The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 213

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 213

 

“This is driving me crazy. The year 821…”

 

Rita’s sigh mixed with her breath, rising white against the pitch-black night sky scattered with stars. The night was cold. She pulled her hole-riddled cloak tighter around her body.

 

“And suddenly it went from summer to winter… Though thanks to you, Gid, it’s not that cold.”

 

The dragon’s body temperature against her back was warm. Whether he heard her words or not, the black dragon cupped his hands a bit more and covered the top with his other hand.

 

“Are you making a roof for me? But now I can’t see you.”

 

As Rita chuckled softly to herself, the massive front paw covering her head pulled back halfway.

 

Through the revealed night sky, the black dragon gazed down at her quietly. The light from the campfire that Sion and Jurlene had lit before leaving tinged the dragon’s outline and shadowed eye sockets with a pale crimson hue.

 

Looking up at those eyes where the red liquid had stopped flowing, appearing like deep wells, Rita spoke slowly.

 

“You understand everything I’m saying now, don’t you?”

 

The massive head nodded faintly up and down.

 

“But you can’t speak?”

 

He nodded again.

 

“What about your memory? Do you know who you are, what happened to you?”

 

This time he didn’t nod. The head covered in black thorns tilted slightly to the side.

 

“…You’re not sure?”

 

The black dragon’s eye sockets narrowed. It looked as if nonexistent eyeballs were rolling around, avoiding her gaze.

 

‘His memory isn’t intact? What kind of state is this exactly?’

 

A human who had turned into a monster regaining reason while still in monster form—it was unprecedented, impossible to gauge. Rita, whose words had been blocked by the overwhelming feeling, barely managed to ask back.

 

“Then what about me? Do you remember who I am?”

 

Suddenly the roof disappeared and the floor became slanted.

 

This was the result of the black dragon tilting the hand she was sitting on at an angle while moving his other hand to the snowy field. As he tilted his hand, he supported her with his massive fingers so she wouldn’t slip and fall.

 

Rita sat perched on the dragon’s ring finger, thick as a temple pillar, leaning against his middle finger as she looked down at her feet. In the snowy field illuminated by the campfire light, the dragon raised the thorns at his fingertips and wrote letters.

 

Rita

 

“…Right, I’m Rita.”

 

The black dragon looked at her briefly, then moved his thorn-like claws again. Below her name, letters were slowly carved.

 

Most precious person

 

I like you

 

“…”

 

Rita closed her mouth and covered her face with both hands.

 

She remembered Gideon, who used to say he liked her as if it were nothing. How many profound and heavy emotions had been hidden within those light words.

 

With her face covered, she breathed out thinly.

 

“You just said you don’t really remember who you are…”

 

Scritch, scritch—the sound of snow being scraped echoed through the quiet night. Since the sound continued without stopping, Rita removed her hands and looked down.

 

I remember the important things

 

What Rita likes

 

Guns, music boxes, cream puffs

 

Family

 

Friends, comrades

 

Beacon_

 

The final stroke of “Beacon” was drawn out long and messy. As if he had continued drawing absentmindedly while pondering something.

 

Lillieta looked at the letters carved in the snow with an indescribable feeling, then asked in a choked voice.

 

“Do you remember what Beacon is?”

 

The black dragon hesitated for a long while before moving his thorn.

 

Our

 

Family and friends

 

After writing that far, the thorn stopped.

 

Grrrr—a groan-like cry rumbled low. His folded wings stretched out, trembling, and thorns rippled like waves across the black dragon’s entire body.

 

Even on the finger she was perched on, thorns began to rise in succession, then slowly settled down with a startled tremor.

 

Rita placed her hands on the surrounding thorns that had laid flat with all her strength and said.

 

“Does it hurt when you try to think deeply?”

 

The dragon folded his outstretched wings back down and let his neck droop as well. She patted the dragon’s finger and continued speaking.

 

“If it hurts, let’s stop. Rest first, then think about it little by little later.”

 

-Grrooo.

 

The black dragon gave a short cry like an answer and slowly moved his palm again. He placed the back of his hand on the snow field that had been messily dug up from writing, laid his palm flat, then covered it halfway with his other hand to make a roof.

 

It was the same position as before, for her inside his hands.

 

With the cold wind blocked, it was much warmer. Rita leaned diagonally against his finger and looked up at the dragon as she asked.

 

“Isn’t it uncomfortable staying like this?”

