The Human Collective

"Ever since we parted that time, no matter who I came into contact with, my existence was completely forgotten. The same went for other forms of records—text, images, audio... they were all thoroughly distorted and blurred, making my existence disappear from them."

"I thought about it for a long time, and I think it was because of that bed. What do you think?"

Martin asked the Cube before him earnestly. The Cube trembled as well, expressing its agreement.

"But it's actually pretty good this way. I was a wanted criminal to begin with, and this has saved me a lot of trouble. It's just that sometimes, even when I do something good, people don't remember me. They forget all about it the moment they turn around, and some people even appear out of nowhere to take credit for what I did."

"Of course, the same goes for bad things. No matter what I do, as long as I'm not caught on the spot, everyone forgets me."

"My guess is that the bed was some kind of framework that defined 'existence.' After you took it away, I ceased to exist. I vanished from this world. The world could only operate within a framework where I wasn't present, so it erased every record concerning me."

"Hmm, if the world is a novel, as I originally speculated, then that bed would be—some kind of character slot?"

"In Dream Layer 0, those beds were character slots. Without my character slot, I wouldn't appear in this novel. I became someone outside the novel!"

"But my actions are still affecting this world, affecting this 'novel.' The novel's content hasn't changed because of my disappearance; only the form it takes has changed. Other characters' memories of me have changed... Was my speculation wrong? Is there another truth