After the meeting with Lou, Rea led me to a deeper and more secretive place.

  "Adin, today you need to perform a 'Thermo-Hygrostat System Check' at the Archive on the 5th floor."

  Rea’s voice was hushed as we walked.

  "There are no errors in the system, but the owner of that room reacts sensitively to even a 0.1% change in humidity."

  "Is it because of the paper?" I asked.

  "Yes. Because digital technology does not exist in that room."

  Rea displayed the code [ MP.05-Ω ] on her tablet and added a warning.

  "One thing to note. Absolutely do not make a sound. The owner of that room, Jan, considers noise to be 'pollution of knowledge'."

  At the end of the 5th-floor corridor, standing before the massive door bearing the metal plate [ MP.05-Ω ], I felt a peculiar tinnitus.

  As soon as the door opened, what poured out was not sound. It was a 'silence' like a vacuum that swallowed all sound.

  The room was vast, its end invisible.

  Tens of thousands of books were tightly packed into bookshelves reaching the high ceiling. But strangely, the spines of all the books were white; they were 'blank pages' with no titles written on them.

  I exhaled carefully, holding the measuring instrument as I moved deeper into the archive. That was when I saw a faint light in the center of the room.

  A man was sitting there, relying on a single desk lamp. Heavy blackout curtains blocked all other light.

  He had a pale, thin frame and nervous eyes. He wore white cotton gloves as if to avoid leaving a single fingerprint, and a Polarized Monocle over one eye.

  He was moving his fingers as if conducting an orchestra, manipulating massive holographic screens floating in the air.

  On the screens were the faces of tycoons who controlled the world. Mylon, the king of the space industry; Kael, the founder of a massive social network; and Buff, known as the god of investment.

  "No, you're wrong. Mylon."

  Jan's voice was low and dry, but it carried the absolute authority of a Kingmaker who decided the flow of the world.

  "You are still buried in the physical real estate game of 'Planetary Terraforming'."

  "The public no longer wants new coordinates," Jan continued. "Mars is just another prison where dust blows. What they, who are already suffocated by the abundance of Ivory, truly crave is not the 'expansion of space' but the 'density of time'."

  "Density of time? We need more concrete logic," Mylon asked impatiently from the screen.

  Jan smiled a fishy smile and tapped his finger on a blank book.

  "My new theory is the 'Commodification of Aging', or 'Entropy Economics'. It's not about selling a drug that stops aging, but conversely, selling a 'service to experience aging temporarily'."

  He leaned forward slightly.

  "It provides the 'fear of extinction' and the 'pleasure of finitude' as a premium to those exhausted by eternal life. If you systemize this, the unit of wealth you possess will become meaningless to measure with numbers."

  The tycoons swallowed hard, watching only Jan's lips. They realized it. The theory this man was proposing would soon become the law of the next generation and the flow of civilization.

  Sitting in this secret room, he reigned as the 'Invisible Hand', designing the global industrial landscape and selling future scenarios.

  "But Jan, the theory is perfect... but it will conflict with existing data systems. The risk is too high," Kael asked with a concerned voice.

  Jan's expression hardened coldly.

  "That is why I prepared this. To set a new board, one must overturn the old one."

  He manipulated the terminal on his desk. A red warning light appeared on the screen along with the status of global data servers.

  "Just one 'Logic Bomb' I've planted, and global financial data, personal information, state secrets... all those digital records will be incinerated in an instant. Humanity's memory will be formatted."

  "Wh... What?"

  "But do not worry. I have safely transferred it all here, onto this paper. 'Optical Encryption Printing'. An eternal archive that needs neither electricity nor a network."

  Monopoly of Information.

  He was threatening to burn the world's digital data while locking away all the world's truths in an analog ledger that only he could decipher. That was his way of ruling the world.

  "I have transmitted the blueprint of the theory. As for the price... I trust I don't need to say it?"

  Snap.

  He flicked his finger, turning off the holograms. The sight of the world's richest men trembling before the man in this secret room vanished in an instant.

  "You there, are you the one from the Environmental Control Room?"

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Only then did Jan ask dryly, without looking back at me. Cold sweat ran down my back, but I answered calmly.

  "Yes. I received a report that the humidity sensor is unstable."

  "Come in and measure it. But kill your breath."

  I cautiously approached the desk. He watched me work out of the corner of his eye, then suddenly opened his mouth with a look as if he had found an interesting test subject.

  "Hey, young man. How would you define the 'Density of Time'?"

  It was a sudden question. He was testing me. He simply intended to use the lowly caretaker who had entered this massive prison of knowledge as a source of amusement.

  "According to the theory of general relativity... the stronger the gravity, the slower time flows."

  When I answered with common knowledge, he scoffed.

  "That is a textbook answer. What I am asking about is the 'Realm of Sensation'. To compress time without mass, one must reverse entropy. Do you think that is possible?"

  His eyes were expecting the answer 'impossible'.

  But in that moment, I recalled the sensation of Solet scattering at my fingertips. The moment I scattered the powder to hide Nar and Rea.

  It was not merely concealment to hide one's form. It was a 'sinking into depth', grabbing the surface of ordinary time flowing in one direction and dragging it down into the invisible abyss beneath.

  Instinctively, I voiced the absolute sensation my soul remembered.

  "It is possible."

