“Now, now, at least hear me out. This is the request of a man in his last moments of life…”
The Time Hermit put his hands together in an entreaty. He had just listened to everything I had to say…so I decided to lend him my ear for a little bit.
“Okay, I will. But please keep it short.”
“Oh-ho, so you will listen! Thank you, thank you!”
He cleared his throat with a cough and began to describe the 100-Million-Year Button.
“All who push this button are transported to an ‘alternate world,’ where, as the name implies, they spend one hundred million years. In that world, you are completely free. You can even spend all your time staring at the wall if you’re so inclined. But you can also devote yourself to your training. After all, you do have a full one hundred million years at your disposal.”
“I can train for one hundred million years…?”
Given my current predicament, this sounded like a dream come true.
“Yes, you can! You’ll also have a house and a bed—and even a large bath! There’s a magical storehouse that produces an infinite amount of food, so you’ll never go hungry! On top of that, you won’t age, so you have no need to fear death!”
“…!”
Eating and sleeping would be taken care of, I would have all the time I could ever want, and I wouldn’t even age.
I gulped. This sounded way too good to be true.
“Hyo-hoh-hoh! Sounds wonderful, right?”
Having finished his explanation, the Time Hermit suddenly leaned forward and thrust the scarlet button toward me.
I stared at it.
If I really could train for one hundred million years…
I thought that might give me a chance to beat Dodriel.
Four or five years, for instance, would be way too short a time frame to catch up to him.
But given one hundred million years, even a talentless swordsman like me could catch up to a genius like him— Scratch that, I could surpass him!
The utter stupidity of that thought brought me crashing back to reality.
This is way too good to be true… Geez, why did I let myself take this seriously…?
This wasn’t a fairy tale. No way could that exist in the real world.
“Is that all you have to say?” I asked.
“Hmm? Does this not sound appealing to you?” he responded.
“I think it would be amazing…if what you’re saying is true.”
“I’m not lying! I have never once told a lie, not in all my long life!”
“Uh-huh. That’s impressive.”
I cut off our conversation there and returned to swinging my weapon. Despite knowing no amount of practice would give me a chance at victory, I wanted to do everything I could.
“Hmph… Are you really sure you don’t want to give it a try? All you have to do is press it once. Please, I’m asking you as an old man with little time left!”
The Time Hermit rubbed his hands together in a fervent plea. I was a little surprised by how badly he wanted me to do this.
“Fine…I’ll push the button.” I sighed.
Figuring that tapping it once would satisfy him, I casually reached my hand toward it and stopped when the Time Hermit’s face suddenly turned gravely serious.
“Young swordsman. I have one warning for you.”
“What is it now?”
“There is one thing you must never do—commit suicide. You’ll be living in another world, but you still only have one body. Dying there will spell the end of you,” he cautioned. Where the heck did that come from?
“Yeah, yeah. I get it.”
Then I pressed the button cradled in his hands. I had no idea how this was about to alter the course of my life.
The next thing I knew, I was standing in an unfamiliar place.
“…Where am I?”
I looked around to find brown earth extending as far as the eye could see and a single large, white house placed in the middle of it.
I noticed one more thing—a string of numbers in the sky.
Year 000000000 Month 1 Day 1 00:01:31.
The final number was going up every second. It must have been some kind of clock.
Once I was sure that I wasn’t in any danger, I reflected on how I got here.
“The Time Hermit said something really weird… Oh yeah, I pushed the 100-Million-Year Button.”
Did that make this the “alternate world” he was talking about?
“Ha, ha-ha… This has to be some kind of trick…”
Letting out a nervous laugh, I began to panic. I just needed to stay calm and think about this logically— No, wait, everything about this defied logic. There was no way a 100-Million-Year Button could be real. That sounded like something from a children’s tale. It couldn’t actually exist.
But now that this impossible world lay right before my eyes, I had no choice but to accept the button’s existence.
“This makes no sense…right?”
I raised my head to see an endless blue sky.
“…It’s not there.”
Something was clearly missing from the sky—the sun. Despite its absence, the world was still filled with a warm glow. And light shining in a place with no source resulted in a total lack of shadows, as if the laws of physics were in disorder. Reluctantly, I had to accept that this was an “alternate world” separate from reality.
I pinched my cheek just to check if this was a dream, but I indeed felt pain. My mind, my senses, and my body were all telling me I was actually here.
“There’s no doubt about it now. That 100-Million-Year Button was real!”
Now that I’d come to that conclusion, I thought back on what the Time Hermit had explained.
“‘All who push this button are transported to an alternate world, where, as the name implies, they spend one hundred million years’…is what he said, I think.”
I looked up and stared at the giant clock floating in the sky.
If the Time Hermit’s words were true…I could train in this alternate world right up until that clock displayed the year one hundred million.