Question
Question
A limitation had appeared in my ability.
It wasn't that the power itself had vanished. Nor did it seem like some additional penalty had been imposed. After that, I'd tested the ability several times inside my room, and it still worked properly.
But I probably couldn't go back to any point before the moment I met that unknown figure yesterday.
I hadn't attempted to return to a time before that incident since. Even if I had, on the off chance, I would have had to see that expression on the Emperor's face again. He'd jumped to his own conclusions even without my saying a single word—what would be the point of turning it back?
Above all, I had no desire to go through that pain a second time.
I lay on my bed, staring fixedly at the ceiling, lost in thought.
My bruises had been treated, and perhaps because I'd slept long and deep before waking, I wasn't tired. But the inside of my head was tremendously tangled.
I was thinking about that nameless entity I'd encountered in the dungeon.
"... Was it me?"
I muttered the words to myself, but they didn't feel real.
If I were the protagonist of a possession-story novel, the idea that it was my future self was a definite cliché.
That being had vanished with the Divine Treasure. Was the Emperor going to cause some sort of incident using the Divine Treasure in that future? And had I come back to stop it—
But even thinking along those lines, there were strange points.
I conceded, for argument's sake, that it was me.
Whoever it was clearly used a time-related ability, and they were using it even in that moment. Watching their movements gave me the sensation that the order of events was tangling, with future, present, and past all mixing together.
The voice had been the same. A voice thick with noise, grating to hear. They wouldn't have produced a sound like that on purpose. And it wasn't the kind of voice that came from a simple injury, either.
When I'd used my power to render the whole situation null, the other party had likely used theirs at the same moment. They'd broken through space, seized me tight, and even though I managed to turn back time, I'd been forced into an unstable return. That was probably why my body, which normally should have "returned together with me", had remained in its injured state.
And if I assumed our two abilities had collided, and that was why that existence had been left stranded in an impossible future, and why the resulting error prevented me from going back before that point...
Even considering all that, it was still strange.
She'd had my gun, but she'd aimed it at Alice. Not at the Emperor.
I could consider the possibility that she'd been aiming at me and Alice just happened to be in front of me, but... well, even if my physical abilities weren't anything spectacular, I'd fired a gun until I was sick of it. At that sort of close range, I wouldn't have aimed wrong and hit someone else. Even less so if that was "my future self."
She had been trying to tell me something.
Sylvia, absolutely—
I hadn't heard the end of it properly.
And on top of that, that intense feeling of revulsion that had flooded my head the moment I aimed at her...
...
Ah, I really don't know.
I clawed roughly at my hair and got up from my seat.
Dwelling on it endlessly wasn't going to make the situation any clearer. For now—
The moment I managed to get out of bed, slip on my slippers, and stand, I heard someone knocking carefully at the door.
"Yes, please come in."
I was relieved that my voice didn't crack.
The door opened softly, and the person who stepped inside was Claire.
"Sis."
Usually, when Claire called me like that, her voice was bright with excitement, pitched high.
At that moment, her eyes were full of worry for me. Her voice as she called me tentatively was thin.
"Are you feeling a little better?"
Again, she didn't ask anything.
"I'm fine."
I'd received magical healing, so there was no place left that could hurt. I hadn't been seriously injured to begin with, anyway.
A few drops of blood had gotten on my clothes, but that was all. It wasn't my blood. It was blood from the arm that had been holding me, scraped raw as it passed through space.
Of course, Claire's worry probably wasn't limited to reasons like that.
"Um..."
Claire's eyes darted around before landing on me. The atmosphere felt like a younger sister visiting her big sister when the older one was in a towering rage.
"Right now, everyone else is gathered in the dining hall. So I thought maybe we could all have a meal together soon."
"Understood—"
But as I started to answer, I remembered that I hadn't even washed yet. It seemed that was part of the reason Claire had asked so carefully.
"I'll wash up quickly and come down right away."
When I said that, Claire nodded.
"Okay. I'll be waiting."
*
"I'll be waiting" did not mean she'd wait in the dining hall. Claire sat down demurely in one of the chairs in my room and waited.