 

The dragon let out a breath like a snort, then lowered his head beside his cupped front paws and lay down. The dragon’s eye sockets, with his head resting on the snow field, became level with Rita on his palm.

 

Coming down to eye level and getting closer, she could see red liquid pooled shallowly inside the empty thorn-cave-like holes.

 

‘Looking at it this way, it’s like a wound with blood beading up.’

 

That hole, still facing Rita, gradually narrowed, then disappeared as it was covered with thorns.

 

‘Did he close his eyes?’

 

Rita stared blankly at the spot where the eye socket had disappeared.

 

A blood-beaded wound hidden by black thorns as if burned by fire. The vines that had burned and twisted in the blazing greenhouse, and something she had associated with seeing them came to mind.

 

The wounded abyss that she had vaguely suspected from then on, that Gid had been hiding from her.

 

As she became absorbed in complex thoughts, the artificial spirit’s voice suddenly echoed in her mind.

 

[Notice: User, I have a meaningful hypothesis regarding the current situation. Would you like to hear it?]

 

‘…Yes.’

 

She rubbed her face once with dry hands and looked down at the bracelet on her wrist. The butterfly pattern glowed softly from the center of the golden bracelet as the artificial spirit’s voice was heard.

 

[Notice: I have searched the inputted information by referencing the claim that the current time is March 2nd, 821, and the conversation between ‘Sion’ and ‘Jurlene’ while the user was unconscious.]

 

[Analysis: It is presumed that after the explosion of the ‘star,’ the time period changed but the location did not change much. Assuming the ‘cave’ mentioned in the conversation is the Whispering Cave, I can determine who ‘Sion’ and ‘Jurlene’ are based on history.]

 

[Clues: ‘821’, ‘loyal subjects of the kingdom’, ‘prince’, ‘cave’, ‘silver hair’, ‘blue eyes’, ‘Sion’.]

 

[Conclusion: ‘Sion’ is presumed to be ‘Elision el Shadea Kairam,’ the first emperor of the Kairam Empire.]

 

[Clues: ‘821’, ‘elf-born’, ‘black hair’, ‘golden eyes’, ‘Jurlene’, ‘friendship with Sion’, ‘staff’, ‘mage’.]

 

[Conclusion: ‘Jurlene’ is presumed to be ‘Jurlene el Hecate Kairam,’ the first empress of the Kairam Empire and the first Coronator.]

 

“What?”

 

It felt like her mind had snapped awake.

 

Lillieta sat with her mouth open, mulling over what she had just heard, then asked back in a trembling voice.

 

“Wait, wait… If that man is the first emperor, then the black dragon in the founding myth is…”

 

[Opinion: The whining lizard that attacked the user is presumed to correspond to the black dragon that the first emperor met in the myth.]

 

“What is this… No, wait, if your hypothesis is correct, then… you’re saying that because we came to the past, the first emperor got to meet the black dragon?”

 

[Opinion: That is correct. And based on the creator’s logic, from now on the user must move to ensure history flows as we know it, according to the content of the founding myth.]

 

“What kind of crazy talk is that?”

 

[Analysis: If the past changes, the future will also change, so if we create a past different from what we know at this point, we might arrive at a completely different future when we attempt to return later.]

 

[Addition: This analysis is based on hypotheses established after the creator analyzed and researched Beacon’s ‘return’ including himself and historical modification, contemplating time travel, contradictions, and paradoxes.]

 

[Advice: It means that if you change the past too much, you might not be able to return to the year 1770 where the user lived.]

 

Rita clutched her forehead.

 

The information and analyses that the artificial spirit had poured out filled her mind, overwhelming the complex emotions that had risen while facing Gid who had become a monster.

 

“Ah, right… We collectively aimed to return from the future and modify history, so there’s no way Oli wouldn’t have analyzed the aftermath of time travel.”

 

She understood immediately upon hearing it, but separately from that, her head felt like it would explode. For her now, time travel whatnot wasn’t theory or thought experiments but an immediate reality.

 

“So we’ve come back to the past just before the founding of the Kairam Empire, and according to Oli’s analysis… if the past changes too much from the original history, it will lead to a different future than the one we knew?”

 

[Reference: This follows the same principle as ‘Beacon’ trying to change the 1770s to meet a different future from the Ash Ruin Era.]

 

[Analysis: If the user changes the founding myth so that ‘Sion’ cannot receive help from the Black Dragon, the founding of Kairam might fail. In that situation, no matter how we find and manipulate the ‘Star,’ we would reach a future where ‘the Kairam Empire does not exist.’]

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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