After the living armor, no significant obstacles appeared anymore.
It would be more accurate to say that the barrier of this place is not weak, but rather that the system to exclude intruders is not functioning properly over the years.
Instead, it would be a miracle if even a single living armor was operational.
After all, perhaps it could withstand the harsh passage of time because it was made as a model of a legion commander.
“Luke, what’s the name of this friend?”
“Hmm, for now, I named it Liv temporarily.”
“Is it Liv because it’s a living armor? How lacking in sense, you. Will you name your child like that later?”
“W-Why are we even talking about children here?”
“Isn’t it your child since you made it?”
“……”
As Luke walked down the corridor, reminiscing, he suddenly realized that his pace was slowing down and he let out a chuckle.
“……Oh dear, I’ve gotten sentimental again.”
This place oddly stimulated his memories.
For some reason, he didn’t quite understand why.
Perhaps it was because this location was the only connection he had to himself 5000 years ago.
Maybe so.
This place is the clearest evidence that this ‘memory’ he possesses is not a lie.
Just as he began to quicken his steps again, Luke noticed something peculiar once more.
“Is this the center of this place?”
As he opened the door, the first thing that greeted Luke was the artificial plant, ‘Gleipnir’, whose leaves he had seen countless times on the walls, ceilings, and floors.
When he gently pushed aside the vines that descended like curtains, the interior of the room was indeed covered in dense vegetation.
It was enveloped in a level of greenery far more serious than what he had seen in the corridors so far.
Luke looked up at the ceiling.
From a rather high ceiling, a branch hung down, swaying like a chandelier or a mobile, stimulating the instincts of the cat within his heart.
“…….”
Luke poked it a few times but soon lost interest and began to push through the foliage.
This tree had a high magic resistance, making it difficult to cut or block with magic.
The feeling of the leaves brushing against the stockings that wrapped around his legs was quite chilling, as if it was nullifying the shield he had wrapped around his body.
Having entered deeper into the room, Luke discovered yet another corpse.
It appeared as if it was embracing something.
Luke quickly approached and confirmed it.
“There don’t seem to be any noticeable external injuries…”
As he tried to remove the Gleipnir that covered the skeleton as if to inspect it more closely, the bones crumbled like sand.
It felt like they hadn’t resisted the passage of time at all.
“Hmm? Isn’t this the same time as that corpse below?”
Strange.
He had vaguely thought that since it had a similar style of clothing, they must have been intruders from the same period.
-Phas-sook.
As the bone dust scattered like dust, what the skeleton had been covering was revealed.
Upon seeing it, Luke couldn’t help but nod in understanding.
Luke reached for a golden circular ornament resembling a celestial body.
A conical glass artifact contained within several layers of rotating golden rings.
The form, which originally was supposed to take the shape of an hourglass by combining two vertices, was now in a state where one side was shattered into fragments.
“Is this the reverse hourglass?”
It was originally an object used to manipulate the flow of time in this place.
An hourglass that operates by containing fragments of time; ideally, it would be an artifact that could freely manipulate the surrounding timelines, but unfortunately, it seemed to be broken now.
One could speculate that this person had probably mishandled the artifact and rapidly succumbed to an illness.
If time were to strike a human body directly, this would indeed be the result.
Perhaps the difference in the flow of time in this place compared to his own space could be a result of the malfunction of this artifact.
“Hm, can I fix it now?”
However, gathering the time that had already flowed away was impossible, even for Luke.
With the authority allowed only to a Fourth Circle mage, it was even more so.
However, perhaps if he repaired this artifact, he could still turn back some time.
After glancing around briefly, Luke picked up a broken glass shard and inserted the misaligned clasps.
He completely gave up on the part that had shattered beyond repair and began to weld the remaining shards of glass together to prevent the fragments of time from escaping.
Once the form of the reverse hourglass was roughly refined, Luke flipped the hourglass over.
Then, something astonishing began to happen.
The thickly grown vines recoiled, and the long-hanging branches from the ceiling shrank as if being pulled from above.
The once darkened wallpaper regained its original color, and the powdered bone fragments began to gather.
Time in this space started to rewind, as if the video was being played backward.
If this continued, it seemed that all of these things would soon revert to their original forms from the past.
“…….”
However, that was all.
The vines that had descended from the ceiling merely rose to a point beyond Luke’s reach and did not disappear, and the flesh of the dead body did not come back, while the leaves that had covered the windows like sturdy curtains remained unchanged, along with the lush weeds on the floor.
“Is this indeed my limit?”
After all, he hadn’t expected much.
Just as he thought to turn his head, Luke spotted a figure.
“Is that a banshee?”
It appeared to be an extremely old space.
It wouldn’t be surprising if there were a soul that couldn’t pass on, harboring some grievance.
But soon, Luke shook his head, denying that thought.
“That’s a trace of time.”
Such cases occasionally happen.
When the timeline becomes a bit chaotic due to the artifact’s influence, events from the past replay like echoes.
However, for such an event to be possible, there must be a strong soul or one with a causal relationship that leaves traces on the timeline.
In other words, it should at least be a great figure mentioned in history books to leave this kind of echo.
Whoever it was, it was undoubtedly an existence endowed with extraordinary karma.
“Perhaps that could be the trace of Baal I was looking for.”
Luke immediately began to follow that figure.
——–
Luke walked, glaring at the translucent white figure ahead of him.
-Clack, Clack.
Perhaps due to the reduced greenery covering the corridor, each time Luke stepped forward, a cheerful sound followed from his stiff shoes striking the floor.
