Something suddenly pokes my soul and points me to a certain memory.

At first, I get confused about the who and why, but I'm now familiar enough with it to recognize this influence, so I accept it and start to ponder, "If your calculations are correct, then maybe the model is what's wrong. Are you sure that the orbits of the sun, the moon, and the realm are all correct? These three bodies could influence each other in very complex ways."

The scholar stares at me dumbfoundedly, then he glances at Arantos, who nods with a very excited smile, and realization strikes the scholar. "But of course! We must study the orbits more! Thank you, Grand Wolf Ryder," he declares, then bows in his seat and spins around to continue working, ignoring the dozens of annoyed glares he earned due to the noise.

I shake my head and return my thoughts to their previous track.

I guided Lyle to invent actuators and switches, yes, but they were simple electromechanical devices, which don't even compare to a Godsdamned electronic calculator. I don't even remember what I actually said to him that led him to discover… whatever this is…

I turn to Arantos and question, "This 'Wolf's Gate,' is it an electrical switch that lets electricity pass only if a third input is energized?"

He grabs his chubby chin in thought and answers, "I don't know the particulars of it since there are many variants of a Wolf's Gate, but I think it's appropriate to say that it's the physical construction of a 'logic gate' as described by Lylean Logic."

"Do you have a book on 'Lylean Logic' here?"

He nods positively. "We do. I'll ask Logan to find a copy to gift to you."

I smile excitedly. "I appreciate that very much."

I also ask to look inside the electric "Lylanine" and discover that it's jam-packed with finger-sized cylinders, all connected by thick wires.

Its overall construction is quite delicate, so neither the scholar nor Arantos want me to touch it. I notice a lack of proper insulators, like rubber, and they seem to have used wood and leather instead, both of which need to be kept completely dry to act as insulators, so this device needs delicate care to not end up frying itself.

The internals of each "Wolf's Gate" are visible, which reveals to me that they are, indeed, diodes and transistors. They're disks of different metals stacked together, and putting a few points in [Metal Appraisal] reveals that they're all made of silicon with something else added to modify its properties.

As far as the girls know, this world actually has managed to build an Analytical Engine, a huge, mechanical, general-purpose calculator, but they hadn't developed electromechanical components yet.

Electric engineering is an underdeveloped field in this world because anything it can do, magic and enchanting can do better, and that's why I guided Lyle towards the actuator and switch. If he made something useful with those two inventions, then it would open up the field for further research.

I don't exactly remember what I said to him that led him to discover the diode, but I do remember mentioning something about silicon and logic. To think that he went as far as jumping directly to electronics with just some vague words from me is amazing, really.

I do have to make a correction, though.

I lightly touch the calculator and state, "An electric calculator would be something that could be constructed using solely [Electric Magic], but this isn't that. The use of logic gates sets it apart from the typical electric device, so I think this calculator needs a new adjective."

"How about simply 'logic calculator'?" The scholar suggests.

I shake my head negatively and explain, "Too abstract. If we find other ways to physically build logic gates without a 'Wolf's Gate,' then the name will be misleading." And I try not to cringe at the usage of my name.

"How about… 'electrolf'?" Arantos suggests with a sly grin.

I immediately shut that down, "Horrible suggestion. How about 'electronic'?"

"Why the 'ic' suffix? What does it mean?" The scholar asks confusedly.

Fuck…

My knowledge of Latin and Greek isn't good enough to answer that one.

"It's also too similar to 'electric,'" Arantos points out, and I start to regret bringing up this topic.

"What about 'wolfic' or 'wolfical'?" The scholar gives another horrible suggestion.

But this time, Arantos also agrees with me. "I don't think that's a good one. There could be a way to build a Wolf's Gate that uses mana or some other form of energy, so joining 'electron' with 'Wolf' seems like a more proper choice."

"'Electrolf' it is, then," the scholar agrees with a nod, and I just stay quiet, silently cringing.

 

After we talk to Logan about the books I want, I invite him for lunch with us, and he seems a bit happy at the prospect of talking to Lina again. He helped her a lot back when I had asked her to study this world's history, so I guess they kind of became friends from that.

Once we're outside of the temple, Arantos suggests, "I've heard a few concerning things about you and heretics, so may I suggest that you complement your escort with a few Templars?"

"I'm fine with that," I readily accept. Although Teresina asked us to, we didn't bother to bring the Templars from Escanso with us, so these will do.

