Chapter 161: The Final Hours

Date: 6/23/2001 – 2:23 AM

Location: Foundation Nursery – Unit 981

Perspective: Kaiser Everhart

My eyes drifted to the wall clock. The hands were fixed at 2:23 AM.

The transition was sluggish. Usually, the shift from the violet-white glare of the simulation to the dim, blue-tinted shadows of the nursery is instantaneous. This time, there was a lag—a heavy, physical resistance in my limbs.

My heart rate is slightly elevated.

The neural load required to dismantle Director Vance’s psychological defenses was immense. My biological shell, currently only 1 year old, is overtaxed. It is demanding rest to compensate for the “Factory’s” overclocking.

I sat up slowly. The room was quiet.

The white bed I occupied felt unnecessarily large and cold. Cartethyia was not in her usual position holding me. The room was sterile, bathed in the hum of the ventilation. At the foot of the bed, my desk remained still—a silent witness to the hours I spent pretending to be a regular infant.

I leaned my back against the headboard and waited.

My mind immediately began to index the events in the simulation.

The “stunt” with Vance had been a high-risk gamble, but it had yielded the necessary result. If I had simply achieved a 100/100 like Designation 000001, I would have been categorized as a standard “Peak Talent.” I would have been a prize to be polished, not a mystery to be solved.

By scoring 95%—by failing the simplest question while mastering the impossible ones—I became an anomaly.

I forced Vance to step out of his role as Director and into his role as a curious observer. That curiosity was the only leverage I had to ensure those letters reached the real world.

But this brings me back to the core of my existence.

What am I?

I am not a genius of talent, as Vance suspected. I am a master of the “Aporetic” path—the one who finds truth in the flaws of the system. I have been building a hybrid framework, a philosophy I call Kaiserism.

I mentally listed the 16 distinct philosophies I had synthesized from my reading of The Feathered Heresy and The Severed Root: Nihilism, Solipsism, Totalitarianism, Fatalism, Determinism, Utilitarianism, Altruism, Meritocracy, Pragmatism, Stoicism, Cynicism, Existentialism, Rationalism, Empiricism, Skepticism, and Absurdism.

Kaiserism is the point where these 16 paths intersect. It is the realization that the system is a lie, but the lie can be manipulated. I will have to formalize the tenets of Kaiserism later.

I need to define the “Aporetic False Genius” before I am discarded.

But not tonight.

Heavy, rhythmic footsteps echoed in the hallway..

Cartethyia.

I smoothed the white sheets, settling my face back into the blank, unresponsive mask of an “inferior” child.

This would be our last night.

The door slid open.

Cartethyia stepped into the room, her raven-black hair slightly disheveled and her dark eyes shimmering with an intensity that seemed to vibrate in the sterile air.

In one hand, she clutched two envelopes—the very ones I had entrusted to Vance in the simulation. In the other, she held a small, polished box.

The moment her gaze landed on me, her face split into a beaming, triumphant smile.

She moved with a grace that felt out of place in this cold facility, a protective shadow sweeping toward me. She practically tossed the items onto the desk and let out a soft, high-pitched squeal.

“Kaiserrrr!”

Before I could process the sudden shift in atmosphere, she scooped me up. Her arms were familiar, pressing me against her chest with possessiveness.

“My little prince is awake!” she chirped, rubbing her cheek against mine.

“What’s with that look, honey? Are we being the quiet, brooding type again? Don’t worry, mama isn’t going to let that last. Today… oh, today I have a surprise for you!”

She is experiencing a peak emotional state. She believes she has won.

The surprise. This is it. The “projected obsolescence” has reached its conclusion.

She is here to tell me she’s leaving.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, settling me onto her lap. Her long, slender fingers traced the line of my hair, a rhythmic, soothing motion that she used whenever she was trying to ground herself.

“Hehehe..”

“Can you guess where mama has been, Kaiser-bear?” she asked, her voice dipping into that affectionate, slightly sarcastic lilt.

“Mmm…” I let out a soft, non-committal sound, keeping my eyes fixed on the desk.

“I have been a very, very annoying mother,” she whispered, leaning down so her nose brushed mine.

“Over the last week, I’ve been making countless requests. One after another, those grey-suited guards kept saying ’no.’ Reject, reject, reject. It’s like they have a quota for being miserable! But then… today… Director Vance… oh, he is such a kind soul beneath all that coldness.”

