Thief of Time

Dia was dabbing at her eyes by the time Lily was done, but that was the most subdued reaction of the listening audience, who had grown to three other mana-users, one crying waiter, three sobbing men and 5 wailing women.

Sniffling, she wiped her eyes on her clothes.

“Lily! We’re so sorry for making you relive this memory!” Farah cried, rubbing Lily’s head over and over. “Your brother was a hero…”

She broke down into utter crying a moment later.

“I-I’ll get my father to crush those monsters!” Risti wiped her tears. “I’ll get him to level the Julan Forest!”

“I’m so sorry!” Dia wiped her eyes once more, and then downed her glass of water. “I didn’t mean to…”

Lily’s story was a rather heartbreaking one. When she was a child, she wanted to pick some flowers for her mother’s birthday, so she got her brother to follow along. However, in the course of her little quest, they encountered monsters — animals mutated by mana — and her brother stayed back, buying some time to help her.

She found a small troop of Lustre knights on her way back, who had been apparently dispatched to the far-flung Julan Barony to harvest the Julan Flower. Now that Lily had mentioned it, Dia did recall getting some knights to harvest a Julan Flower for her mother’s birthday, and it was these knights who had upheld her name to save her.

They arrived on-scene, just in time to see her brother, Sorrel, mortally injured by the pack of mutated monsters. He had done well in fending off so many monsters, but tragically, those knights were too late to preserve his life. They could only extend his life long enough to for him to whisper his dying words, words that Lily didn’t let any of the listeners know.

Of course, Lily’s recount was far more personal, far more heart-breaking. The way Dia memorised it wasn’t going to carry one-tenth of just how horrible their eternal parting was.

“If it wasn’t for her knights, I would never have gotten to hear my brother’s last words. Nor would we be able to bury him,” said Lily, her eyes full of a distant emotion.

Dia looked up at Lily. Her expression hinted at the sheer number of times she had relived this traumatic memory for her, but at the same time, Dia was glad that she had ordered her knights to get Julan flowers.

Otherwise, Lily could have been a broken person by now. Granted, it was a sheer coincidence that something like this happened, but as one wise man once said, “Coincidence is but a miracle made fate.”

Refilling the others’ glasses with water, Dia sighed, an action that was promptly emulated by everyone else who was listening in. After a few minutes of patting shoulders and wiping tears, the impromptu audience eventually dispersed, leaving Dia and the others alone once more.

“So that’s it,” said Lily. “That’s why I’m a supporter of the princess. Someone as nice as her definitely wouldn’t harm an old man like Ruler Umbra.”

Dia didn’t quite know what to make of Lily referring to Ruler Umbra as an old man, but that little joke did lighten the atmosphere somewhat. After Farah and Risti got over their tears, the group returned to the discussion at hand, which was regarding the collaboration between them and Claud.

“He is rather mysterious, though,” Risti murmured. “I get a feeling that in this city, he’s probably one of the few people with lots of startling mysteries.”

“Which other people do you think have startling mysteries?” Farah asked, curious.

“For starters, we have the bartender at Triple-D,” Risti replied. “That man’s really intriguing. Controlling the information networks of a count’s domain is an incredible achievement, and he can even guarantee their accuracy to boot. Just who is he?”

“Maybe he’s Tot?” Farah asked, before laughing.

“That’s possible, but do you really want to confront him about his so-called true identity?” Dia asked. “If he turns out to be Tot, we’ll be slapped to death or something. Not a fun fate.”

“That’s true…Iso—Dia, does your Fated Sword work on him?”

“If he can resist the power of the White God, I don’t think my skills are going to work at full effectiveness,” Dia replied. “And just stick to one name. Calling me Iso—Dia is just going to make me sad.”

“We’ll get better, I promise,” Farah replied. “We need to keep up the act, after all. If we give away your true identity, the Shadows of Grandis will stop targeting you, and your mission would have failed.”

Dia decided not to say any more about her true identity at those words. There was no point in trying to get through to the others, since they were hellbent on their fantasy that she was playing the role of Dia’s double. It was astonishing how far they would go to assume that she wasn’t the Princess Dia they looked up to, and at this point, she was getting really tired of it.

“Yes, thank you very much.” Rolling her eyes, Dia scraped at her empty plate miserably. “So, are we going to work with Claud?”

“What does he want from all this?” Risti asked.

“You will not believe me, but Claud is a very…survival-oriented person. He wants to live forever. Therefore, the only thing he is interested in is presumably lifestones and defensive artefacts,” Dia replied. “When we went to get some artefacts earlier, he didn’t hesitate to splurge on every single defensive artefact the shop had.”

“What a weird person,” Farah muttered. “Well, if he’s the cautious, life-seeking kind, he shouldn’t have any ulterior motives, since that would put him at risk of conflict.”

Dia thought back to the time he had saved her. “Yes. He has a very unique way of saving people. When I was attacked by the Shadows of Grandis earlier, he threw a skillstick that hid me from everyone’s eyes. He didn’t do anything to kill my assassins; nor did he help clear a way for my escape. He just tossed a skillstick at me.”

“Yeah, that’s a really unique way,” said Risti. “But you should also not go around using random skillsticks people throw at you. If he wanted to do something like an Appraisal Blind, you could have died there and then.”

“It was a reflex, okay?”

“Just keep that in mind from now on,” Risti replied. “If you die, the real princess will be in trouble. We can’t have that at all. But from how you’re still alive, we can assume that Claud really has no reason to harm you.”

“Probably,” Lily added. “Maybe he wants to get close to one of us?”

Dia smacked Lily’s head lightly. “I think the only interest he has is in living forever. He’s all about prospecting for lifestones and keeping himself safe. Not really an ideal hero or knight, right?”

“Well, he does have his priorities right, though,” Lily replied. “Anyway, so are we going to collaborate with him to take over Licencia’s underworld?”

“Yes.”

“It’ll be interesting.”

“Then we’ll set up a meeting to discuss the details,” Dia concluded. “Anyone has anything they want in particular?”

“Me,” Risti replied. “We should also rope in the bartender of Triple-D. Someone with such an information network is definitely a useful person to have on our side.”

“Anything else?”

Lily was about to add something on when a silent quake shook the city, a quake that seemed to reach deep into Dia’s soul. As one, everyone stood up and rushed out of the shop. High up in the orange sky, stained by the setting sun, stood a single person, a spear in hand. There wasn’t anything particularly impressive about the newcomer, but there was this…gravity to him that made it impossible for Dia to look at anything else.

“Count Nightfall,” said the man. “Are you not going to welcome me?”

A spark of blue appeared in the air in front of him, and a long-haired woman appeared. “Count Nightfall is in seclusion. Please pardon his absence, Lord Patra.”

“I will pay a courtesy call when he exits seclusion, then.” The light around the newcomer seemed to darken. “Tot! Thief of Time! Monster from the Third Godsfall! I, Zulan Patra, have come to challenge you! Do you dare accept my challenge?”

Dia’s head pounded a moment later, and she raised her hand to cover her ears. She could hear the Spear of Fate’s words clearly, as if the man himself was talking a metre away from her, but his words were infused with a peculiar quality, one that seemed to stab into her ears.

Her fingers were stained with blood when he stopped talking.

A pregnant pause followed, one in which Dia found herself holding her breath. What did Tot look like? What skills did he have? And how would he respond? She, like everyone else on the streets, scanned the skies over and over, looking for the next person to show up.

The silence continued to billow, one that pressed down on everyone present. Somehow, the atmosphere had coagulated into a sombre silence, a formless pressure that threatened to crush her heart.

Up high, two small stars of azure light began to shine.