Baby Lily
"Lily. Didn't you say you were heading home?"
"...Ah. I left something behind, that's all."
"Really? What is it you're looking for?"
"......"
How on earth had he seen through my perception suppression? Sure, I was running the spell at a deliberately modest level, but its structure was intricate enough that no ordinary high-rank mage could have picked it apart. Even the Academy's players would have struggled to unravel it. And strangest of all, I couldn't sense a single scrap of mana from the girl's uncle.
If anything, the faint feeling was coming from that pouch...
"Oh." I glanced down at my wrist.
16:02.
The violet wristwatch. And the leather pouch dangling from the uncle's hand.
"What's wrong? Is something the matter—"
"That."
"Hm?"
"I came here for that."
There was something inside the pouch.
The wristwatch I carried was made of a material that simply couldn't be found anywhere in this world. Child Lily had said her father gave it to her as a gift, but now that I'd taken over her body, I was starting to grasp what it really was.
A smooth bracelet.
The anchor of the seal that held shut the Kraken's 'eyes'—a bracelet steeped in the power of the heavens. With it in hand, one could stand against the Territorialization the Kraken wielded. Most likely, my ownership of that smooth bracelet was what had transformed the watch into this strange material in the first place. Which begged the question: why on earth did that man, the uncle, have one as well?
The uncle tilted his head with a quiet hm? and lifted the leather pouch slightly.
"You mean this?"
"Yes! That one!"
"Gio asked me to hold onto this... You're not getting any strange ideas, are you?"
"Mr. Gio? Yes, that's right! Mr. Gio asked me to bring it to him. He said he'd pay me for the errand if I deliver it."
"Is that so?"
The uncle deliberated for a moment before handing over the hefty leather pouch. It was heavier than I'd expected, but with my body's physical abilities enhanced, carrying it posed no real trouble.
"Can you manage?"
"Yes!"
"That Gio... Asking me to keep hold of one thing, then sending a child to fetch it because he can't be bothered. I'll be having words with him later, I tell you."
"Aww~ but he promised to pay me good for it!"
"Goodness... You do know where his house is, don't you? Go all the way up there, and it's at the very end."
"Yes!"
Clutching the pouch in both arms, I bowed my head in a polite farewell. The uncle chuckled as he watched me go—and then, the instant I slipped out of his sight, he froze for a moment. The reaction of a man who had no idea why he was standing there in the first place.
"Hm? Why was I..."
"Hey! Give me a hand over here!"
"Just a second! I'm coming!"
……
And once the uncle had fully moved on, I—who had been hiding behind the wall—turned away without a shred of attachment.
"It worked."
With the pouch gone, my perception suppression kicked back in. Which told me one thing: this object carried the power to block ordinary magic and most special abilities. The proof was the uncle himself—he'd handed it over, and the moment I vanished from his field of vision, he forgot me as naturally as drawing breath. Unless someone spoke to him directly, he would likely never recall me again.
"Seems child Lily has pulled this trick once or twice before. Nobody hands something over this easily otherwise."
I had played the child, sure—but I never imagined it would go this smoothly. At the very least, I'd planned to use magic, or to waylay him and snatch it after he walked away. Then again, the village was tiny; everyone knew everyone, family in all but name, fences and doorsteps between them.
"...Let's have a proper look, shall we?"
Doing my best to ignore the chat window, I headed for a spot where no one would see me and carefully opened the pouch. Inside lay six violet, sphere-shaped crystals—each large enough to fill my small hands entirely. Crystals that size would fetch a handsome price, far beyond what the residents of a little port village could ever afford. And even if they somehow could, no one would leave treasures like these sitting so carelessly among their luggage.
"Something's going on here, isn't it?"
I channeled mana into one of the crystals. One thing was certain: it carried the very same power as the smooth bracelet—my wristwatch. Something was clearly meant to be done with these. First, I would need to meet this Gio. There had to be a reason he'd acquired them, and it was surely tied to surviving past day one.
"As for how I knew he's a mister? Well, there was only one category he could possibly fit into."
