Chapter 248: Aira: Home, Sweet Home (1)
At first, she thought it was just business as usual.
For months, after he’d been engrossed in his experiments and emerged with results, her father would always exhibit some strange behavior.
Generally, it could be interpreted as the excitement of a researcher who had achieved a significant breakthrough.
Her mother, well aware of this, assumed he would calm down in a few days, just as he always did.
She thought the same.
But somehow, something felt off.
“Dad, what are you doing?”
“Sorry. I’m busy right now.”
He was a father who would always greet his daughter with a smile, regardless of her expression, when she entered the room. However, even after returning from his research, her father only went back and forth between his study and meditation room, not wanting to engage with her.
No, it wouldn’t matter if it was just her. But he treated his beloved wife as if he had little interest in her.
“Honey, I know you’re tired, but……”
“It’s alright. Just leave me alone.”
She knew people changed. But they didn’t change this easily. Could a person change this much in just a few months?
Immersing oneself in research and avoiding contact with others was something that Superhumans, Mages, and Shamans often did. It was their way of keeping themselves grounded while engaging in such activities routinely.
However, he had changed.
She, ‘Sermaila Ka Herduke’, thought it was impossible.
In the 24 years of her life, her father had never acted this way.
Her mother, Levidian Herduke, said,
“It’s like he’s treating someone else.”
It was always his habit, almost an instinct, to embrace his wife’s waist and announce his success or failure after finishing his research.
It made Sermaila feel left out, didn’t it?
But now it was different. Even her mother said it felt like he was treating a different person. Now she only practiced for exercise, but she used to be a renowned swordswoman.
Although she wasn’t counted among the strongest on the continent, her senses were famously sharp.
‘If it’s not Dad…… then who is it?’
From the beginning, her suspicion started with the premise closest to the truth.
***
Dad has changed.
That’s for sure. Because Mom said so.
Huh? You’re asking if I, at the age of twenty-four, still think Mom is always right?
Of course!
Mom has never spoken nonsense. She jokes a lot, and even though they might not always be appropriate, she never lied except for those jokes.
She even told me stories based on facts when she recounted tales of the past.
She told me the truth about the hero who went on an adventure to rescue the princess captured by the Demon King: he was actually motivated by greed for upward mobility and a desire for fame, and by the manly desire for a beautiful princess who made all the flowers in the field look like weeds and all the statues look like stones, with an incredible figure and unmatched virtue, a perfect bride. And I also heard the unfiltered epilogue about how the princess was already in love with the Demon King, had children with him, and was living happily, which made the hero despair.
When I heard that story at the age of eight, I felt that reality was truly harsh, cold, and bleak. You see, I was surprisingly mature.
Anyway, regardless!
The current Dad is not Dad. I think so too. He’s not the affectionate Dad who used to pat my head without considering his daughter’s age!
Thinking that, I started investigating Dad behind his back, something a normal daughter wouldn’t do, to find out the truth. There’s a limit to just letting things slide.
Since returning from the lab, Dad has been constantly holed up in his study or his room. I thought it might be related to his research, so I decided to sneak into his lab.
Just like most Mages and Shamans, he never showed his lab to anyone else. It’s common practice that only close acquaintances, those completely ignorant of magic, or non-apprentices are allowed entry.
Unfortunately, I’m not allowed in either.
I wanted to learn Superpowers from Dad, but I’m sure I wouldn’t have learned even half of what I know now if I had. I’m surprisingly a cute daughter who knows how to act spoiled with her parents. Woohoo!
Anyway, for that reason, the only people allowed in Dad’s lab are Dad or Mom, but who am I? I’m Sermaila, daughter of Arisein, the Empire’s greatest superhuman!
“Hehehe. So Dad, you should have secured the manhole better.”
People think that labs made by people like us are impenetrable without stronger magic or Superpowers, but that’s not actually true.
A tunnel dug 30 meters underground from 50 meters away is a way to even bring down a fortress.
I brushed the dirt off my shoulders, carefully replaced the paving stone where I entered, sensed if anyone was in the lab…… Good. No one’s here.
The place I entered was a secluded corner of the warehouse, a part Dad wouldn’t pay much attention to. After navigating through the clutter of the warehouse, the corridor that becomes visible as soon as you open the door is…… Huh?
“That’s strange……”
I immediately felt something was off. Although not very often, I’d come in occasionally when Dad wasn’t using the lab, and this place always had a pleasant atmosphere.
But now…… Yes. It smells like the stale air of the underground passage I just came through. It’s not like Dad to leave a frequently used path uncleaned, is it?
Mom’s thoughts are starting to seem more and more certain. I have a bad feeling about this.
I tried to walk slowly and cautiously towards Dad’s lab. However, after taking just two steps, I had no choice but to start forming my Superpowers.
Oh my goodness. There’s dust on the floor?!
This is impossible!
“Physical Skip. Level 1 activation.”
I quietly nullified the physical forces around me and lightly pushed off the floor. My body floated silently. The target was the largest door in the middle of the corridor.
The lab is inside the mansion, and its doors and windows are protected by magic and Superpowers, making it impossible to enter from the outside, but movement is possible from the inside.
Carefully opening the door, I found the lab, as expected, with all the lights off. This is a sealed space, right?
Snap!
I snapped my fingers and a simple ball of light appeared. This isn’t a Superpower, but a Shamanistic technique. Dad and Mom think I’m only skilled in magic, but actually, I’m a competent Shaman as well.
Ah, a high-level superhuman, a competent Shaman, and an apprentice Mage, why am I so multi-talented?
