Thief of Time

Claud made a sound in his throat as he read and re-read the wall of words that had appeared on the Trading Board. There were a lot of disturbing things written in it, up to and including the fact that Dia’s brother had orchestrated so many events just to turn Dia into the Salvation Star. Normally, it wouldn’t be a problem, but the Salvation Star happened to be his nemesis. Was it really, really necessary to make one of his fellow founding members of the Seekers of Life into the Salvation Star?

He let out a long sigh. “Lily, this feels like a bad dream. Or it would, but I suppose this is the price to pay for having you around. In fact, this price is absolutely lovely if I take that into account.”

“Don’t be silly. You said that the Salvation Star should have the ability to track you down, right?” Lily asked.

“And she also will deal more damage to me with her attacks,” Claud added. “That skill of hers is completely overpowered against the right targets. Isn’t it unfair? Her skills are so good.”

“Is that something someone with four Will skills really should utter?” Lily asked, an amused grin on her face.

The bone-deep fatigue seemed to deepen as he yawned, and for a moment, he contemplated the possibility of just calling it a day and sleeping in early. Lily, who had evidently cottoned onto his fatigued state, rubbed his cheeks and said, “Don’t sleep so early, alright? It’s only lunchtime.”

“I need to endure this until the next Full Moon, though.”

The fatigue had worsened over the past month or so. The drain that he felt was something that he couldn’t even bring himself to describe, and if he had to be very honest, just lying in his bed sounded absolutely lovely. However, that was not actually living, was it?

His goal was to live even in the most adverse of conditions. It would be utterly pathetic if he couldn’t even do that.

After getting Lily to help him stretch a few times, he forced himself to get up. “Alright, let’s go do literally anything else.”

“Considering you’ve been staring at that Trading Board for the past week or so every breakfast, that sounds awesome. Still, why are you actually so enthralled by it?”

“I’m not sure, but…”

Claud frowned. “Well, I’ll figure it out eventually. There’s something in there, but I can’t quite recognise it yet. For now, though, it’s clear that her brother wants us to remember the entire sequence of events or something. Considering that I experienced the future through the Second Tutorial, this might be important.”

“That’s probably a good idea. I’ll get around to memorising it too!”

“Yeah, you do that. Just in case you’re sent back in time during your Third Tutorial or something,” Claud replied.

“How likely is such a thing?”

“Slightly more likely than me becoming a god ten seconds later.” Claud paused dramatically. “Yeap.”

“Oh, come on.” Lily rolled her eyes. “Anyway, if you want to get up and walk around, let’s go pay a visit to the old man.”

“President Cadenza?”

“Who else did you think I was referring to?” Lily asked, a grin on her face.

“Supreme Saran and Emperor Grandis,” Claud replied. “I mean, they’re both older than six millennia. That’s really, really old in my book.”

“That’s true…”

“So, a lunch outing with the old man, eh? He wants to hear about his daughter?” Claud asked, before checking the Trading Board. “Hmm. Other than the part where her tastebuds have died due to eating way too many lifestones, she’s quite fine.”

“He’ll be happy to hear that…incidentally, is there no way for me to absorb lifestones without eating them?” Lily asked. “Like what Crown does for you, but since Crown can’t do that for me…”

“Not that I know off,” Claud replied. “We can ask the old man instead. Maybe he has a few ideas here or there, you know. He’s old. He must have eaten six thousand years’ worth of lifestones and then some to reach his current point. Alternatively, there’s really no alternative and you can only eat them manually.”

Lily made a sad face, which prompted Claud to rub her head. It took a little bit of skinship to cheer her up, but clearly, the prospect of having to ingest so many freaking lifestones was also getting her down. Thankfully, she was a hard worker, and despite her complaints, Lily actually liked eating lifestones.

Just not in ludicrous amounts.

After dressing up to look rather formal, Claud and Lily stepped out of their shophouse. Their opening days were now every three days, and whenever they opened, all the skillsticks and skillstrips produced would be snapped up. As for why, Claud wasn’t too sure, but the skillstrips created from Will of Purity had proven to be very, very popular.

Lily’s little explosives were quite popular too, although Count Vacuos had paid them a visit in the hopes that they wouldn’t sell such loud and noisy items. Claud, naturally, had refused him in a very gentle manner, so the count offered to buy up all their stock whenever they opened.

It was a win-win situation, so no one complained. In fact, whenever they went out for dinner or lunch, there would be rumours that Count Vacuos was playing with those little devices in his palace…

The City of Knowledge still had quite a few Distortions when they went out. Most of them were cordoned off by barriers, but some of the older ones had actually been solved. The teams had been briefed about the various methods to deal with Distortions, which mostly revolved around either the presence of a hexa-folder or someone who knew the person before he or she turned into a Distortion.

Distortions were primarily manifestations of traumatic memories, so getting people who understood the creators of these Distortions and their traumas worked quite well. Other than that, looking back at the past with the help of the Blue God’s apostles and Blessed was another solution — apparently, these fellows were the hottest personnel to have in any self-respecting town and city right now.

“Hmm. Where did the people who worshipped the Goddess of Water and Learning go?” Lily looked around. “They’re curiously absent.”

“Aren’t they more of subscribers to her ideology, rather than actual believers?” Claud asked.

“Around the same, I suppose…”

“True.” Claud leaned his head on her shoulder. “Maybe they ran off after hearing that every single divinity was headed here. After all, they’re in a sense…what’s that word again?”

“Contrarians? Heretics? Disbelievers?”

“None of these, but I see you got the point splendidly,” Claud replied, before his nose twitched. “Right, did we send a calling card to him?”

“He told us to visit whenever, so it should be fine. Besides, the palace is really huge. Even if he’s not in, there’s probably some lunch for us there anyway,” Lily replied. “It’s fine to freeload!”

“Only if you have anti-poison artefacts on you.”

“Of course I do,” she replied. “We’re freeloading, after all. Also…well, I figured that we might need to seriously discuss the news that Dia and the others sent our way. If need be, we should head back to Licencia first and help them. But there’s a barrier…”

“And there so happens to be Moon Emissaries in the palace,” Claud guessed. “That right?”

“Yeap. We can ask them to open the barrier for us so that we can help the others,” Lily replied. “Of course, you’ll need to be in a state fit for battle, or else I’m not letting you do a thing.”

“Well, I can fight.”

“…I’ll see about that. I was thinking of doing it alone, actually, and—”

“We do it together, or not at all,” Claud replied. “That’s my bottom line. You know that as well as I do, so…”

“I figured you’d say something like that.” Lily made a face, and then squished his cheeks. “Well, we’ll see. And it’s not like you can’t fight, right?”

“It’s just painful. Nothing much, if I grit my teeth a bit.” Claud flexed his left arm. “I’m still as strong as ever, even if I do groan during some physical training here and there!”

“…Don’t overdo it.” She squished his cheeks again, before turning to the roadside stalls. “Let’s get something for the count, the old man and the Moon Emissary too, before we head over.”

“I suggest the fried dough rolls!”

“I was thinking of that too, but hear me out. Donuts.”

Claud gulped. “Donuts?”

“Yes. Chocolate sprinkled donuts, with melted chocolate running down the inner ring,” Lily continued. “That crisp little sound you hear as you bite down on the skin. And the syrup that jumps out at you when you bite down on it…what do you think?”

“I’m hungry already. We’ll need to buy extra, because I’m sure I’ll polish off at least three of them before we reach the palace,” Claud replied.

“Yay!”

“We’ll need to buy even more, I see.”