The Self That Blends with the Shadow (2)

“Hyat?!”

My eyes flew open. It was deep in the night, long after the sun had set, beneath a sky scattered with stars. The only thing pushing back the darkness was the warm orange flicker of the campfire I had lit earlier.

The flames were still dancing, which meant I hadn’t been swallowed by the shadow or possessed for hours on end. I hadn’t fed the fire enough wood for that.

I wasn’t… swallowed.

At the very last moment, I had reversed time. To turn back time, I needed to touch something—at the very least, the tip of a finger or the point of a blade. So what had I touched? What exactly had I reversed?

I lifted my head and looked toward the cabin. Where the little hut had stood, a dense forest now grew, as if the ground had never once known human touch.

That was all. Only untouched, lush nature remained. The shadow that had tried to erase me—or perhaps assimilate me—its boundless malice… I could no longer feel any trace of it.

Had it vanished?

I always believed that manipulating time itself wounded the world. That was why I hesitated, afraid it would only widen the rift…

Somehow, it had worked. You cannot put out fire with fire, but you can stop it from spreading by burning the other side. The cabin, tainted by the gap, had simply ceased to exist, returning the world to a time before it had ever been built.

All that remained was a tiny tear in time, so faint I could barely sense it.

…Could I always sense something like that?

Now that I thought about it, the feeling I’d had just before was strange. The unshakable certainty that I could close these cracks in the shadow as easily as breathing. The baseless confidence that such gaps were mere scraps I could manipulate at will, like extensions of my own body. That strange euphoria…

I closed my eyes and pressed a hand to my throbbing temple, trying to summon the horrible whisper that had fallen silent. I wanted an answer.

Was it you who protected me? Did you keep me alive because I can still be a vessel? Answer me…

No reply came.

Answer me!

Only a silence as deep as vacuum. Deciding it was pointless, I opened my eyes again.

I had thought I’d been abandoned. I had felt uneasy, yet relieved. I never asked for this kind of protection.

Being caught in the wound of time and vanishing from the world without a trace—that would have been the ideal ending for me. I didn’t want any help that prevented it.

But… had it truly helped me? Or was I simply imagining things? The entity I remembered wasn’t the sort to lend power so suddenly and then disappear. It was more arrogant, more talkative, more obsessively clinging…

No. What did I even know about it to be thinking such things?

I had to stop. The more I pondered that evil god from beyond the world, the closer I came to the truth, the more dangerous it became.

Fortunately, a distraction appeared almost immediately.

“Ugh… uuu…”

A pained groan made me turn. Everyone who had been sitting by the fire was now collapsed on the ground. I glanced once more at the spot where the cabin had been, then hurried over to them.

“Are you all right? Why are you all lying here?”

“G-ga… gagagak… ga… gat…”

“Ugh… hugrrrk… k-keut…? Uk…”

They writhed on the dirt, foaming at the mouth and making inhuman noises. I froze. Not a single one had retained their sanity. All six of them—including Kurt—had lost their minds.

What is this? Did I fail? Did the shadow avoid me and affect them instead? No… the shadow is definitely gone. The rift is closed. I can’t explain how I know, but I understand it instinctively. Then what…?

I knelt beside the nearest man, the one rolling his eyes back and convulsing, and placed my palm on his forehead. I would read his past and reverse him to a moment when he was still sane.

What in the world happened…?

“What… what is this…?”

I quickly touched another person. In their memory the world shattered like thin glass and plunged into darkness. The man beside him screamed inside a reality that had been crumpled like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a paper bag, driven completely mad.

This is… familiar. Familiar, but… absurdly powerful.

It was the same sensation the people near me always felt when I reversed time—the feeling that the laws of the world had been violently twisted. The hero’s companions had described it as mild discomfort or vague unease, but…

If that distortion of causality was amplified to an extreme degree, strong enough to shatter a person’s mind and manifest as vivid hallucinations that destroyed their ability to perceive reality, this was the result.

I had only turned back time by a few years. People had never lost their minds so completely before. Not even when I had rewound tens of millions of years.

Just what… happened back there?