“He finally granted my request!”

She lifted me up, planting a loud, lingering kiss on my cheek. “I’m sooooo happy today! You have no idea, my little void.”

She made a move to put me back down on the bed so she could reach for the box, but I didn’t let go. I reached out, my small fingers gripping the fabric of her dark dress, pulling it with a stubborn strength that caught her off guard.

“What’s wrong, honey?” she asked, her brow furrowing in confusion. “Mama just wants to show you what’s in the—”

I ignored the box. I pointed a trembling finger toward the desk, toward the two envelopes Vance had delivered.

“Ugh, those?” Cartethyia rolled her eyes, her sarcastic edge returning.

“Probably just more useless letters from the Foundation. ’Blah, blah, scores, blah, blah, efficiency.’ They bother me, Kaiser. Let’s not focus on those, honey—”

“R-read…” I forced the word out. My tongue felt heavy, my vocal cords unpracticed and stiff. “R-r-read… l-letter.”

She looked at me, her eyes wide with shock.

“Why do you want me to read those so much?” she murmured, her voice shaky. She reached out, her hand hovering between the box and the paper. Slowly, she bypassed the box and took the two envelopes.

“G-good,” I muttered, my heart hammering against my ribs.

“Hehe… well,” she said, a watery smile returning to her face as she smoothed the envelopes.

“At least you’re talking now. If it takes a piece of Foundation trash to get a word out of you, I suppose I’ll have to indulge you.”

She brought the first letter to her eyes, her expression softening as she prepared to read the words I had written to her from the depths of the White Room.

Her fingers, usually so steady when mocking the Foundation’s “strictness,” trembled as she traced the seal. On the very top of the parchment, in a script that was as cold and precise as a surgical strike, was a note from Director Vance.

She read it aloud, her voice wavering with a mix of disbelief and awe:

“Caretaker Cartethyia, this correspondence is not a directive from the Foundation. It is a private message from Designation 981—the child in your care. He requested that these words be delivered to you in the physical world. Read them in the order specified.”

“Really?!” she gasped, looking down at me. Her dark eyes were wide, shimmering with a sudden, frantic light.

“You… you asked the Director to do this? How??!?!”

“My little prince actually went and used his big brain for mama?”

I simply gave a small, solemn nod.

“Oh, Kaiser!” She let out a high-pitched, joyous squeak, her legs kicking the side of the bed in a rhythmic, childish tattoo. Thump, thump, thump. She giggled, a sound that started deep in her chest and bubbled up like carbonated water.

“You can’t speak most words yet, and that’s fine! Mama loves hearing your little ’mmm’ sounds. But reading the words in your mind? Mmmm, that excites me so much! It’s like a secret just for us!”

She scooped me back into her lap, her arms tightening around me with that fierce, possessive maternal love. One hand held me against her warmth, while the other unfolded the first page.

“Let’s see what my little genius has to say,” she whispered, her cheek resting against the top of my head. She began to read my words out loud, her voice softening into a melodic hum.

“Miss Cartethyia, I am writing this letter because I cannot yet convey the complexity of my thoughts through speech. My tongue is clumsy, but my mind is not. You may not remember, but on the 18th of this month, you spoke to me of your time at Asura Academy.’”

Cartethyia paused, a watery smile breaking across her face. “You remembered that? You were just staring at the ceiling, I thought you weren’t focused…”

“You told me of your regret. You were a master of Earth magic, carrying the power of earth in your mana, but the elemental water magic always eluded you. You spoke of your friend Aria—the ’pointy-eared elf—and how you felt left behind when the water would not bend to your will. You put in the hard work. You gave the effort. But the result was a failure that still haunts your conscience.”

“It does,” she whispered, her breath hitching. “It really does, honey. It felt like I was missing a part of my soul.”

“I do not want you to have any regrets. I do not want you to have ’regret’ in your memories. I have analyzed the variables of mana-viscosity and the atomic vibration threshold that the Foundation instructors ignore. Please turn over the page to see what I have prepared for you.”

Cartethyia was a mess. She was smiling so hard her cheeks clearly hurt, her eyes red-rimmed but sparkling with a joy I hadn’t seen in any of my data-logs.

