Ed’s Point of View
THERE was something about the princess that’d always weighed on my mind.
It was that red Magic Stone she always wore close to her and treasured so much.
Just who’d given it to her?
I asked many times. But her answer was only ever “Someone very special.” It felt like she was being vague on purpose. Sometimes, I caught her staring at the stone. I could tell from her expression that the person who’d given it to her was someone very close to her heart.
Honestly, I was jealous.
I wondered whether I’d ever be able to surpass this mystery person in her eyes.
So, when I finally achieved the title of Magic Count and became engaged to the princess, I felt like I’d won over this mystery man at last.
“Princess…”
“Yes?”
“The Magic Stone you wear around your neck. You still won’t tell me who gave it to you?”
I challenged the princess again with this question. The question that’d been weighing on me for so long. She looked conflicted at first. But then she looked up at me with a sort of firm resolve in her eyes, and said: “If I told you…you might not believe me, but…you’re the one who gave it to me.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant at first.
I gave it to her?
Her story was certainly fantastical and hard to believe. But I believed it. Because I’d already noted that the magic power contained within her Magic Stone was so like my own. No, not “like.” Identical.
✦ ✦ ✦
OUR married life flowed along as peacefully as a gentle river.
No big waves. Just smooth and calm.
I used to love coming home to our mansion after a hard day of work. I would alight from the carriage, walk to the front door, and step inside. Then…
“Welcome home, Ed!”
…She would come running.
Every day when I came home, the princess was there to greet me with a smile. She’d probably watch for the carriage to come through the gates so that she’d be ready to welcome me home.
It was always so cute. I could’ve traveled home using Transportation magic, of course. But I made up some pretext to keep using the carriage. She never questioned it, either.
“I went for tea at Oliphia’s mansion today.”
“I see. Did you have fun?”
“Oh yes! Very much so!”
Putting her arm through mine, the princess started chattering happily about her day. I always enjoyed hearing about it and looked forward to her daily updates.
But doubts swirled in my mind amid our happy life.
The version of me from this other world the princess spoke of…did he really use Time Regression magic…?
At any rate, I shared no memories with this other version of myself. Only the princess retained memories of this former life. Why would I send the princess back with her memories intact yet neglect to make sure that my younger self remembered it? Why deliberately omit that important facet? Wasn’t it vital for me to know what’d happened to help the princess find happiness in her new life?
Then, one day…
“Hey, Ed, what are you reading?”
The princess spoke from behind me as I sat in the living room of our mansion, reading an old magical text.
“Oh, Princess. I was wondering again about what kind of magic it was that I cast on you in that other world you speak about.”
“The magic you cast on me, you say?”
The princess tilted her head, looking curious.
“Yes. Based on what you’ve told me, I assumed it was some sort of Time Regression magic, only…”
“Only it wasn’t?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that Time Regression magic is just a theory. It doesn’t exist, at least not at this moment in time. And we don’t even know why he sent you back in time in the first place. So I thought that perhaps…”
Then I noticed her face growing stiff. She often made that face whenever I asked her about the past. She told me she was happy there, but I saw pain in her eyes whenever I brought it up.
Maybe I should drop it.
I changed the subject and gave the princess a kiss, and she visibly relaxed.
After that, I studied the ancient texts as often as I could. What I found out was that, indeed, there is no complete, existing form of Time Regression magic. At least, not yet.
If a person who goes back in time does things differently in their second timeline, history will be overwritten. In other words, the world becomes a different one, only resembling the first one. The same fate that led one to attempt to go back in time and change things in the first place…it’ll never come to pass.
In other words, time travel of this kind would result in the creation of a parallel universe.
Why would he…I…have done that?
More and more, I found myself unable to guess the motivations this other version of myself had in what the princess called “the old world.”
On the other hand, though, I did find out something useful from my research into the old texts. I got a hint into what Elena’s final spell might’ve been.
As a witch, Elena was in a class unto herself. But she’d passed away in the palace of Nigren all those years ago. The meaning behind the final spell she cast…the unknown Magic Sigil…had remained a mystery. But recently, I’d come to suspect that the spell she had cast was…Time Regression.
But none of it makes any sense…
The princess said she’d been sent back in time to this world through a spell I’d cast on her. And in this world, Elena had gone back in time to another world, using the same type of spell.
The world the princess originally came from…is that where Elena went?
But the princess said that she never knew Elena in the original world. So perhaps Elena had gone somewhere else entirely.
After thinking about it for days, I came to a decision.
I’d attempt to go there myself.
If I analyzed the magic contained in the Magic Stone the princess had received from the version of myself in the old world…maybe I could figure out what world it was that the princess had come from…
At the time, I’d no idea what kind of a future awaited me in the next world I was to find myself in…