WebNovels

Chapter 11 - Chronicle 014-016

"Teacher, don't you think the king's death was very sudden?"

I asked in a muffled voice, my face still buried in the cradle of my teacher's chest.

"No, it wasn't sudden at all," my teacher answered, then released her grip, allowing me to break free from the hug.

"How can you be so sure?" I had my own opinion about the king's death, which felt incredibly abrupt. It hadn't even been a full day since we'd met him.

"Take your book and open it to page 014."

"Alright." I took the book and opened it to page 014, which read:

APPELLATION: Scarlet

TITLE / EPITHET: The Web of Destiny, The Red Weaver, The Heart of Causality

CLASSIFICATION:

Primary: Mythological

Status: Active

Scale: Cosmic

Level: Abstract

ORIGIN: Scarlet was not born. It came into being with the first law of cause and effect. When the first action in the universe triggered the first consequence, an invisible "thread" formed between them. From the central point where all these threads converged, Scarlet's consciousness awoke. It is the embodiment of the principle that every action has an equal and opposite reaction; a law of nature brought to life.

FORM / ESSENCE: Its essence is The Living Structure of Causality. It is not a spider that weaves the web of fate; it IS the web of fate itself. Its "body" is a nexus outside of space and time that resembles a colossal spider woven from crystalline red light and shadow. The infinite millions of destiny threads are extensions of its body, connecting it to every living being.

APPEARANCE & PERCEPTION: Scarlet itself is almost never seen. What can be perceived by those with sensitivity is its Web. To most, this is merely intuition or a premonition. But for those who "see," every living creature is connected to a thin, glowing red thread that stretches from their heart toward an unseen horizon. This thread shines brightest at crucial moments in a person's life: at the moment of falling in love, during a great sacrifice, or at the time of death. The air around these threads vibrates with the energy of potential.

DOMAIN & INFLUENCE: Its domain is destiny and consequence.

Passive Influence: It is the mechanic of fate. It does not decide a person's destiny, but it maintains the structure that ensures all choices have consequences. Every decision a living being makes sends a vibration along their thread back to it, and it reflexively balances the web in response.

Anomalous Influence: Its Web can be disturbed. With enough power, a thread of destiny can be "plucked" or even "cut."

Plucking a Thread: Will cause a sudden and dramatic fated event in a person's life (a chance meeting, a freak accident, etc.).

Cutting a Thread: A forbidden act. This would sever someone from the law of cause and effect. They become a walking anomaly, an agent of pure chaos whose actions no longer have predictable consequences, capable of corrupting the fabric of reality around them.

VULNERABILITIES & COUNTERMEASURES: It is a system, not an omnipotent god.

Mechanic, Not Will: Scarlet has no human-like consciousness, desire, or intent. It is a process. It cannot be persuaded, threatened, or negotiated with. It is a cosmic reflex.

Reflexive Reaction: Disturbing its web triggers an automatic and devastating defensive response. Pained by its damaged "threads," Scarlet will instinctively create a "Fate Tangle"—a storm of bad luck and causal paradoxes around the disturber to neutralize them and repair the web.

Blindness to the Unbound: Its web is only connected to beings bound by the cycle of cause and effect. Entities like Neira (Folio 000) have no thread, and thus, to Scarlet, they do not exist.

ECHOES IN HISTORY & MYTH: The myths of the Three Fates (the Moirai in Greece, the Norns in Scandinavia) who spin, measure, and cut the threads of life are humanity's attempt to personify and comprehend the singular, unfathomable workings of Scarlet. Seers and oracles of the past were not seeing the future, but were people sensitive enough to feel the vibrations in the Red Threads.

WHISPERS & FRAGMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE:

"Never try to cut someone's red thread. You will not like the earthquake it causes in the web."

"Destiny is not a pre-written path. It is the thread stretched between your choice and its consequence."

"It is said that at the center of the web, near the Weaver, there are threads connected to nothing. Those are the fates of worlds yet unborn."

A Scribe's Note: Chronicling Scarlet makes me grapple with the question of free will. Are our lives predetermined, or do our choices create the vibrations in the web? I've reached the unsettling conclusion that both are true. We are free to pluck our own strings, but the strings themselves and the notes they produce are an inseparable part of Scarlet's symphony. The true horror is not being trapped in the web, but imagining what would happen if the Weaver ever stopped weaving.

"It mentions Scarlet here," I said after reading page 014. I looked at my teacher. "Is it a spider?" I asked.

"Yup, it's a spider. Now, tell me, what do you want to ask about it?"

She wanted me to ask something about the figure called Scarlet. If so, I really only had one question. "What does this have to do with my previous question?"

