Time (2)
Time (2)
Under normal circumstances, there was no way to escape.
After all, Alice and Leo had infiltrated the place by exploiting a moment of internal and external chaos in the imperial palace. In the end, they were still caught and couldn't escape properly.
But I was different.
Since I could rewind time, I could just go back to before I even entered this place.
Because of that, I couldn't transcribe the text anywhere else, but the one thing I had in the greatest abundance right now was time anyway.
The reading room was quiet.
Was it because this place was considered 'nonexistent'? Surely the fact that someone had snuck in was already known, and alarms were probably blaring throughout the imperial palace, but no one seemed to realize I had made it all the way here.
As soon as I crawled out of the ventilation shaft, I went straight to the door and latched it from the inside.
It was probably designed to buy time when the imperial palace faced a crisis, but it wasn't like I had any intention of leaving anyway.
And then I turned around.
Dust was piled thickly everywhere. Standing here alone felt like it might cause lung damage.
The only light, dim and faint, fell upon the center of the circular room.
There, illuminated by the glow of a Mana Stone, was something that looked like a box densely packed with nails.
However, the heads of the nails were not uneven. They seemed designed with flat tips to form a plate-like surface. In fact, anyone who had never seen this thing in operation would probably think it was just a very peculiar structure.
I walked straight up to it and pressed that 'screen' with my finger, at random.
Some of the nails were pushed inward in the shape of my finger. When I lifted my hand, the screen flattened out again completely, and then a series of nail heads rose up from the empty spaces in unison.
The surface became bumpy. But the shapes were by no means irregular.
[Please enter the title of the book you wish to retrieve.]
Those bumps, raised to exactly the height of a single nail head, were letters. The brass nails had risen in the forms of letters, as if rendering a display screen.
Click.
I opened the drawer beneath the screen.
Inside was something like a typewriter. But there was no part for inserting paper. The thin metal plates connected to each letter of the alphabet were all linked to the underside of the screen.
I pulled the drawer all the way out until it produced a small, catching click, and then slowly began to type.
Clack, clack. Each press of a key echoed loudly through the dim reading room.
[04-08]
That was the registration number of the Book of Prophecy.
No one could normally know it. The book wasn't even listed in the thick catalog of collections hanging next to the screen.
Not that it was password-protected or anything. After all, very few people were permitted to enter this place in the first place.
Creaking sounds emanated from the rusted machinery as it moved. A brass pillar behind the screen opened, and a slender metal arm extended out.
It moved with a rumbling sound, like something sliding precisely along a track.
The cylindrical pillar rotated simultaneously as the arm emerged.
The arm, reaching high up, pulled out a book lodged near the ceiling.
The machine returned, and the arm descended.
It presented the book to me in a display-like fashion, angling the cover so it was clearly visible.
[04-08]
That number was the entirety of what was written on the cover.
I pulled the book toward me. The machine arm did not let go. To be more precise, the tip of the arm was securely connected to a metal component firmly embedded in the book's spine.
But it did not prevent me from opening the book.
On the contrary, when I opened it, a soft Mana Stone was brought close to the top of the book to provide light.
"......."
I immediately flipped through the pages.
[I wrote down what I saw of the future not so that you may prepare for it, but so that you may be prepared.]
It meant that since the future was already set, I shouldn't try to avoid it but should instead ready my heart for it.
"Bullshit."
I muttered under my breath.
Thud.
A sound came from the door. It seemed they had finally noticed I'd made it in here.
That was quite fast.
Judging by the time, I had maybe five minutes to really read the book.
It was an impossibly short amount of time if I had to read every Book of Prophecy here from start to finish.
But, well. The one thing I had plenty of was time.
I let go of the book in my hands and murmured.
"Again."
*
"Your Highness."
"Sir Ford."
It was a peaceful day like any other.
I was not crawling through a ventilation shaft, nor was I fighting a bizarre-looking enemy. Naturally, I was not in a musty, dust-choked place, asking a grotesque machine librarian for a book.
