Meanwhile, Helena never ceased to amaze me.

Not only did she draw those illustrations, she also animated them now.

"Kairi, are you familiar with the Miracle & Magic subject at the academy?"

I only nodded because that was literally the first subject I learned with Professor Dellaetrix, who was using a Venn Diagram to describe the relation between Magic and Miracle.

Azalea, meanwhile, propped her chin instead, with a smile forming on her face.

"That’s good then, because it will be much easier to understand if you grasp these concepts."

"She was right, Kairi. Helena Big Sis knows what she is talking about much more."

No wonder she is a Professor, unlike Selene.

"Say that out loud."

"No, never."

"You both... please quit it."

Helena scolded us calmly, followed by me and Selene nodding in unison.

"Alright, anyway... if you are familiar with the concept of miracle, subversion was also created out of this element."

"Which is known as Quasar. Anyway, no questions for now, please."

We three went silent, with Selene this time forming a smile on her face.

"Quasar, along with Amorpheus and Cryptonite, are considered to be honorable elements due to their unique characteristics."

"These characteristics are... first, they don’t interact with the field boundary directly but remain closer to gravity. Second, they cannot be replenished, let alone converted. Instead, they constantly renew and regenerate themselves. And at last, they are observed to move on their own, as if they have their own mind."

How are these very understandable?!

Seriously, bring me more of Helena’s lecture and I could eat all of them in just a few hours.

"Now you know why I asked her instead? Right, she is the only one who can translate my thought process."

As if your thought process was ever this clear...

Anyway, Azalea seemed to be heavily invested. Her eyes were sparkling.

No, not that kind of Selene-level sparkling, but something like being deep in thought with a pair of hollow eyes as if she were already consumed by the said teaching.

Kind of horrifying, if you asked me.

"As for the rest, I will skip them. But Quasar should be more important if using Selene’s proposed theory, which seemed to be affected by, uh, your vocabulary."

I fu*king knew it. Selene, you bastard!

She obviously projected my thoughts to Helena so she could literally transfer my words to her.

However, despite growing suspicion of her as the one who taught this far due to her behaviors, I still tried letting her teach me.

I would never forget the fact she was trying to stop us back then. Or when she was trying to trick me by making up a story in front of Arthur.

But well... maybe she had changed, or maybe I should give her a second chance to prove me wrong, despite the fact I was never the kind of person to do that.

Either way, it has become somewhat of a moral dilemma for me.

"Still thinking about that? Shake my head. Move on."

"No, Selene. Maybe I should tell her something instead, but after I finish. Is that okay, Kairi?"

How considerate.

I mean, her stance has been vague to me as of late.

So, perhaps... after this. Just after this.

I might be able to see whether she was genuine or not.

Helena rested her palm on the whiteboard, her marker still uncapped, the drawn cat beside the illustrated door half-formed but expressive. Her voice turned mildly theatrical, as if channeling a professor only because it amused her.

"So, to explain the correlation between cloning theory and field boundary interference... I’ll use Chthulhu."

Azalea blinked. "Our cat?"

Helena nodded gravely. "Exactly."

"In Olam, we call it the Door-To-Door Paradox," Helena said, sketching a cartoonish feline beside a door.

"Let’s say Chthulhu opens the first door—and you close it. By the end of it all, there’s always going to be an exit door. But you’ll never know how many doors Chthulhu passed through along the way, or how many choices she made before stepping through the last one."

She gestured again—Chthulhu standing before a door, stepping through. Another sketch followed: a cat, a door, an arrow. Then a cascade of doors stretching into the unknown, an infinite corridor of potentials.

"There’s always a final door," Helena continued, tapping the sketch of the last one. "But the thing is, you never know how many doors came before it. Or how many versions of Chthulhu walked through how many timelines to get there."

I squinted. "So the interference doesn’t come from the doors—but from the choices made between them?"