Ahem! Ahem! This isn’t the time for self-admiration.
I first started slowly searching for any equipment or books Dad might have used recently.
Floating in the air and focusing on my search made my head throb a bit as it took twice the mental effort, but it yielded results. Equipment that seemed to have been used recently, surrounding materials, and a schedule chart on the wall.
“Strange.”
I hate myself for not being able to come to any other conclusion, but it’s really strange. To put it bluntly, it’s incredibly strange.
No, it’s suspicious!
How could…… How could Dad……
“Could he have come back without finishing his research?”
Only about two-thirds of the schedule had been completed. Moreover, considering the nature of the research project, it couldn’t be interrupted. But the research was halted at the most crucial point.
Could it be that he realized it was impossible and became several times more depressed than usual?
Like attracts like, and birds of a feather flock together, so I started looking for evidence to prove Dad’s (supposed) innocence. Simply put, a research journal.
Entering a door on one side of the lab, I found a living space where one could sleep and cook. However, as soon as I entered, I had to cover my nose. Eek!
“The bachelor smell……”
Even Dad, living alone for a long period, gives off a bachelor smell. Sob, sob. As a daughter, I’ve learned a side of my parents I didn’t want to know.
This is the biggest shock since I saw my parents trying to make me a younger sibling in bed when I woke up for a walk one day.
Amidst the overly strong scent of Dad, I found the research journal. This wasn’t like Dad either, as it was lying open, unfinished.
“Let’s see…… ‘Experimental Journal on the Possibility of Perceiving and Observing Parallel Dimensions through Meditation, with the Help of Non-Superhuman Elements.’ Hmm. Already on parallel dimension observation?”
The concept of parallel dimensions is quite familiar to modern Superhumans. This world is one, but there are other worlds, almost identical to this one, where different possibilities that didn’t happen here exist as realities.
Simply put, let’s say a global war breaks out due to some dictator. In parallel dimensions, there are worlds where this war happened and identical worlds where it didn’t.
What was initially just a theory was proven about 100 years ago. It was a priest who proved it, wasn’t it? Anyway.
It is said that exceptionally gifted Superhumans can sense the existence of these parallel dimensions.
Through meditation, one delves deep into the inner self, reaching a state of selflessness, and beyond that, a state of transcendence, ultimately breaking free from the framework of self and reaching the truth of the universe.
However, the problem is that even if one spends a lifetime pursuing this state, there’s no guarantee of reaching it.
Hmm, Dad definitely said he accidentally touched upon the state of transcendence. He said he only grazed it, but felt countless existences of himself. So that’s why he suddenly started this research.
“But why did he stop?”
I understood and accepted it, but immediately, a question arose.
The research consisted of a total of nine stages, and the goal was to open a channel for observation by distorting the norms of this world to some extent using various magical, shamanistic, and divine elements, mixed with Superpowers.
The experiment was halted at the beginning of the seventh stage. If it were any other stage, I might understand, but stopping at the seventh stage would render all previous experiments useless……
Thinking that, I read the research journal, but nowhere in the journal written in Dad’s handwriting was there a single mention of the research going wrong.
On the contrary, there was a note in one corner stating that the research was progressing better than ever before. The fact that he wrote ‘Yahoo! Awesome! Honey! Wait just a little longer!’ is so like Dad.
Research that had no reason to be stopped.
But it was abruptly halted, as if abandoned.
Dad, who suddenly changed.
What does this all mean?
Cling. Cling. Cling. Cling.
As I was lost in thought, sitting in the air, my pocket watch chimed. Yikes, time’s up. I have to get back quickly.
In the end, I had to leave the lab that day without any results.
But I didn’t know.
It wasn’t that there were no results; it was that that was all there was.
***
The part she failed to consider was because it was unthinkable. It couldn’t even be called ignorance. It wasn’t that she didn’t know; rather, something impossible had happened.
Was it a twist of fate, or a plan devised by the gods?
Arisein, Sermaila’s father, had grasped a clue to a new realm through meditation, but what he had actually brushed past wasn’t ‘himself existing in countless parallel dimensions.’
It was ‘himself who had traversed countless parallel dimensions.’
For another Arisein, who called himself Artshever, death followed by another life was a commonplace occurrence.
He was like a drifter within parallel dimensions, randomly transferring to parallel worlds where a living version of himself existed. However, this time was different. The 1,611th time was different.
He had come to himself, who had briefly passed by in that instant.
Following that pull.
Naturally, Sermaila, who had no way of knowing these circumstances, could only ponder, unable to resolve her growing suspicions and questions.
If only she had confronted the man who became her father, perhaps that incident wouldn’t have happened.
What’s unknown is whether that would have been a good thing for her.
***
Half a year.
I thought it was a hellish time.
Even if I followed Dad’s research, there was nothing I could grasp. Even if I conceded a hundred steps, the research was halted at a stage where failure seemed impossible. It’s completely unlike Dad.
While trying my best not to express this doubt, I decided to observe what the current Dad was doing.
Just after my last visit to the lab, Dad had confined himself there again. It’s been over four months.
I went into the study and looked for books Dad had recently touched, and went into his room to see what he was referring to.
I checked the books I found in the study from the Imperial Grand Library, borrowing them and scrutinizing them until I memorized them, and additionally read three reference books for each one to aid my understanding.
What Dad mainly focused on were the relationship between time and space, the concept of God and the world, theology about the origin and creation of the world, and so on, the most difficult parts of metaphysics.
Sigh, is he trying to become a philosopher or something?
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