“It’s raining right now; let’s get inside quickly.”
Karl stood like a wall, refusing to move aside.
“What’s wrong…? It’s raining; we need to hurry inside.”
I tried to appeal to the urgency of the downpour, but he remained unmoved.
“What are you doing right now?”
“What?”
“I asked why and how you are here.”
There was a noticeable tension in his tone and expression, different from the man I had been conversing with all the way here.
Is he joking? But the Karl I knew wouldn’t make such frivolous jokes to unsettle someone.
“Are you joking right now?”
His cold gaze was chilling. Even if it were a joke, it felt over the line. Just as I was about to say something, his sharp warning silenced me.
“You have just intruded upon imperial authority without permission.”
“What…? What do you mean?”
“You’ll need to properly explain how you made it this far and where your accompanying troops are hidden.”
Why is he acting like this? My mind was a whirlwind of confusion. Had something happened to his head during that brief moment, or was I dreaming while standing here?
“Step back.”
Before I could even grasp why Karl had changed, I found myself pushed back. He gestured inside, and three knights rushed out, familiar faces.
“Don’t move.”
But Karl and the knights exhibited a different demeanor than what I had seen traveling here. They looked the same yet felt completely altered.
Could it be that dark magic allows one to see illusions? It was hard to distinguish reality from hallucinations. If it were an illusion, I could just wake up quickly. I pinched my opposite arm to check.
“Ouch.”
Nothing changed. Only a sharp pain registered in the pinched area. This isn’t good. If the pain feels this real, then it’s reality. Are they all secretly filming me like a hidden camera show…?
The rain began to pour harder, as if someone were filling a bucket and dumping it out. As the storm intensified, Karl pulled me inside, seemingly without any choice. Three knights closed in beside me and behind me, ready to create a human prison.
“If you don’t provide a proper answer, you will be punished according to the rules.”
“What?”
This wasn’t a game or joke. The intimidation and slight anger evident in Karl’s expression and voice felt completely genuine.
After issuing a brief warning, Karl had the knights take me somewhere, and overwhelmed by the atmosphere, I found myself unable to say anything more.
***
The place I was dragged to, surrounded by knights, was a dimly lit room. It was called a villa, but it seemed more like a fortress designed to completely hide from external threats, as there were many rooms that appeared cut off from the outside.
Perhaps to block outside attacks or to isolate captured enemies, the stone walls lacked even a single window. It was total isolation.
“Please enter.”
How could I resist when knights armed with weapons urged me to go in? I hadn’t fully grasped the situation, but I obediently moved as they directed. As soon as I stepped into the room, the heavy steel door clanged shut behind me.
A room made of stone walls and a steel door… If the door remains locked from outside, I might just wither away inside. Surely they wouldn’t keep me here for long? Fear began to creep in.
“Um, excuse me!”
I urgently called to the knight outside through a palm-sized hole in the steel door. While walking here, I had been pondering why Karl had acted the way he did, and suddenly a thought flashed through my mind.
“Try to say it. Lemetior.”
“Le…metior?”
“Yes. You must remember. Lemetior.”
“Got it.”
“The healing spell activates when you recite the incantation while placing it on the bare skin of the person you want to heal. Make sure to remember it.”
It was a reminder from Duke Linke when he handed me a pouch containing the magical stone. Lemetior—the incantation to activate the healing spell.
At the time, I hadn’t had a chance to ask any questions due to the urgency of departure, but during our journey, I found myself wondering about something. Who created the incantations for each magic, and how? My curiosity was basic yet profound.
Surely there was meaning behind each name. I didn’t know much about the detailed culture of this place, but suddenly I became curious about the meanings behind them.
The healing spell incantation, Lemetior; the binding spell incantation, Prolabor. They must have some significance.
“The meaning of Lemetior is ‘to return.’”
“To return, you say?”
And unexpectedly, that curiosity was resolved in a surprising way. During my time with Karl, we had many conversations, and through those discussions, I found my answer.
“What’s the connection between healing and returning?”
“To put it simply, it means reversing the body’s time. To a point before injury or illness.”
“Oh… So you’re saying that by chanting a spell of that kind, you can revert the body to before it was hurt?”
The principle of healing magic was like this? It was fascinating. I recalled Karl’s explanation, which I had brushed off with ‘people are truly smart,’ now resurfacing as the memory of me dropping my pocket and spilling the magic stones appeared.
Could it be that the incantation I had murmured, just to make sure I wouldn’t forget, actually activated? I had thought that placing it on the skin of the painful area was necessary for it to work; I never imagined that just mumbling it would trigger magic.
However, as I sat and pondered, the events from Urentum felt similar. Back then, I had also murmured the incantation faintly because I couldn’t remember it well, and suddenly the magic stone had activated.
“The explosion at Urentum? We’re sending more investigators to look into it, but a magic stone was found.”
“A magic stone?”
“It seems that the magic stone caused the explosion. There were two magic stones that partially detonated, and we received a report that they were collected recently. Fortunately, they didn’t fully detonate… If they had, we might not have made it out unscathed.”
Among all our conversations, we had discussed the explosion incident at Urentum. In light of Karl’s unexpected revelation about the discovery of a magic stone, I contemplated whether I should confess that I had buried it.
Wasn’t it clearly a magic stone I buried for restraining magic? I didn’t know why it exploded, but it seemed that the real reason for the accident was that my murmured incantation triggered an explosive spell instead.
If this time, too, magic activated contrary to my intent?
As that thought crossed my mind, chills ran down my spine. It felt like a wild imagination, yet nothing else could explain the odd behavior of Karl and the others.
So, what if the spell to “heal the body by reversing time” only manifested up to “reversing time”…?
“Hey!”
“What is it?”
Fortunately, the knights were not far away. One came closer at my urgent call.
“Uh… What is today’s date?”
He looked at me as if confused about why I was asking such a thing, his expression filled with discontent.
“Just tell me the date. What is it?”
“It’s February 3rd.”
The date was the same. Then…
“Which year is it?”
The year is important. Is it really that time has gone back?
“It’s the year 829 in the Imperial Calendar, on February 3rd.”
“829…?”
It’s currently February 831 in the Imperial Calendar. But 829?
“Are you really saying it’s 829? For real?”
Could it be that my suspicions were correct? Have I gone back two years more!
“I will not answer any more questions. Until His Grace gives new orders.”
“…Oh my God.”
I was confused. I asked out of disbelief, but it turned out time truly had reversed. Am I so flustered that my mind went blank? It felt as if my thoughts had evaporated completely.
If I’ve gone back to the past, what am I supposed to do now? Is there any way to return to the original timeline? I even started to sweat.
What is happening here, having come all the way to this distant Grand Duke’s territory? Neither Karl, who brought me here, nor the attendant who came to assist me are present.
Moreover, judging by Karl’s reaction, it seems we are before he forged any relationship with Celeste. In that case, I can’t even appeal to emotions and stay here for a while.
“What am I going to do?”
I slumped down into my seat. I felt like crying.