At least, that was how it would have felt to everyone else.
While walking through an imperial palace corridor, I came across someone.
A knight with a kind face and a fashionable Kaiser mustache bowed his head toward me.
Wearing heavy plate armor that seemed too cumbersome for the modern era, the knight had both a sword and a gun holstered at his waist.
It was a revolver, far larger and longer than the one I used.
I found myself wondering if it could even pierce the armor the man himself was wearing.
"I heard of the martial feats Your Highness achieved recently."
"Did you?"
I nodded at the kind gentleman's words. Well, it wasn't like it was a secret.
The events at Northwood were kept secret from others, but the imperial family was publicly promoting what happened on the Winterfield battlefield. It would help to raise the morale of the frontline soldiers and promote the imperial family itself.
Under normal circumstances, it would be a rumor so wild that no one would believe it, but every one of those soldiers on the battlefield received a long leave and a generous bonus as a reward. They would all be returning to their hometowns to spend their time, and naturally, they would be enthusiastically sharing the stories about me.
With so many eyewitnesses, and with the guarantee of the Winterfield name, no one doubted the tale.
"Each and every one of us knights should have accompanied Your Highness to protect you personally. I apologize that we were unable to do so."
The knight's first words were not praise for my feats, but an apology.
"......."
This gentleman had no idea that earlier this morning, I had agonized over whether I would have to shoot all the knights in this imperial palace or try to sneak past without anyone noticing. Since I had rewound time, he never would have known.
"There was no way for the imperial knights to be present there. And it is unreasonable for a knight order to accompany a single soldier on the battlefield."
"......."
For just a split second, an expression crossed his face that said he had a great deal he wanted to say, but he said nothing. It must have been the knightly etiquette forbidding him from acting rashly before the one he served.
"...... However."
But still, leaving him in this state felt a bit wrong.
No matter what, he was one of the people whose faces I had seen inside the imperial palace since I was very young.
Being merely stationed nearby was not enough to converse with an imperial princess. There had to be a reason for it. Status, official position, age, and a myriad of other things to consider.
In that sense, this knight, Sir Ford, held a position that was certainly sufficient to permit it.
"I am...... grateful for your concern."
At my words, Sir Ford looked up.
And for just a moment, he looked at me as if he were seeing something strange.
Right, well.
It was the kind of thing I wouldn't normally have said.
A faint smile then spread across Sir Ford's face once more.
"Not at all. We are simply doing what we must."
Hadn't I heard he recently had a child?
I quietly looked up at the good-naturedly smiling Sir Ford and thought to myself.
If his firstborn had lived, the child would be around my age. Had I been an 'ordinary imperial princess,' marriage talks with his child might have been possible. Even if not a formal marriage discussion, the bloodline was at least noble enough to be placed on a list of candidates.
But, not long after I entered the imperial palace, he lost his child. It seemed it was an accident. I never heard the exact story, but for a while after that, his face was nowhere to be seen. He was probably holding the funeral and trying to collect himself.
I had also overheard someone whisper that it was hard to believe such a sincere and good person could suffer such a thing.
I considered whether I should say a few more words to him, but in the end, I just gave him one more nod and went on my way.
A short while later, I began to hear his footsteps behind me.
If that man died, he would leave behind only his wife and child in his territory. Many people would be plunged into grief.
Couldn't I just rewind time and make it so none of it ever happened, before it came to that?
...... That was definitely the way I used to think, just half a year ago.
The longer I stayed here, the harder it became to shoot someone I had come to know, even knowing I could nullify it.......
Maybe it was because I had realized once again that this ability to rewind time might disappear.
And there had also been an incident that made one thought feel too vivid and clear: that the results of things I had done without much thought could alter the lives of countless people.
"......."
Suddenly, I remembered Mia Crowfield, who had still looked at me with confused eyes even on the day we finished the first semester.