A cry of “What the hell is she doing?” rings out from the bottom of my heart.
I couldn’t simply abandon my work duties like that, so I made an effort to get in touch with the director, and she replied right inside my head, at which point I brought her up to speed. I was sure she knew about the Time Keeper, and my assumption proved correct. I told her this looked like it’d keep me busy for a while, and she readily approved my early departure. In exchange, we are to report this finding to the knights ourselves.
Normally I’d expect her to give me hell (physically) for leaving on personal matters like that, and yet she didn’t scold me at all. That actually makes me more anxious. And it’s all because of this weird talking doll...
“So that’s the Time Keeper?” I ask.
The gnomish old man with a long beard wriggles in response to Benjamine’s praise, looking rather pleased. Not only does this doll talk, but it also moves, apparently. It looks just like the drawing Nikeh showed me the other day—a decoration of a gnome found in house gardens. How peculiar.
“We were working another assignment in a forbidden part of the woods when we stumbled on him.”
“What was the request?”
“Catching red-nosed rats. I hate those things, they shoot blood from their noses at you.”
“Ah, those things. Their tails are good for something, right?”
Though I’m quite annoyed at being dragged away without prior notice, these two are still technically at work.
“Ah, you’re wonderful, sir!” exclaims Benjamine.
What’s she up to, anyway?
“How did it come to this...?” I ask Satanás. “Are you okay with your girlfriend being like that?”
O heavens, please don’t let my friend be brainwashed by that gnome.
“That old man looked just like Noir told me, so we went up to it, and it started attacking all of a sudden. Hella dangerous doll, that one. He shot spears at us! Freaked me out to no end.”
“That thing is dangerous...?”
“But when he saw Benjamine, he got super attached to her. We asked him why he was there, and he said a woman asked him to let her relive her school days, so he sent her into the past. Got really talkative and all.”
“So she’s sweet-talking him into saying more?”
“Yeah, as much as it pisses me off. So anyway, that woman he sent into the past? She said she wanted to get into a relationship with some man named Alois, according to that old man.”
“A...lo...?”
What did he just say?
“Who did you say she wanted a relationship with?”
“Some Alois.”
Calm down Nanalie, there’s no evidence it’s that Alois. Stay cool. Even Satanás is smiling, see? Okay, I guess that smile of his is pretty forced.
And then I remember what Cheena told me at reception when Prince Zenon came to Harré. The words she overheard some noble woman say: “If only I were the one by Alois’s side...” Could it be...?
“Remember Treyse—she was a count’s daughter?” asks Satanás.
“The girl from an adjacent classroom?”
I remember her. We didn’t talk much. Just like how I always held the second place in our year, she held the fifth. Focused as I was on knocking Rockmann out of his eternal first place, I was still afraid of other students overcoming me, and worked hard every day to prevent it.
“It’s her. Given that, only one Alois comes to mind, right?”
“I overheard a noblewoman say, ‘If only I were the one by Alois’s side...’ I was poking around in the black market—it was a work thing, don’t worry about it—and apparently that doll appeared at auction and got grabbed up by some aristocrat.”
So Cheena wasn’t kidding and she didn’t mishear things! The shock of it all leaves me speechless.
According to what Benjamine managed to get out of the gnome, Count Drenman bid for the Time Keeper on the black market for his daughter’s sake and won, after which the gnome sent his daughter, Treyse Drenman, into the past.
To go into the past or the future, you have to first tell the rotten little bastard the exact time and place you wish to visit, then place him somewhere where people from your time won’t come into contact with him or see him at all; then he sends you where you asked to go.
To return to the time you came from, you have to face the sky and say, “O handsome Time Keeper, I am thy slave.” How humiliating.
Apparently, this is how one goes about borrowing his powers. However, if the doll is found, you end up stuck in your destination for eternity, never to return, unless somebody goes looking for you. Which means that, since we’ve found the doll, Treyse is never coming back if we don’t go after her. Why did she just leave it here like this, completely unprotected, anyway?
“Were there any traps around when you found it?” I ask Satanás.
“Now that you mention it, I was flicking my fingers as I walked and there was this feeling of something getting dispelled. That’s when the Time Keeper appeared.”
Must’ve been an invisibility veil.
“The count probably knows I dispelled it; he might be on his way here already.”
“Aren’t we in trouble, then?!”
“Hey. Old man,” Satanás addresses the doll.
“Don’t ‘old man’ me! I’m still in my prime!”
“What happens when you change the past?”
“Who can say?”
Looking unwilling to listen to his questions, the rotten old gnome starts ogling Benjamine again, as if we’re not here at all.
“I’m so done with this old fart!” exclaims Satanás, his nostrils swollen and his face red. I suspect these two just hate each other because deep down, they’re identical.
“O Elder of Time, what happens when you change the past?”
Elder of Time?
Paying no heed to Satanás’s troubles, Benjamine makes eyes at the gnome, shooting metaphorical radiant beams out of hers and into his. Next, she brings her hands together and leans her head on them, then kneels in front of the Time Keeper and gazes at him with upturned eyes. Man, a knockout like her could wrap just about any man alive around her finger with an act like this.
“Ah, my little Benjamine, you know I cannot resist that!” says the Time K...Elder of Time, I guess? He shuts his eyes. “Ahem. Very well, I shall answer,” he finally says, straightening his back and assuming a gallant look. “Time is a straight line with no branches. Destiny is singular. Changing the present by going into the past is possible to a degree, but no major changes shall occur. Attempting to save someone destined to die is but an exercise in futility.”
“So if you travel to the past and turn white to black, it will remain white?”
“Indeed. On rare occasions, however, those who have been interacted with too much in the past may succumb to fractured memories in the present. It will depend on how much that woman does to the man she’s after.”
Treyse went into the past to become Rockmann’s girlfriend. And Satanás said this development couldn’t get any worse for me. What am I supposed to do? Do I go and drag her out of the past so she can’t do anything about Rockmann, or...?
“We’re following her into the past,” says Satanás in a spirited voice. “But I don’t feel safe going with only the three of us!”
Could you not say “I don’t feel safe” with such pride?
“It is for emergencies like these that Alois made this,” he continues. “Ta-da!”
Looking proud of himself, he takes a small, sloppily gilded wooden box out of the bag strapped to his waist. Its name: “Device for Direct Address of His Highness.” What in the world?
“This awesome little thing lets you talk straight into Noir’s brain, no letters needed.” He giggles. “You can use it when he sleeps too.”
“I honestly think one good neck-wringing from the prince would do you some good.”
It must be really inconvenient for Prince Zenon for such a device to exist. Apparently they even actually used it once in the past, and received a tongue-lashing for their trouble. What do they think they’re doing, to a prince of all people? Imagine the consequences if it were a foreign prince... Though it’s just as bad with a local one, really. In fact, I think it’s fair to say they got away lightly; this is Prince Zenon we’re talking about.
Transmitting a voice directly into the brain is a special kind of magic unique to the lightning school—it is capable of delivering electrical impulses into the target’s brain. It probably works on the prince because his elemental affinity is lightning. Still, what did Rockmann make such a thing for? Wasn’t he the prince’s personal guard?
“Such a lame name.” Even Benjamine, who’s normally soft on Satanás, is astonished enough to stand there with her mouth hanging open.