"Here, hold this." My teacher didn't answer. Instead, she asked me to hold a rope that had appeared from nowhere.

"Okay, what should I do with it?"

"Let's take turns pulling."

My teacher and I each held an end of the rope. I pulled on my side while my teacher just stood still; as a result, her body was pulled toward me. Then it was her turn; she pulled, and my body was pulled forward.

"So, what's the point of this, Teacher?"

"Try pulling it."

I pulled it once more, but then…

"BRAK!!!"

I fell over because she let go of the rope the moment before I pulled.

"Why did you let go?" I got up and rubbed my backside, which was now throbbing with pain.

"Well, that's what happens when Scarlet's web is severed," she said. She didn't apologize. Instead, without a hint of guilt, she redirected my focus with that statement.

"What do you mean?"

"Try pulling this again." She asked me to pull the rope once more.

I wasn't going to be fooled this time, so I refused to pull it voluntarily. I stared daggers at her, as if to say, "Don't make me angry."

"Fine, let's just forget it."

She folded her arms and turned her back to me. This wasn't good. I never thought my teacher would act like this with me. She was angry, or more accurately, she was sulking.

I have to persuade her, I thought. I approached her, walking to the side she had turned to, but as soon as we were face to face, she deliberately looked away, refusing to make eye contact with me.

"Teacher, come on." I shook her by the shoulder, but she didn't budge or even look at me.

"You refused earlier, so this is what you get."

Hmph… that didn't work. I probably couldn't win just by pleading or forcing her. I honestly wanted to continue our conversation, but after being toyed with… ah, whatever. I'll try something else.

"Alright, I won't ask for free," I said. It seemed she was hooked; her face slowly turned toward me. "You talk, and I'll grant your request." I'll grant it because I figured she'd only ask for something simple like a hug or maybe just to play around with me.

"Really?" She turned around fully. The fish took the bait, I thought.

"Yup, really. So, what do you want?" I was sure she would just ask for a hug or maybe nothing at all, until finally:

"Hoooh… alright then. Your fishnet underwear."

Oh… damn it. A shiver ran down my spine hearing that. Did I mishear? Or was she just joking to tease me? To be sure, I tried asking, "Teacher, could you repeat that one more time? And make sure it's really what you want, because if not… there's no second chance."

My teacher grinned widely, her face ecstatic, and then replied, "Your fishnet underwear."

It seemed I had dug my own grave. I never thought she'd be curious enough to actually want me to show them, let alone ask for them. I thought she was just making a joke to tease me.

"But Teacher, they're all in the back." Honestly, I did put them in the luggage with my other things.

"I'm not asking for the ones back there." Her gaze shifted downward.

I reflexively covered myself with both hands. Even though I was wearing a skirt, I felt like she could see right through it. After that, her expression darkened again, and she turned away, refusing to look at me.

"Huuuh… alright. Just this once."

I tried to take off my underwear. "Don't look over here," I forbid her from turning around, because I saw her trying to steal a glance, sneaking a peek as I took them off.

"Here." I handed her my underwear. The very pair I had just been wearing.

"Wow… they really are fishnets. And they're black, hahaha…"

What she did next was laugh, then use my underwear like a flag, waving it back and forth.

"So what was that for?" I asked, sitting on the chair with my legs folded behind me.

"What's with your face? Are you sick?" She didn't answer, instead asking and placing a hand on my forehead.

"No, I just want you to be serious," I said.

"Ah… alright. Now, hold this with both hands."

Oh, come on. I couldn't believe she was using my underwear to continue our earlier tug-of-war session.

She stretched my underwear out and told me to hold the two sides with both hands.

"Now, you are the king, and I am Scarlet," my teacher said, her tone serious this time. "Now, pull." She told me to pull.

"And then, pull again." She asked me to pull once more, and:

"BRAKK!!"

I fell over for the second time, my skirt flying up. I scrambled to fix my position. I was sure she saw everything. I couldn't lift my face.

"What just happened is when Scarlet's web breaks," my teacher said. She wasn't laughing or teasing. She was serious this time. I dared to lift my head.

"So, Scarlet didn't sever the web?" I concluded, seeing that my teacher hadn't let go; my underwear had ripped in two.

"Yup. I didn't let go, but your underwear ripped," my teacher replied, twirling the tattered remains of my underwear on her finger.

"Scarlet doesn't sever it? But because its threads were already fragile, they broke?" I asked.

"Something like that. Now, do you remember who was in the king's room?" My teacher answered, then asked me to recall.

"Four people. And with the two of us, that makes six," I answered.

"You're half right and half wrong. Open to page 016."

