Thief of Time

The paintings that lined this hallway gave off a vast aura of sorrow. Was the cause the drab colours used in drawing them? Or the loving manner in which the mother held her child? Claud had no idea, but every painting that hung on the wall spoke of a mother’s love for her little baby.

It should have been a joyous thing, but…

Claud and Lily stopped at the end of the hallway, where a painting hung above the grey doors. This painting, however, was moving. It depicted a mother hugging her child and trying to wake the little toddler up, while faceless people stood around the bed in silence. What expressions did these faceless people have back then?

What was the artist’s conception of these people?

He looked at the door that hung beneath the painting, and then the sense of danger that came from it.

“There are two ways to end this…dream,” Claud muttered. “The first is to play along with the game inside, and the second is to crush the core. Normally, the core is probably protected heavily, but…maybe all this has something to do with me after all.”

“Your body usually isn’t this warm, after all,” Lily pointed out. “It’s definitely you. And the defence mechanism is this biting chill.”

“Maybe the child died of cold or something.” Claud closed his eyes. “The nights can be rather cold, after all. And for a child who isn’t tucked up in a warm bed, sleeping in the night outside for a few days on end can be fatal. Once the chill spreads too far, death follows swiftly.”

“Cold…”

“The elements are deadly to normal people,” Claud replied, his eyes on the painting. “Adults have it better, because their bodies are stronger, but how can a baby sleep in the open, exposed to the elements? That’s impossible. By the time she probably found a doctor…”

He frowned. Some things didn’t make sense, though. This woman clearly had people helping her around back then, so why would she be sleeping on the streets? It wasn’t as if inns were expensive either.

“Never mind. Let’s just prepare ourselves first.”

The two of them checked through their equipment. While this woman was supporting an entire dreamscape or whatever, it didn’t mean that her combat ability had increased. In fact, Claud was very certain that she wouldn’t be able to put up much of a real fight. The actual danger was definitely from something else, like the risk of the entire dreamscape crumbling.

Lily drew her sword, examined it once, and then pulled out a bunch of bombs too.

“Do you think bombs will work?” Claud asked, a grin on his face.

“That woman is a normal person, right? It might,” Lily replied. “Still, for such a thing…how much mana is required to create a place as vast as this? It’s no small feat, that’s for sure.”

“Right?” Claud placed his hand on the doorknob. “Well, let’s find out.”

He twisted the doorknob, and then pushed the door open. There, in the middle of a wide and open room, was an unmoving woman. Her appearance was no different from the doctor that the two of them had met in the hall full of patients earlier. This time, however, the woman was standing still, and her arms were cradling a little bundle.

“…That’s the core, right?” Lily asked. “What should we do?”

“Destroy it, I suppose.” Claud assessed the frozen woman. “Or something else. Maybe we can try to revive the baby, although I’m certain that she’ll turn hostile the moment we touch the little baby.”

The sword in Lily’s hand shimmered with mana, but Lily clearly didn’t like the idea of cutting down this woman either. Claud could totally understand — it would have been far better if the core of this illusory world was a monster or some evildoer who was sucking the blood of their victims.

“…What now?” Lily asked. “You also can’t bring yourself to cut her down, right?”

Claud frowned and examined the woman. Purple energy, interspersed with white specks, were rising from the unmoving woman.

“Is it me, or is she…changing faintly?” Claud asked, blinking a few times.

“Changing?” Lily repeated, before scrutinising the woman slowly. “It’s more like melting, right? This purple energy is coming from her body…no, it seems like this purple energy is made from her body.”

“…So she’s powering this place with her lifeforce or something like that.” Claud gazed at the cloud of purple light. “So, if we can cut the source off, it should be fine, right?”

“Okay, but how do you want to cut the source?” Lily replied. “Are you going to trap her with a bubble of mana and prepare the purple energy from rising?”

“That should work, right? We just need to stop this thing from being powered by her own lifeforce or whatever that is,” Claud replied.

Mana circled around him, before enveloping the frozen woman. The flow of purple energy promptly cut off, and the two of them stared at the purple energies that was now filling up the blue bubble that surrounded the woman.

The dreamscape quaked once.

“…Well, that was easy,” Claud muttered.

“There’s a reason why there was a biting chill outside, then,” Lily muttered. “Only someone who has understood the biting chill can walk down that long hallway. Or someone who can give off a vast warmth.”

“I suspect it’s different for me, though,” Claud replied. “I still think I’m cheating. You know, the O-thing. That’s probably why I’m emanating this warmth or something.”

“Maybe, but that may not be every part of it,” Lily replied. “I believe that you’re the warmest person in the world!”

Claud smiled. “Then you should also be capable of emitting warmth, right?”

“Uh…”

The purple dome continued to crumble as the two of them exchanged words, and the dreamscape flickered in and out of existence. At the same time, the purple energy that had been spilling out of the unmoving woman began to dwindle, retracting back into her body at the same time. Before long, the fog-like purple energy had completely vanished, and the statue-like quality that the woman had exhibited vanished.

She fell backwards in a dead faint, but the mana surrounding her cushioned her fall, preventing her from sustaining any deadly injuries.

Seconds later, tears began to flow from her closed eyes, and the woman began to whimper.

“It’s over,” Claud whispered, watching the woman who was crying in her sleep. The purple world came apart entirely, and the scenery of Ninth Street, of the blockade that the Vacuos guards had created, and of the countless unconscious people lying around appeared in his eyes.

The transient star of illusory hope had faded with the sunrise, leaving nothing behind.

Groans came from all over the place as the abducted people stirred from a long slumber, just as the guards all around the place sprung into action. Mobilising as a unified whole, the victims of this incident were soon carried away by careful guards, and Claud turned to look at the heavy presences that were staring at them.

As he looked at the bigshots of the three continents, Claud sensed that the main cause of this incident had been carted away behind him, without anyone else the wiser, and he relaxed.

“We’re finally in their sight,” Lily muttered.

“Yes.” Claud felt the stares, backed by immense wills, scanning the two of them. He stood in silence, letting out a long breath as he gazed at the familiar spirits of the various divinities, as well as the rulers of the three continents.

“Now what?” Lily asked.

“How should I know?” Claud replied. “This is getting a bit awkward. Should we wave or something? It should be fine, right?”

“Let’s head towards Count Vacuos first. That should do the trick,” Lily suggested. “At the far right, there. Yeap!”

Under the eyes of all the bigshots, the two of them walked towards Vacuos. It was interesting to see how his expression rapidly degraded from surprise, to shock and then to outright horror as they ignored everyone else and homed in on him. Claud could already see all the curses he was spewing in his head, but there really wasn’t another choice.

It wasn’t like they could walk towards Emperor Grandis and say hi, right? As for Supreme Saran, who was probably surnamed Jerk, Claud wasn’t even going to come close to him at all. There was a chance that Lily would get jealous if he approach the First Lady of the Nihal Senate — a really, really infinitesimal chance — but it was not worth the risk. In fact, that First Lady might just decide to fall for him, which would complicate things too.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Areas of danger,” Claud replied, stopping right in front of Count Vacuos. “Yeap. Here we are. Done.”

The count twitched, but before he could reply, the world darkened visibly, and the sunlight turned hollow. A man-sized rift in the air appeared, a rift that was filled with thousands and thousands of black cubes that were illuminated somehow, and the sun darkened even more.

“Lesser Half.” Claud smiled. “We’re safe. Thanks for coming, though.”

The rift rumbled. “Skies. I missed the scene where you tore that down…that would have been perfect!”