Ch.184Return – 3

“First, move back to the opposite wall. It doesn’t look like it will explode, but just in case.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. The opposite side, right? Got it.”

With that response, the overlapping footsteps gradually faded into the distance.

I closed my eyes and concentrated. I could feel the flow of power being drawn out somewhere. These were sensations that became perceptible as the fragments of absorbed memories were carefully pieced together.

I focused my attention a bit more. At the same time, as I changed the flow, there was a sound like something cracking open, and the energy that had been draining outward momentarily paused before flowing back in reverse.

“Ugh?!”

Something hot and thick rose up my throat into my mouth. When I coughed, drops of red blood fell to the ground.

The blood was worth it. The tent seemed to twitch before beginning to flutter along with my palm.

After roughly wiping my mouth and covering the blood-stained soil, I lifted the cloth. I could see four people huddled together against the opposite wall, their eyes wide with surprise.

Even though we hadn’t been traveling to the Demon Lord’s domain for long, with everything that had happened along the way, it felt like I was seeing them after a long time.

“Mira!”

Priscilla was the first to rush over and throw herself into my arms. She buried her face against my chest and inhaled deeply.

“…?”

Priscilla blinked a few times before sniffing again. She must have detected the scent of blood. I deliberately wrapped my arms around her head, keeping her face pressed against me to avoid any questions.

Rosaria had been about to run over with open arms too, but realizing she was too late, she approached with an awkward smile. Elisiere and Laura remained composed as always.

“I’m not even surprised anymore. What trick did you use this time?”

“It’s complicated to explain. Just think of it simply as changing the flow. I temporarily reversed the power that was draining from me.”

“Draining? You mean your ability? To whom?”

“To Aria.”

“…Aria? I don’t understand why that name is coming up.”

Laura asked with a puzzled expression.

“This is all quite perplexing. Now that we’ve escaped, please explain what’s going on.”

“Alright. Though I’m not sure how much time we have.”

I checked the sky. I couldn’t sense anything. It meant that the Demon Lord was still buying us time.

At least for now, it seemed Aria wouldn’t be coming after us.

‘Not that we could run away anyway.’

Even if I sent these four ahead, they’d likely be captured by Aria and used as hostages at best. It was better to keep them close. At least then I could try to protect them.

Running away together was nonsensical anyway. With the entire world in Aria’s grasp, how far could we possibly get?

“Aria was the culprit.”

“…What?”

“Everything was Aria’s doing. Bringing us here, making the world like this, all of it.”

“Did you just say Aria?”

Laura frowned. She clearly couldn’t believe it. Understandably so. After all, who created Aria’s character? As the author, she would know best how kind Aria was in the original work.

“I never would have thought that woman was the culprit… But there must be some reason for this. Do you know why?”

“I do know.”

I hesitated briefly, carefully choosing my words to avoid making Laura feel responsible.

While Aria was determined to blame Laura and seek revenge, it wasn’t Laura’s fault at all. Who in the world would expect a character to gain consciousness after completing a work?

“After you finished your work… for some reason, Aria alone woke up in a world where everything else had stopped. So this is a recreation of the world as it was when Aria first opened her eyes—a world where all time had stopped.”

As soon as I finished speaking, everyone’s attention focused on one person. Even Priscilla, who had been happily nuzzling my cheek, turned around in surprise.

Laura frantically shook her head.

“I-I don’t have such power! How could I possibly have done that?”

“Calm down, I’m not blaming you. Nobody knows why it happened. It could have been simple chance, or maybe there’s another mastermind we don’t know about. Anyway, Aria was alone in a world where time had stopped. For over a thousand years. What do you think she thought about during that time?”

“Revenge, or hatred… I see. So bringing me here was also…?”

“That’s right. For revenge. Making you repeat the same time loop, gradually taking away your bodily freedom with each repetition—it was all part of her revenge. She wanted to watch you fall into despair.”

Laura’s face showed a complex mix of emotions as she heard this. Learning that she was trapped here because of the hatred and vengeance of a character she had created must have been overwhelming.

The shock must be immense.

“Wait a minute. What about us? I can understand her dragging Laura here for some twisted revenge. But why us? There was no reason to bring us along too.”

“There was. To keep time flowing in this world, she needed readers—real humans from the outside world, not just fictional characters created for a novel. After Laura gave up her identity and became a character in the novel, time stopped again, so she brought in new readers.”

“…You mean the reason she brought us here and made us suffer was just for that? To maintain this world?”

I heard Elisiere grinding her teeth.

“Exactly. She brought people here to keep time flowing, and when their minds started to break, she’d bring in new ones. Then when those broke too, she’d bring in more. From the beginning, she saw you all as nothing more than parts. If I hadn’t read the prologue, Rosaria, you too would have repeated the time loop until your mind collapsed. Then Aria would have brought in someone new.”

“That woman is truly unforgivable. Acting innocent all this time. She’s been deceiving us from the start.”

Elisiere gritted her teeth. She must be remembering the deaths she experienced as the Demon Lord.

