Wish of the Honkai: Saga Eins

{13}- Reason & Origins | Visitor & Futures

Einstein POV

A long, long time ago...

When Roswell was merely a small town next to the Pecos River...

When Bikini was the mere name of an archipelago...

When I was only half my current age.

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1946

Zürich, Switzerland

"Lieserl, a nice uncle is coming to have a chat with you today."

Einstein's mother said sternly while her father tried to feign innocence on the side, unsure of what to say.

"He's nothing like those ignorant, incompetent psychiatrists from before, so please get along with him."

"Don't worry." Her father added. "He promised to not send you back to school to take those boring classes. He's a very famous expert."

"Hmm..."

Einstein remained silent.

My mother was an auditor. She's usually very busy at work, and could only be back home on Sundays or holidays. A very boring job, no?

My father is a designer. To be more precise, he designs the hands of clocks and watches. An even more boring job, am I right?

So, as you can imagine: as the only person in this family who is obsessed with musing over metaphysics - how hard it must have been. After I voluntarily dropped out of school, they sent 5 psychologists to see me over the course of 3 months.

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"Hello there. My name is Karl. Karl Gustav. You can call me Karl or Gustav, to be honest, I don't mind either."

"...Both 'Karl' and 'Gustav'. What are you, some King of Sweden?" Einstein shot back.

"Ahaha... yup. People always tease me about that. Speaking of which, I heard you were doing some interesting private research lately. Do you mind filling me in?"

Einstein averted her eyes and drained her face of emotions, leading Karl to be a little awkward.

"Hmm... 'How could this shrivelled old fart ever understand anything' - is that what you're thinking?" Karl hazarded a guess.

Einstein's silence only served to prove him right. He chuckled again.

"You should test me first. One should explore all their options before coming to a conclusion. Don't you agree?"

Seeing Einstein still gave no reaction, Karl continued. "I'm not one to brag, but when I was at university, my grades were pretty good. I swear, it's true. I got the highest mark in Geometry, and it was taught by Hilbert himself!"

"Hm. So. Do you know what's the maximum number of straight lines that can be orthogonal to each other in space? If your answer is wrong, please leave, okay?"

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When I thought about it afterwards, I realized this man was no ordinary person. I thought I could use this problem, whose answer I could change on the fly, to brush him aside effortlessly. But-

-but I never expected, the moment I opened my mouth and posed the question to him, he would've already won.

At the very least, he was miles ahead of whatever professionals they sent before.