[Volume 1] Nebula: Villainess of Never-ending Beyond

1. Inside the Schrodinger's Box

9 AQ (After Quimora), in a distant realm, a world that mirrored our Earth in many ways existed where magic was not a mere figment of imagination, but a living, breathing force. A subtle resonance set it apart with the presence of mana that imbued the world with a touch of magic. Here, the ordinary and the extraordinary lived together in unity. However, for a certain group, the lost advancements became their weapons.

On the deck of a modern cruise, an invention that shouldn't have existed yet in this world, hovering over the ocean, I gazed towards the visible prison land which gathered a 30-meter wall circling it. For starters, it was known as the Obsidian Asylum where convicts with dual-awakened power gathered, repenting of their sins.

A tap of wood caught my attention, putting my gaze back on the chessboard on the table. Rox made her move using her queen piece. She was a mere puppet in a maid outfit, almost four inches taller than I am, and her braided orange hair harmonized with my crimson hair weaving down my shoulder. What's enticing in her appearance is that her joints took the shape of a sphere alongside her synthetic skin.

"Your move, Nebula-sama." She grasped the enticing enjoyment of strategizing forces through the game of chess. Three years earlier, when video games hadn't been invented yet, Chess satisfied her amusement. What's motivating her to play this traditional game with me? She never won against me... not even once.

"Have you informed everyone to call me Saori and not Quimora throughout this mission?" I asked, and she nodded in response. As I moved a piece, I smirked with the winner's face and asked, "So Rox, do you believe in the existence of multiverses?"

Rox made a move and replied with the playful voice of a tiny girl, "I'm lagging far beyond human comprehension. With the available books this world has, I'm having a hard time defining the future. I may be a technological product, but I'm still a human flooded with emotions."

I made my chess move and said, gazing back at the prison, "Do you still remember the story of Schrodinger's cat? The real hypothetical experiment was inhumane as I used to be. Suppose a cat was put in a box with a radioactive material. When the material decays, it will trigger a poison that will kill the cat. Without opening the box, do you think that the cat will live or die?"

"Knowing you, you already have an answer. But honestly, if you asked that to everyone else, the same answer would be uncertainty."

"Suppose a seed that grows into countless roots and branches, and is destined to create another seed. These branches continue to exist as long as the causal of things uproots to one entanglement. In simple terms, the universe is a never-ending tree. A single branch would bear a different type of fruit."

"Do you mean there's a superposition that the cat both lives and dies?"

I turned back to the chessboard and murmured, "Two outcomes at a certain point in time is the reality concealed by an illusion called the third dimension. The world of probabilities is brutal, and there's a nearly zero chance that we exist and are playing chess right now. We may not witness the multiverse as is, but using measurements, we can predict the future far differently from what the Oracles of Finality do."

I even mentioned the cameos of the Finality, a belief in which a sole future is predetermined, completely the counterpart of our discussion about universes. As the sole person who witnessed the propagator of Entropy, I'm declared a demigod in this world, an Apostle.

"Being you as the only apostle of Entropy, they're only seeing a single branch. Is that correct?"

"Hatred on that word used wrongly. Even I would say it would be boring if you always win. But what's fun about it..." I giggled easily and moved a piece, leading Rox to a checkmate. "... is how you win it."