“…”

Rosaria’s expression wasn’t pleasant either. Her already pale skin had turned completely bloodless. She had nearly been broken in the same way.

In contrast, Priscilla wore a face that seemed to say, “I see.” I didn’t ask why. It was obvious. Unlike the other two, she was too broken to be angry.

I would need to take some time to explain things to her later. I tightened my arm around her back. Priscilla hesitated for a moment before smiling sweetly and squeezing her arms around my neck in return.

“Where is that woman? Have you already dealt with her?”

“No, not yet. How should I put this… it might sound quite strange.”

As I paused, question marks appeared above the heads of the three women. Priscilla still had her face buried against me, so I couldn’t see her expression.

“She’s probably still fighting the Demon Lord. He said he’d buy us time. That’s how I was able to come rescue you.”

The question marks above their heads grew larger.

“But the Demon Lord is here. Has someone else become the new Demon Lord? Surely not that succubus?”

“It’s not like that…”

I glanced at Laura. I wasn’t sure if this was the right time to reveal everything. I could roughly predict how shocked she would be.

After hesitating a bit more, I finally spoke. There was no turning back now anyway.

“…I mean she’s fighting the Demon Lord from the first world I was possessed in.”

“What?!”

“Wait a moment. What did you just say?”

As expected, everyone was greatly surprised.

“…”

Everyone except Laura.

Her expression suggested she either didn’t understand my words or didn’t want to understand them.

“…Let me ask one thing.”

Laura, with an expression that looked like she might cry at any moment, forced out her voice and slowly continued. Her tone was trembling and growing increasingly wet.

“The reason you mentioned the Demon Lord from the first world… is it… is it… what I think it is?”

Her eyes were filled with desperation, as if she had guessed why the Demon Lord from my first possession had appeared.

But this was a truth that would eventually have to be revealed. That “eventually” had simply arrived now. I nodded.

“Yes.”

“Ah…”

Laura’s knees suddenly buckled. Her body swayed greatly. Elisiere caught her from the side as she was about to collapse to the ground.

“Why… how…”

“Wait. What’s going on? What connection is there between the Demon Lord from Mira’s first possession and Laura…?”

The urgent voice gradually became more halting. She seemed to have realized the situation while speaking.

Eyes full of confusion looked back and forth between Laura, who was leaning on Elisiere, and me standing calmly. Then, apparently deciding it wasn’t her place to interfere, she backed away hesitantly.

“That’s also why Aria stopped the time loop when she saw me. As you know, I’ve already experienced possession and returned alive once. She was after the power residing in me. With her own power, Aria could only maintain this world, but with me, it became possible to completely remake the world.”

“…That was possible?”

“It must be, or Aria wouldn’t have done all this.”

“What the hell…”

I briefly set Priscilla aside and approached Laura. Elisiere gently pushed her arm, making way. Laura’s body collapsed against me.

Laura was breathing heavily with a face that looked like she might cry at any moment.

“I-I’m sorry. I’m sorry… If only I… if only it hadn’t been me…”

“Calm down. It’s not your fault.”

I smiled bitterly. I was reminded of the conversation I had with Latina in the place where memories were sealed.

Back then, I was the one crying, and Latina was comforting me. Now our positions were reversed. Considering that Latina was also a character in Laura’s novel, it was all quite intertwined.

“But… because of the novel I wrote, you…”

“That’s all in the past. If I were my former self, I might have reacted differently. I might have gotten angry or blamed you. My former self was too busy ignoring and avoiding the past.”

Yes. If I were my former self, I wouldn’t have been able to comfort Laura like this. Even if I appeared fine on the outside, a part of my heart would still be rotting from past trauma.

“But I’m different now. I have things to protect and new connections. Who knows? Maybe I went through all that specifically to save you all.”

Thanks to the four people here, I no longer feel phantom pain, and I can recall past memories without pain. Conversely, these four were able to escape the time loop thanks to me.

There was no need to be bound by the past anymore. All I needed to do now was put down my lingering attachments in my memories and accept them.

“You should just accept it too. Like me. And if you really can’t, you have people to rely on.”

Now it was Laura’s turn to accept the past. Just as I had done.

With a hiccup, Laura buried her face in my chest. Along with the sound of swallowing back tears, I heard continuous mumbling too low and fast for even me to understand.

“So what do we do now? To get out of here, do we need to def— defeat Aria?”

“Just say ‘kill her.’ Why are you softening your words for that woman even in this situation?”

“Ahem. Anyway. Is that what we need to do?”

Rosaria cleared her throat after being scolded.

“I’m not sure. I think you’re right—we probably need to defeat Aria. If we can somehow deal with Aria, maybe the Spirit God and Goddess can help us.”

“…Mira, you can defeat her, right? Right?”

“I’ll let you know after I try. She’s coming now, anyway.”

No sooner had I finished speaking than a dimensional gate opened nearby.

Or rather than “opened,” it would be more accurate to say it was torn open. The space was roughly squeezed open, and Aria appeared with an extremely angry face.

