CH.734 The Future is in the Past
Once all seven of us were in the Memory Palace, I brought up my memories of just before I made the jump back. From there, we let the memories play out.
After I finished chanting the Time Magic spell, I felt the world shift around me. It didn’t feel bad since I blocked those feelings with Phantom Magic.
The shift in time took a long time. Well, it felt like a long time. Time doesn’t really have a solid meaning when you travel through it.
Once the shifting time came to an end, I took a look around myself.
I was in the middle of nowhere. Just a small clearing in a forest. That was strange as I was supposed to be on the outskirts of the city that would eventually become the Ruiso capital. It was one of the landmarks I could have used to orientate myself and head to the small town where I’d actually meet with the Hero. But clearly something had gone wrong with the time travel since I ended up in the wrong location.
(Laura. Do you know when we are? And where as well.) I asked.
(Not yet. I can’t access the System records without them realizing we are here and investigating the rogue Perfect level System Support.) She answered. (We should find a city or a town to orient ourselves.)
(Alright. I’m on it.)
(Remember to change your appearance before you undo Invisibility and Intangibility.) Laura reminded me. (While you appearing in this time shouldn’t be a problem, we shouldn’t take the chance.)
(Yeah, I’ll start with that.) I told her, but before I could get to it, I felt a massive surge of mana.
Feeling mana while I was intangible was a bit strange, as in theory I don’t interact with it at all. But at the same time, I do. I can cast spells, use Telekinesis and anything else I want. Even if no one else can realize that I’m there. But I don’t question the Numeron Code.
Instead, I focused on the massive mana surge. It didn’t rival things like dimensional fissures, but a surge like that would likely mean that a large spell was cast nearby. I wondered if I had arrived too late and the Hero and his party were already fighting some world-ending threat, but if that was the case, I’ll just have to jump a bit further in time.
But as I felt the mana signature, I realized two things. One, the spell wasn’t cast by a person, but instead it was a spell produced by a magic circle. There is a clear difference between the two, as a magic circle spell lacks individuality. Not the best word, but you get the point. A magic circle spell is like a fingerprint without any actual detail. Like comparing someone touching something with their bare hand and then with a rubber glove on. In both cases, you might notice that someone touched it, but with one, you can start isolating more details about the person.
The second thing I realized was that the spell was a Time Magic spell. And because it was, I assumed for a second that it was some sort of an echo of my spell. I mean, it was a powerful spell and it took more than 25,000 mana to cast, so in theory it could have a magical echo. But as I said, the spell I felt was cast by a magic circle, not myself, so there is no way it was mine.
All of that pondering took just two seconds, so I observed as Time and Space shifted in the clearing I had appeared in. I flew just a bit away using the Numeron Code, just in case that was some sort of time based attack that was aimed at me.
But it wasn’t. Because as time and space solidified again, a person was standing in the clearing. Someone I ‘knew’. I had never actually spoken a word with them, but I’ve been spying on them and their friends for a while.
Somehow the Power Structure 1 Magical Elf was here, in the past.
I quickly used Appraisal on him, using a good 30,000 mana on it. I wasn’t going to hold back now. I might have to kill him since he is here, so him knowing that someone appraised him would be worth it.
Besides, he doesn’t, or at least he didn’t, have Time or Space Magic as a skill, so he might be disorientated from the time travel.
As I appraised him, I got his information. And he seemingly didn’t react, so maybe he was still confused by being in the center of the spell that brought him here.
Spoiler
| Name: Hajime Maō | ||||||||
| ||||||||
| Unique Skills: | ||||||||
Spoiler
[collapse]
| ||||||||
| Extra Skills: | ||||||||
Spoiler
[collapse]
| ||||||||
| Normal Skills: | ||||||||
Spoiler
[collapse]
| ||||||||
| Titles: | ||||||||
Spoiler
[collapse]
|
[collapse]
… okay. Yeah. It is him. And holy fuck, what happened to his stats!?
He was level 223 the last time I saw him. And while some growth is to be expected, this isn’t what I had in mind. I didn’t even get all of his skills, never mind the level of them or his actual stat numbers. He also has more unique skills. He only had Matter Manipulation and now he has at least two more. Likely even more since there is that etc. in the status menu. I only saw those three.
And how does he have a System Support? Sure it is only Basic, the lowest level, but still. Just how much further from the future is he compared to me? It sounded like the States were quite close to starting their plan.
