Thief of Time

A week flew by. There was nothing much going on — somehow — other than an invitation to a banquet held by Emperor Grandis, and Claud didn’t really think he had a choice in this matter.

“Probably, anyway.” He fiddled with the invitation card, and then compared it to the sleek black card that Lesser Half had provided. “What do you think?”

“We’ll just cite your need to recover for the succeeding banquets,” Lily replied. “Anyway, I just received news from the others.”

“What are they doing?”

“Surprisingly enough, nothing,” Lily replied. “They’re all lying on beds in one of Lustre’s treasuries, with people feeding them lifestones day in and day out.”

“…What.”

“Yeah. It seems like Duke Lustre intended to give everyone else as much lifespan as possible. Also…” Lily had an odd face. “It seems that our Dia is the real princess.”

Question marks seemed to bloom in Claud’s vision as he took in those words, and he tried to parse Lily’s sentence carefully. His mind seemed to blank out a few times, though, and Lily caught his face.

“Yeah, you heard that right.” Lily stuck a tongue out. “Our Dia is the Princess Dia of Lustre. I am not sure how is that possible, but you know. It’s a shocking reveal to me too. I can’t imagine how the others are taking it. You know, especially since the three of us were looking like her from the start.”

Claud held his head. “So, our Dia’s the real one.”

“Yeap.” Lily sighed. “I imagine the others were feeling a bit distressed after that reveal. You know, since Risti liked to talk about how she knows a lot about the princess and her timetable. Dia…well, I hope the two of them worked it out.”

“I’m sure they will,” Claud replied. “Sure, it’s…a bit scary, such a habit, but they’ve had years of close interaction and life-death moments together. I believe the two of them will talk things through. Besides, I think Dia also thinks of them as her best friends.”

“True.” Lily tilted her head. “Hmm. But if they’re all in Lustre, are the Seekers of Life going to settle down there? It’s not impossible, after all. With Dia’s endorsement, the Seekers of Life can only go up in stature and never go down.”

Claud nodded. “That’s definitely going to happen. Besides, our identities were also never much of a secret to begin with. After how we dealt with the Distortion…I’m sure a lot of people have investigated us. Not that hard, after all.”

“Mhm. And we did walk openly with the others quite a few times in Nihila.” Lily yawned. “Right, when’s the banquet?”

“Evening, I think.” Claud looked at the darkening sky. “Well, I suppose we can start changing our clothes into something more formal. At least these robes have lots of pockets…”

It didn’t take long for them to wear a set of formal robes. Since they were hexa-folders, looking like normal mercenaries didn’t seem to quite fit their status. Lily was adamant on having everyone note their exalted status from the get-go; she wanted to avoid incidents where people who were metaphorically blind decided to cause some trouble.

“Alright, you look great. The robes are quite light too. Not bad.”

Claud bobbed his head. Underneath these robes were his usual combat attire, but the exotic, shimmering robes that Lily had bought for the two of them were light and airy, so he didn’t feel stifled at all.

“You look great too,” Claud replied. “We still have some time, so shall we walk around the city for a while?”

“You just want to show off, right?”

Claud looked at the long sleeves that rippled with a solemn majesty whenever he moved. “Yeah. I mean, I think I look good…”

“Oh, you.”

The little meeplings bounced over as they stood up.

“You guys wanna come with us too?” Lily asked. “Hmm. It’s fine, I suppose. Our pockets are big. As long as you don’t make too much noise, there’s no harm in bringing you guys along.”

“Meep!” Crown hopped onto Claud’s shoulder, and then nuzzled his neck. “Meep…zzz.”

“Did you just fall asleep?” Claud asked, before looking at the others. Throne and Sceptre had vanished into Lily’s robes, to the point that he couldn’t quite tell where they were sleeping at right now.

“Meep…”

“Crown’s asleep…still, he really does like your neck.” Lily grinned. “So adorable. Are you going to let him sleep like this? People are going to look at you oddly.”

“Eh…it’s fine, I suppose.” Claud tickled the little box, who rolled away from his finger. “Alright, let’s move out.”

The two of them poked their heads out. Fortunately, the gigantic mass of nobles and people that were adamant on camping outside had dwindled to zero two days after the three largest bigshots left their shop. Part of that was due to Claud’s refusal to even flip the sign until everyone vanished, and after another two days of hiding, the fervour finally died down…mostly, anyway.

The two of them had been accosted a few times when they went out to buy some food, which had made them appropriately paranoid. It really couldn’t be helped, though…

As the two of them stepped outside, Claud noted quite a few purple spheres. They varied in size, but none were as big as the first Distortion that enveloped a good chunk of the county capital.

The Distortion phenomenon had never stopped at all, which was another reason for Claud and Lily to be very cautious. Claud also found himself wondering about these things — why didn’t the Hollow God tell him about them? It would be great if he had more information about these things.

Somehow, the Hollow God, a Claud in an iteration that had ascended to divinity, had completely missed this entire Distortion phenomenon. It seriously didn’t make sense to Claud at all, unless the Distortion phenomenon never occurred in the Hollow God’s timeline.

Or maybe it did, but by then, the Hollow God was too broken to care.

“Claud? What’s wrong?”

“Just wondering about the Distortion,” Claud replied. “I’m not sure why the Hollow God never talked about it.”

“Mhm. Well, you did say that the Hollow God killed off the entire world, right?” Lily replied. “Butchered most of the Moons, the Dark and the Coloured Gods. I’d imagine that he also killed off most of the mortals, or at least made it such that the world couldn’t sustain life. It should have also happened in a relatively short period of time too.”

Claud thought about it for a moment, and then nodded. Indeed, his lifespan was extraordinary by the time the Trial of Aeons ended. If Lily really perished after he became a septa-folder, Claud could see himself burning all his lifespan to conclude the Last Tutorial and ascending as the first divinity of the Fourth Godsfall.

Claud himself wasn’t too sure about his powers as a god, but if he could massacre all the other divinities, his combat ability would probably rank between absurd and completely insane. In fact, even as the Frozen Emperor, he had already offed a few divinities, so this wasn’t all that improbable.

Such a person could really destroy the world.

“Eh? Wait, but that person is me…”

Lily looked at him once, and then bobbed her head. “Now that I think about it, it’s rather exciting to know that someone who might destroy the world is my husband. Isn’t that great?”

“I’m not sure if that’s great or not, though…”

The two of them walked past a small Distortion, which was cordoned off. There were lots of small Distortions nowadays, although Lily probably had a very good point — the Distortion phenomenon began sometime after his Third Tutorial had ended. If he had fallen into madness by then, and the world fell apart shortly afterwards, it was natural that the Hollow God would never have heard about the Distortion phenomenon.

“My brain hurts from thinking so much,” Claud mumbled.

“There, there.” Lily puffed on his forehead. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah, of course.” Claud grinned.

The sun continued to inch downwards as the white moon appeared in the darkening sky. Claud gazed at it for a while, before shaking his head. While children used to run around in the city, ever since the Distortion phenomenon began, the city had sunk into a weird state of desolation.

People stuck together, looking out for people who were behaving oddly. Shops rarely served customers who were dining in, since the first Distortion had occurred in a café. There were groups of vigilantes looking for people who were exhibiting extreme behaviours.

The county had turned into a minor mess, a small little jail that people willingly subjected themselves to and enforced on others. The three bigshots saw nothing wrong with their actions either, and…

Claud sighed. “This Distortion…what a mess.”

“You sure can say that again.” Lily shook her head. “Come on. Let’s hurry up. The city feels a little depressing.”