"Human myths?"
Clearly, Robin could not grasp what Lloyd meant. Joey, standing beside him, cast a puzzled glance as well. To them, this place was nothing more than a strange warehouse, filled with objects of no apparent worth. Myths, on the other hand, were even harder to comprehend—tales sung of the mysterious and the magnificent. Since when had such things ever borne any connection to mere mortals?
"Try another way of thinking."
A faint trace of disdain flickered in Lloyd's eyes, as though he were quietly mocking their lack of understanding. He moved toward an ornate counter nearby. Inside, however, rested nothing but an ancient stone slab. Upon it were crude sketches of beasts, yet far more numerous were the tally-like scratches etched across its surface.
"Do you know how scholars analyze the history of humanity?"
He did not wait for an answer.
"Human history begins from nothing. Like a grand edifice, it is built stone by stone, foundation upon foundation—not conjured out of thin air."
"In an age before 'numbers' existed, how would a man count the prey he had hunted?"
Lloyd gazed through the glass at the slab, as though his mind had drifted back into some distant, forgotten era.
"He carved the likeness of each beast upon the stone… until one day, he found it too cumbersome, and replaced those intricate images with a single mark."
His voice was soft, yet it struck like thunder beneath a clear sky.
A single mark—replacing all complexity.
"That… is the embryonic form of numbers. A qualitative leap from zero to one… a moment worthy of being remembered."
Robin and Joey's expressions shifted slightly. Something in Lloyd's plain words stirred them, yet they could not quite grasp the magnitude of that moment. Hesitation lingered on their faces.
"And this, for instance."
Lloyd picked up a wooden wheel from the side.
"One of those 'great moments' too? We stopped carrying goods ourselves and began using wheels?" Robin ventured, trying to follow Lloyd's train of thought.
Lloyd shook his head.
"You're seeing only the surface. Its true meaning lies in the increase of energy efficiency," he said. "With the same amount of effort, a wheel allows us to move more, farther. It is the origin of all transportation."
Robin felt a subtle tremor pass through him. He was beginning to understand.
"Merlin truly is remarkable… a madman of knowledge."
Lloyd spoke with genuine admiration, then picked up a scattering of papers.
"Rather than 'paper,' it is better called a 'carrier of information.' With it, we have conquered time. Human knowledge no longer perishes with the death of the individual. It endures, it accumulates—beyond even the reach of time itself—layer upon layer, until it forms that towering structure."
"And look at this!"
His voice rose, and the dilapidated warehouse, in that instant, felt like a sacred hall. Ordinary objects became strange, solemn, almost reverent.
He lifted a heavy codex, brushing away the dust. It weighed like solid stone.
"A common Code of Inlveg, isn't it?"
Robin and Joey nodded. Their thoughts felt dulled, as though they stood at the edge of understanding but could not cross it.
"A thick, ubiquitous code. It represents order—iron law. The moment humanity created 'law,' we bound ourselves with an invisible force, distinguishing ourselves from beasts."
"From that moment on, we were no longer creatures that howled and slaughtered blindly. We became human—beings capable of restraining ourselves."
Lloyd picked up an unremarkable coin.
"By my earlier reasoning, does it represent currency? Wealth? No. Its material is worthless. Its true value lies in its meaning—it is a certificate of trust between humans."
That trust set the world's economy in motion, serving as the medium through which all value was exchanged, like the balanced scales of equivalence.
"And this."
He raised a heavy lock, its cold iron surface gleaming faintly.
"This is encryption—the protection of information. Remember, what matters is not the object itself, but what it represents—the concept it carries."
"Or this."
Gently, he lifted a simple stone.
Once it appeared here, it was no longer merely a stone. It could be a stone, a club, a hammer, a sword.
"From this moment on, humanity possessed the power to protect itself."
The power to stand against the monsters lurking in the dark.
The air seemed to congeal—dense, leaden, suffocating. Lloyd's gaze swept over them like a blade, forcing retreat. Never had they considered such a perspective—such a vast, overwhelming lens through which to view these mundane things.
It was as if Watson's whispers brushed their ears: when humanity observes itself from the vantage of an ant, the image becomes unimaginable.
"Of course, something even more crucial is this."
Returning to the wooden table, Lloyd looked down at the diagrams.
"Do you know your position?"
"Position?" Robin asked cautiously.
"Your physical position."
Lloyd lifted his gaze upward, where light poured down from an endless sky.
"The world is vast. Do you truly know where we are? This, too, is one of those great moments—positioning technology. The first time humanity understood the shape of the world."
Blueprints and calculations. Grids cast across the land. Places once shrouded in myth became visible truths upon a map.
