My Measurement: The Villain Desires a Satisfying Payback

On the way to our destination, we could begin to see a colossal, towering onolith emerge from the distant horizon.

Staring at the massive cylindrical stone building that soared into the air like an ancient skyscraper, I had to admit that I was a little disappointed.

The Magic Tower is a place where mages of all levels reside, researching and practising magic all day and every day.

It was a place built by mages, for mages, many centuries ago for a single purpose.

To further the development of magic.

To aim for the summit, climb, reach the next peak, and see just how far it could go.

There were supposedly over ten thousand mages from all over the world in that tower, but it was incomprehensibly small in comparison.

I suppose that's what the spatial magic Lud mentioned is―the tower's interior is said to be much faster than the outside.

Residing in this singular building that consisted of just thirteen floors, thousands of mages were said to inhabit its dimensionally expanded interior.

Furthermore, only 12 of those 13 floors were even being used, and the 12th floor itself only harboured two inhabitants.

Because the highest floors are inaccessible to those without the required level of magical talent and skill, it became harder and harder to rise to the next floor.

I've heard quite a bit about it on the way here from Lud.

To advance beyond the 6th floor, specifically, there was a jump in difficulty, meaning one would usually need to study a specialised branch of magic for a long time if they wanted to spend their limited time efficiently.

Supposedly, beings who circulate a lot of magical energy around their bodies live for a longer time than those who don't, so most mages are said to have a bit of a longer lifespan than ordinary humans.

But, unless you're at a certain level, it doesn't amount to much of a difference.

Apparently, only certain skilled mages at the 7th floor or above have the power to slow down their body's rate of ageing, and in rare cases can even reverse their age entirely.

So, in short, mages who have reached a certain level can give themselves much more time to research, develop, and improve their magic, allowing them a higher chance of climbing to the next floor and advancing their status, where they can then give themselves more time.

It's like a repeated cycle of continuous development that only ends with the limits of one's talent.

In this way, naturally, the older a mage is, the more powerful they can be assumed to be―or at the very least, they are likely to belong to a 'higher stage' than those who are young.

Subsequently, this means that the two Archwizards inhabiting the tower's 12th floor are the oldest mages currently alive in the Magic Tower, as well as the most powerful and the ones who possess the highest status in the magical world.

What I have developed after having learnt and compiled all of this information is a theory.

That is the 'Theory of World Stages'. That's what I decided to call it, anyway.

It is a theory I just came up with and uses my previous assumptions when I was banished to this Otherworld as a foundation―the assumption that this world is a Dream World of lower standing than the Earth from which I originate.

Explained simply, the theory is that every world belongs to a different 'plane of existence'―what I call a 'Stage'―and depending on what plane of existence a world resides in, each world will have a different level of what I call 'Authenticity'.

For example, let's say that my Earth is a Stage 1 World as a baseline.

Then, this Otherworld―being a sort of 'sub-world' created by beings belonging to my world―would naturally belong to a lower plane of existence than Earth.

It would thus be labelled as a Stage 2 World, or perhaps 1.5 at most.

Of course, this is only a simplified explanation to describe my theory, and it could be that the Otherworld would actually be a Stage 3 World or something even less than that, due to its nature of being manifested through dreams.

The main point is that the higher the Stage, the lower the plane of existence and the lower the Authenticity.

That brings me to my next point―I believe that a world's level of Authenticity, which corresponds to the plane of existence in which it resides, dictates what is and isn't possible in that world according to the set 'laws'.

In other words, a realm with lower Authenticity can get away with defying the set laws more than a realm with high Authenticity.

Because Authenticity is the glue that holds the world together and enforces the set laws, the worlds with less of it can more easily escape those set laws.

This causes bizarre and unnatural phenomena that shouldn't ordinarily exist, to exist.

That is why there are so many wild and strange things in this world like magic, Nightmares, transcendents, and everything else―because the world's Authenticity is low.

And it is for the same reason that Measurements exist on Earth.

Measurements―something that should never be a naturally occurring thing, something that only humans would possess and was beholden to no known laws of science.

