Thief of Time

“Right, we should check out the Trading Board.” Lily, who was ladling out porridge for Claud, abruptly muttered. “We forgot about that after sending an ominous message…the others might be worried about us.”

“Them, worried about us?” Claud shook his head. “Lily, you forget about me and what I represent. They’ll be more worried about the two staying over at Monsville than the two of us, even if we’re living in the residences of the three bigshots.”

“Hmm. I want to agree, but I have a feeling that I’ll feel really sad if I do.” Lily lathered some butter on a piece of bread. “Right, I’ll go and up and grab the Trading Board first. Don’t start without me.”

“That’s only because you want to feed me, right?” Claud rolled his eyes. “Well, fine…”

It had been nearly three weeks since he’d screwed over his own Third Tutorial on purpose, and today, the metaphorical suit of armour that restricted his movements severely felt three times heavier than normal. The desire to sleep in was also tremendous too, although he couldn’t tell if that came from chatting with Lily about the kids they could potentially have all night or his hollowed lifeforce.

“Claud?” A set of rapid footfalls echoed out, and Lily returned with a pale face. “Something big just happened.”

Claud banished the idle thoughts instantly and looked at her. “What happened?”

“The Schwa Dukedom just vanished,” Lily replied, before handing the Trading Board over to Claud. Claud scanned through the message that presumably Schwarz had penned, and then bit his lips.

The Schwa Dukedom had been completely enveloped by the same purple dome that had appeared in Ninth Street here. The scale was completely different, but the fact that the intelligence had pinpointed a purple sphere was a bit too coincidental to be anything else.

It could be something else, but until then, Claud would assume that purple spheres were nasty pieces of work that could come from anywhere without a warning.

“Oh no, as if it wasn’t enough,” Claud muttered. “I’m sick of all this. Magical purple spheres that randomly engulf people? Really? At least we knew who to look out for and how to deal with the divinities and their servants. Now we have random purple spheres that pop up out of nowhere, and I don’t have a single clue as to how they work.”

Claud held his head. The memories he gained of another lifetime in the Second Tutorial wasn’t useful either; the Frozen Emperor’s trauma had been so deep that nothing other than the most important memories still remained when Claud came hopping along. The him then had slept in never-ending dreams, living through fantasies and imaginations as the world collapsed all around the Frozen Throne.

That future had been averted quite soundly, however.

Lily patted his head. “Don’t worry. At best, we’ll go into the wild and live there. More importantly, though, I don’t think it’s quite a death sentence yet. I mean, if these purple spheres really are killing people, this would have been impossible to stamp out. It’s probably some…trap. Or whatever.”

“Trap, huh.” Claud folded his arms. “We’ll still need to be careful, though. This purple threat is by no means a laughing matter. Even if we don’t turn into a corpse upon being swallowed up, that doesn’t mean that the area inside isn’t dangerous. We need to be ready and prepared for anything that might come our way. In that case, we’ll need to sleep with our equipment near us from now on.”

“Isn’t that already the case?” Lily asked. “I mean, you have all your gear just an arm’s length away.”

“True, but you don’t. And we’ll need more daily necessities. It’s been nearly a week since that purple sphere appeared in Ninth Street, and it’s still there,” Claud muttered. “Also, it’ll be nice if I can figure out what’s the cause of these purple things.”

“Meep.”

Crown peeked out of his clothes, and then the other meeplings rolled onto the table.

“What’s up?” Lily asked. “I thought you guys were going to sleep in after you meeped around all night.”

The little sphere bounced onto her shoulder. “Meep.”

“Oh. Sorry. Maybe we should have left you guys in the bedroom instead,” Lily replied.

The little meeplings clamoured for a while, before Claud realised that they had woken up in response to his random desire to learn about those purple spheres. However, although they had established rudimentary levels of communication, the more complicated meeps were still out of Claud’s meep-tionary, so there really wasn’t anything he could do about it.

“Speaking of little guys, the little toddler didn’t show up yesterday,” Lily muttered.

Claud nodded. “Now that you mention it…I feel a little lonely. Let’s open up shop again and see if the little guy will show up.”

The meeplings hopped around and meeped as the two of them finished off their breakfast, before scuttling into their hair. Making themselves comfortable, the tiny little fellows soon fell asleep, and Lily laughed, before stowing away the plates and other cutlery.

Claud felt a bit bad when she did all the dishes by herself, even if the deadly gaze she sent at him when he tried to help could probably kill the Moons and the great Dark together. She hadn’t allowed him near fragile stuff ever since his left arm lost some strength abruptly yesterday. If not for his fast reflexes, the shop would have charged them for cleaning or something…

Musing over these nasty memories of his own frailty, Claud got up and ambled over to the shopfront. Unlocking the door and turning the sign over, Claud peeked out of the house and looked around.

He couldn’t see the little toddler that had been tagging around them just two days ago, right before the purple sphere…

“Right before that thing just ballooned madly,” Claud muttered to himself, a small, sinking feeling in his chest.

Turning around, he hobbled over to Lily, who had just entered the storefront. Something had evidently shown on his face, because the first thing she asked was whether he was feeling alright.

“I’m fine,” Claud began, “but the little shadow toddler might not be.”

“What do you mean?” Lily asked.

“The purple dome,” Claud replied.

She froze, and her hands trembled slightly as she shook her head. “No way. That can’t be, right? Why would that kid be this unlucky?”

“The toddler separated from us in a place not that far from the café, and the purple dome expanded a lot too. I won’t put it past that thing to not suck the little kid in,” Claud replied darkly. “I think we need to investigate.”

“How?” Lily paused. “And as you are now? Is that advisable?”

“I don’t see why not.” Claud closed his eyes. The Hollow God didn’t tell him anything about this, so either it wouldn’t have much of an impact on him, or it had never happened in that fellow’s lifetime. It was hard to tell which was the more correct answer, but the reaction that woman had when she saw him was…

Quite telling.

“It’s going to be dangerous, though. And you’re at your absolute weakest right now,” Lily muttered. “I can’t let you go. Not alone.”

“I…” Claud looked away. “Never intended on going alone, really.”

“Why are you looking away, then?” Lily asked.

“Well, it feels like I’m dragging you into this,” Claud replied. “It’s…not something to be proud of. And—”

“Don’t be silly. The little kid’s my friend too,” Lily replied. “We go together. And…we can also take this chance to look for some clues too. I believe you’re special. Therefore, I believe that this space is related to you somehow…”

“What a stretch.”

“And besides, you will definitely work a lot harder if I’m counted, right? You won’t give into your fatigue, and you won’t give up even if something happens,” Lily replied. “I’m upping the stakes, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“I’ll work harder then.” Claud took a deep breath, and then turned around. Flipping the sign back to reflect the fact that this shop had only opened once, during its grand opening, he squared his shoulders and said, “We’ll need to gather intelligence about that thing. We can’t hide ourselves either…we need to cooperate with Vacuos, the three bigshots, and the divinities.”

Lily held his hand. “Don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen to us.”

“Yes.” Claud let out a small breath. “Right now, I live. By my own will, by my own volition, I will solve this mystery, this purple dome. This is me. And I’m alive.”

Pepping himself up with some words, Claud hugged Lily once. “Thank you.”

“We’ve shared a lot of things,” Lily replied. “There was never a need to thank me for anything.”

“I insist.” Claud smiled at her. “It’ll be dangerous, though.”

“I believe you’ll protect me…or rather, I’ll protect you. You just need to tell me what to look out for,” Lily replied. “It’s about time we put those instincts of yours to the test, anyway.”

Claud nodded. “Let’s get down to it, then. Let me grab some tools first.”