Ch.160Time’s Chaos

“Fixed in… time?”

Charlotte unconsciously muttered in astonishment.

She had read the mana wavelengths in the dragon’s voice flooding her mind and instinctively realized there was no falsehood in it.

The fact that those words were true made the shock Charlotte received all the more tremendous. Even her brain, which she had always prided herself on being the best, couldn’t properly comprehend the true meaning of the dragon’s words.

What on earth did it mean to be fixed in time? It wasn’t about reversing time, nor accelerating it, but fixing time?

At least, within Charlotte’s understanding, it was something impossibly close to impossible. She couldn’t even begin to guess how such a thing could happen.

If it were about reversing time or accelerating it, several spells did come to mind.

Charlotte herself was a human who had far exceeded her predetermined lifespan, maintaining her youth for nearly 150 years.

She could also recall techniques for accelerating time. Among the spells Charlotte had tried to develop but failed, there was something similar to time acceleration.

In other words, the concepts of time reversal or acceleration weren’t completely unfamiliar.

But something that fixed time was beyond her imagination. She had never attempted it, nor had she planned to.

—You look confused, child.

Realizing the dragon’s voice was filled with concern, Charlotte felt a sudden surge of emotion.

“…Wouldn’t I be confused? When all the beliefs I’ve built throughout my life, all the time I’ve built with my husband, have been completely denied, wouldn’t it be devastating? You say I look confused? Yes. Of course I would be. I should rightfully be. Are you saying that you, a mere creature, knew something I didn’t know? And everything, all of it!”

—That’s right.

“Then… then, tell me everything.”

Charlotte gritted her teeth.

“What I know, what I don’t know. And what you know. Tell me everything.”

Charlotte’s words and actions were extremely rude, but the dragon didn’t take issue with them. Such rudeness could be overlooked as the cute tantrum of a child in confusion.

As usual, calmly, in a voice neither too fast nor too slow, it flowed into Charlotte’s mind.

—It means exactly what it says, child.

“It can’t be… it can’t be…”

I muttered like a madman that it couldn’t be true. I couldn’t continue the act of thinking. It felt like my brain was refusing to function altogether.

Like a bowl with a large hole in the bottom leaking water, my head was full of holes with thoughts leaking out.

Because everything I had believed in, all my common sense, had been denied.

All my actions, all the suicides I had committed until now, were attempted under the assumption that my ability was naturally a type of super-regeneration.

But it wasn’t.

What Olivia had given me wasn’t mere super-regeneration but something far more higher-dimensional, which meant I had been making completely futile efforts.

The world that constituted me shattered. The foundation I had built over hundreds of years collapsed without a trace.

I wanted to deny Olivia’s words somehow, but I couldn’t because she kept engaging me in conversation, constantly reminding me that her words were true.

“Master. You must be confused. And dizzy. I know it all. But it’s okay. Because I’m by your side. Because I, Olivia, am by your side. So, everything is fine.”

Olivia, who had climbed on top of my stomach, gave me a light kiss. With that act, amusingly, my mind calmed down, and the world that was collapsing in real-time seemed to straighten a bit.

No, perhaps she had touched my body again with that kiss just now. Since she had been touching my body and enthusiastically mixing bodies with me until just recently, it was a perfectly reasonable suspicion.

Since Olivia was the one who made me like this, she could certainly calm my mind.

As that thought occurred, my head ached even more. I couldn’t trust any emotion, thought, or sensation I felt. I could only suspect that Olivia might have tampered with something again.

When my entire life had flowed this way because of Olivia, how could I trust myself?

“Are you curious about how I gave you the gift, Master?”

Olivia giggled and met my gaze. I stared blankly at her.

“Or… perhaps you’re curious about why I did it?”

I was curious. How could I not be? I wanted to know why she did it, how she could do it, when it all started—everything.

But I didn’t think I could process that information normally right now. Whatever Olivia said, I felt like I would misinterpret, misunderstand, and distort it all.

“I can understand everything. Why you’re shocked, what exactly has blinded and deluded you, all of it. Because I love you, Master. Because we love each other. Who in the world can’t read the thoughts of their beloved?”

The implication hung in the air: There would only be the two of us left in the world anyway.

“Master. You know, don’t you? What I’ve accepted for you, what I’ve given up, what kind of being I’ve become. You know it all, don’t you?”

Who is Olivia? I know. I do know. I had to know. Considering what Olivia had done in the past claiming it was for me, I couldn’t not know.

My emotions intensified. The truth and indignation that had been spinning in my head boiled over.

“You did it for me? If you really cared about me, you could have just stayed normally in the magic tower. What was lacking? What was so lacking that—”

“Everything, Master.”

