There was only one reason I became the Sage: because I could see the future. Whenever I closed my eyes, I could peek into tomorrow; if I so wished, even scenes of the distant future would play behind my eyelids.
Naturally, I chose to tread toward a future in which I would succeed—in which I, the useless fool, would be lauded as the Sage. All I had to do was make the right choices to lead me down that path—an easy task, as I could see the future before it happened and plagiarize others’ knowledge and findings as I pleased. Thus did I rise from a useless peasant to a Sage revered throughout the land.
Surely, the people would riot if they ever discovered the truth, for not a single one of my achievements had been my own. The wisdom and research that the populace praised me for had all been built by others’ hands. All I could do was peer into the future, no more than a thief, swooping in and stealing the fruits of their labor.
Thus, the “Sage” was no more than an empty facade—and it was not long after this title had been bestowed upon me that I came to realize this myself. The praise and envy I’d been showered with felt good at first, yes, but soon I began to feel a sense of discomfort, along with a growing doubt in my mind—the root of which lay in the countless lives I had watched while peering into the future and the extraordinary effort they had exerted toward their goals.
There was once a scholar who had dedicated his entire life toward improving the soil quality of a poor land. He had been ridiculed by his fellow scholars for his decades upon decades of failures, even scorned and stoned by the very people he was trying to help, but not once did his heart give in. He had continued his research, tireless and resolute, until it finally bore fruit and saved countless lives.
There was once a doctor who had gone above and beyond to save the ill. Not only did she focus her research on a rampant plague, but she had even visited the afflicted lands in person to treat the patients and stay by their sides. Ultimately, she lost her life to that very plague, but her findings were later used to save many agonized souls.
Someone once invented a simple device to dig up an underground waterway for people suffering from a water shortage. Another delved into mathematical formulae to solve a problem that had eluded her since her early days. One even dedicated his life to fulfilling his childhood desire for flight.
As I watched these people succeed in life, a question gradually budded within me:
Why can I see the future?
Through my actions, I had changed the future, yet these people still eventually succeeded in one way or another—as if the fate of the world was sealed, or as if someone had already assigned them their roles in this life. Numerous futures and possibilities branched out, but these people always fulfilled the same role in each one, almost as if they were driven by some greater power dwelling within them.
Then what about me? What was my role, as one who could peer into the future?
I sought the answer through the means available only to me: by closing my eyes and yet again wandering through the endless stretch of time. Whenever I did this, the hours seemed to stretch on into infinity—only for me to open my eyes and find that no more than the briefest of moments had passed.
Once again, I set my consciousness afloat in the sea of time, its course charted for the distant future. Cycles of prosperity and decline whizzed past me, churning out the ever-unchanging ebb and flow of humanity.
Finally, at the very end of the seemingly endless world, there stood a single girl, all alone.
Immaculate silver hair and deep ocean-blue eyes were set upon stunningly delicate features. Her beauty, however, was eerily stark against the world around her. Everything, heaven and earth alike, was tainted in a filthy pitch black. Amid the desolate nothingness, the girl simply turned her empty gaze to the sky while humming a dreary tune.
Curious, I continued watching this girl and the bleak world around her. One year, five years, ten years, fifty years, a hundred years—time passed, but nothing changed. Now, only this girl and her lonely tune remained.
And so, I returned in search of another future. Time branched into countless paths, housing every possibility, every crossroad, and every choice to exist in the world—but alas, not a single one led to a different outcome. Every road led me back to that girl humming all alone in the ruined world, as if this were the role given unto her by the universe itself: to sing like a broken doll, alone and beyond salvation, as the only participant of the world’s endless apocalypse.
In my desire to understand her, I traversed time over and over, until eventually I understood my role. Why was I given the power to see the future? Why had I become the Sage?
It was all...to save the girl named Eluria Caldwin.