Thief of Time

“Alright. It is time for you three to depart. I hope you three had a fun time here.” Lesser Half waved his left hand once, and the world changed all around Claud and Lily. Gales howled all around them, and the darkness began to fall apart.

The humanoid void bobbed his head once at the two of them — Count Lostfon had been teleported elsewhere — and he said, “Best of luck to you two. Don’t be frightened if you see a huge crowd in front of you.”

“…You already saw our exit point?” Claud asked, making a face.

“Essentially.” Lesser Half chuckled. “Don’t worry. No one is going to harm you two, who solved the first Distortion. There are still a lot of disasters that are rippling throughout the world, and everyone wants to hear it from you in person.”

“Even though we already told you how we dealt with the Distortion?” Lily asked.

“Unfortunately so. It seems that there are some people that would rather hear it from your mouth for some reason. Perhaps they do not trust me and my sister,” Lesser Half replied.

There was some sorrow buried in those words, and Claud frowned. However, before he could open his mouth, Lily said, “Well, we trust you, so don’t be hurt by random people. It’s just that the Moons are far more well-known that the Dark. It’s not something that can really be helped.”

“That does cheer me up,” Lesser Half replied. “The Last Godsfall is an utter mess, though. By all accounts, both the Moons and the Dark should have been equally well-known and supported when the Last Godsfall started, but we were sealed away and prevented from descending altogether.”

“Eh?” Claud frowned. Indeed, this was by no means fair, unless the Dark had far greater combat power to even out the odds. However, by the looks of it, both sides were roughly equal in terms of overall combat power, so this couldn’t have been the issue.

The key difference lay in the mortals. While they were matched in terms of territory, the Moons had one key advantage — they had built up a strong reputation over the first few millennia. In addition, the motif of the Dark and the motif the Moons employed were quite different; darkness just didn’t sound as appealing as the nice light of the Moons.

Adding things into the mix were the darkened animals.

“Right, the darkened animals,” Claud muttered. “Why did you guys turn a bunch of animals mad back then?”

“Turn a bunch of animals mad?” Lesser Half asked.

“Yeah, I remember that too. And the dark, forbidding mist,” Lily added. “It’s not good for your public image. All this means that the Dark seems to be some evil entity that wants to end all life, and given what we’ve seen so far, it’s not hard to twist the narratives to make them seem that way.”

“Just a step away, to be honest,” Claud replied. “Darkness? Bad and shady. Mad monsters? The darkness will destroy the world. Moons produce light, which is good! You know. The usual tropes. Darkness is scary for many reasons.”

“It hurts to hear you put it that bluntly…”

“Yeah, but that’s how it is. First impressions matter, and the first impression when I hear about the great Dark is to look for numerous light sources,” Claud replied.

“Ow.”

“Exactly. It’s not what you should be looking for. To make matters worse, we at least know what the three Moons stand for. The great Dark…uh, doesn’t particularly lend itself to a positive interpretation, if you get my drift.”

Lily bobbed her head. “The fog at night makes it hard to travel too. And with the darkened animals attacking merchants every so often, it’s not unreasonable for normal people to develop resentment against the great Dark.”

“True, but what exactly are these darkened animals?” Lesser Half asked. “It is unreasonable to ascribe a phenomenon in which we have no hand in creating to us. It seems that chronological proximity seems to be the cause, but there are no instances of darkened animals in Nihila and Voidum. Nor is there the fog you speak of.”

“Eh?” Lily tilted her head. “But that definitely did happen, though?”

Claud bobbed his head. “Gave us quite a bit of distress. And I definitely recall there being some really dark fog when we arrived at Nihila back then. There were people talking about staying near the lights and not letting the darkness take you. All this vanished after a while, but…”

Lesser Half paused.

It was a simple action, when one conceived it mentally, but Lesser Half’s abrupt pause was something that seemed to rattle the entire world. The rippling, weakening darkness froze, like a waterfall that had been turned to ice, and a faint pressure radiated out of the divinity.

Time resumed its flow a heartbeat later, and the void let out a heavy sigh. “Darkness is simply the absence of light. For instance, were a power that manipulated the moonlight decided to withhold or weaken said light, or to use it as a medium to do certain things…”

“You’re saying that the Moons did this?”

“Darkness is simply the absence of light, after all.” Lesser Half paused. “If you look at the huge structures contained in me, you would know what I mean. Without the golden outlines, you would never have known that there are massive cubes in the space that is my existence.”

“Oh, you brought that up!” Lily leaned a bit closer. “What are these cubes?”

“…Unfortunately, now is not yet the time for them to be unveiled.” Lesser Half chuckled. “Be careful. Time is a mortal construct and lends itself to mortal causality. It is by no means infallible, and is a prime means in which diplomacy and politics can be carried out on a different scale.”

Claud thought about Lesser Half’s words for a moment. “Like framing other people.”

“Yes. Unfortunately, truth is tangential to the masses, the target audience of our machinations,” Lesser Half replied. “If someone took a closer look at these occurrences, one would realise that there is absolutely no reason for us to do such a thing. However, reason does not exist in a vacuum, and there are various ways to play a false game…”

He sighed. “So be it. We will strive to be ever vigilant against hypocrisy and lies. Thank you for bringing this up to my attention.”

“Our pleasure. We were actually just curious,” Lily replied.

“As you rightfully should be,” Lesser Half replied. “That said, we are of this world. I still cannot imagine our peers doing such a thing. There may be…other factors at work. Like undercurrents rippling in the shadows between worlds…but we shall investigate that. For now, you two should return.”

“It’s been fun here,” Claud replied.

“Are we welcome to drop by again?” Lily asked.

“Of course, of course!” Lesser Half chuckled. “Now then, be well.”

Those words dispersed the rippling darkness, and the two of them squinted as bright sunlight streamed down on them.

“They’re back! Someone call the Emperor!”

“Get out of the way, this lord reports to Supreme Saran!”

“The First Lady needs a sitrep!”

Chaos promptly ensued as people burst into motion, and Claud frowned. “This looks bad. Let’s beat a retreat first. After that, we’ll lock up the shop, activate the defences and hide in there until they figure out how to talk nicely.”

The people that hadn’t left jumped at his words, but Claud wasn’t going to wait for them. Producing a skillstrip, he tore it into two with Lily in his hands, and the people that had surrounded them paused.

“Where did he go?”

“A teleport skill! Damnit! We meant no harm! You stupid idiots from Lacheln! Why are you guys so brutish?”

“Looks like we might have instigated a war by accident,” Claud commented. “Let’s hurry and get out before they start hurling mana at each other.”

Activating Will of Freedom, Claud scooped Lily up and flew past their heads before anything else could happen. Before long, they stopped right outside their little shop, but there were already some people rushing towards it in the hopes that they would make it there before Claud and Lily could barricade themselves inside.

“Yeah, I think not,” Claud muttered, unlocking the door.

After entering the shophouse, Claud pulled out a bunch of barrier artefacts and activated them all, protecting his shophouse’s door from being trampled down by a bunch of idiots. If they really wanted to talk to him, they didn’t need to send a whole bunch of people, and until they grew some common sense, Claud wasn’t going to go near them at all.

“Is this a good idea?” Lily asked.

“Yes. I bet that the three bigshots are going to ask me to help them settle their own Distortions. I’m not doing that,” Claud replied. “I’m in a weakened state, and there’s nothing in it for me. We’ll be better off just sitting here and twiddling our thumbs.”

“True…”