Sure the Support might have just been given to him. He did just time travel to this time, and the ‘All-Mighty’, if I remember his name correctly, should be keeping an eye on a high leveled time traveler. You might think that includes me, but remember that I’m hiding with two skills that can hide me from the System Gods, and Laura is masking her presence, so the System Gods shouldn’t know that we are here.
Also, his name. I’ll admit that I’m not the greatest at Japanese, which seems to be the base for elven names, but I’ve been studying since it is better for enchanting than English. … well, this world’s common language that auto translates to English.
So his name would mean something like ‘first’ or ‘the first’ for Hajime, while Maō, depending on how it is written in Kanji, would mean Magic King. But it could also mean Demon King or Demon Ruler. Or if we match it to this world, a demon lord.
So his name, in full, would be ‘The First Demon Lord’.
“WHAT!?” Was the reaction of Alice, Unika and Lua.
“That can’t be true, right?” Unika asked.
“Yes. How could the demon lord be someone from our time?” Alice asked.
“Yeah, it is.” I confirmed. “Not that I believed it right at that moment either.”
“How did you figure it out? Did you just follow him or ..?” Wilma asked.
“Let’s just keep watching.” I told them.
(... Laura. This isn’t what I think it is, right?) I asked.
(We cannot be sure, yet. But his unique skill does match the historic records. It isn’t called Matter Manipulation in the records, but the skill should do the same thing as the Demon Lord’s unique skill.)
(... the ability to alter the physical properties of anything he touched. To reshape the world around him.) I recalled how the Goddess, actually Tamaki specifically, described the skill of the demon lord.
(Yes. So it is likely that he is, or will become, the demon lord. Or his unique skill will be stolen by the demon lord.) Laura said. (And now that he has a System Support, he can change the name of the skill to match the records.)
(... we can’t even fricking kill him.) I complained.
(We likely shouldn’t.) Laura agreed. (We should follow him and be ready to kill him if it turns out we are wrong.)
(Yeah.) I agreed. (I’ll need to level myself up. Just in case. I can’t use my God monsters here, and he is strong enough where he might be able to go against 5000 attack monsters.)
(Yes. Especially since you can’t use Reverse Union, Synchro Union or Spirit Synchros in this time.) Laura reminded me.
“Oh right, you can’t.” Unika realized. “Varuna and Pele are in this time, as are all of your tamed monsters. And the ones you can summon.”
“Yeah. I couldn’t bring any of my tamed friends in the past, so I had to leave them. And while I can reverse union with my card monsters, that isn’t nearly as stat efficient as my tamed monsters are. The 5000/5000/5000 boost I get from doing a union with one of them just won’t cut it.”
I began following Hajime, still keeping my Numeron Code cheats active. Luckily I stockpiled enough points to keep myself unseen and unfelt for a few years before I came here. A ‘just in case’ thing. And it didn’t take that long.
Hajime moved with purpose, almost like he knew where he was going. I didn’t exactly know how he would know, but he knew. Maybe someone in the States could see a map of the past and guide Hajime on where to go. Or maybe he has that Mental Map unique skill Power Structure 7 had.
That gave me time to wonder why I ended up now. In this time. If Hajime really becomes the demon lord, why did I travel back to the same time as he did? There should be a wait between him getting to the Castle Dungeon, taking it over, and the world eventually figuring out that he is big enough of a threat to declare him an enemy of the world and summon the Hero to stand against him.
I had two theories. One, the world wanted me here. It wanted me to see him coming here, and that I’d realize what happened. Which could be the truth. I mean, by doing this, they basically guarantee that I won’t stop the States from bringing him to this time. Because if I stop them, no demon lord, no Hero, no Hero’s sword and so on. Just an entirely different timeline.
Theory two is that his time travel somehow caused a ‘time stream’ that I was caught in, and that brought me to this time, and the same place as him. It could in theory be a thing, but there is nothing about anything like that available in the System archives.
It could always be a combination of both of those things.
“Did you ever figure out which one it was?” Alice asked.
“It is a bit of both. Time time stream theory is correct, but it wouldn’t fully explain what happened to me. The time stream causes it to be so that two people cannot travel from the same place in space and time to different places in space and time. Basically, if both of us cast a time spell at the same time, we’d end up in the same time, even if we tried to get to different times.” I explained. “Unless one of us is going to the future while the other goes to the past.”
“Ah. Alright. But because you two didn’t cast your spells at the same time …”
“It could still be the case. The States used the nuclear option, forcing the timeline open, while I used a scalpel. They may have left a hole so large that I had to follow it, even if it wasn’t even there yet when I did my time travel.”
“... this is why time travel is confusing.” Lua noted.