In a world without anything like a smartphone, just sitting there waiting like that must have been incredibly boring.
I pressed a towel hard against my wet hair, squeezing out as much moisture as possible.
I tried to dry it with a small device like a spring-wound fan, but I could still feel damp humidity somewhere in my hair.
"Uh, you're going down like that?"
When I finally gave up on drying my hair and started putting on my school uniform, Claire asked in visible surprise.
Because the me of ordinary days would never have shown such a disheveled appearance.
What would the me of ordinary days have done?
I... probably would have turned back time, back to before Claire arrived.
And then I would've washed up quickly and been the one waiting for Claire. My hair fully dried, naturally.
I'd been doing nothing but thinking all morning anyway, and turning back time wouldn't erase my memories.
"..."
A thought flashed through my mind, and I wondered for a second if I should do it, then—
"Do I look strange?"
I asked Claire. Claire hastily shook her head side to side. The gesture was so innocent, like a little child asked by their mother, 'Do you not like Mommy?', that I almost laughed.
The atmosphere was strangely peaceful, as if yesterday's bizarre incident had never happened.
I wouldn't have minded if she asked a single question about it.
Even if I couldn't give her an answer.
"Then I'll go down as I am."
"Okay."
At my answer, Claire nodded quickly this time.
*
"Did something happen last night?"
Those were Charlotte's first words the moment she saw my face.
In truth, aside from coming down without having properly finished getting ready, the very fact that I had dragged things out that long and come down late would itself be a novelty to Charlotte.
My established character up to that point, after all, was someone perfectly thorough in all matters, who calculated and resolved upcoming events with a precision almost approaching prophecy.
If someone like that overslept, and when everyone else was already downstairs for breakfast only then washed up, and came down with hair still damp...
... Setting my "character" aside, was this straying even beyond the standards of nobility or royalty?
But before all that, a delicious scent brushed past my nose.
Freshly baked bread. Some time had passed by the time I came down, but a silver cover had been placed over my portion of the meal. Probably to preserve at least a little of its warmth.
Without hurrying too much, I went to that empty seat and sat down.
Alice watched me with a slightly worried expression. Had she read something on my face that time, too?
The fact that it was Claire who had come up to get me, not Alice, meant that it was Alice who'd had to make the excuses at that table about yesterday's events. That made sense, since it was Alice who had asked Charlotte to go to a different dungeon in the first place.
"Alice?"
Perhaps because she hadn't heard my answer, Charlotte looked back at Alice and asked. Fortunately, she didn't seem angry at me. More than that, she apparently understood that I was that hungry.
"Yesterday was..."
I could practically hear the gears turning in Alice's head from here.
"...I'm sorry. It really is just a chain of things that are difficult to talk about."
"I see."
But Charlotte didn't press Alice for details either. In truth, Charlotte's gaze wasn't directed at Alice, but at me.
Feeling Charlotte's eyes on me as I methodically chewed a plain breakfast roll with nothing spread on it, watching me as if I were some fascinating creature, I turned my own eyes toward her as well.
"Were you that hungry, I take it?"
"..."
I looked at the bread in my hand. I hadn't torn it into bite-sized little pieces; I was holding it whole.
Did I look uncultured?
Granted, Charlotte's expression didn't look like she was trying to give me a hint.
At least, fortunately, she wasn't wearing the horrified expression she'd had when I ate the parfait.
"Yes, a great deal happened yesterday."
At my words, Alice's shoulders flinched.
Charlotte looked back and forth between Alice and me. A gleam of curiosity had kindled in those deep eyes, but perhaps because Charlotte was someone who saw and heard a great deal of information that couldn't be spoken aloud...
She didn't press either of us further.
"And the others?"
"Leo was dragged off by Jake. They've probably gone to the casino or something."
Charlotte answered my question with a voice tinged with a sigh.
"Mia still hasn't gotten up, and Lena went straight up to her room after finishing her meal to maintain her weapons."
Alice supplemented the rest.
"Sis, do you want more to eat?"
Seeing my plate emptying rapidly, Claire asked.
"..."
Normally, I would have refused but...
Honestly, at that moment, I was just too hungry.