Chapter 52: The Other Side of the World

To ensure no details were omitted during the retelling, Galle described almost every single panel he had seen. This resulted in him taking much longer than Elia had anticipated to finish his account. After all, once the manga was covered, there was still the anime. Although Galle had summarized the anime's plot to a certain extent, his mouth was dry, his brain was starved of oxygen, and his mind was feeling somewhat dazed by the end of it—

"The plot of this anime is getting even more absurd now that I've said it out loud. Am I actually dreaming right now?"

As his voice trailed off, silence stretched from Elia's end of the line for a long time. Galle instantly grew anxious, suspecting that he might have been misled, wondering if there was some glaringly obvious, idiotic trap he had failed to notice, or what he should do if even Elia thought he was simply seeing in his dreams what was on his mind by day... Just as he was spiraling into a tangle of thoughts, he suddenly heard Elia say thoughtfully, "No wonder it's McDonald's."

"What—cough, cough, cough!!" Choking on his own saliva, Galle broke into a painful fit of coughing. Amidst the coughs, he persisted in asking, "What McDonald's? Dad, you didn't actually accept an endorsement deal from them, did you?!"

His imagination branched out even further as he pondered when the Lord of Destiny would ever be willing to collaborate with a real-world McDonald's... Perhaps on the day Ophelia developed a fondness for cheese beef burgers, but certainly not because of him, dammit.

"...You're overthinking it." Paying no heed to his son's rambling, Elia combined the story Simon had told him with Galle's retelling, arriving at a conclusion that seemed utterly absurd at first glance, yet remarkably logical upon closer inspection.

"Simon," he said, hanging up the phone and addressing the line-drawn little figure currently standing on his lantern, "do you remember the question I asked when we first met?"

"Of course, I will never forget it," Simon replied with a serious expression. "The great Lord of Destiny asked me if I liked eating McDonald's, and my answer was 'I don't.'"

"...Assuming the 'me' who asked that question wasn't out of his mind, is there any possibility that 'I' could confirm the timeline I was in through this method?" Elia was speaking less to consult Simon and more to himself. "In countless parallel universes, there are countless Simon Hathaways. Some of them enjoy fast food, while others hold it in utter disdain. Therefore, by simply asking, 'Do you like McDonald's?' one could easily determine which Simon was standing before 'me,' and then adopt different courses of action tailored to different Simon Hathaways..."

Clearly, the line-drawn Simon did not originate from a child-friendly, wholesome family animation universe. Consequently, the past "Elia" had not chosen to leave him be, but had deliberately taken him out for five years of intensive retraining.

Yet, this line-drawn Simon did not seem to fit the art style of the manga either. He was able to reconcile with his adoptive father and even utter words like, "I deeply respect my father," whereas in the manga, the two of them practically lived under the same roof like sworn enemies, and the resentment accumulated over the years could never be dissolved by a mere five-year trip around the world.

At this thought, Elia inevitably experienced the same bewilderment as Galle: What on earth was the relationship among the manga, the anime, and reality?

The simplest and most straightforward speculation right now was that the parallel universes of the manga and the anime had merged, giving birth to the real world Elia was currently experiencing—one more serious than the anime, yet more lighthearted than the manga. If one were to branch out into unfounded speculation further, it could even be hypothesized that the one who facilitated this fusion was none other than the past "Destiny." Through the Book of Destiny, He had understood the developments of countless parallel universes, and had developed a rare sense of compassion for a conceptual life-form like Himself. Thus, He had made drastic attempts to avoid a certain dismal future, ultimately successfully acquiring an all-ages universe x1.

Yet, was the truth really that simple?

Elia turned Galle's intelligence over in his mind a few times before suddenly asking the line-drawn Simon, "When you first saw me, were my eyes open or closed?"

Although Simon did not understand why Elia was asking this question, he answered affirmatively nonetheless: "Your eyes were open. I couldn't remember that wrong; if your eyes had remained closed back then, I definitely would have had a deep impression of it."

Since his eyes were open, Elia leaned toward the possibility that the "Lord of Destiny," who had first encountered Simon forty-two years ago, had already become a part of the story by reading the Book of Destiny aloud. His purpose in doing so remained unclear, but the drawback was glaringly obvious:

One of the rules of the Book of Destiny was [Stories already read by the Lord of Destiny are destined to happen]. Therefore, to avoid finding himself acting as the master of destiny within the story while simultaneously being manipulated by destiny, he would inevitably make a point of reducing the frequency with which he read the book.

So how on earth had the Lord of Destiny of that era noticed such a trivial detail as "McDonald's"? Could he have "observed" the anime's plot through some method that would not affect the course of reality?

This reminded Elia of the way he had learned about the manga and anime plots tonight, making him think of someone closely connected to him and that person's abilities.

—Galle, the adoptive son allocated to him by the universe after his transmigration. With the help of the Lord of Dreams, Galle could observe the "editorial department" without exerting any influence on the future of reality, which was fundamentally different from the severe consequences Elia faced when browsing the Book of Destiny.

