Chapter 105
It was Louise who rushed in.
She slammed through the door without even knocking, but there was no one in the room who blamed her. It was because it had been three days since Irene fell unconscious and never woke up.
The news Louise had brought was what Ahibalt had been waiting for more than anything else.
Sending Louise away first, he left soon after.
In the dungeon, only Edith, now in a state of disrepair, was left alone. In front of her was a cigarette case and lighter, left as last mercy. At the same time, her mind was replaying what had just happened as Ahibalt put her cigarettes and lighter from his arms.
“Is it okay to give this to a prisoner?”
“Do you have anything to burn around you?”
The shackles on her feet and wrists were iron, and the surroundings were also a prison made of stone and iron.
Besides, Ahibalt was pretty sure that she wasn’t going to run away.
“And you, don’t you have any intention of leaving this place until you find out about the manager of time? And even if you can’t, you’ll be here to kill me… am I wrong?”
“…I thought you’d have realized that much.”
“Yes, so there’s no reason I can’t show you a little tolerance. Although I feel the same way, I don’t want to see you in this life.”
Ahibalt stopped there.
Edith could vaguely guess why he didn’t say anything.
‘That must be because this is the first time that such a variable has been brought out like this.’
Edith had long since realized that she had gotten into territory she shouldn’t have. And that this could be good or bad for her, too.
Still, Ahibalt couldn’t kill her.
It was because she might hold the answer to this world. She had already realized this when she realized she had hit the nail on Ahibalt’s head.
She asked, frowning.
“You pretend you’re not, but you’re sick of this life, too, aren’t you?”
“…I can’t deny it.”
“So, can I assume the answer to the question I asked earlier is yes?”
To kill the other admins and to stop this horrible time loop…
If Ahibalt stepped forward, there was hope.
Expectation flashed across Edith’s face, but Ahibalt’s face distorted as soon as he heard the question as if he didn’t want to think about it. However, it wasn’t just a look of contempt. It was rather heartbreaking. It was remorse and regret, so deep that she couldn’t even fathom it… unfathomable hatred as the pain seeped in.
After that pitch-black silence passed, Ahibalt opened his mouth with a sound like a rock being split.
“You don’t know, but they’ve already been dead before… right before my eyes, too.”
“I know. From what I saw it in Elios, only after the end of fate and someone’s death would time stop, and there was a resurrection—”
“No, this damn world isn’t that forgiving. With the infinite possibilities of time running back, do you really think they’re going to make two people free from death?”
“…Then?”
“I am the only one who’s free from death and can operate even after seeing the end of this world. The other manager doesn’t even realize that they are one of the managers. As long as they exist, time is bound to go back.”
So, strictly speaking, they would be more like a cog rather than a manager.
As he added, Ahibalt’s voice resembled the sound of falling water.
“They’re like me before they died. They didn’t know anything, just circling the same orbit in time like everyone else.”
However, something has changed.
An error that occurred in the repetition of time accidentally killed the manager of time.
“It was an accident. It was the first time it had happened. And when I brought them back, they didn’t remember anything about it.”
“…Nothing, you mean?”
“It’s a twist of fate. Common sense dictates to us that there’s no way a person will die and come back to life, so the memory of that time was erased. The problem is that another error occurs in the process.”
For example, recognizing what this world was like or letting go of other memories.
“They remembered what role they were playing in this world and the truth of this world. It was just that it was difficult to accept… so they separated themselves from that role.”
“What do you mean by decoupled?”
“Literally. They’ve come to believe that the person they were before and the person they were after they were raised from death were two different people. They’ve deluded themselves into thinking that they’ve woken up in this world by some indescribable event.”
Ahibalt explained that it was probably an extension of self-defense.
Having assumed the persona of a manager, they knew all about the fate of this world, just like him. As they couldn’t bear the thought of it, they brainwashed themselves that they had accidentally possessed into this world.
But, it was more of a handshake.
Since then, the manager of time hadn’t lost their memory no matter how much time regressed after that.
“While they have repeated their time in this world several times, I only regain my memories briefly at the end of my destiny in this world or when a time error occurs. This is probably the seventh time.”
“…It’s a good thing they are still sane.”
“Why do you think they are sane?”
As Edith’s head snapped up at the sudden answer, an expressionless face stared at her.
“It was just before this life, so it would be the sixth, so to speak. They died in that life and forgot about it again.”
It was a suicide.
“The scene you saw was probably that scene since you said it was after fate ended.”
At those words, Edit’s grip was unknowingly clenched.
“B-but I thought you said the manager of time doesn’t come back to life?”
“Yes. So now, do you see the error in your hypothesis?”
The death you saw must have been theirs… and the resurrection was mine.
Upon hearing the confession, Edith couldn’t help but ask.
“If that’s really the case, why did you turn back time? If the manager of time wasn’t immortal, you could’ve been satisfied that time stopped when he died, right? No, you had to kill him now so that—”
“Then, would you kill Rodion so you could live comfortably?”
At that moment, Edith felt like she could hear her heart pounding. As he looked at the opponent, who couldn’t bear to answer, Ahibalt frowned.
“Edith, I don’t want to see them sacrifice anymore.”
I don’t want to live in such a world for even a moment. I don’t have the confidence to live by researching them.
He’d rather live in a world where he was languishing in the past lives than to live in such a world like that.
“At least in this life, they have a reason to live.”
I won’t tolerate any tricks getting in the way of that, and I hope you don’t recommend it to me anymore.
Ahibalt, who spoke vaguely like dispersing smoke, turned his body.
“This is enough of the story. I’ll send a courier, so I expect you to hand over Rodion’s medicine.”
With those words, the sound of the shoe faded into the distance.
Edith just stood there, dumbfounded, not even thinking to reach for a cigarette. In her mind, the stories of Ahibalt from earlier, and the questions she’d been asking herself as she conducted her research, were floating around.
One of them was for Elios.
During her research, she would occasionally wonder about the origins of Elios. Why does it have a record of time, where it came from, and how can it interfere with dimensions that were a step above them? And why the scenes it showed were from the perspective of an observer.
‘Somehow…’
She thought her level was quite high.
[ T/N: ‘Level’ () here means ‘an ability to recognize the value of an object or make a judgment about a situation.’ ]
Edith spat out a laugh. In fact, it was more like she was squeezing her lungs than spitting it out.
When she was listening to Ahibalt a moment ago…
“Common sense dictates to us that there’s no way a person will die and come back to life, so the memory of that time was erased. The problem is that another error occurs in the process.”
For instance, recognizing what this world was like or letting go of other memories. At that moment, Edith felt as if a missing piece of the puzzle had been put together.
‘It must have been a memory she had lost.’
It was a memory lost due to two deaths.
Ahibalt may not have realized it, but he gave her quite a few clues… for example, the face he was making sometimes looked full of remorse.
There was a person who came to mind at the sight of that face.
A maid who was good at everything, especially dealing with mischievous children to the point of being mysterious, and was good at everything…
…Irenea Casimere.
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