Chapter 67
'A slight feeling of relief brushed against me.
At first, I assumed Aldraya would immediately panic, trembling with fear before the Sa forced the freezing onto her entire body.
However, reality turned out to be different.
She did not react at all, and not a single expression on her face shifted.
Exactly like a statue free from fear and worry.'
In the instant when the Sa belonging to Quorin and Valthura flowed through the air, spreading like a thin layer that devoured any motion, Theo felt a small tremor crawl along his spine.
The aura they released was not merely pressure, but an authority that locked the entire world around them like glass abruptly frozen.
His first reflex was to turn, searching for Aldraya, making sure the presence of the two Administrators had not taken away something he could never retrieve.
In his sight, Aldraya stood motionless, her body halted in a posture far too calm to be called captured.
Her face remained neutral, not shifting in the slightest even as the Sa bound every possible movement.
There was no fear seeping into her, no panic cracking her composure, not even the slightest change indicating she was struggling against the restraint.
As if her body was built to accept such limitations without complaint, without reaction.
The relief that rose within Theo did not come without bitterness.
He was grateful that Aldraya had not shattered or collapsed the way other entities would under the absolute authority of the Administrators, yet at the same time, there was a slow, cutting irony beneath it.
Aldraya's inability to show expression, even when her body was frozen entirely, reaffirmed something faint and bitter about her.
That the girl, in all her calmness and silence, always stood at a distance Theo could neither measure nor fully understand.
'When I think about it, there are actually two reasons why I can still move within their Sa.
First, they simply didn't include my movements within the bounds of this Sa.
As if from the very beginning, they didn't care whether I moved or not.'
Huuuuh!
'Second, the One-Point Technique, Nine Acupuncture Completion is still active within my body.
As long as that technique is running, I can keep moving even if the space and time around me are frozen.
So in the end, only Aldraya is affected by the full impact of the Sa, not me.'
Though there was never a need to explain it out loud, Theo understood perfectly why his body could still move inside the Sa that locked the world with the precision of a heavenly machine.
The silence expanding around him was not something that trapped him, but a space left open intentionally.
The Sa of Valthura and Quorin was not designed to suppress his movement—not in the scenario being presented now.
There was a gap left to breathe, a faint opening that granted Theo room to act, as if the two Administrators were watching him, evaluating how far his resolve could cross boundaries.
But that reason was only the surface of a more intricate truth.
Within his body lingered the remnants of the technique he had unleashed earlier—the One-Point Technique, Nine Acupuncture Completion.
A technique that forced him to pierce through the layers of time, moving against the usual flow, creating a pause untouched by the bindings of space and time.
When the technique was active, the world around him felt as though it split into two layers repelling one another.
And though the Sa of Valthura and Quorin tried to freeze everything within a certain radius, Theo's movement drifted within the thin gap between two currents that never touched.
The collision between that technique and the Sa of both Administrators created a dual phenomenon.
On Aldraya, their absolute authority found a surface it could freeze perfectly, halting her body and existence code as though she was part of the spatial structure that could not escape command.
But on Theo, the Sa flowed past him like a mist without a place to cling.
He became the lone moving point in a halted landscape, a single pulse that did not submit to the will shielding the sky.
"Is this issue truly that serious?
Just because I went on a date with Aldraya, you felt the need to come all the way to me?
And not just one of you—an entire pair of Administrator siblings?"
"...."
"I truly wish to know—when exactly did going on a date become a serious threat to the continuity of the Flo Viva Mythology scenario?"
While still holding the tip of his sword, raised only slightly from its sheath as if offering a silent warning, Theo remained standing tall in the frozen sky.
The currents of Sa creeping around him halted all movement except his, and above, Prince Quorin and Princess Valthura hovered like two lights born from laws incomprehensible to mankind.
They did not move, yet the world bowed to their presence.
Amid the tension, Theo's mind drifted toward a question that seemed trivial, yet tied together the irregularity he had sensed from the beginning.
Theo realized that his steps with Aldraya earlier—small steps he thought were merely personal choices—had triggered a reaction far beyond what he expected.
Standing still, he allowed his thoughts to pierce through the layers of Sa holding the air and sound in place, conveying the question by shaping the words clearly.
He asked whether taking Aldraya for a walk, simply spending time together without intent to harm anyone, could truly be considered a major problem.
He wondered whether that simple decision was enough to make two Administrators descend from heights no other being had reached.
The question that had just echoed was not a bitter joke, but an insistence to understand the proportions of the world now swallowing him.
Theo contemplated the bond between Quorin and Valthura, understanding that the two responded not as individuals, but as a single structure reacting in unison.
He tried to grasp whether what unsettled them was a hidden threat within Aldraya, or the fact that Theo—a player who had crossed the boundaries of humans and code—had started touching something he was never meant to touch.
The thought pressed against his chest.
Not out of fear, but because he needed certainty to move forward, even if that certainty might forever remain out of reach.
"Your interference, however small, still disrupts the order of the flow.
"Correct, my brother Quorin.
Because the scenario has recognized that date as a legitimate path."
"Your attempt to restore the sequence to what it once was."
"Creates an unauthorized branching."
"Thus, we are here."
Their answers flowed like two currents intertwining.
One came from Quorin—cold and mathematical—while the other came from Valthura—gentle, yet bearing an undeniable pressure.
Their voices never overlapped, yet always completed one another, as if every word had been determined long before they appeared before Theo.
From their rhythm, he grasped a certainty that seeped into him.
To them, he remained a creator separated from authority.
He was not a ruler of the flow, not a hand that held Sa, nor the owner of the world's architecture.
He was merely someone who knew too much and reached too deep.
And that alone was enough to demand the Administrators' attention.
That statement echoed in his mind like a sound refusing to fade.
Theo realized that the small step he took with Aldraya, which to him was only a brief moment in the chaos, was recorded as an authorized path in the basic scenario.
The world acknowledged it, the code validated it, and the main scenario accepted it without resistance.
To be continued…