He was dissatisfied that the robe enveloping his entire body prevented him from seeing the face of the being.
Having seen Baal Nier’s face not only in textbooks but also as a massive three-dimensional sculpture in the past Beriton, he believed he would be able to distinguish it easily if he could see it.
His intuition pointed to the figure being Baal Nier, but he couldn’t be sure.
After all, at this moment, there was nothing he could do but follow it.
By the way, where could that being be heading?
Then, Luke witnessed the figure suddenly change direction and pass through a closed door.
He immediately tried to follow it.
-Clunk, clunk.
As he grasped the doorknob, he found that the door was firmly locked.
He tried to unlock it with magic, but it still wouldn’t budge.
It seemed something was obstructing it from the inside.
“How annoying.”
Luke layered Enhance Body and Haste spells on himself.
If it was a door that magic wouldn’t work on, then he would rely on physical strength.
Originally, if the door was made of a material with considerable resistance to physical force, it would have been tougher to succeed in breaking it down, but…
As time passes, physical resistance weakens while magical resistance increases.
-BANG!
The door shattered effortlessly.
The result was relatively satisfactory, but as the door broke apart, some fragments hit his stockings, causing a small tear and scraping his skin.
Even though he had cast a shield, it seemed this door was made of Gleipnir.
Although a bit of blood flowed, it was not a serious injury.
Luke shifted his focus away from his legs and began to take in the internal scenery of the room.
“Well, it seems this place was relatively free from the erosion of Gleipnir.”
It seemed to be treated more specially than any other place.
The furniture, such as bookshelves, chairs, and desks, also appeared relatively intact.
Perhaps this place was Baal’s laboratory or office.
Luke dusted off the desk with his finger and muttered.
“Hm, it seems Baal and I have quite a common taste in furniture.”
The style of the furniture resembled that of the royal castle of Arinseia from the past.
Though it might simply have been that he had used items from his own space.
“Yet, what about the traces of time?”
He had gone through the trouble of breaking the door, only to find the traces completely vanished.
With no other option, Luke decided to explore this place and began to move.
The first thing he approached was the bookshelf.
After all, it was the item of utmost concern.
First, he dusted off the books on the shelf with his hand and read their titles, only to frown.
From mainstream magical theories like Mage, Arcana, Alchemist, Sorcerer, to minor schools like Wizardry and Summoning, even dark magic was found in the bookshelf, and he discovered one commonality among them.
“All of these are spellbooks I wrote myself, right?”
He had wondered where all of his artifacts and spellbooks had disappeared to, and it seemed they had been carefully preserved here.
Luke immediately took out a few spellbooks and began to read.
-How to Understand Alchemy Rationally. 432P.
“……Thus, the fundamental principles of an Alchemist are as follows: All matter possesses its unique value, and it is nearly impossible for the effect to exceed that value……”
-Commandments to Keep in Mind While Using Dark Magic. 23P.
“……The soul is a trace of life. It is similar to the footprints left behind when life ends. Therefore, to hold a powerful soul, one must have high karma……”
-Theories of Each School Concerning Death. 124P.
“……The point of view that death is a long journey, in that one can rise again with the same form by using a god, is overwhelming. However, can a person who is truly reborn after death be sure they are themselves? Each school’s opinion regarding this question is as follows……”
Every line matched perfectly with his memories.
These were undeniably his spellbooks.
“…….”
As Luke quickly flipped through his spellbooks, he suddenly noticed that each spellbook had a marking, which caused him to stop.
As if learning, the key contents were underlined, and there were small notes in the margins for more complex and contemplative sections.
However, that alone wasn’t enough to stop Luke’s hand.
The style of the handwriting felt incredibly familiar to him.
“Wait a minute, this is Renie’s handwriting…”
The fact that Renie’s trace remained in a place like this was unexpected, since she wasn’t interested in such magic, was she?
Just as Luke was engrossed in checking the spellbooks, the previously vanished white figure reappeared.
This time, it was without its robe, staring blankly at a part of the wall.
And when Luke saw that face, he couldn’t help but be astonished.
“Ren…ie?”
The face he had thought was Baal had now transformed into Renie’s.
Renie bore a gentle smile and slowly turned to face him.
As if meeting his eyes.
‘This can’t be, this is merely a trace of a very old time…?’
Could it be that she had foreseen that he would come here?
“When did you… start?”
Though he knew she wouldn’t hear it, Luke muttered in a dazed voice.
Luke lifted his gaze to the wall.
Now that he looked closely, it wasn’t just a wall covered in greenery, but a cloth that had wrapped something.
Luke grabbed the cloth with trembling hands and pulled it away.
-Whoosh.
What was revealed was a picture of Renie, never having grown from her girlhood, and his younger self, who could never return to that time, smiling together with her on his lap.
Luke forgot even how to support himself with his legs and collapsed to the ground.
“……Ha, haha!”
After looking around, Luke finally understood everything, cupping his face in his hands while laughing heartily.
“You were the one who took everything from me, Renie!”
Though he had drawn Renie in the past, he had never included himself, so it seemed that his later figure laughing from behind was added after the fact.
If it weren’t Renie, no one would do such a thing.
Realizing that the open window in this room was the only place still reflecting outside, Luke leaned his head out the window.
What he immediately saw was a fluttering red flag.
After confirming the design on the flag, Luke exclaimed in a voice filled with certainty.
“This place is indeed Arinseia!”
