The Gap in Time

“…Is that the end?”

The letter had changed without warning, and the moment a failure message flickered before my eyes, the chat erupted into chaos.

And I was every bit as shaken.

“Failed?”

My soul slipped free of young Lily's body and drifted back into the dark space.

Setting aside the fact that the sorcerer had intervened through the letter — why had it failed?

Young Lily was fully aware of the calamity's existence. She had even succeeded in subduing it.

On top of that, the sorcerer, Gio, the jewels — even the 'clock,' the source of the sorcerer's greatest power — I understood them all thoroughly through her.

There was no reason for failure now, just because the sorcerer's identity had come to light at this late stage.

“……”

No — the one time I had actually failed was my very first run through this dungeon.

Back then, I had spent the first day doing nothing because I understood nothing, and the dungeon spat me back to the start, declaring it a failure.

Only after gleaning a hint had I been able to move on to the next day.

In other words, failing the instant I read this letter meant…

“…Hard to say.”

It was true that my slots had increased by one when I became the Dream Fairy. But when I searched the entire village through my divinity, only those two letters had turned up — and even if something else lingered out there, there seemed no reason for it to push things all the way to failure.

As I'd said before, young Lily now knew most of the truth.

Most of it.

“…Is the scenario logic lacking, then?”

Every letter up until now had been addressed to some random villager meant to take Gio's place — but the final letter was different.

It was written by the sorcerer, for Gio, and Gio alone.

Perhaps the dungeon judged that simply finding this letter defied the scenario.

No — the moment it failed was the instant the sorcerer intervened, not when I found the letter. Finding it wasn't the mistake.

It's opening a letter that causes the problem.

“Let me organize this into three points.”

One: reading the final letter triggers the sorcerer's intervention, and with it, failure.

Two: finding the letter itself is not a failure condition — nothing goes wrong so long as it remains unopened.

Three: its contents lie beyond even the reach of the 'Dream Fairy.'

“Whether that's because it falls outside what a 'dream' is allowed to contain, or because the sorcerer is something on par with the weakened Kraken, I can't say — but I'll know once I check.”

I looked up at the five portals floating in the darkness.

Five slots, each anchored to its own point in time.

After a brief moment of thought, I chose slot five.

Going back to before the Kraken's defeat was out of the question — too far to claw back.

That left three, four, or five, and with five, nothing would go wrong as long as I didn't open the final letter.

The light flickered, and the darkness that had swallowed my vision gave way to boundless brightness.

Once again, I stood holding two letters.

The one different in texture from the rest — I folded it neatly and tucked it into my pocket.

I ached to tear it open, but opening a letter might be the very trigger that lets the sorcerer intervene.

Granted, this side of things allowed endless retries, so experimenting wouldn't have cost me anything — but there was something I needed to confirm first.

I made straight for the harbor.

The villagers were still hard at work rebuilding their town. Slipping past their eyes, I reached the spot where the wrecked ship had once vanished.

The fruit vendor had said, unmistakably, that someone had been living aboard that broken vessel.

Young Lily had carried the guilt of failing to save that person — but in truth, the ship had never existed at all.

A ship that fled into time to hide itself. That person had been living on it for about five days, she said.

I had skipped most of my encounters with the villagers, but every conversation tied to the fruit vendor I had heard through to the end.

She had grieved that the person couldn't be saved, yet still patted young Lily's head gently, telling her it was all right.

They hadn't looked like a villager — though a clever disguise, or some manner of magic, could have reshaped their image easily enough.

“Force won't open it. And there's no guarantee that forcing it open won't throw a failure at me either.”

This was not a dungeon broken by brute strength.

True, I had invented the identity of the Dream Fairy and subdued the Kraken through force — but precisely because I was the Dream Fairy, certain constraints applied to me.

The constraint of being weak in reality.

Borrowing young Lily's body patched over that to some degree, but drawing on the full breadth of my power was apparently not permitted.

I recalled the contents of the final letter.

Gio, behold. Fully align the time difference of the clock, otherw—wait. You'renotGio?Whoareyou?

The ending was unmistakably the sorcerer's intervention — but the beginning was addressed to Gio.

“Fully align the time difference of the clock” — and there were, as a rule, two things that could follow.

Either: since the difference had not been fully aligned, he must set it right.

Or —

Click—!

—a warning that failing to align it would bring about something terrible.

15:38.

The current time was 3:38 p.m. The two clocks had matched one another — when I first drew out the letters, I had synchronized both the wristwatch and the alarm clock to a single time.

Now I wound the large alarm clock — the one that had produced the final letter — backward once more.

Click—!

Time rolled back to 3:35, three minutes before I had arrived in this era.

The second hand settled onto 3:35.

“……”

The still sea, the clock, and the letter. For a moment, all I could do was stand there, deflated.

Then —

Clack.

15:36.

Fwirl~!

Far beyond a mere three minutes, an entire day's worth of time spun backward in an instant; the second hand whirled round and round at a frenzied pace before coming to rest once more on 3:35.

Crack!

The great wooden alarm clock split clean in half, an alien energy rippling outward — and then, slowly, the shape of a ship began to surface upon the placid sea.

Wrecked as it was, it still held the unmistakable silhouette of a vessel.

Only now could I feel it, certain and clear.

Something is inside it.

“This is anything but normal. I can't believe they hid it like this…”

Even in a borrowed body — even not in my fourth form — I had been deceived by this clock's authority.

So thoroughly that nothing showed until I unraveled its trap.

I scanned my surroundings.

Despite a sizable ship having appeared out of nowhere, not one villager seemed to notice it as they carried on with their work.

Creak!

Stomping up the half-rotted wooden gangplank, I stepped inside the ship.

The sorcerer was, at minimum, an angel or demon — likely higher.

Skilled in their own right, wielding the power of 'Heaven,' and commanding time itself on top of that.

And yet, why was it…

Somehow, they don't feel like an angel or a demon at all.

The abilities they wielded were, without question, the powers of the celestial or demonic races. Heaven was, emblematically, the domain of angels and demons — and time, especially, had been one of the two races' most prized powers.

But having met countless angels and demons in my days, I knew better.

Too different.

The flow and structure of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the power sustaining this space was utterly foreign to me.

Angels and demons brimmed with self-regard to a fault; they would sooner die than use another race's sorcery. So this had to be someone of an entirely different kind.

Another ancient monster? Or a being of Heaven carrying knowledge on the level of a Grand Magus…

“……”

I couldn't place them.

The list of beings who fit the criteria wasn't long — but I couldn't rule anyone out, either. I had personally imprisoned several ancient monsters in the past, and as with the giants of Erteurn I'd glimpsed recently, there was no ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠telling how many powerful unknown creatures had come into being since.

Even the Yellow-Blue Clan, who administered the System itself, fell into that category.

Though they seem tied to the celestials somehow.

Not long into my search of the ship, I found it — another letter, resting on a table.

Half-open, as if someone had already unfolded and read it.

I lifted the letter as it was.

“So this is the real one.”

The letter in my pocket was a trigger — read by anyone other than Gio, it summoned its author's intervention.

In other words, a letter laced with a trap.

And this one was…

“…Is that the end?”

Not even a proper greeting — was there really nothing else?

For someone who had laid traps upon traps, it was a remarkably hollow letter.

Combing through the ship a little further, I climbed back up onto the deck.

There was no sign of Gio. There wasn't even a single mouse.

After making several circuits of the ship, I pulled out the trap-laced ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠letter — the original.

If I had found the real letter now, then…

Flutter.

Slosh~

The wrecked ship had begun to move.