The transition from the Orbia Throne Room to the Library of the Origin was not a journey of miles, but a journey of "Frequency."
One moment, Dwayne was kneeling beside the gray, static form of Duke Lucas Grant; the next, the world simply... unspooled. The marble floors turned into ribbons of white light. The air stopped smelling of ozone and began to smell of ancient parchment and cold starlight.
"Father," Dwayne whispered, his hand still outstretched, but his fingers now met only empty space.
He stood in a hall that had no ceiling and no floor. It was an infinite corridor of shelves, stretching vertically and horizontally into a vanishing point that defied his three-dimensional ocular processing.
Each shelf didn't hold books, but glowing cylinders of crystal—the "Save Files" of every soul, every tree, and every stone that had ever existed in Arila.
"Welcome to the Root Directory, Little Sage," the Librarian said.
The old man in grey robes was already there, leaning against a shelf that hummed with the power of a thousand suns.
"This is not a physical location," Dwayne noted, his mind automatically attempting to map the coordinates. "This is a non-Euclidean data-cluster. My internal compass is spinning at 4,000 RPM. This is... conceptually offensive."
"Logic is a comfort, isn't it?" the Librarian smiled, his eyes like swirling nebulae. "But here, Logic is the 'Effect,' not the 'Cause.' You are standing in the place where the first 1 + 1 was written."
Behind Dwayne, a flash of light announced the arrival of his friends. Prince Edgar, Elton Ren, and Lili Hughes tumbled onto the invisible floor, looking dizzy and disoriented.
"I... I think I'm going to throw up 'Light'," Edgar groaned, clutching his stomach.
"Where are we?" Elton asked, his hand instantly going to his sword, only to find the blade was translucent here. "The Duke! Where is the Duke?"
"He is in the 'Temporary Buffer'," the Librarian said, pointing to a single, flickering gray cylinder on a nearby pedestal. It was Lucas. Or rather, it was the "Data" of Lucas, currently suspended in a state of "File Corruption."
The Corruption of the Constant
Dwayne ran to the pedestal. He pressed his hand against the cold glass of the cylinder. Inside, he saw images—not memories, but "Data-Points."
Constant 1: The Silver Hair.
Constant 2: The Red Eyes.
Constant 3: The Secret Love for Cute Things.
Constant 4: The Vow to Protect Dwayne.
"The Shadow-King's Deletion didn't just 'Kill' him," Dwayne realized, his voice trembling as he read the code. "It 'Zeroed Out' his 'Protective Instinct.' It erased the part of the Duke that recognized me as his son. If I reconnect him now, he will wake up... but he will not know who I am. He will just be a 'General' without a 'Heart'."
"That's not a Duke!" Lili shouted, her eyes filling with tears. "That's just a scary man with a big sword! You have to fix it, Dwayne! You're the genius!"
"I cannot 'Fix' what I do not 'Possess'," Dwayne said, looking at his silver pen Logos. "I can calculate the physics of a star, but I cannot 'Write' a feeling. I only know how to 'Observe' them."
The Librarian stepped forward, his staff tapping against the invisible floor with a sound like a heartbeat.
"There is a way," the Librarian said. "But it requires a 'System Swap.' To restore the 'Paternal Link' in the Duke's file, you must provide a 'Reference Material.' You must give up your 'Abstract Intellect'—the part of you that sees the world in equations—and turn it into 'Emotional Weight.' You must give the Library your 'Genius' to buy back his 'Love'."
The room went silent. Edgar, Elton, and Lili looked at Dwayne with horror.
"No," Elton whispered. "Dwayne... without your mind... you're just..."
"A four-year-old," Dwayne finished. "A normal boy. I would lose the ability to calculate the Abyss. I would lose the ability to 'See' the mana-flow. I would... I would be 'Ordinary'."
"And the world?" Edgar asked. "If the Demons return... if the Equals come back... we won't have the 'Great Sage' to save us."
Dwayne looked at the gray cylinder of his father. He remembered the first day in the orphanage. He remembered the weight of the silver cloak. He remembered how Lucas had jumped in front of the Deletion wave without a single calculation.
"The world has a Prince," Dwayne said, looking at Edgar. "It has a Knight," he looked at Elton. "And it has a Soul," he looked at Lili. "The 'Great Sage' was just a tool I used to keep people at a distance. But my Father... he isn't a tool. He is my 'Origin'."
Dwayne stepped up to the Master Console—a shimmering pool of liquid light at the center of the hall. He uncapped Logos one last time.
"Dwayne, wait!" Lili cried out. "Are you sure? You won't be able to do math in your head anymore! You won't be able to tell me the 'Probability of a Hug'!"
Dwayne looked at her and gave a small, sad smile. "If I am 'Normal,' Lili... I won't need to calculate the probability. I will just... feel it."
Dwayne turned to the Librarian.
"Commencing... the 'Overwrite' protocol. I trade the 'Infinite Logic' for the 'Paternal Constant'. Format my mind. Restore my Father."
"So be it," the Librarian intoned.
Dwayne slammed Logos into the liquid light.