As instructed, I turned to page 016:

APPELLATION: The Walking Man

TITLE / EPITHET: The Key Witness, The Severer of Possibilities, Fate's Final Step

CLASSIFICATION:

Primary: Mythological

Status: Active

Scale: Cosmic

Level: Abstract

ORIGIN: It is a fundamental component of reality, born with the first choice. When the universe was still in a fluid, quantum state—where all possibilities occurred simultaneously—a principle was needed to create a single, stable, and coherent timeline. The Walking Man manifested for this purpose. It is the universe's pen, whose job is to underline one series of events, making it definitive "history."

FORM / ESSENCE: Its essence is Causal Actualization. It is a living catalyst that transforms probability into actuality. Its form is always the same: an ordinary man in simple, dark clothing. His face, posture, and gait are so nondescript as to be forgettable. One could pass him on the street and a minute later be unable to recall any detail about him. His anonymity is a necessity, as his purpose is to observe, not to be observed.

APPEARANCE & PERCEPTION: Its presence is almost never noticed until an event reaches its climax. The only sign is a feeling of "inevitability" that settles over a place, as if all other doors of possibility have closed. He will be seen standing silently at the periphery of momentous events: on a hill overlooking a battlefield, in the back of a lab as a great discovery is made, or in the crowd as a historic treaty is signed. He never interacts. Once the event is concluded, he will turn and walk on, and whatever has just transpired is now permanently etched into the fabric of reality.

DOMAIN & INFLUENCE: Its domain is probability and actuality. Its influence is singular and absolute: where it walks and what it witnesses becomes The One True History. Before its arrival, a battle could be won or lost. After it witnesses the flag of victory being raised, that outcome is the only one that was ever possible. It does not choose the winner; it is drawn to the timeline with the highest probability and locks it into reality.

VULNERABILITIES & COUNTERMEASURES: It is a law, and it is strictly bound to its function.

Witness, Not Actor: It is fundamentally passive. It is bound by a cosmic law of non-intervention and cannot influence the events it witnesses. Attacking it is as useless as trying to punch the concept of "observation" itself.

Blind to Pure Chaos: Its function is to select one timeline from several possibilities. It is conceptually blind to absolute chaos—events with infinite, equal possibilities, or the actions of a being severed from cause and effect (like one whose thread Scarlet has cut). It cannot choose a path if there are no paths at all.

Its Path is Set: It does not choose its destination. It is pulled along the "path of greatest probability." In theory, one could manipulate events on a massive scale to make one outcome overwhelmingly likely, thus "forcing" The Walking Man to walk in that direction.

ECHOES IN HISTORY & MYTH: Myths of a quiet, dark-robed figure appearing before historic moments are echoes of its existence. People mistook it for an omen, good or bad, when in fact it was merely a universal auditor logging an event into the ledger of reality. The modern archetype of the "Man in Black" in UFO folklore could be a contemporary interpretation of its inexplicable presence.

WHISPERS & FRAGMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE:

"History is not written by the victors. It is written when the Walking Man pauses to watch."

"You can change the past, but only until you see him in the crowd. Once he's there, the ink is dry."

"He does not walk upon a path. The path forms beneath his feet."

A Scribe's Note: Chronicling this entity evokes both awe and existential terror. The Walking Man erases all "what ifs" from history, which is at once comforting and horrifying. I wonder, is my act of writing this very book an event he will one day witness? If so, then the existence of all the terrible anomalies within it will become an absolute fact of reality. The weight of that thought... is heavy indeed.

"Who is he, and what's the connection?" My gaze was still fixed on the page. It mentioned a Walking Man with the title Key Witness. I looked at my teacher.

Then she said, "Do you remember the man leaning against the window?" My teacher's hand reached for a cigarette in her pocket.

"Could it be… that was the Walking Man?" My teacher nodded. I was shocked. How could I have not noticed the strangeness of the figure at the window? The man I saw this morning in the king's room was the Walking Man.

"Then what was he doing there, Teacher?" I asked, and then my teacher told me, "Focus on the domain and influence section."

I reread that part and found something about "probability and actuality. What does that mean?" I asked.

My teacher then took out a piece of paper, complete with ink and a quill pen. She wrote: fishnet underwear and ripped fishnet underwear. Then, she underlined the words ripped fishnet underwear with red ink.

"You see this?" She asked me to look at her writing. But why did it have to be about fishnet underwear? I nodded in response.

"Scarlet is the ink, and these two writings are the possibilities. The underline is the Walking Man," my teacher explained.

"So, the Walking Man and Scarlet can't be separated?" I asked.

"Well, something like that," my teacher looked at me. "Scarlet without the Walking Man is like you without underwear. There's no safety net below."

This is so embarrassing, I thought. My whole body felt cold, as if I needed a place to hide. I'm powerless right now, but just you wait. I'll get my revenge.

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