  "Ho? What is the method? Are you planning to create a black hole?"

  "No. You just need to get 'deeper'."

  At my answer, Jan's hand stopped.

  "It is not about forcibly blocking flowing water, but digging down so deep that the bottom cannot be seen. Just as time lengthens as gravity increases..."

  I looked him straight in the eye.

  "If you grab time flowing in only one direction and sink it vertically, a 'density of time' heavier and thicker than any physical law in the world is created there."

  Silence flowed.

  Jan adjusted his monocle and stared straight at me. It was not the look he gave a lowly component a moment ago. It was the look of a scientist who had discovered an incomprehensible Variable.

  "Stagnant time... Mass of sadness. Interesting. That is not an idea a Unit could come up with."

  He twisted the corner of his mouth into a smile and leaned deep into his chair.

  "You, I quite like you. You have a very thick, strange smell."

  He waved his hand at me. It was an arrogant and clear dismissal that no further conversation would be permitted.

  "You may leave. My letters are suffocating under the weight of your heavy time."

  I bowed my head and left the room.

  The moment the door closed, Jan's mask crumbled. He took off his monocle with trembling hands and placed it on the desk.

  'The weight of stagnant time... Gravity created by sadness.'

  It was not a simple metaphor. Jan felt a chill run down his spine. The time he had tried so hard to calculate and control was nothing more than a technique to forcibly squeeze a 'horizontal flow'.

  But what the young man before him spoke of was the 'Depth of the Abyss'—stopping the flow and digging vertically.

  A logic that perfectly redefined the law of entropy by combining it with human pain. Jan realized painfully how shallow a commercial trick his theory of 'Time Density' was in front of the essential single word, 'Depth of Time', thrown by that young man.

  It was a shudder.

  It was the moment when he, a predator of knowledge, was overwhelmed and devoured by another's logic for the first time in his life.

  Only after I came out into the corridor did I vomit out the breath I had been holding.

  In front of the entity of massive greed, I felt a terrible hunger. I wanted to fill this cold hole with something warm and truthful.

  I moved my feet blindly. To the place my instinct led me, the only place where warmth remained in this cold Monolith.

  [ MP.10-L ].

  It was the room of my parents, Tildin and Ah Reum.

  Beep, beep, beep, beep.

  When I punched in the password and opened the door, a familiar and fragrant scent wafted out. The smell of old paper, the scent of dried flowers, and... a subtle smell of soap.

  "Uh...?"

  I paused. Someone was on the living room sofa, which should have been empty.

  Receiving the red sunset light seeping through the window, Lou was leaning deeply into the sofa with her eyes closed. She felt a presence and slowly opened her eyes.

  On her bare face without glasses, only a languid comfort hung instead of her usual sharpness. She blinked for a moment upon seeing me, then asked quietly.

  "Uh... How did you get here..."

  She leaned her body deeper into the back of the sofa and yawned. It was the comfort of someone who had been coming here for a very long time, as if it were her own home.

  "Is this a place you come to often?" I asked, sitting naturally on the sofa opposite her.

  "Maybe. It's the only place where I can breathe in this hellish Monolith. When there's too much work, or when my head feels like it's going to explode... I just run away to here."

  Lou spoke quietly, staring at the ceiling.

  "The two people who were the owners of this room... Tildin and Ah Reum. I never met them in person, but I got to know them through the records left in this room."

  My heart thumped. I couldn't say anything and just looked at her lips. She smiled faintly as if lost in memory, never dreaming that I, sitting in front of her, was their son.

  "The research materials and journals filling this place... I endured by reading them. While everyone else tried to control people with technology as a weapon, these people agonized over technology that saves people until the end. Seeing those noble achievements, I came to respect them on my own. They are like spiritual mentors to me."

  The sincere respect in her voice warmed the air in the room even more.

  "That even if technology is cold, the heart handling it must be soft. Because of that teaching, I haven't gone crazy yet and am staying here."

  She stretched out her curled legs and lay down comfortably.

  "For me, having no family... they were like a sanctuary for my heart."

  Lou turned her head to look at me. Her dreamy gray eyes met mine.

  I couldn't say anything. I just swallowed the heavy rising emotions with effort. The fact that my parents' love went beyond me and reached this lonely person... became a deep comfort to me.

  I approached her buried in the sofa and silently, gently supported her back to help her sit up. My touch on her thin back was firm yet careful.

  I placed a warm cup of tea I had prepared in her hands and brought the ivory blanket that was hanging on the armrest of the sofa to wrap around her shoulders.

  "Uh... Thank you."

  Lou opened her eyes wide while holding the teacup. A strange experience for her, who always directed and controlled, to meekly follow someone's lead.

  Perhaps due to the warmth of the tea, or perhaps for another reason, her white cheeks flushed red. She shyly lowered her gaze and fidgeted with the teacup.

  We talked about many things until the night deepened.

  The desolate childhood she experienced, my memories in Ebony, and trivial and silly jokes.

  As time passed, Lou let down her guard more and more, leaning distractedly on the sofa, and I couldn't take my eyes off her. Not the perfect genius scientist, but a lonely girl who wanted to be loved.

  Until the bluish light of dawn seeped through the window, we were trapped in the only warm island within this massive concrete maze.

  It was a time of a temperature most similar to 'Love' that I felt for the first time since I was born.

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