Chapter 891

Then, she saw the personal terminal that lit up once again, saw one white text after another on the screen, and saw the inquiry from "The Wanderer"?

【Do you understand me now?】

Yeah... "The Wanderer" tried to dissuade me.

Alice raised her hand, supporting her forehead—it seemed to be running a fever.

This was normal; after seeing Huang Shi, she felt her brain was in chaos, various senses mixed together—the black, white, and gray world was very hot, and it smelled faintly of sulfur when touched.

And now, Alice felt she could be a bit better, at least she could start communicating and understand the text in the personal terminal.

"Why did Huang Shi become like this?"

Alice took a deep breath: "What happened? Was my goal wrong from the beginning?"

She wasn't one of those reality benders who could get what they wanted; she couldn't just move her brain and restore this place.

But at least, she had to know what exactly happened.

The text on the terminal cleared in a flash, followed by new content:

【Setting the wrong goal without guidance is very common, dear Alice. You don't have to blame yourself for this.】

【Rather, it is precisely because of this that I came to your side.】

【You know, the Huang Shi facility is at the most standard baseline time point under the influence of continuous time slots.】

【This has many benefits, but the biggest drawback is that relative to you, time around Huang Shi flows very quickly.】

【At approximately 56.7881 in baseline time, a violent reality disturbance occurred near the Huang Shi facility, or rather, in a more remote place. It affected the surrounding crust.】

【The supervolcano in Yellowstone Park finally erupted.】

【The thing that the people responsible for "SCP-2000" in the old century feared most was that once it erupted, the entire facility would be completely destroyed.】

【They did many simulations for this and added a huge amount of protective measures around the Huang Shi facility, but in the end, it was all in vain.】

【The power of nature destroyed the entire Huang Shi in an instant, leaving only boiling lava rolling on the earth.】

"..."

A reason like a joke.

Alice opened her mouth, finally chose silence, and looked gloomily at the rising heat, her eyes complex.

【Now do you understand why I asked you to turn back, dear Alice?】

【Huang Shi can't give you anything. This is a complete waste of time.】

"Then what about you?"

Alice suddenly realized a bug; since Huang Shi was destroyed, why could "The Wanderer" still communicate with her?

Could it be that it lied to her?

"You said your host was in Huang Shi, and now?"

She didn't know if people had souls after death, but this world probably had machine spirits.

【Transmission in the Outer Realm has a delay in electrical signals.】

【Dear Alice, what you received in the "present" is the information sent by me in the "past".】

"What?"

Alice was stunned.

She pressed her temples and began to recall the anomalies from the beginning of receiving the communication from "The Wanderer".

"The Wanderer" kept changing the content of the instructions, making me perform various actions...

"The Wanderer" said it completed synchronization with us...

"The Wanderer" said it could observe everyone, past and future...

I didn't enable the dialogue function of the personal terminal, yet "The Wanderer" still knew what I said...

Come to think of it, it was actually screening the people who received the information by continuously sending information, until that last set of instructions...

"Wait a minute. I finally understand where the sense of incongruity in the previous communication was."

"This means that we weren't actually communicating in real-time, right?"

【Exactly so, dear Alice.】

【I thought you had already understood when we were discussing "synchronization" and "observation".】

"I think I understood a part of it," Alice said.

"You said there is a delay in the transmission of electrical signals in the Outer Realm, I understand that..."

"You said you can observe the future, so you can see us. I can understand that too..."

"But..."

Before Alice could finish speaking,

【You ignored an adjective. What I can see is not just the future, but—】

【"All futures".】

【Or to use another word, it is "every future".】

【Regarding the "future", I am omniscient.】

"Ah... so that wasn't an exaggerated term for acting cool?"

The last piece of the puzzle was also put together; Alice felt she understood everything.

【AIC does not use metaphors, dear Alice.】

【I hope you can understand every word I say literally.】

"Then I understand... you didn't know which future we were in in reality at first, did you?"

【You can understand it that way.】

【But actually, the facts are a bit simpler.】

【—I, who was in the past, didn't know the time radiation concentration in the future Outer Realm, but in every future derived from every assumed concentration, I could see you.】

【Thus, I tried to send messages continuously and observe your reactions in the future observation.】

【If you were still walking or continuing your actions after sending the message, it proved my assumption failed.】

【I would make a new assumption and send the message again. Until the moment after a certain message was sent, you executed my instructions.】

【Dear Alice, I would know that we had synchronized.】

Alice: "That's truly interesting... in other words, you are also—"

【Yes, my dear Alice.】

【Like you, I am also a "Wanderer" in time.】 ===== CHAPTER 893 =====