Chapter 63
“Duke?”
I opened the window, and Winter came flying in with his wings folded. He frowned a little, and a chilly air followed him, making me shiver without meaning to.
“I had to do this. Otherwise, we won’t get a chance to talk alone for a while.”
I quickly glanced at his new clothes and acted like I didn’t notice, then offered him a seat.
“Good timing. We have a lot to talk about.”
Winter sat down and brushed his shoulders.
“You know, that emperor is very persistent.”
“Huh?”
“There’s someone watching your window. Looks like Emperor Silis expected this.”
“Then what did you do to the watcher…?”
Winter stared at me for a second before answering.
“He’s probably taking a nap right now.”
“…He’s still breathing, right?”
“Of course, Izana. People breathe when they sleep.”
I gave a weak laugh but didn’t ask any more questions.
I took a bite of the homemade hot dog in my hand. The sauce made it complete, and I sighed deeply.
“His Majesty said I can’t leave this room until I gain at least 1 yaga (*about 5 kg). Even if I eat everything here, that’ll take forever… It’s embarrassing to say this now, but can’t you just take me to the North Empire and run away with me? I think now would be easier than carrying me once I gain weight.”
I heard the North Empire’s food is salty and strong in flavor. But still, it had to be better than greasy flour-based food.
Unfortunately, Winter didn’t seem to catch my hint.
“I’ll take you anywhere you want once you’ve gained 2 tags. With your body right now, you won’t survive in the North Empire.”
I slumped my shoulders and sipped some orange juice.
Right now, we had a huge mess of puzzle pieces. And to put the puzzle together, we first needed to figure out which pieces each of us had.
“Duke, you once said that the reason Huerion turned into the evil god Abilisk was because of the ‘darkness’ you saw, right?”
“Yes. He said that himself.”
I remembered the terrible black whirlpool I saw in Elahi. Just thinking about it gave me a headache, so I tried not to remember it too often.
“Then… was ‘that thing’ able to talk?”
Even though Abilisk was almost like a background character in the original story, he still had lines.
But those lines were in a long-lost language that no one in the current world could understand. Only the very last thing he said—before being sealed away again—was in the common language.
“There is no salvation. I will return again.”
And just like he said, he did return. And no matter how many times we reset time, he would keep coming back.
Winter, now calmly petting the sleepy baby sweet potato spirit, watched as it squirmed to escape his hand and frowned in annoyance.
“Yes, it speaks. But I didn’t understand the language at first. Later, I found out it was an extinct language from ancient forbidden magic books.”
The potato spirit squirmed away from Winter and looked at me with teary eyes. I picked it up and comforted it.
Still in my arms, it glared at Winter while he kept talking.
“To translate that language, I had to visit prisoners from the Magic Tower. They were dangerous mages locked away for reading forbidden books. But thanks to them, I could understand a little.”
Winter suddenly said something strange. I frowned, not understanding, and he translated:
“Death is rest. Fear the darkness.”
“Darkness… You mean the one you saw?”
Winter nodded. I tapped the table gently as I thought.
“If that’s true, then the ‘unrecordable threat’ must be that darkness. Huerion gave us three saviors to stop it. And your time reversal still exists because we haven’t succeeded yet.”
“Even the god who created this world didn’t understand it. So, instead, he pushed the job onto his creations, and when he couldn’t handle his fear, he became a bigger disaster.”
Winter sighed softly.
“There’s nothing to gain from him.”
“…No. I think there is.”
I didn’t meet his eyes as I rubbed the baby potato’s belly.
“There’s a mystery he knows but we don’t.”
I spoke slowly and carefully.
“Why… out of all things… is one of the three saviors a potato? I need to know.”
Winter smiled faintly.
“You really are the potato’s guardian. Why not a carrot or a normal potato? I’ve wondered that too.”
I wiped away the sweat from my brow, avoiding his questioning gaze.
My existence—[Materia]—was planned by Huerion. He called me here from another world. But why me? And why did I have to be a prophet?
Even though I had knowledge of the original story, Huerion still knew more about what was happening in this world.
My visions weren’t real prophecies. They were more like a sandcastle built from fragments of the past story and time resets.
So why did Huerion make me [Materia]? I felt like answering that question was the first step to untangling everything.
“I’d also like to know how a potato became a person. Maybe we should wake him and ask.”
I got excited and almost jumped up.
But Winter raised a hand to stop me.
“Not now. Not in this body. We can only talk to it when we push it to the limit, when it really wants to talk. I’ve killed it hundreds of times, but I can’t guarantee it’ll work again.”
He was right.
Even though Winter had lived way beyond the timeline of the original story and had fought Huerion countless times, those events were still far in the future.
His body was still growing and weak.
In the original story, he once tried to break Huerion’s seal early, thinking he could stop the disasters. But with his young body, he couldn’t even fight back.
And even now, after all the time he’d lived since, that fact hadn’t changed.
“The earliest I have a 40% chance of defeating him is 8 years from now. No matter how hard I try, the seal will break in 12 years. At that point, I’ll win 6 times out of 10.”
Six out of ten.
That didn’t sound very safe.
“Even when I’m at my best, I still die 4 out of 10 times. That’s the result of fighting him thousands of times. No matter how much longer I live, the odds won’t change.”
“He’s a god. That means he’ll always do something we don’t expect.”
Some of Huerion’s actions would always fall outside any prediction.
Winter nodded and continued.
“And we need to avoid using time reversal when fighting him. Since our lives are linked, if the save point gets messed up during the fight, I might have to break my oath and rewind alone from the beginning.”
One chance. 60% success rate.
‘I hope that doesn’t affect the future I gave to the spirits…’
I bit my lip hard without realizing it.
“But that 60%… That’s based on when you didn’t have me, my relic, or [Ampelos]’s relic with you, right? Maybe if we gather everything, we’ll find something new.”
[Igorio], [Materia], and [Ampelos]. There had to be a reason all three of us were chosen.
And the relics, too.
[Igorio]’s relic hadn’t done much. And [Ampelos]’s relic hadn’t even been revealed.
If this “unrecordable threat” wasn’t explained in the original, maybe these relics were tools made to fight it.
We just hadn’t figured out how yet.
And I hoped they would help us fight that unknown darkness.
“So, our first goal should be gathering all of us together.”
“Agreed.”
Winter nodded briefly.
“Then now, we need to find ‘him’. I think I know where to look.”
By ‘him’, he meant the third of us—someone we hadn’t even seen yet.