Azador goes to the castle to deliver a message to Silvane, and the girls take a Space mage transport to the other parts of the town, but I want to have a little journey, so I suggest to Yunia, "How about we take a walk to the Nobles' Quarter? I want to take a stroll through the town."

"Sure, as long as you [Massage] my feet later," she replies with a subtle smile.

I smile back as the remembered taste of her feet gives me a boner. "Didn't even need to ask."

 

We walk hand in claws as I casually tell her of our adventures in this town, then she frowns concernedly as I describe the multiple times when we almost died.

"I'd like to say that you had a nice and simple life here, but even for someone like me, your life has been quite eventful…" She comments with a slightly pitying look.

"I guess it was a sort of trial for me. It helped reforge my mind into how it is today," I soothingly reply and gently kiss the back of her hand.

She clutches my hand and caresses my mirror-like scales. "I'm glad that these memories didn't leave a wound on your soul."

I look ahead and let my eyes wander as I absentmindedly think out loud, "One or two of the memories make me feel a bit bad about the way I behaved, but at least I don't feel anything negative when I think about this town. The people here are nice as long as you pull your own weight, and they don't judge you too much unless you try to stand out. I was just unlucky, which is what earned me my nickname…"

She gives me a subtle smirk and whispers, "You hate that nickname because it's the truth…"

"I do…" I begrudgingly admit.

 

After a casual stroll, we reach the Nobles' Quarter, and our escorts relax a bit since there's little traffic here.

We stop by a sweets shop to buy a few small Gorgon fruit sweets for us and our escorts. These sweets aren't stupidly expensive like the ones from the capital, so they accept the gift without any of the awkwardness from last time. They taste like blueberry and lychee, so they're a pretty good light snack.

Then we soon reach the Ryzek estate, and we stop before the black metal gate to talk to the guard in shining chain mail.

"Ah… Mister Lyle Rizek left for the High Forest a day-cycle ago," the guard explains, and we take a moment to process this information.

"This is quite convenient, I guess," Yunia comments with a wry smile.

"Surprising, too, but if he named an invention after me…" I mumble with a frown as my tail stiffly waves about from my mixed feelings.

The guard bows and offers, "Would your Lordship desire to come in? Signeur Horvath and Madame Helena are currently within."

"We'll pay them a short visit, then we'll return to the temple," I decide.

The guard presses a button, apparently an electrical one since I didn't sense him feeding it any mana, and a butler comes out to greet us.

After confirming our identities, we're allowed in, and Sebastian, who I don't even need to use [Sense Soul] on to confirm his name, leads us through the familiar estate.

I feel like the yellow-bricked mansion was plucked straight out of Mac Gantus with how perfectly it follows imperial architecture. Its vibrancy clashes a bit with the pastel colors of the rest of the mansions in the Nobles' Quarter, but that just makes it more interesting to admire.

The roomy interior is decorated with yellow and blue tiles with flowing patterns, and the air is magically conditioned to be perfectly fresh. It feels like imperial houses are designed to be like huge ballrooms.

We meet up with the Ryzek couple in their backyard flower garden. Helena is drinking tea while her husband is playing with electricity, making it flow between a few pylons that surround his raised platform.

The noblewoman is thin and petite with a very kind smile, and her black hair is styled in a girlish braid that betrays her age. Horvath is a lanky man with wild eyes and an enviously long mustache twirled in a stereotypically villainous way.

Once they notice our approach, Helena stands up and smiles at us while Horvath stops his training and goes over to stand beside her.

"The prodigious Lord Wolf Ryder and the stunning Lord Yulania Ryder, it's an honor to receive the new royals here," Horvath greets us with a wide, slightly creepy, smile.

"The distinguished Ryzek family has only grown since coming to Rabanara, I see," Yunia returns the courtesy.

While I give them a handshake, and they both seem quite to be interested in my shiny scales, Yunia goes for the elven greeting, and they both lightly kiss her hand.

Then we sit down and quickly exchange a few pleasantries.

Helena lowers her head respectfully and affirms, "Our son owes you a lot for your guidance. The invention of the Wolf's Gate has established his path as a researcher and given him prestige worthy of a noble."

"He went a lot further with my advice than I could have ever expected, so I believe that his own brilliance helped him the most," I politely reply.

"Better yet, let's thank the Goddess of Knowledge for Blessing you and giving your words their due weight," Horvath adds.

