"Maybe. Maybe not."

Surha became curious.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean what I said. Maybe and maybe not."

"…Is it a trend to make things difficult? That brat did it while ago."

Surha frowned at the thought of a boy mumbling 'Ouroboros'.

"You told me before that Myad can't defeat Big Brother."

"Yes."

"So, how did Myad defeat Big Brother?"

"I don't know."

"…What?"

Surha barely held back from screaming. Her discussions with Pierre were always like this. She remembered that Ouroboros boy explaining that 'It's all because of Ouroboros.'

'Pierre also went to the forest too.'

Jaehwan, Runald, and Pierre. Those were the ones who had visited the Forest of Madness. She realized they all shared similarities in how they discussed things. To them, important things were never clearly said.

Surha wasn't sure what Jaehwan was thinking right now. She knew he was trying to go up to the top of Tree of Imagery to destroy the System, but she wasn't sure what made him want to do that and what was driving him. Runald once spoke to Surha who was frustrated.

'The problem is the question.'

'Question?'

'You have to ask the right question.'

She didn't pay much attention, but she thought maybe, maybe it was true. What was important was the question… Surha looked at Pierre. Something came to her mind.

"Pierre. You said Big Brother is a 'moon' to you."

Pierre stopped and slowly nodded.

"Do you still see that 'moon'?"

Pierre became hesitant and answered, "No."

"..Oh. Dammit."

Surha answered with disappointment. This time, Pierre turned against Surha. It was the right question.

"I don't see the moon anymore, so you think Big Brother has disappeared."

"…I won't deny that."

Surha thought if Big Brother really disappeared, every being who could see Big Brother could no longer see him. And in , only four people could see Big Brother.

Myad, Budda, Pierre, and Jaehwan.

Surha had two questions to ask. But maybe she didn't need to ask both. Asking one was enough.

"Pierre, if you can't see Big Brother, I guess Master defeated Big Brother. It must be true."

"Truth…"

Surha was surprised to see Pierre looking so lonely.

"The moon did disappear from my unique world." Pierre started, "I'm pretty sure it's the same for Budda. The founders of Rupture share the unique world in some way."

"Huh? You mean.."

"If Myad's world lost the 'star', then my 'moon' will disappear also. It will be the same as the 'star' in Budda's world."

Surha didn't know the founders of Rupture shared their unique world. However, it made sense as they were the ones who created Rupture's unique world too. They were just looking at the same world in different ways.

This meant something had to be certain.

"…Then, Big Brother is dead?"

Surha wasn't sure of her despair. If Big Brother was dead, it was a good thing. She wasn't sure why she didn't feel so good about it.

"I'm not sure."

"Why?"

"Because no one knows what Big Brother actually is."

It was another question as an answer. Surha tried to shout angrily when Pierre spoke.

"Surha, you are from a [Remote Region], right?"

It was so sudden that Surha lost her chance to shout angrily.

"…Yeah."

"What was the place like?"

"It was a small planet. Ordinary. Enough living beings… That kind of a planet."

"Planet…"

Pierre smiled and asked, "How can you be so certain?"

"Huh? What?"

"That it was a planet. How can you be certain?"

"…What is this nonsense?"

Surha felt as if she was being treated as stupid.

"It's common knowledge. We had a thing called science. We studied planets and whatnot…"

"Science… so, did they prove your world to be a 'planet'?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Then, you trust them and think that your world is a planet."

"…What are you trying to say? Isn't it common sense that the remote regions are just planets?"

"And wasn't it told by ones who studied science?"

"Yeah... I mean it's a fact. It's obvious."

"Obvious? What's obvious? How can it be a fact when you never moved out to s.p.a.ce to see your world with your own eyes?"

Surha became dumbfounded.

"I haven't, but there are scientists who have done that!"

"So you just trust their words."

"NO! I mean… UGH!"

Surha became frustrated. She didn't need to look with her own eyes to really know. People learned it to be true, and there was no need to doubt it.

"Did you ever wonder if the scientists were maybe lying?"

"I mean.. huh? What?"

"Lie. Have you ever thought that they might be manipulating the truth?"

"And why would they…"

Surha gasped in the middle of the sentence. She now realized that this discussion wasn't actually about a planet or her own homeworld. Pierre had been talking about Big Brother all along.

"Y-you are saying that Big Brother is fake? There was no such thing from the beginning?"

"…"

"Wait, did you not see the 'moon' from the beginning? You…"

"I didn't say that."

Pierre looked up to the skies again.

"There was a star. It's the 'truth'."

"But why…"

"But there is no way to prove that the 'truth' I saw was an actual 'fact.'"

Pierre looked into the skies. There was no more that used to exist above. The one he longed for and hoped for was no longer there.

That's when Pierre looked at the man outside the window. Below, there was a man looking up to the sky. Jaehwan.

It was weird. How could he look in such a way? They were looking at the same skies, but they looked at it so differently. Unlike Pierre who had lost what to see, Jaehwan was clearly glaring at something.

'I see…'

Pierre smiled.

'So, that's why they call you hope.'

Pierre thought he could finally understand humans a little more.

A month pa.s.sed.

-Big Brother is dead. We will now live in a world without him.

Myad's declaration spread across entire Tree of Imagery within a month.

It was the beginning of the time of Rupture.