The village was so small that children my age were practically nonexistent, and the uncle had referred to Gio as 'that rascal.' Naturally, no one calls a person older than themselves a rascal—so Gio had to be older than twelve-year-old Lily. And if he was a man younger than the uncle, there was only one thing left to call him: a mister.
I checked my watch. 16:14. Thirty-six minutes until I lost ownership of this body. I had to act, and act fast. Judging by how today's time and circumstances had played out, winning back that ownership would be anything but easy.
Tap! With a light push off the ground, I made for the house at the far end—the one the uncle had pointed out. A wooden dwelling, no different from any other in the village.
"...Nothing here either?"
The village was so close-knit, so family-like, that Gio's door stood wide open. No trace of anyone inside. I stepped in carefully, and a layout almost identical to child Lily's home greeted me—a cozy living room and kitchen, and two bedrooms. The difference was the absence of a second floor; judging by the ceiling height, it had been designed and built as a single-story home from the very start.
"Yeah. Nothing special about it, far as I can tell..."
Nothing registered through my senses or my mana. Not a single suspicious structure caught my eye either. So—go find Gio? But I had no idea where he was, and even if I used my abilities to search, there was no guarantee I'd track him down easily. He was, at a glance, a key figure of this dungeon, and finding someone like that would demand power on an entirely different level. Which meant power far beyond child Lily's 'imagination.' If a girl who had to believe everything was a dream started asking too many questions, things would get complicated.
"Hm..."
More than anything, a dungeon like this was never meant to be broken by force. It was designed to guide a 'young child' toward solving the events herself, and with my power effectively sealed away, there had to be puzzle-like special conditions hidden within.
Conditions: a child's body and knowledge. Plus a little bit of power.
On day two would come the first regression. The seal steeped in the power of the heavens, and the six crystals. The time the tip window kept hammering on about...
Tick.
"The clock."
I turned my head. An ordinary wall clock hung on the wall, ticking away. I dragged a chair over and lifted it down. A faded, reddish-brown thing about the size of my head, built along classic clock lines. I examined the front and back, pried off the wooden backing, pulled out the ring—even after all that, I found nothing unusual. The time was...
4:17.
The second hand on my wristwatch pointed to 4:17 as well.
"Nope."
It was true that child Lily's wristwatch read 4:17. But from the perspective of 'me'—the player—it was different.
"It's 4:20."
Day 1. 16:20. The time displayed by the system pointed, unmistakably, to twenty past the hour. Three minutes ahead of the clock's second hand. Only then did the chat window flood with question marks. It hadn't been mismatched from the beginning. A three-minute void had simply opened up the moment we entered this place.
As if time had refused to flow at all.
"The answer must be in this clock."
The wristwatch had worked perfectly right up until we arrived, so the fault almost certainly lay with this wall clock. I wound its mechanism just slightly and set it to twenty past. Click! The spring gave way, and a small slip of paper—folded into quarters—popped free. Paper that hadn't existed a moment ago. It read as follows:
Long, long ago, I heard a terrible future foretold by a sorcerer of the East.
'The calamity of seawater shall visit your homeland. The calamity is death itself; even in death, you shall drift the sea, unsaved.'
'But a path to survival exists. Strive with all your diligence, and there is a way to slip past the calamity's eyes. Hear me well.'
At first, I did not believe. But when the sorcerer showed me the future—along with the special power of the 'clock'—I had no choice but to believe.
The sorcerer said to draw the sigil at 'the highest place,' the spot furthest removed from the calamity's power, and to set the gems he would grant me upon it. Gathering the gems would take some time, he said; in the meantime, I was to master the sigil.
From that day on, I labored long and hard to learn it. And then, a problem arose.
'The calamity's aura has changed. The sigil alone can no longer hide you from its gaze.'
'Is there no other way...? There is. But it would be a cruel burden for you.'
...I deliberated. The lives of everyone—or my survival alone.
If anyone is watching this, then in my place, ple—
"...It's torn?"
The note had been ripped apart.
[You have discovered Gio's note!]
[Lily (Day 1) has begun to perceive the existence of the Calamity.]
[Record — 'Day 1, 4:20 PM' has been saved.]
[Remaining Slots: 1/6]
[Slot 1 may be selected upon restart.]