It was something that even Truth couldn't definitively explain the reason behind their existence.

'Because they just do'―he would always give me that kind of unhelpful response.

Of course, things have now changed; with my new theory, everything has fallen into place so perfectly that it almost feels scripted.

I don't know what kind of world that being―the Author―is from, but just like what the Earth is to the Otherworld, it must be one that is at least one Stage higher in terms of planes of existence.

If Earth is a Stage 1 World and the Otherworld is a Stage 2 World, then the realm of the Author is a Stage 0 World.

Although, just like how there is no way the foolish bastards who created this Otherworld are able to script things like that here, it shouldn't be possible even for a being of higher existence than Earth to do something like that.

Even I would have been on the level of an ordinary human in this Otherworld if it weren't for Reality, after all.

The Earth I come from was, just like this Otherworld, a creation of a higher being.

Just like how things in the Otherworld exist because they were manifested through dreams, I'm 100% certain that the reason Measurements exist on Earth is because the Author put them there somehow.

The same string of logic that brought me to the Otherworld leads me to believe that I must be able to transcend to that Author's realm.

I don't know how many different levels of existence there are, and it could very well be that there are dozens of planes of existence that exist above even the realm of the Author, but that isn't something I need to worry about right now.

My only concern is if I can make it one plane higher.

When I accomplish that, then I can move on to the next stage.

Of course, I have considered that creatures can only travel to worlds lower in existence, but I don't think that should be an issue.

Because of Azaki Kiryuuin.

See, I have had a lot of time to process the truth since wandering this Otherworld, and one thing I have learnt is that Kiryuuin really is a regressor.

Needless to say, I already pretty much knew that, by looking at that fact with my theory in mind, it's possible for me to figure out how that was even possible in the first place.

The conclusion I have come to is that Kiryuuin never really did travel back in time―at least not physically.

No, rather, what he did was travel to a parallel Earth on the same plane of existence.

It both was and was not time travel.

It was dimensional travel.

I used to think that time flowed as a river, and what Kiryuuin's Measurement of Time did was simply reverse that flow, or allow him to swim against the currents somehow to return to a point in the past.

But that wasn't it at all.

After all, if that were truly the case, then the event that started it all―me killing Kiryuuin with poison on Halloween―never would have happened.

At that time, Truth confirmed he was dead.

However, a few seconds later, I asked and he was alive again.

How did that happen?

If all Kiryuuin did was simply reverse time or go back in time somehow, then something like 'returning from death' wouldn't be possible after he had already died.

Because that would be immortality, not time travel.

Moreover, he seemed to have come from a much farther point in the future than when I had killed him, so clearly he had survived Halloween and lived at least a few years until the end of the world before regressing―except he didn't because I killed him.

The only explanation is that Kiryuuin travelled from one parallel Earth to another when his original world ended―and it just so happened to be that the Earth he ended up at was my one, and it was in the far past than his original world that ended.

Or, it could be that he could only travel to my Earth because it was a timeline in which he had already died.

Read today on _em _pyr.

Frankly, I have no idea about anything further than that, so I don't know, but I am confident in the rest of it.

Anyway, what that means for me is simple―people can traverse worlds of equal existence to each other.

Assuming what I want is possible, there should be a way to go about it with Reality, but even without it, I wouldn't be surprised if Kiryuuin's dimensional-type Measurement had the potential to ascend to a world in a higher plane of existence.

Whether that is possible or not is something I can confirm by using the transcendents of this world to send me to Earth―since they are lower existence beings, if they can do something like that then it should theoretically be possible for people of Earth to travel to a world one Stage higher.

So, in order to confirm if I can break free to the realm of the Author, the highest realm I am aware of, I only need to figure out if beings of lower existence can travel to higher worlds.

And, fortunately, being in this Otherworld gives me plenty of opportunities to work that out.

"...Hm? Is something wrong?"

I glanced at Lud sitting on the other side of the carriage. We were approaching the Magic Tower now, and I could even see the mystical front gate.

"No. Don't worry about it."

If I can succeed in bringing this guy to Earth, then I'll know for sure.