I smile warmly as I feel a bit of an odd feeling within me. "Yes, I also have a lot to thank her for."

Then Horvath grins like a villain as he reveals, "Lyle is currently going on a vacation around the High Forest as a reward for his genius invention, but after he's done, he'd like to work for you and continue his research."

Horvath isn't an unpleasant person, it's just that his face unnerves me a bit, so I contain my discomfort and smile diplomatically. "That's excellent news. I have many ideas about what we could build together by using his inventions."

Now that Lyle has opened the door to electronics, the number of possibilities is thrilling. I feel like it's just a matter of time before I'll be on the internet laughing at memes once again…

 

After a short and polite chat, we return to the temple and start poring over the books that Logan collected for us.

I, of course, first read Lyle's book on Lylean Logic to sate my crippling curiosity.

It really is boolean logic. I now remember that I mentioned propositional logic to him, which is what he used as a basis to define the axioms of Lylean Logic.

The idea of Turing-complete computers doesn't seem to have been developed yet, so we'll still need to formally develop the theory of computation before this technology can truly spread around the world.

Still, we'll basically be skipping a hundred years of human history just so that I can see a stupid meme about a cute shark girl playing games.

And I'm fucking stoked.

Regarding slightly more important matters, Yunia collects some interesting information about intra-Cycle and inter-Cycle travel. There's not a lot of information about it, but the basic idea is that nobody should ever attempt either of those things.

Other Cycles are dangerous. They're completely alien to us and could fuck shit up real bad if anything from them is allowed to come into ours, so the temple considers trying to find a way to travel between them to be heresy. However, thanks to the fact that we're a family with three Blessings, we're basically immune from their persecution, so we don't have to worry about that.

Since other Realms are supposed to be very similar to each other, it's quite likely that Earth is within our Cycle, and that's something that I used to want to get confirmation about from the Gods, but now, I don't really care anymore.

Whether travel between Realms is allowed or not isn't clear, though. It's also said to be dangerous, but it's not explicitly forbidden.

The other Realms likely have their own version of the Humanoid Gods, and though they could have their own rules or Sins, they might not have a God of Existence ensuring that the rules are obeyed, like with Earth. This means that life in the other Realms could actually be worse than on Earth or Rupegia. A resource-hungry Realm is just as bad as a completely alien outer-Cycle Realm. And though everyone in the Cycle is under the God of Creation, that doesn't mean that there aren't evil people or agents of the God of Destruction out there.

There's also no confirmation or denial about whether traveling between Realms is actually possible, just that attempting it is dangerous. Well, at this point, it's clear to us that the temple knows that it's possible, but they're trying to just obscure it without outright lying about it.

Now that I have a better perspective on other Realms, I think that the person who sent me that message when I first came here was actually Earth's God.

 

Sender: God.

"I'm sorry about this, but there's no way for you to go back."

 

And I'm starting to believe that it was someone above the Humanoid Gods or Earth's God that brought me here because it seems that the Gods of each Realm don't interact much, so I find it hard to believe Earth's and Rupegia's Gods conspired to bring me here.

All these tidbits of information are based on even smaller Messages from the Gods, making it a puzzle that has been slowly filled out throughout the ages.

My conclusion from this brief bout of research is that as long as you don't make a tunnel which a swarm could come through, then maybe travel between Realms can be justified with a good enough reason.

This is a bit of a Pandora's Box, though. If I make a deal with another Realm's God to allow me to travel between our Realms, then it sets a precedent that others could use to also travel between Realms. If the other Realms' Gods aren't completely robotic and can be reasoned with, then they could be convinced to loosen Realm travel restrictions over generations, so after the first person opens the door, it's something that could end up becoming a problem in the future.

Wait, isn't that exactly what happened to me?

I used to want to simply go back to Earth, but now that I'm comfortable with living my life in Rupegia, I've started thinking about how I could use other Realms to my benefit. I'm the problem.

The Box has actually already been opened with me, and now I have the choice to use the Forbidden Knowledge, or to take it with me to the grave.

But I find the temptation incredibly hard to resist.

 

I sigh and close the book. My reading of Lylean Logic has been interrupted by this dilemma.

Yunia gives me a questioning look. She has no interest in inter-Realm travel, but for me, the possibilities are a bit alluring. It's simply an intrinsic desire I have to know more, to explore the unknown, to boldly go where no man has gone before. Maybe I could even bring back knowledge from a more technically or magically advanced civilization to help our world, who knows?

