped fiddling with his monocle. In Adin, he saw a fatal variable that the system could never calculate.

  Jan rose and spoke to Adin’s back as he headed for the door.

  “The bottom… hmm.”

  “Someone’s obsession, something you may not be able to handle, will be waiting for you there. One who loathes disorder and loves only the perfection of stasis.”

  Adin did not answer.

  As he stepped out of Jan’s archive, the faces of several people flashed through his mind.