When I woke up, I was still in the chamber.
Time passed differently from the outside world. You couldn’t leave this room for twenty-four hours when you went in. At first, I’d spent my time mass-producing EXP crystals, but fatigue had built up and made me sleepy.
The chamber was empty, so I’d slept using my arm as a pillow, but it was surprisingly refreshing.
“All thanks to Emily, really.”
It was warm and bright thanks to her care, and it had the aura of a holy temple. Even sleeping directly on the floor and using my arm as a pillow, it didn’t hurt at all; I woke up with all of my fatigue dispelled.
“Now…” I stood and looked up. The clock that my friends had mentioned was up there.
It started at midnight, and it was close to making a second full circle now. That meant nearly twenty-four hours had passed.
As a morning stretch, I did some more light EXP crystal generation.
I wonder how much I’ve made in a day, including breaks.
In the outside world’s real time, this was only a minute. How much had I made in a minute? The thought suddenly made me excited to leave.
The clock moved again. One minute remained.
“Oh!”
A door appeared before me. The door that had disappeared upon my entry, which I couldn’t bring back no matter how I used the key, had finally returned at the literal last minute.
I put my hand on the knob and turned it. The outside world was behind this door.
Sunlight filtered through the trees and to the floor. The shadows of trees in our garden swayed in extreme slow motion.
Twenty-four hours here was one minute there. Simple calculation showed that time passed 1,440 times faster here.
The shadows moved…so slowly.
I waited until thirty seconds remained.
“It’s early, but I guess I’ll exit. I do want to confirm that I can get out before twenty-four full hours,” I murmured to myself and prepared to go out the door─but then, a white-hot flash of inspiration jolted my mind, like those Newtype guys in old mecha anime.
Thirty seconds. A different flow of time. Acceleration rounds.
I pulled an acceleration round out of my bag. When fired at someone, that person would move in an accelerated state for thirty seconds.
You could say that everything in this room was accelerated by 1,440 times. What would happen if I fired an acceleration round here?
Let’s try it.
I loaded the bullet and fired it into myself.
My world sped up. The clock in the room slowed down.
In an already accelerated room, I was accelerated even further. That meant basically that everything else was going slower.
The shadows almost stopped moving. They only twitched every once in a while, like I was watching a super slow-motion camera.
It was kind of funny…
“…!”
My eyes widened at a sudden occurrence.
In front of me, on the other side of the door, something had appeared for a mere instant and then disappeared again.
It seemed impossible. I was basically watching a world slowed down by several thousands of times. How could something flash in and out of existence near-instantly from my perspective?
It seemed impossible…and yet.
I squinted, focused, and watched that spot.
Sure enough, there it was. Whatever it was, it floated there, flickering in and out of existence.
I had a feeling. Was it always there, just impossible for me to see? Was I only just noticing it now because I was accelerated twofold?
Thinking that made me want to know what it was.
I watched intently. Observed.
The interval was perfectly regular. I focused further, twice-accelerated, and reached out in time for the next one.
“There!” I felt it, and spinal reflex spurred me to grab it. The instant I did, the flickering object took real form.
It was a sword─an old-fashioned decorative one like the kinds used in rituals.
Was it pure intuition, or had something led me to this conclusion? Either way, the mirror and the magatama appeared in my mind.
“Kusanagi…”
Had I truly been searching for it, or had it been by me all this time? Whatever the case, the final key to Nihonium was in my hands.