My body trembled with fear. There had been something more than simply reversing time and driving out an intruder from another world. Something I should never know. Something that absolutely must not be known…

No. Right now, I had to restore the fallen first.

The minds that had shattered after witnessing the visible cracks in causality—I would mend them.

The incident was resolved. At least, that was how it seemed to the witch-hunters sent from the village. For me, only an uneasy riddle remained.

In the end, we never found any trace of the man named Han who had been swallowed by the shadow. The other missing villagers and Kurt’s older brother were gone as well. I had stopped the phenomenon that devoured people, but I could not bring back those who had already disappeared. Not even with the power to reverse time.

We spent the night in that ominous clearing, taking turns standing watch and catching what little sleep we could. The next morning we all returned to the village together. I went with them because they needed someone to explain what had happened.

I stubbornly refused to enter the village myself. The baron might recognize me. Instead, I asked them to tear a page from my spellbook and deliver a letter to him in my place.

Five years had passed since I vanished from the empire. I hoped I had been forgotten, but I was still a wanted fugitive. Besides, the villagers still believed a witch was behind the disappearances. Showing myself dressed as a mage would be far too dangerous. Even without the robe, it would be the same.

A young girl in a traveling dress wandering alone through the forest—anyone would call that a witch on sight.

In the end, the others clung to me so desperately that I agreed to accompany them until we left the woods.

When we emerged from the trees with the six grieving men who had lost a fellow farmer, several women and girls from the village came out to greet them. Among them, I saw Kurt sobbing as he embraced one of the girls.

She was dressed like an ordinary country farm girl, but her face was strangely familiar. I was certain I had never passed through this village, never seen that child before. It made no sense.

Ah…

In that instant, understanding struck me.

It was the vision that had flashed before my eyes at the moment of climax—when I had revived Kurt and straddled him, feeling the thick fullness of his cock stretching my insides while my broken face begged for release.

The woman who had looked more than ten years older than the girl before me, greeting an aged Kurt with a plain but peaceful expression. That same face now overlapped with the girl’s. And the vulgar, unsightly face she made later—strangled by Kurt’s hands, climaxing over and over like a bitch in heat after putting their child to sleep.

It hadn’t been a mere hallucination born from my brain burning out in pleasure. I knew Kurt’s face, so imagining his older self was possible. But there was no way I could have imagined the face of the girl who would become his wife.

I handed the letter to one of the village men and stared blankly at the happy pair.

Then…

Something that had not yet arrived, but would inevitably come—

In other words, the future.

Had I seen it?

My fingertips trembled. A fear far greater than what I had felt when Professor Apryon first told me about the impossible power to reverse time, or when I accomplished the unthinkable by bringing the dead Azalea back to life, now coursed through my entire body.

But the future doesn’t exist yet. It hasn’t been written. It can be changed by the slightest movement of a single finger…

It has to be that way. I cannot simply wait for a predetermined future, dragged along like a slave caught in the chains of time.

Therefore, if I killed that girl right now, I could destroy the happy future in which Kurt lived with her.

I wanted to prove it. I could prove it. By reversing her time just a little, slitting her throat, then violating Kurt again—that it had all been nothing more than my own delusion.

“Ugh…! What am I thinking…?”

I suddenly realized ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what kind of horrific thoughts had been blooming inside me. Until that moment, I hadn’t even recognized them as evil.

Dizziness swept over me from the twisted logic. I staggered where I stood. Fortunately, the villagers were too busy chattering among themselves to notice.

I had to leave. Yes… I needed to get away. While no one was looking at me. Right now. Quickly.

I’m just… tired. That’s all. After cleaning up the mess that damn witch Viran abandoned and left for me… and suddenly becoming aware of that strange power… I’m simply exhausted. That’s it.

I pulled the precious spellbook from inside my robe and opened the page where I had already calculated Enholt’s Veil. Then I murmured the formula in a voice so soft no one in the village could hear.

So I could slip away from this place unseen. So I could be alone and rest my mind, even if only a little.

Yes.

There was no way I could ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠have had such wicked thoughts. Trying not to acknowledge the cold sweat running down my back, I left the village behind—silently wishing Kurt and the others the peaceful future I had glimpsed.

Because Kaira… is kind.