Part 117: A vital clue comes from an unexpected source

But the day ended without a single clue, and I reluctantly returned to the lab and tried gathering info on the net. I can't even find any helpful information there.

Gh. Am I not useful after all? I'm getting irritated. I can still time leap, but will I ever find it like this...?





Just who is it?

"It's me."



A voice with an off-key tone, not even the fault of sound wave distortion. Who is this guy?

"SERN?!"

I stand right up and look about the room. I rush over to the window and quickly scan the road below. No suspicious figures within visible range.

Kurisu shows herself from the development room, but she gives a disinterested expression and heads back inside.



I gulp and carefully begin to talk.

"Identify yourself."

"You, one more afternoon, came to our factory seeking info and told me your telephone number, you know?"

"What are you saying?"

No, wait. I've heard this weird Japanese recently. The strange Japanese filters through my brain, connecting synapses.





"Identified. Nice to meet you."

"Oh, you're welcome! I do custom productions. Yesterday night, a guest come here I remembered! The guest was make please pin badge was same as one you had!"

I don't understand what he's saying, but he seems really excited.

"I'll head there right now!"



"Oh! Okaabee! Hello!"

"Where could that guest have gone?!"

"Client come here was yesterday time."

The ice-blue eyed white guy wearing a tie shrugs his shoulders. So basically, it happened yesterday... He contacted me because he remembered.

"What's his contact info? His name and address?!"

"Poisson. Guest just simulation. Private information is nothing."

Uh, umm... So, last night, a guest appeared in front of this western master, wanting to make pin badges with the same design as Suzuha's. But he died of poisoning...? Er, the guest was just a simulation, so there's no private information?

I don't really understand...

"Japanese, very studious for awarding private information, become nervous and serious, yes?"

I-I'm understanding less and less...

"If, guest had gave name or telephone number however, no leak. That is business."

Suddenly, tiredness weighs down on my shoulders. Or perhaps he's already lost me completely. My head fills with question marks.

If I knew it would turn out like this, I should've brought along English-speaking Kurisu. I have to stick to his pace now.

"What sort of person was the client? A man? A woman?"



"Peculiarities?"

"Percolator eyes? Nearly, Jewdough? Or, pro wrestler?"

"What? Judo? Pro wrestler? What about those things?"

"YES!"



"Ahh, a balloon. A balloon!"

"Balloon? Judo? Pro wrestling?"

"Good!"

No, it's not good! Are you trying to confuse me?!

I tried asking more questions afterwards, but after seeing a policeman walking, Master ran off in a hurry. I thought about chasing him, but I refrained from doing so to avoid police attention.

I give up. We've reached a complete stalemate. It's going to be difficult to find Titor with barely any time left.

Time leaping becomes a possibility tomorrow at 2 o'clock. Looks like all I can do is wait until Cristina's work ends, then leap to the time this suspicious character appears at this store.





"Complete."

2:30 PM on the 13th. About 20 minutes later than the original time, the Time Leap Machine is completed. Kurisu looks refreshed after accomplishing her job.

By the way, Daru and Mayuri aren't here. I had the two of them head to Radio Kaikan.

"The Time Leap Machine, huh."

Suzuha gazes at the newly complete machine in awe. I had explained the basic mechanism of time leaping to her. It's falsely similar to Suzuha's time machine, which can physically transfer.

"Remembering memories from the future, that's pretty interesting."

Suzuha crosses her hands behind her head, slightly bending her back and looking at the ceiling.

"Daydreams, 'what if' conjectures... and then intuition, deja vu. I just thought that maybe you're actually remembering future memories when those things happen."



"Maybe it's similar to that."

"Okabe's ability - Reading Steiner. I'd like to know what sort of mechanism it has. Is it Okabe's unique special ability, or does everyone have disposition for it, but Okabe's ability is just coincidentally stronger?"

"One thing's for certain, though - My consciousness leaps to the past along with my memories."

"I don't understand why that is. Okabe should be experiencing something similar to when he sends D-mails. Does consciousness exist inside memories?"

"It's bothersome since consciousness doesn't exactly exist physically. Same with the soul. In the end, it's about religious views. Even in 2036, the existence of the soul hasn't been proven, and nobody's proven the form of consciousness, either."

"I see... I'm a little disappointed."

"By sending my consciousness to the past, it felt like I could make concrete changes to the past, but at the same time, the results converged."



An example of the former is who kills Mayuri. The latter, Mayuri dies on the night of August 13th.

"That's not it. The future is determined."

"Then why does the process change?"

"Because the world line changed. Okabe Rintarou, when you leap into the past and take different actions from before, Divergence should only slightly fluctuate. But that fluctuation won't register any more than 0.000001% on the Divergence Meter. In trifling cases, it won't even be a significant change. When you change the cause, the only result is changing to a world line that already simultaneously exists. Furthermore, those two world lines are approximately the same, so you'll barely even feel any changes."

So is that why I don't feel any response from Reading Steiner?

"It's not that the world line before the change is annihilated. It keeps existing simultaneously as a possible world line."

"That's the many-worlds interpretation, right?"

"In any case, it's not a parallel world."

"Is the future reconstructed?"

"I guess you could say that."



I'll leave the discussion as it is for now. I waited for this time so I could time leap again.

I explained the situation to Kurisu and had her activate the Time Leap Machine immediately.





(Anime episode fifteen clear.)