Chloe's eyes slowly widened.
"If there had been a Cognitive Interference large enough to cause a world shift across all of Castel Island, wouldn't that explain our current situation? Everything we wanted has been found, our enemies have grown weaker, and all the technology we developed has succeeded...
Theus swallowed. It really did seem like an explanation that accounted for everything.
"Look, when I gave that speech to launch the war, everyone on the island wanted us to win. They all supported me. Their will pierced through the high walls of reality, and because there were enough people..."
"Stop, stop, stop!" Chloe raised a hand in a halting gesture. "Hold on. You nearly talked me into it. That's completely impossible."
"Why?"
"First, there aren't enough people. You're seriously underestimating how difficult Cognitive Interference is. A few thousand people trying to change an entire island? That would only work if every last one of them were a saint with a will of steel. And you're from the Empire, too. There have been plenty of times on the battlefield when everyone shared the same hatred for the enemy. If they could all cause Cognitive Interference, the world would have been thrown into chaos long ago."
Come to think of it, those few hundred workers had been utterly convinced that soap was edible—after all, they had made it themselves with olive oil—and only after making soap for a long time had Cognitive Interference occurred. Even then, it had only affected a few crates of soap.
Alexei later checked the inventory. Only the few crates of soap they had eaten had turned into Pollution; everything else in the warehouse was perfectly fine.
What kind of existence would it take to cause a world shift across all of Castel? Perhaps only Cognitive Interference triggered by