Ethereal Paradigm: A Canvas of Black - Chapter 103 Library of the Realms

“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.”

-Saul Bellow

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“Well then, young master… I and Odette have to finish some preparations for your brother’s birthday… I assume that the stomach ache has been relieved now. After all, bitter medicines are always effective.”

Oh, so the preparations were this hectic huh… I only realized that. Well, I have had always deprived myself of logic and reason back then, probably the same with the other ones in my age, always ignoring the seemingly-insignificant details, which tends to be, of course, important at some point yonder.

“And, I hope that you taken into account what I just said.” He added which seemed like a whisper of concerns, bowing down one more time with a serious expression on his face.

“Yes… Probably”.

“Very well young master, you should be going… Lady Jean is waiting for you.” Raising his head, both he and her daughter got back to their work at the Mansion’s grand hall… where the celebration is to take place… While, I, find myself trending my thirteen-year-old shiny shoes towards my mother’s and sister’s favorite hang-out place- the Garden.

(…)

“Azazel…” I called out, making sure that I’m alone, before I could reach the garden to meet my little sister, not paying head anymore of that pianist who spells both threat and decadence, going further down the pathways leading further away from the mansion.

“Yes. Master?” She responded, looking somewhat… irritated?

“Uhmm… Is something boggling you? You look…hmm… angry.”

“Incorrect, Master. I am not angry knowing that you have had another maid before me, who is very beautiful and is to your liking, but I believe that you called to retrieve updates in accordance with the Patriarch’s Paradigm Shift?”

“R-right… Any luck?”

“Yes, Master… but do pardon, for the time that it took… I was rather mesmerized of how you seem to like that Odette traditional maid, rather than letting you know my current findings…”

“Hayst…It’s ok. Good Job, but next time, you should not prey on people’s internal perspectives like that…So, care if you’ll explain your findings for me?”

“Affirmative. Master…My analysis pronounces that this is indeed an illusion… And that cube that the Patriarch extracted from your head is like a key…”

“So, this is really an illusion huh… Then, does that mean that everything I’m seeing here now is but fragments that he wants me to see?”

“Yes.”

“And that, this is altered in some ways, right? That, this is not purely all.”

“Unfortunately, if you mean that everything or some aspects are falsified under the discretion of the patriarch… No, Master.”

“Eh?”

“This is indeed a sphere of illusion and that, the Patriarch holds full control of what he wants and does not want to show you … but the contents, are without a doubt…”

“Without a doubt what?”

“In ‘legitimate’ accordance with what happened in your past…”

Oh, could have had expected this more.

“You see, master… This Illusory Valhalla specializes in illusions as the name explicitly suggests… but that’s not where its ability ends master… We haven’t take into the picture, the natural law that it alters yet… What law might it be, you ask?” It’s quite intricate, but not that you can’t understand with that stellar caliber, Master…”

“Please do continue…” I pleaded… in an endeavor to clear out some of my doubts.

“This Paradigm Shift… Has this unique capacity to access the Library of the Realms which should only be accessed exclusively by special deities, a library of individual events better known to humans as the ‘Akashic Records’… although a little bit misunderstood with its excessive definition on your world’s fictional books… The library is indeed a compendium of all human events, thoughts, words, emotions, and intent ever to have occurred in the past, and is occurring in the present, but not the future, which it does not know… Yet, on this Paradigm Shift, its ability is limited to that of ‘merely’ accessing the past of an opponent, within its area of effect… Hence, where we are today, Master… In an illusion, based on the akashic records itself, and while the patriarch can choose what he wants you to see, it’s beyond his ability to change anything in the records, which spells a little benefit and is to our advantage.”

Benefit indeed. Whether under what words I would like to describe it and while I don’t know what the Patriarch’s offensive motive is and what it is that he’s trying to achieve by showing me all this, I can’t deny the fact that it offers this rare opportunity to have a look of what really happened back then… and I will be sure, not to miss, any details… especially now that I know, that everything it will show, is legitimately inlined with my past.

Moreover, there is still this question…

“Does that mean that whatever I’m doing here will affect my present?” I asked as if holding to a false hope that I know is just too impossible to be…

“No, Master… While your previous actions differ from what you’re doing now, it will not change anything. As I have had explained, the Patriarch’s ability is limited to that of merely gaining access to that library. And with the Akashic Records’ existence, ‘the past is and will remain the past’… And that’s not even a natural law that a Paradigm Shift can be made to alter… It’s a common-sense that even demi-humans know too well, and any vigor to change it is in vain. ‘Once it’s done, it can’t be undone’ says a human maxim.”

Figured… And now that I just realized, what’s the point of that question? *Sigh*… Nevermind.

“Hmm…Well, thank you for that Azazel. I now somehow understand what I got myself into…” And that goes on without saying, that the Patriarch will have to pay later, depending on how useful are these past fragments that he will show me… once I can get out.

“You’re welcome, Master… And I’m not saying that I’m jealous or anything, but… you should stop seeing that traditional maid! You have me! Hmph!” She said, disappearing on my field of vision once again…

Hayst… and what are you supposed to be now? A ‘tsundere maid’?

Then, getting back on my senses, as I now know what this Illusory Valhalla really is, I found myself stepping through the garden’s entrance, naturally… while reminiscing the places where dead bodies are soon to lie, without being nauseous anymore…

And then, at the innermost part of the Garden, with birds chirping and painfully colorful butterflies everywhere, I found my little sister, playing princess in her Servant-made and beautiful wooden-castle, wearing this innocent smile, that I had long forgotten… Then, she looked into me, seeing me as I approach, probably soon to intrude unpermitted in her castle’s borders…

Seeing her reminds me of Shiro, who is still in hibernation for using her Paradigm Shift and I hope she’s okay in Celes’s provision.

“Oh, Jaiden!!! Come here! Why did you suddenly disappear, you jerk?”