Thief of Time

Claud could clearly remember that the pages of this book, which the Black God had handed to him via his Holy Son, was full of black and white patterns that he couldn’t decipher at all. Back then, after ten minutes of flipping through the book from cover to cover, he had stuffed it back on his person.

However, now that he was looking at the book again, something really had changed.

“…I suppose this was expected, right?” Lily muttered. “After all, the Black God and the White God were the Omen and the Salvation Star of the previous cycle. And we were talking about time. It’s possible that the previous you made contact with the Black God and handed this book to him.”

Claud held his head. “I thought you said something about different volumes and everything, right? The divinities definitely do not know who I am, for instance. Else, I would not be standing here.”

“Good point. Well, there has to be ways to deliver a book somehow…” Lily looked at the book again.

“Well, I’m going to read it for real.” Claud glanced at the first page, which read ‘Hello, Me’. It was decidedly directed at him…or perhaps Lily, depending on who opened it first. “I like the cryptic opening, though.”

“Right? It’s a stylish opening. I bet it could be used as the only words of a book’s first chapter, and it’ll just make people swoon,” Lily added, rubbing her hands. “…Okay, let’s move on to the next page first.”

The two of them flipped to the next page, and Lily frowned. “What’s this? ‘That day, I stood before the coffin and swore’. Mhm. It’s an identifying pass phrase. Between you and yourself. Did I get that right?”

Claud chuckled. “Yes. I do have more than one. There’s actually one that’s a bit more embarrassing…ahem.”

He flipped to the next page, which was full of the weird patterns that he couldn’t parse at all. Intuitively, he understood that the next page would not reveal itself until he finished the sentence.

Claud gazed at the single line then, and then shivered. “That day, I stood before the coffin and swore that I would live forever.”

The book glowed.

Lily held his hands. “That was about your…”

“Yes. My mother.” Claud closed his eyes for a moment. “Because my mother’s life revolved around me, as long as I’m alive, she too lives on. Of course, there is another person who has squeezed into my life now, so there’s double the burden for me to keep putting one foot after the next, to live a worthy life.”

“…Mhm. I’ll make sure to keep living too,” Lily murmured.

“Yeah.” He took a deep breath, and then flipped to the next page.

“If you’re reading this, it means that my plan has succeeded, if partially,” Lily read out loud. “Hello, me. I know not when you will open this book, but I am certain that you opened it in a time of uncertainty. I have created too many changes that I am not certain of the exact time period in which you will feel lost, but I myself felt lost in the year or so following the failed Third Tutorial.”

“There’s nothing about the Distortions,” Claud muttered.

Lily nodded, and then continued to read from the book. “The next few years…were peaceful. Having assumed that the two of us had escaped an inexorable fate, we concentrated on living life to our fullest. The Third Tutorial resolved itself for me, or so it seemed. However…do you know what the name of this world is?”

“What?” Claud replied, his mouth moving on instinct.

“Destiny.”

Claud blinked, and then leaned towards Lily.

“That’s what was written there,” Lily replied. “Look!”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to actually doubt you,” Claud replied. “More of instinct rather than anything else, you know.”

He looked at the rest of the page.

Destiny. That’s the name of this world. While there exists a variety of terms to denote the notion of Destiny and a Bearer of Destiny in the myriad worlds adrift in the Eternal Sea, this term is particularly significant in our world. For that reason, mortal moira can only deviate so far. There is a reason why it took so many iterations for us to reach this point.

Claud gazed at that paragraph, and then tried to parse it slowly. He had a hunch that this entire paragraph that his future self had written was actually pointing at the origins and purposes of the various Bearers of Destiny. To date, he hadn’t quite received an answer as to what they did. While they were definitely linked to the various divinities — one for each of them — the relationship between the Bearers and the gods were still quite unclear.

For instance, why didn’t the White God and the Black God need a Bearer of Destiny? What were their goals here? After all, the Bearers seemed to be operating independently or as equals with their apparent masters, and there didn’t seem to be a unified goal, other than what happened in the Trial of Aeons.

“Lily, do you have any idea what this paragraph is meant to tell us?” Claud asked.

“You can’t figure it out?” Lily asked. “Don’t worry. I also don’t know what this paragraph is meant to convey. Let’s move on.”

Claud stared at the offending paragraph for a few more seconds, and then made a face.

“Oh, don’t be a baby…”

“I’m just expressing my discontent. And besides, I never had much of a childhood, if we go by the average measurement of a child’s early years,” Claud replied.

“There, there…”

After fooling around for a few more moments, Claud and Lily returned to reading.

Now, I will tell you what happened next. While the two of us became high-ranked folders, it is by no means a good safety margin. The world of Destiny is constantly under siege by outsiders, alien beings that we cannot comprehend without risking madness. And there…is a weak point.

For centuries, the Third Tutorial has never been activated properly. Lily and I were protected by the Hollow God, who you should have met, but everyone else who took the Third Tutorial were exposed to this vulnerability. Without warning, incredible monsters who boasted of an illogical power took the field, shrouding the various cities and fields with a world of their own.

It was in one of those worlds that my Lily perished.

Claud turned to the next page, and then frowned. The black and white patterns refused to change, but this time, there was no prompt or anything for him to use.

“Damn it.” Claud flipped to the next page, and then the following one. “Nothing? Dude! Me! What are you doing? You can’t leave people on cliffhangers like that!”

“Those monsters…they sound quite familiar, though?” Lily muttered. “Distortions!”

“But that me didn’t use that term, though?” Claud replied. “What’s going on?”

“Mhm. There are some discrepancies too. I remember something about Distortions manifesting in non-mana users, but that Claud says that the main cause of these Distortion-esque things are high-ranked mana-users who were exposed to the Third Tutorial.” Lily made a face.

“That’s another point, yes. It seems like my brain is really sluggish…let’s put that aside, though.”

“Maybe we should play some brain teasers sometime.” Lily’s smile faded. “Okay, so we do have some confirmation. First, the previous Claud’s reality does not have the notion of Distortions…not as we know it. Second, I died in a…well, a superpowered Distortion? I’m not sure why I died, though. The lack of details, however, suggest that we were separated for one reason or another.”

“So we can’t separate,” Claud replied. “Uh…”

“Well, it’s probably one of those really unlucky scenarios,” Lily replied. “But you already recovered by then. Ugh. This is certainly very confusing!”

“Just what did the previous me do? Why is everything so different?” Claud rubbed his head. “Is someone else also screwing with destiny or something?”

“Moons if I know.” Lily paused. “However, we do have another direction now.”

“Go on.”

“We’ll go and find Nero,” Lily replied. “He’s the Holy Son of the Black God. He’s probably the only person who can bring us to the Black God, and it’s not like we’ve opened shop for a long time anyway.”

“True. Let’s just hang up the sign and go, then,” Claud replied. “We’re prepared to move at a moment’s notice anyway, and the trip there is going to be a lot faster than we’re used to anyway.”

“Did we miss anything?”

“We can go and visit Lesser Dark afterwards. We could ask him more things too,” Claud suggested.

“So, we’re visiting the gods now.”

“A select few gods,” Claud replied. “The Hollow God didn’t kill Lesser Half and the Black God. I’m sure he had a reason for not killing them and for telling me that fact.”

“They’re sympathetic to our cause?”

“Who knows?” Claud got up. “Let’s pack away the utensils first, though. Give me a hand?”