Godsdamned Pandora's Box.

I'm loath to just outright dismiss inter-Realm traveling, but the seriousness of this decision is simply too great for someone like me to make on my own, so I feel like I should just drop this crazy idea altogether.

I push my chair closer to Yunia's and give her my puppy eyes until she comforts me. I don't think I'll be able to make a final decision about it right now, so I'll just postpone it until it becomes relevant again.

 

Intermission - Lina

 

I see a large house that was carved from a handful of huge black boulders with red streaks. There's also a low, shingled roof where small mushrooms and moss grows, and I recognize most of them as being edible. The facade is concave, increasing the amount of surface area for a large carving, and the focus point of the facade is right in front of the gate, where I am.

The carving depicts the glorious front gate of Hombombein; the impregnable fortifications of the main wall; the long and complex artificial waterfalls, the Mountain's Scar; and the towering statues of our ancestors lining the main road.

This is the most beautiful house I've ever seen, but I'm not here to be like Wolfy and rave about architecture.

While I admire the carving, the gate guard calls Sebastian, the slave butler, but then the butler hurries out of the house with an anxious expression.

He suddenly recognizes me and immediately stops in place. "Lina, it's you!" He shouts as he smiles, then makes a grimace and assumes a polite servant's demeanor. "Royal Lord Lina, it's an honor to have you here," the young human greets with a bow.

"I'm… happy to be back," I awkwardly reply, unsure of what to say, then I notice how the butler remains bowed, so I hurriedly add, "You may rise."

He straightens up immediately, his face struggling to hold back a smile, but I only feel guilt when I see the collar around his neck.

 

He happily guides me in, and we cross Nala's small front garden, which stirs up nostalgic memories about my time here, then we enter the house, and the perfect, cool air instantly puts me at ease.

The house doesn't have many windows, so they use crystal lights to illuminate the interiors, giving it a very cozy and soothing atmosphere.

Sebastian offers me a seat on the comfortable sofas on the right side of the room while he prepares a simple cocktail at the large bar that takes up the other side. My escorts remain outside except for one who stands by the door, silent like a statue.

Though I should be looking forward to my reunion with Gimbo, I still can't shake the guilt I feel from being freed.

Worrying about something I can't change, at least for now, would get both Wolfy and Yunia to chastise me.

I also don't want to worry them while they're sharing a happy moment together, so I smother this negative emotion and focus on the now. There's still a long way before I can turn this blessed Fate of mine into something more than just happiness for myself.

Sebastian serves me the cocktail with a smile, and in the drink, I can see an uncountable number of globules of different liquids that refuse to mix with one another, like oil and water. A traditional dwarven Cycle.

I thank him and sip on it slowly, trying to figure out all the different flavors within it. The first one I manage to identify is Dwarven Coffin, which makes me a bit happy. When the guilt eventually subsides, I should ask Armanpoosh to procure a bottle of it for me.

A minute later, Gimbo comes in together with his wife. He still looks the same as he did before with his youthful face, his shining dark hair, and his tired-looking eyes, though now, they're filled with happiness from his wide smile.

Nala's gentle, smiling face seems to have gained a few more wrinkles, but her lustrous and wavy light brown hair is still just as stunning as I remember. I'm almost certain she has some elven inheritance.

The two quickly walk towards me with linked arms, and I stand to receive them.

"Gimbo, Nala," I politely greet and nod respectfully. I really wish that I could bow to them, but I can't anymore, not even to them.

They don't stop at the sofa before me and continue walking forward, then they unlink their arms, and Nala wordlessly pulls me into a hug, stunning me into speechlessness.

"We couldn't believe that it was you when we heard the news, but it is, it is…" Gimbo softly blurts out, his voice breaking up, then he hugs me, too.

After a moment where I still can't move, Nala pulls back and caresses my cheek as she confesses, "We were worried about you because you were always so harsh and tense. We didn't think you were ready for a life of adventuring, but how wrong we were, oh, how wrong."

"Though you still do seem a bit tense…" Gimbo adds with a wry smile.

I sigh and calm myself down, then I give them each a quick hug. After facing armies of monsters and heretics, showing some gratitude to the couple that so kindly took care of me and worried about my well-being should be a simple thing.

I lay my hands on their shoulders and smile as I confidently declare, "Thank you for everything you did for me. I wouldn't be here without your guidance…"