I could see a red hand holding a demon sword, severed at the wrist. Aria was gripping the blade of that demon sword. Judging by her appearance, it was obvious what fate had befallen her.

‘So she couldn’t defeat him after all.’

Of course, she wasn’t even fighting with the same power as when she fought me in the first world. Even taking that into account, it seemed she had been overwhelmingly defeated.

In the end, it was a repetition of the question I had when I met him. Could I defeat Aria without healing magic, and moreover, without my full power? Only the word “Demon Lord” had been replaced with “Aria.”

“…So it was you, Mira.”

Aria, who had appeared with a face full of rage, tried to force a smile when she saw me. But it was completely different from her usual bright smile. It was a much more forced expression.

“What did you do to make that Demon Lord think so romantically about fighting you?”

“Ah, I’m curious about that too. Sincerely.”

“…How unpleasant.”

Aria crushed the demon sword completely. The sword, compressed to the size of a ping-pong ball, rolled away with a clatter.

“Everyone except Mira is disgusting. Why do I have to suffer like this? I’m just trying to correct what’s wrong.”

Her blue eyes turned toward Laura in my arms. For a moment, flames flickered in them. I gently set Laura aside and gripped Eternity.

Aria looked at the four people behind me one by one, then smiled in a way completely different from her forced smile earlier.

“I’ve been thinking. About what to do. And I came up with a really good solution. I’ll just rewind everything.”

Tick. I thought I heard the sound of a clock hand.

“Everything, starting over from the beginning.”

The scenery began to change.

The sky swirled black before becoming blurry, as if someone had applied motion blur. Not just the sky—the surrounding landscape and the ground beneath our feet were also becoming blurry.

“Aria, what are you—”

“KYAAAAAAAH!”

Startled by Priscilla’s scream, I turned my head. Everyone was screaming with panicked faces. Even Elisiere and Laura were no exception.

“No! No! I don’t want to go back again!”

“I’m sorry please forgive me I don’t want to die again so please…”

“Ah, ahhh… ahhhhh…”

From their reactions and Aria’s words, I realized what was happening.

It was a time loop.

The very same time loop that everyone except me had experienced to the point of exhaustion. In the distance, I could see Aria laughing maniacally.

“That’s right! We’ll just start everything over again! Without anyone interfering! Watch, Mira! I’ll come find you right away! Unlike those women bound by the original novel!”

“Mira! What do we do?! If this continues…!”

Fortunately, Rosaria was maintaining her sanity. Probably because she hadn’t experienced many loops.

“I’ll try to cut off Aria’s head and— ugh?!”

My body staggered in the headwind, but I managed to hold my ground by pressing Eternity vertically with all my might. I narrowed my eyes and realized this wasn’t just wind.

It was time itself rushing backward as the entire world rewound. The humans who had been frozen in place began to reverse all their actions. Every effect returned to its cause.

I had to try everything possible. With that thought, I was drawing a magic circle with my left hand when it happened.

Click. I felt like the final piece of memory had fallen into place.

“Do you know what the final stage of awakening divine power is?”

“Um… no, I don’t.”

“It’s faith.”

“That’s more anticlimactic than I expected. Isn’t that obvious?”

“It’s the final stage precisely because it’s obvious. Divine power bestows strength even to those who don’t fully believe in it. Ah, where are you looking? Don’t look away, listen carefully. You might need this someday.”

“I don’t understand why I would ever need this, but… alright. Anyway, why does it give power even to those who don’t believe?”

“So they can believe in themselves.”

“…I’m understanding less and less. You say one must believe in divine power, but then why give power to non-believers so they can believe in themselves?”

“I never said you had to believe in divine power.”

“What? Then what am I supposed to believe in…?”

Latina grinned.

“…So that’s what you meant when you said I might need this someday.”

I raised my left hand. In my grasp appeared a radiance made of light. In the flowing, rewinding time, a solid rock appeared that wouldn’t be washed away.

The rock became light, the light became divine power, and the divine power became faith. A spear named Faith, forged with divine power, bloomed through my hand.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t use the light spear all this time. The light spear, having entered its final stage, had been asking me a question. It had been waiting silently for me to answer that final question.

“Now… I can finally answer that question, Latina.”

The final question posed by the light spear, and the faith Latina spoke of. It was faith in one’s qualification.

Faith in whether I myself was worthy of wielding this power.

Thinking about it, I had always wielded this power while inwardly believing I wasn’t worthy of it. After all, I was born from slaughtering humans who begged for death and consuming their life-risking faith.

That was hatred for the light spear, but also self-loathing.

But not anymore. For the first time, I was holding this not to destroy something, but to protect someone. At least in this moment, I was worthy of wielding this weapon, once called not a light spear but a holy spear.

—It’s faith in your own worthiness. Whether you deserve to wield that power, whether you are devout enough to do so.

“Now I… understand.”

I thrust the holy spear into the ground with all my might. The light that exploded and scattered spread like branches, “grasping” the world itself.

The rewinding time stopped once more.