"Who are you again?" she asked, her eyes wide with surprise.
I hesitated, unsure how to respond. Her voice was calm, but beneath it, I could sense confusion—an undercurrent of something unspoken, something lost.
"What was I doing again?" she murmured, more to herself than to me, as if the question was as much for her as it was for me.
"I… I don't know" I said softly, my voice betraying my uncertainty. I watched her closely, my gaze flicking between her and the world around us. "You just kind of appeared."
She looked around, as if trying to recall something important, a memory just out of reach. Her brow furrowed slightly. "I think there's been a misunderstanding" she said, her voice now quieter, more distant.
A silence stretched between us. It felt thick, almost tangible, as if we were standing on the edge of something we both didn't fully understand.
"I think I was on my way to the fields" she added slowly, the words floating from her like an afterthought, a slow realization.
She glanced at me then, and a faint, apologetic smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.
"I'm sorry for bothering you."
Without another word, she stood, her movements graceful and deliberate, like she was ready to step away from something that no longer made sense to her. She gave a small bow, her head lowering slightly in respect, and then turned to leave. Her footsteps were light, almost hesitant, as if she wasn't entirely sure where she was going—or even if she was supposed to be there at all. She walked into the fading light, her figure becoming smaller, more distant, until it melted into the shadows.
I wasn't supposed to be here.
I was an anomaly in this world. A glitch in the very fabric of its reality.
I thought back to what the system had told me, "You are not bound by the laws of this world." That sentence echoed in my mind. It had been true in ways I couldn't yet comprehend.
Marie hadn't said my name once. Not once. That alone confirmed my suspicions. This place, this reality, had no space for me. I was an outsider, a being who did not belong. Not in the way she did, anyway.
Now, everything was clear.
I once read a book—can't recall the author, but I remember the title: The Fundamentals of Probability. It was a dense book, filled with complex ideas, but one page stood out to me. It contained a thought experiment that felt oddly familiar, as though it was describing something beyond mere theory. It spoke of anomalies—things that existed outside the predictable structure of the universe.
What if you took an anomaly—something outside the laws of probability—and placed it in a universe where probability governs all?
The thought experiment presented three possible outcomes. The second scenario, in particular, struck me. It mirrored my situation with terrifying precision.
Possibility 2: The Anomaly Retains Some or All of Its "Outside" Nature
Violation of Our Laws: If the anomaly truly exists beyond our probabilistic structure, it might behave in ways that defy all understanding. Events that should be impossible—or have a probability of zero—might still occur, bending the rules of this reality.
Localized Effects: Its influence could be confined to a specific region, a space where the usual laws don't apply. Within that zone, phenomena could unfold in strange and unpredictable ways, making sense of things impossible from the outside.
Interaction and Adaptation: The anomaly might not simply be absorbed by this world. It could either resist fully assimilating, or adapt to the world in subtle ways we cannot yet predict. It might even shape the world around it, carving out a niche for itself, unnoticed yet ever-present.
I thought about it before, but now it felt real, like something was starting to click into place.
This world, this reality—it's not my own. But Marie's world is.
Marie tried to break free of the probabilistic laws—tried to remember me, to grasp my existence. But she couldn't. She was bound to this place. Her reality was woven with threads that my presence simply couldn't be a part of.
I, on the other hand, was never meant to be remembered.
Not in the way people here remember each other. Not as a name, a face, or a story passed down through generations. I wasn't meant to leave a mark. I was a deviation—a disruption in the natural order.
Marie's mind couldn't retain me. Not really. It's not that she didn't care or wasn't paying attention—it's that her reality resisted my presence. It was as though her world rejected me, like a body rejecting a foreign object, instinctively pushing me away.
But why was she drawn to me at first?
I asked myself that question. Why did she even notice me when everything in her world should have pushed me into the background?
It wasn't an attraction in the traditional sense. Not affection or fascination. It was something else entirely.
Because something in her sensed the fracture.
A faint, almost imperceptible crack between me and this world. She couldn't name it, couldn't even understand it, but she felt it. There was a quiet pull toward the disruption I created, the anomaly that couldn't exist in a place like this.
Her reality—built on rules and probabilities—recognized me as a disruption, and just like gravity bends around mass, her attention bent toward me.
She didn't know why. She couldn't hold on to the memory of me. But she was drawn to the impossibility of my existence, the unnaturalness of my presence. And even if her mind couldn't keep track of me, a part of her knew that I didn't belong.
And why did I know she would come?
Because the moment I knew, it became inevitable.
In a world ruled by probability, certainty is a rare and powerful force. And I wasn't meant to follow its rules. I wasn't bound by them, not like the people here.
My knowing wasn't a prediction—it was causation.
She came because I knew she would. And because I knew, the universe—this world—aligned itself to make it true. The pieces shifted, the strings of fate were pulled, and in the end, she had to come. Not because of fate, not because of coincidence. It was simply the quiet, invisible force of something outside the system gently nudging the pieces into place.
This was how it would be.
Everything was abstract. And yet, in my mind, it was clear: this was the key. If I wanted to end this, to find resolution, to find my place in this world, I would have to confront the villain of this story.
There was one last question: Who is the villain in this world?
Is it the protagonist? Or is the protagonist the one who opposes the villain? Or maybe… there isn't a protagonist at all?
I stood up slowly, my thoughts still swirling. There was no time to waste.
"System."
[...]
"Show me my status window."
[Status window]
Title: The One Who Seeks Good Stories – You cannot use the effects yet.
Skills:
Automatic Translation lvl.1
Perception of Price lvl.1
Negotiation lvl.1
"It's time to collect my story."