Helena snapped her fingers. "Exactly. That’s the essence of the Door-To-Door Paradox. Based on the model, the cat might be the original, a clone, an echo, or just a mirror image—but she’s still walking toward an end. The boundaries blur when you try to trace the path."

She circled one part of the sketch. "This is where cloning theory fits in. If every door introduces a variation—and every choice creates a slight phase shift—you’re left with a spectrum of possible Chthulhus. And no way to tell which one’s real."

Azalea looked torn between awe and a full system crash.

To me, it felt like if Schrödinger’s cat had a hallway full of doors instead of a box.

Helena grinned.

"Exactly. But instead of dead-or-alive, it’s real-or-replica. Or fate-versus-destiny."

Azalea tilted her head, slowly. Her stare was terrifyingly blank, unfocused yet precise, like something ancient trying to see through the present. She hadn’t blinked once since Helena began. Not even when I waved a hand in front of her face.

Anyway, my mind was still on ’why does this make perfect sense?’ phase.

"Are you... okay, Kairi?" Helena asked me cautiously.

"She’s processing," Selene said, arms crossed.

"I’m trying not to get absorbed," I murmured, barely moving her lips.

"I hate how that explanation made sense."

I let out a breath, both stunned and mildly horrified.

Not at the theory. But at how simple Helena had made it sound.

"That... was disturbingly layman,"

I hadn’t even needed to ask a question.

Everything Helena said made perfect sense. Too perfect.

Selene chuckled. "That’s Helena’s gift. Making the terrifying feel like a profound folklore."

"But why didn’t I have any questions?" I muttered, and was deeply unsettled.

"I always have questions. But this time, everything just... clicked. Like a memory I forgot I had."

The mention of "memory" made me freeze again—this time not because of awe, but recognition. I thought of Selene’s Void Rifter, the strange, looming construct with its exit door.

The familiarity of it echoed too well with Helena’s paradox.

Too well.

Selene must’ve seen it in her eyes.

"You noticed, huh?"

I didn’t say anything.

"Helena just reinterpreted something I showed you before," Selene added.

"The Void Rifter’s door. It is a door-to-door paradox, just in a higher-dimensional shell. And, again—she illustrated it better than I ever did."

"Professor Helena," I said quietly.

Selene turned to Helena and nodded seriously. "Professor."

Helena didn’t even hesitate. "Say that again and I’m gonna prank you."

Selene backed off instantly. "No, please! I’m sorry! I don’t want to relive last time."

I raised an eyebrow. "She’s scared of your pranks?"

"Not scared," Selene said immediately.

"Traumatized. There’s a difference."

"Just what kind of prank it was..." I asked, a tinge of genuine curiosity creeping into her voice.

"You’re not exactly the rubber chicken type."

Before Helena could speak, Selene groaned, rubbed her temples, and reached toward Kairi—not physically, but psychically. Without warning, my mind was suddenly flooded with hazy fragments.

Dreams? No—nightmares.

Selene’s nightmares.

A kaleidoscope of unspeakable trickery: waking up with all her spells reversed, her tea tasting like soap, her personal diary replaced with a public reading script, and once, memorably, being caught in a loop where everyone but her spoke in rhymes.

"STOP—!" I yelped, swatting the air. "Stop sharing your trauma. Literally."

Azalea laughed so hard she doubled over, clutching her stomach.

Helena just looked smug. "Serves her right."

Selene pouted. "I hate both of you."

"And yet, here you are," I replied with a smug.

"Stuck in a room full of paradoxes, nightmares, and talking cats."

As if on cue, Chthulhu the actual cat—real or clone, no one could say—sauntered across the room and meowed once at the sketch on the board, as if confirming its accuracy.

They all stared.

Helena gave a satisfied nod. "Told you."

And so, the lesson concluded—not with applause or understanding, but with my existential dread deepening and lingering to my mind, Selene’s trauma resurfacing, and Azalea still giggling while petting a possibly multiversal feline.