“D-Doctor?!”
“What in the world could have happened that’s got you in such a panic, my dear Keloppa?”
"My head..," a sniffle, "it hurts..."
Dr. Paradigm looked and saw a large bite mark on Keloppa’s head.
“Oh dear, did you get bitten again?”
A huge creature approached them, causing tremors in the earth. It was a familiar sight.
“Now, now, master Bonebiter. Don’t take a bite out of our boy Keloppa. I always have to remind you of this.”
“Boooone…”
Paradigm sighed as he watched the dragon-shaped Gear roar forlornly in response to being scolded. He understood that it was an instinctive behavior, but he was getting tired of the fact that it could not quit preying on its own people, no matter how many times he warned it.
“Day after day you fellows do this. Should we be delighted by the tranquility of today, or should we be pessimistic because of this critical situation? It’s hard to decide.”
The doctor folded his arms and muttered. Then something abruptly flew by without a sound and spoke in a high-pitched voice into Paradigm’s ear.
“Doctor, doctor! Please, it’s horrible!”
After breakfast, his daily routine was to take a walk around the island. Dr. Paradigm, a Gear, was in a good mood as he felt the pleasant autumn sun and wind. The seagulls flew overhead, the tidal waves... Everything was peaceful.
After the Crusades, Gears were freed from the curse of Justice and moved from place to place to avoid human contact, finally finding somewhere to rest and settle down permanently several years ago. Here they found peace and tranquility. As Paradigm walked along, humming a song of his own composition, "God's in his Heaven, all's right with the world
," he saw one of his compatriots running up towards him, sobbing and crying.
“Oh, don’t startle me, Assistant Bonnie. How many times have I told you not to yell in my ear…”
“Ah, come on, please, it’s urgent!”
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Assistants darted around in a hurry to get back to the laboratory. They were homunculi created by Paradigm through the application of Gear cell technology.
“What is the matter with you? They say time is money, but I’ve never seen a good result from being in a hurry.”
“You can scold me later… Anyway, please look at this!”
“Ack… Is this..?!”
Paradigm's gaze fell on the monitor of an instrument that observed the Backyard. The cursor that tracked a fluctuation of values moved in a completely different way than usual.
“Is this..?! Is space being minutely distorted? What happened?”
He reached for the console and entered a code.
“The distortion is being caused by… this?! Assistant Bonnie. From your terminal, add up the millionths of the Dirac constant
, one by one, in that order."
“Y-yes! Well, um… Eichibar has… this is it! W-wow. The distortion graph just got even bigger!!”
“I knew it! Assistant, continue.”
“Yes! Ah, now it's turned around! It swung out the other way!”
“Good. Secure the state as it is... No, no. This is not a valid operation. Assistant. This time, subtract. Bring it back slowly.”
“Yes… carefully now… What’s this? The cursor is recovering!”
"All right, that's it! Lock the values, please. Assistant Bennie, lend me a hand. We need the same values over here next."
The other assistant, Bennie, who had been watching the proceedings in a daze from on top of a book, finally got up. Paradigm pointed to another instrument console.
“I see. That’s great, doctor! You can calculate the shape of the object by observing it from different positions on different devices!”
“It’s nothing but classic trigonometry. I did invent the force of law occurrence
rangefinder, after all... No, wait, that doesn’t matter right now. Is this a sphere of about 1.7cm in diameter? The boundary theorem is polarizing… Between this world and the Backyard!!”
“Ah! The cursor is oscillating… Hmm, it’s gone…”
“Assistant Bennie. What’s the recording saying now?”
“Log, all checks are good.”
“All right. I want you to print out all the logs for the instruments after you secure the constants..."
“...Understood.”
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A few minutes later, Paradigm was in a tank—or, rather, in his private room. This was a room designed specifically for his body, which could only breathe underwater. His assistants sat at desks, listening to him read the data, and his face seemed to be somewhat tense.
“What’s wrong, doctor?”
“Hmm… Well, I’ll explain to you what I’m seeing in the output.”
“Ah… Okay.”
“The sphere I mentioned a moment ago is a kind of boundary between this world and the Backyard. The normal order
lightwave optimized for the observation of the Backyard, which was emitted toward the center of this sphere, returned an unquantifiable value. Conversely, the normal order lightwave in the present world returned real numbers. In other words, the inside of the sphere is this world. The molecules that make up this gate are thought to have been specially processed by the force of law occurrence. The absorption rate of the normal order lightwave is certain.”
"Well, uh, what does that mean?”
“It's very similar to the special code I use to observe the Backyard.”
“Forgive me, doctor, I don't even know how you observe the Backyard.”
“Ah, I see. I never taught that to you. Simply put, I am observing the Backyard from this world by ‘spoofing’ the theorems of our world into the theorems on the Backyard’s side. This is the best I can do, and I can never send real numbers
to the Backyard – I can never interfere physically… However, that sphere was composed by physical interference with the Backyard from this world. This means that someone other than me succeeded in making physical contact with the Backyard ahead of me."
"Huh… Does that mean there's someone smarter than the doctor, by any chance?"
"I'm terribly sorry to say so, but yes. Well, let's set that aside for now and address the real question..."
"Question..?"
“Who it could be. I have an idea, although it's somewhat disconcerting.”
"Eh, who is it?! "
“As I explained earlier, I use a ‘spoof’ code to observe the Backyard from this world. Though, this code is actually not my original. It is a modified decoding of a portion of the source code extracted from the genetic information contained in Gear cells."
“Gear cells?”
"Yes. The molecular bonds that make up the sphere I just mentioned are riddled with code quirks common to Gear cells… In other words, I am… displeased to report that the sphere was probably created by… ‘That Man.’"
"That Man... is the Gear Maker?!”
“You know that thing called the Gear Maker. The nefarious man who started the Crusades..."
It was Bunnie, the sister of Bonnie's assistant, who looked up and joined the conversation at last. Compared to her industrious and modest sister, she was somewhat headstrong and lazy.
“Mm. The creator of our parent Gears. He’s a fearsome villain who is said to change his form over and over again and live for hundreds of years. But to interfere directly with the Backyard… is too far out of the realm of humans!!"
The Backyard is a higher-dimensional space that defines all the laws of the world and generates phenomena. Since its existence was hypothesized as a concept at the end of the 21st century, it has been studied by some scientists. However, mankind had yet to prove its existence.
“What do you think you're going to do?”
“I don't know. But if he has reached the Backyard, this is something far worse than the Crusades!”
"Hey, I don't understand, can you explain it to me?"
“The Backyard is a higher-dimensional space formed by a collection of densely compressed information that defines and controls this world.”
“Doctor. I'm sorry, but I don't understand it at all. Explain it to me in plain human language.”
"Mm-hmm?"
“You know, sister. Let me tell you a parable. The Backyard is a place where 1+1 is supposed to become 2. What do you think would happen if a bad person came to that place and played a trick to make 1+1 become 3?
“1+1
is
2. It can’t be three, right?"
“Well, yes, but I can do a trick and make it be three. You cut an apple once, and it becomes three pieces.”
“That's very convenient!”
“Come on! It's not about convenience, it's about the laws of physics! The world will collapse!”
“Sorry, I don't understand your explanation either..."
“Anyway. I thought I would be able to stay away from That Man until now, but I can't say so anymore.”
"Doctor, why don't you contact Mr. Izuna?
"Oh, yes! I should let him know about this unusual situation..."
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