“I love you so much,” she sobbed, half-laughing, half-crying. “H-hah… you want to help mama? You’re so precious, Kaiser! My little void is trying to bring back the rain!”

She planted another frantic kiss on my forehead and then, with hands that were shaking violently, she turned the page over.

The smile on her face didn’t fade; it froze. Her eyes scanned the complex geometric arrays and the nine specific variables I had translated from the Abyssal Calculus into a language her Earth-attuned mana could understand.

Cartethyia’s breath hitched as she stared at the second page. I had stripped away the jargon of the “Abyssal Calculus” and the “Atomic Vibration Threshold.”

At the top of the page, I had written a single, bold heading: THE FOUR FLAWS OF THE FALLEN TEACHER.

“Wait,” she whispered, her eyes darting across my lines.

I had written it in a way that bypassed the Foundation’s jargon. I used her own memories as the anchor.

Miss Cartethyia, look at this drawing. Alaric told you to follow your ’instinct,’ right? He told you to feel the water as a wild, rushing river. He was wrong.

That was your First Mistake. Water is not a river until it has a path. To summon it, you do not look for a ’rush.’ You look for the tiny, invisible droplets already in the air—the ’breath’ of the room—and you ask them to hold hands.

Cartethyia let out a soft, choked laugh, her finger tracing the circle I’d drawn to represent a water molecule. “Hold hands… oh, Kaiser, you make it sound like a playground game.”

Your Second Mistake was trying to push the mana out. Think of your mana like a sponge. Instead of pushing, you must ’pull’ the air’s moisture toward your palm. Do not force it to be a geyser. Let it be a secret.

“A secret…” she whispered, her brow furrowing. “Alaric always said to ’erupt.’ But you’re saying I should… invite it?”

The Third Mistake is the most common. You used the ’Weight of Gold’ from your Earth magic. You tried to make the water heavy. But water is only heavy when it falls. While it is in your hand, it must be ’tight.’ Like the skin of a drum. It is a tension, not a weight. If you pull too hard, the ’hand-holding’ breaks.

“Hehe… I always did try to crush it,” she murmured, a flush of realization coloring her cheeks. “I was treating it like a rock. I was being a ’disaster,’ wasn’t I?”

Finally, the Fourth Mistake

. The ’Paradox.’ To make the water flow, you must first refuse to let it move. Imagine you are holding your breath before a dive. The pressure inside you is what gives the water its life. Alaric told you to let go.

I am telling you to hold on until the very last second. This is the ’Restraint.’

Cartethyia stared at the final diagram—a spiral that condensed into a single, glowing point. She sat there in silence for a long minute, her chest vibrating with a suppressed sob of pure joy.

“This…” she looked at me, her eyes wet with tears of pride.

“Kaiser, this is better than anything Alaric ever said. He spoke in riddles about ’nature’ and ’spirit.’ You… you just explained the world. You’ve found the flaws I didn’t even know I had.”

She put the letter down on the bed, her hands trembling. She looked toward the empty ceramic cup sitting on the desk, only a few feet away. She was visibly nervous—a flicker of the “Prone to Despair” trait I had noted in her profile.

She was afraid of failing in front of me.

Afraid that even with the “Answer,” she wasn’t good enough.

I reached out. My small, clumsy hand gripped the fabric of her dress, tugging it with a firmness that demanded her attention.

“T-t-try,” I said. The word was a struggle, a fractured sound that broke in the middle.

“I-I… b-believe in y-you… Cartethyia.”

Cartethyia’s eyes widened.

She simply stared at me, her heart rate stabilizing as my confidence anchored her. Slowly, she lifted her right hand. She made a small, determined fist pump in the air, a tiny spark of her old fire returning to her eyes.

“I can do this!” she whispered, her voice hardening with resolve. “After all, I have you by my side, Kaiser! I have my little genius.”

She turned toward the desk, her arm extending. Her palm was open, facing the cup. I watched her mana begin to fluctuate—it wasn’t the jagged, explosive burst of an Earth-user anymore.

She is regulating her mana-viscosity.

She is following the “Paradoxical Restraint” perfectly.

“I can do it…” she said again, almost to herself.

You will.

I thought coldly, my blue eyes fixed on the empty space above the cup.

I have already envisioned the result.

The probability of failure is now 100%.

The air around her hand began to ripple, the temperature dropping just enough to make the moisture visible.

The secret can wait.

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