As he traced the aged parchment, Lloyd continued:
"I remember Merlin once told me a hypothesis: what cannot be observed does not exist. You're familiar with this, aren't you?"
Joey nodded. He knew Lloyd referred to that matter of frontal lobe excision.
"We perceive the world through our senses. If we cannot perceive it, does it exist for us at all?"
"That is a question of cognition. Now consider this, Joey…"
Lloyd's voice lowered.
"Is it possible… that these 'great moments' exist only because we observe them?"
A strange chill seeped into the air. Warmth vanished. It felt as though, within some unseen darkness, something grotesque stirred.
This damned detective always dwelled on such unsettling thoughts.
"Are you always… like this?" Robin asked, a trace of unease in his voice.
"It's not a virtue," Lloyd replied calmly. "I simply can't always restrain this… excessive thinking. It breeds anxiety, and makes me forget to live in the present."
He paused.
"Of course, it's only a hypothesis. Like a clock."
He glanced at the ticking clock behind them.
"Humanity created calendars, and thus we have 'time'…"
"But what if time never existed to begin with?"
A cold grip seized Robin's heart. He wanted to stop Lloyd from speaking further, as though the man were trespassing upon some forbidden boundary.
"What if the clock does not measure time… but instead, because the clock exists, the concept of 'time' comes into being?"
Ordinary words—easily broken into simple terms—yet from Lloyd's lips, they carried a maddening distortion.
Follow that line of thought, and the world unravels. The world had no fixed form—until positioning defined it. Beasts roamed—until some bound themselves with rules and became human.
Cause and effect inverted.
The world itself descended into madness.
Joey stared at Lloyd. Since dying once, the man had become… strange. Absurd. At times, he resembled the very monsters they fought—his casual words carrying a corrosive weight, gnawing at sanity.
"Of course, it's all nonsense," Lloyd said suddenly, shifting tone with feigned ease. "Full of holes. Not worth dwelling on."
"You sound like a lunatic," Joey muttered.
"In the end, we fight monsters unconstrained by reason. Shouldn't our thinking be a little mad as well?" Lloyd smiled faintly.
"But this is still a rational world. Even alchemists like Merlin abandon mysticism to embrace science, don't they?"
He continued:
"To me… mysticism and science are no different."
"No different?" Robin frowned.
"In my view, mysticism is simply science that cannot yet be explained by formulas."
He strode forward.
"Think, Robin. A few centuries ago, when men wielded swords and shields—could they comprehend modern artillery? Let alone the Ascalon cannon with a range of one hundred and thirty kilometers?"
No one escapes the limits of their time. All live within invisible cages, as though truth itself were a curse upon mortals.
Lloyd spoke like a man delivering a fervent sermon—praising humanity, glorifying it. In truth, he was rather self-absorbed; by extension, he was praising himself.
And yet, the occasional contempt in his gaze suggested he did not consider the two men his equals… at least not intellectually.
Joey wiped the cold sweat from his brow. For a moment, Lloyd's quiet madness had shaken him. The man spoke like a lunatic, yet retained absolute clarity. The boundary between reason and madness blurred.
Then came caution.
He recalled what Shrike had once told him: keep your distance from Lloyd. Not only because of his danger—but because he was an "actor."
Life was his stage, and he its brightest star. Yet it was a one-man play, and sometimes he needed others—unfortunate souls—to serve as contrast.
Lloyd's hand brushed over cold steel as he studied the ancient steam engine before him. Its polished surface reflected his face.
"Setting aside my ramblings… this is what truly matters."
Their eyes turned to the engine.
"We know its importance," they said.
As citizens of Inlveg, they understood well how the steam engine had transformed their nation—how it had secured victory in the Glorious War and elevated them to supremacy.
Lloyd shook his head.
"No. You don't. This is humanity's greatness—the moment we create miracles. These miracles, one by one, build our society, our civilization… erecting the walls of reason."
His voice was steady, slow—like one recounting an ancient, forgotten tale.
From stone to club, from sword and shield to the terrifying mechanized armors of the old age—
This was a hall of history, recording humanity's great moments, shaping all the "concepts" of the present world.
Merlin had gathered them… like components of some hidden ritual, or preparations for an unseen catastrophe.
"The epic of mankind…" Robin whispered.
Now, each trivial object bore immense weight. Through them, humanity had lit fire in the darkness, seized thunder and flame, and fought the monsters to this very day.
"Yes… the epic of mankind."
Lloyd sighed.
"It represents humanity surpassing its biological limits. For the first time, we transformed chemical energy into mechanical power."
Flames roared. Engines thundered. Great cities rose.
"In ancient myths, to command thunder and storm was the domain of gods. But now, we wield steel and fire."
"Humanity itself has become the gods that walk among the world."
And thus, the long night gave way to dawn.