The Library exploded into a blinding, white-hot data-stream. Dwayne felt his mind being "unzipped." The complex formulas, the multi-vector calculus, the understanding of the stars—it was all being pulled out of him, glowing like golden thread.
It was painful. It felt like his brain was being scrubbed clean with sandpaper. He saw the "Equations" flying away, being absorbed into Lucas's gray cylinder.
17,431,517... gone.
The laws of thermodynamics... gone.
The trajectory of a dragon's flight... gone.
As the light faded, Dwayne felt... light. He felt small. For the first time in his life, he didn't know the exact temperature of the room. He didn't know the nitrogen levels of the air.
He just felt... cold. And scared. And very, very tired.
The white hall dissolved. The party found themselves back in the Orbia Throne Room. The sun was setting, casting a warm, orange glow across the marble floor.
In the center of the room, the gray statue of the Duke began to change.
The color returned to Lucas's skin. The red returned to his eyes. His chest heaved with a sudden, sharp intake of breath.
Lucas Grant blinked. He looked down at his hands, then at his sword. Then, his eyes moved across the room, searching.
Dwayne stood ten feet away. He looked smaller than he had five minutes ago. His dark brown hair was messy, and he was clutching a plain, wooden pen—the silver Logos had vanished, replaced by the simple tool of a child.
"Dwayne?" Lucas whispered. His voice wasn't a hollow echo. It was thick with a raw, desperate warmth.
Dwayne didn't calculate the distance. He didn't check the heart rate. He just... ran.
"DADDY!" Dwayne screamed.
The four-year-old slammed into the Duke's legs, burying his face in the silver-and-black armor. He wasn't talking about "variables" or "constants." He was just sobbing—big, messy, "Normal-Child" tears.
Lucas dropped to his knees, his heavy arms wrapping around the boy with a strength that would have been "inefficient" by any logical standard. He tucked Dwayne's head under his chin, his own tears falling into the boy's hair.
"I'm here," Lucas choked out. "I've got you, Dwayne. I've got you."
For the next hour, the palace was a scene of quiet, emotional recovery. King Luther had been restored, and the "Static" had been completely erased from the capital.
Lili, Elton, and Edgar stood by the window, watching the Duke and Dwayne.
"Is he... is he really 'Normal' now?" Lili asked, her voice hushed.
"Let's find out," Edgar said. He walked over to Dwayne, who was sitting on the Duke's lap, eating a candied plum with a messy, sticky face.
"Hey, Dwayne," Edgar said. "What's... what's the square root of 144?"
Dwayne stopped chewing. He looked at Edgar. He tilted his head. He counted on his fingers. "Ten... eleven... twelve? Is it twelve, Edgar?"
Edgar's eyes widened. He looked at Lucas. "He had to count on his fingers."
Lucas didn't look sad. He looked like a man who had just been given the greatest gift in the universe. He wiped a smudge of plum juice off Dwayne's cheek. "He's perfect."
"Father," Dwayne said, looking up at Lucas.
"Yes, son?"
"I... I don't know why the sky is blue anymore," Dwayne said, a small flicker of worry in his eyes. "I forgot the 'Rayleigh Scattering' formula. Does that mean I'm... 'Broken'?"
Lucas pulled him closer. "No, Dwayne. It means you can just 'Look' at the blue sky now. You don't have to 'Solve' it. You just have to 'Live' in it."
The peace was beautiful, but as the sun disappeared below the horizon, a cold wind blew through the open windows of the throne room.
Dwayne shivered. For the first time, he didn't know why the wind was cold. He just knew it felt... wrong.
"Dwayne?" Elton asked, noticing the boy's tremor. "Do you see something?"
Dwayne looked out toward the North. He didn't see equations anymore. He didn't see the Ley Lines. But he felt a "Tug" in his chest—a lingering connection to the "Equals" that had been integrated into his friends.
"I don't 'See' it," Dwayne whispered. "But... I think the 'Abyss' is still there. And... I don't know how to fix it anymore."
Lucas stood up, still holding Dwayne. He looked at his son, then at the Prince, the Knight, and the Socialite.
"Dwayne gave up his 'Mind' to save his 'Father'," Lucas said, his voice echoing with a new, terrifying authority. "But he didn't give up his 'Friends'. The Abyss thinks it has won because the 'Sage' is gone. It doesn't realize it has just made us 'Angry'."
"We'll find another way," Elton said, drawing his sword. "Dwayne taught us the 'Logic.' Now we'll teach the Abyss the 'Consequence'."
But far away, in the dark, the "Master Editor"—the Librarian's shadow—smiled. The "Great Sage" was indeed gone. The "Error" had been "Corrected."
Or so he thought.
Dwayne looked down at the wooden pen in his hand. It wasn't Logos. It was just wood. But as he gripped it, a single, tiny spark of silver light flickered at the tip.
It wasn't "Calculated Mana." It was "Imagination."
"I don't need a formula," Dwayne whispered to himself, his blue eyes turning sharp with a new kind of genius—the genius of a child who believes in miracles. "I'll just... make it up."