Olivia roughly pulled my head to meet her gaze. Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes were no longer smiling.

“Everything was lacking. That’s why I told you. Let’s cut off all human relationships, give up everything we have, and run away together far away. You were the one who refused.”

“If you had suggested it normally, I might have seriously considered it. But that wasn’t the case. After killing all my colleagues in the magic tower, you came to me and said what? That you’d taken care of everything I was with, so only the two of us were left? That we should run away far and take care of the rest?”

“I had to dispose of those insects. Because only I should know you in this world. Because I didn’t want anyone but me to think of you.”

Olivia raised her nails and gently scratched my chest. It didn’t hurt. It just felt slightly ticklish.

“So I suggested another way. Let’s kill all humans in the world and travel freely with just you and me. Then we wouldn’t have to be trapped in one place. But you didn’t like that either, did you?”

This time, I gave up thinking. Because Olivia had always been like this. All her actions and ways of thinking were tailored to me.

Even before they twisted in such an extreme direction.

Perhaps the premise itself was wrong. Maybe on the day I first met Olivia, instead of taking in a talented girl as a disciple, I should have killed her right there.

“Master. I, Olivia Eleonora, am a girl who loves you very much. But, I’m also a girl with a lot of jealousy.”

Olivia smiled brightly. It was a smile that had become extremely twisted somewhere.

“So, I was jealous of Olivia. I was so jealous of my past self that I wanted to kill her, I couldn’t stand it. It’s natural, isn’t it? Being jealous is natural, isn’t it? Because she stole my first meeting with you. My past self stole my first meeting with you. I should have been the one to meet you first, I should have been the first to meet you. But my past self stole that.”

A maniacal laugh, “hehehe,” echoed.

“So I killed her.”

In her black pupils, identical to mine, the light disappeared.

“I thought like this. I should kill my past self and take her place. All of Master’s firsts should belong to this Olivia Eleonora sitting on top of you, not to that past me.”

This time, she caressed my neck.

“You understand, don’t you, Master? You can understand me, who couldn’t tolerate my past self stealing my first meeting with you, right?”

I tried to say I didn’t understand such a thing at all, but before I could, Olivia grabbed my lower jaw and tore it off completely. With a crunch, the sensation in my jaw disappeared, and blood leaked out.

Naturally, I couldn’t speak.

“I knew you would understand my feelings, Master.”

As if the fierce aura from just moments ago was a lie, a bright smile formed. It was a smile full of happiness.

Even though she was holding my lower jaw in one hand.

“That’s also why I gave you the gift.”

Olivia brushed my bangs aside. As my body recovered and my lower jaw returned to normal, her soft fingers traced my lips.

“I wanted you and me to live in the same time.”

“…What?”

“Do you remember when you received the gift from me?”

At the sudden question, I fumbled through my memories to recall when I first realized I had this ability.

It was now more than hundreds of years ago, a past I didn’t want to think about, and my mind was too shocked by Olivia, but somehow I could pull out the memory.

Seventeen years old.

That was the age when my world changed.

“…I was seventeen.”

“Yes, that’s right. You were seventeen.”

Olivia patted my head as if praising me.

“Then do you remember how old I said I was when you first met me, when you saved this girl named Olivia and gave me the wonderful surname Eleonora?”

Again, I rummaged through past memories.

Speaking with Olivia, giving her a surname I came up with on the spot, asking a few simple questions. At that time, Olivia said she was…

How… old…

“…Seven…teen…”

Years old…

“Correct.”

My tongue got tangled. As Olivia’s scent rushed into my nostrils, the sound of our saliva exchanging and tasting each other echoed in my mouth.

She forcibly pressed my tongue against the floor of my mouth and transferred a transparent liquid with the taste of Olivia onto her tongue. Gulp, my Adam’s apple pulsated repeatedly.

After a long while of freely dripping saliva or, conversely, sucking in my saliva to her heart’s content, Olivia finally separated her mouth. A silver thread broke. Our breaths mixed with each other’s scents.

“…You, could it be…”

“Yes, it’s exactly as you think, Master. Since I met you when I was 17, you also had to live in the time of 17 years old, just like me.”

“…No. How…?”

“Master, my Master.”

Olivia rubbed her cheek against mine.

“What achievement do you think I made after shedding the framework of humanity? How far do you think this Olivia went to fulfill your wish? For love, for the Master I love so much, what concept do you think I stepped into?”

“…”

My entire body froze. My arms, legs, neck, even the extremities of my limbs wouldn’t work properly. The same was true for my mind. My head, which had just been regaining clarity, became foggy again.

The words Olivia was uttering were that shocking.

“It is the chaos of time.”