The line-drawn Simon changed his posture on Elia's lantern, sitting cross-legged. Elia's gaze swept over him, and he abruptly asked, "Simon, do you know Galle? I mean Galle Esposito, my adoptive son."

One had to bear in mind that Simon had mentioned Elia's family several times before, but Galle was not yet eighteen years old now, whereas Simon had met Elia forty-two years ago!

Simon raised his head in slight contemplation, then nodded and said, "I suppose I knew him unilaterally, more or less. During those five years you spent traveling with twenty-year-old me, I never saw you have close contact with any ordinary person, but you frequently mentioned two people to me: one was your adoptive son, and the other was Superman."

Elia could not help but wear an expression of astonishment once more. In the course of his conversation with Simon, far too much content had exceeded his expectations. This time, he thought of time travel, thought that Bob the three-headed dog might have been a participant in this operation, and thought that his first meeting with Simon most likely occurred after he adopted Galle—even though, from a linear timeline, Simon was the one who appeared earlier.

Yet he never expected Superman's name to pop up here!

Then again, Superman also appeared in the manga Galle had seen... Could it be that the intersection between the "Lord of Destiny" and Superman was more than just living in the same city?

He asked Simon, "How did I describe Galle and Superman to you back then?"

"That was when the relationship between us gradually grew closer," Simon said as he recalled. "I believe you had already come to regard me as a friend, so one time I asked you, 'You don't seem very good at interacting with people, Destiny; have you always been alone?'

"I knew my question was a bit presumptuous, but my emotional intelligence back then was limited, and I was simply too curious about you... Fortunately, you didn't get angry and answered me very seriously. You told me that you actually had a son—I was so shocked when I heard it that I almost tumbled down the stairs! But right after that, you told me that Galle was a child you adopted. Not only that, you said you hadn't adopted him out of your own free will."

The hand gripping Elia's lantern tightened a fraction as he asked in a deep voice, "What do you mean?"

"I don't know the specifics, but you seemed to have adopted him under circumstances where you had no other choice," Simon said. "His existence gave you a particular headache and anger. I could sense that you weren't targeting him personally; it was simply that the matter left you feeling irritated and depressed. You said you didn't know how to get along with a young child with special abilities, that you would argue if you spent more than five minutes together, and that he had consumed too much of your time and energy... Even so, you were still trying your best not to vent your anger on him and to get along well with the child. You even gave him a name you loved very much: Galle."

Elia repeated, "A name I loved very much?"

"Galle means dog, doesn't it?" Simon shrugged. "You like dogs, but you don't like human children. You were trying to love your adopted son the way you love a small dog."

"..."

To be honest, Elia did occasionally feel that raising a son or daughter wasn't as good as raising a dog... Yet he never imagined that the past "Elia" had actually put this philosophy into practice.

It sounded thoroughly detrimental to the harmony and stability of family relations.

Then again, leaving aside whether "Elia" was right or wrong in his approach to child-rearing, judging solely by Simon's description, forty-two years ago, when the Lord of Destiny had just adopted Galle in his childhood years, Galle most likely didn't remember much and had very little concept of whether he had traveled through time.

Yet, even if it couldn't be verified for the time being, Elia could still boldly speculate that "he" had adopted Galle for some reason, learned about the setting of McDonald's from Galle, and then traveled back to the past to meet Simon via Bob Number One.

Looking at it this way... although the Lord of Destiny was subject to numerous restrictions, every "person" who appeared around him was quite formidable. Galle could observe different worldlines, Bob could help him travel through time, and Ophelia manifested superpowers related to parallel universes, or rather, space.

When these powers gathered together, was that also a coincidence?

The deeper Elia thought about it, the more he felt that the "Lord of Destiny" was far-sighted and definitely plotting something major. The problem was that he had now become the Lord of Destiny himself, yet he knew nothing of his own previous arrangements and had to fish for information from others.

*Is this also within your calculations.jpg*

He couldn't help but feel a deep sense of curiosity about Superman's role in the entire affair: "What about Superman? How did 'I' speak of him?"

Simon's face scrunched up as his line-drawn facial features squeezed into a complex expression:

"To be frank, I felt you spent far more energy on Superman than you did on your own son. Remember what I said just a moment ago? 'During those five years you spent traveling with twenty-year-old me, I never saw you have close contact with any ordinary person'—yet you had close contact with a Kryptonian. The two of you hit it off famously—I'm not exaggerating—the very first time you met him, your attitude toward communicating with him surpassed your attitude toward 99% of the sentient life-forms in this world. And from then on, from the moment you exchanged names and contact information, from the moment you touched superficially upon your understandings of nations, planets, and the universe, from the time he invited you to stay briefly at his residence, the affection between you two warmed up rapidly...

"I can't even describe what transpired during those brief few hours of conversation," Simon said, shaking his head. "All in all, for the vast majority of those five years, you and Superman trusted each other like old friends of decades, and you spoke of virtually everything without reservation."