Chapter 284 - Adrift (4)

Was this for real?

This wasn't some hidden-camera prank?

I stood motionless for a long time, gripped by a feeling that "bewilderment" couldn't begin to describe. My fingertips trembled faintly, and my breathing grew increasingly ragged.

Even so, I was quick to accept it.

'Time travel.'

That alone explained every contradiction I'd encountered since waking up on this island. There was no point denying it.

Right. If I could wake up in a barbarian's body after playing on my computer, why should time travel be impossible?

Having sorted out my thoughts, I stared at Amelia.

"You already knew."

"To some extent."

She nodded slightly, then said she had only become certain after meeting these men. I'd read about them in a book, but apparently they had been extremely infamous at the time.

'... No wonder it felt strange. She's not the type to throw the first punch out of nowhere.'

A kind of time traveler's perk: seeing right through bastards hiding their true intentions and smashing their skulls before they could do anything.

The victims must have found it absurd.

"I-infamous? Wh-what on earth are you talking about?!"

Whatever. No time to explain. Not that explaining would accomplish anything.

"Are there other members of your clan on this island? Just give me a slight nod if there are."

I promptly moved on to the interrogation. After getting answers to several questions, I took a moment to think.

"Twenty years ago..."

First off, we were twenty years in the past. In other words, we'd met men whose crimes would be exposed and who would be executed about five years from now.

'This is more trouble than I thought.'

According to what I'd learned during the interrogation, more than thirty of them were staying on this island. Amelia also warned me that, whatever the others were like, Clan Elvis's commander was an extremely dangerous explorer.

"... We should move first."

"Agreed."

A few exchanged glances were enough for Amelia and me to reach an understanding. Surprisingly, we worked quite well together on this sort of thing. Neither of us needed convincing.

"Let's strip off their equipment first."

"Ah, I'll handle these ones here."

We deftly stripped their equipment and took their backpacks.

Then...

SHNK.

We killed them all.

How could we possibly let them go alive? They were sure to start hunting us with their comrades the moment they got back.

'Besides, they deserve to die anyway.'

They wore the emblem of a clan whose crimes would come to light five years later. On top of the clear evidence of plundering in their backpacks, I'd just heard plenty during the interrogation. I didn't feel so much as a twinge of guilt.

"What do we do with the bodies?"

"I think we should bury them."

"Then I'd better start digging."

I followed Amelia's suggestion without objection. Of course. At times like this, you listened to the expert.

"Then I'll go erase our tracks over there."

While I dug a grave, Amelia returned to the campsite and dismantled the campfire I'd built and the leaf bed I'd worked so hard to dig out.

Thus ended my brief stint of primitive living.

Now, time to return to civilization.

"A dagger. Want to use it?"

We cast off our Tree Spirit's Blessing and put on the clothes and equipment we'd acquired by killing the men.

They couldn't compare to my old gear, but...

'This should be serviceable enough.'

Asking for more would be greedy.

After finishing burying the bodies and covering them with dirt, I chewed on some jerky, drank water from a canteen, and checked our direction with a compass.

'Whew. Now I feel human again.'

None of this was anything new anymore.

* * *

"There's a cave I spotted. Let's go there."

The sky was slowly brightening to blue.

After following Amelia for about thirty minutes, I came to a small cave. Apparently she'd discovered it while heading toward the island's center with Misha.

"It's bigger inside than I expected."

"... You haven't been in here before?"

"I only noted it as I passed. It looked like a perfect place to hide."

Wait, and she remembered exactly where it was?

"That's an impressive memory."

At my sincere admiration, Amelia frowned and said it was merely an old habit.

"Come on, a grown adult getting embarrassed over a little compliment?"

"... I wasn't embarrassed."

"Oh, I see."

"Barbarian, what exactly do you mean by 'I see'?"

I see meant I see. What else?

Anyway, that was enough small talk.

"More importantly, I'd like to get around to that conversation. What exactly was that stone?"

I repeated the question I'd asked several times already, and finally got an answer.

"The Stone Fragment of Records. A legacy of the Great Sage Gabrilius, and a treasure the lords of Noark have kept for ages."

So that was its official name.

Even the name sounded connected to our current predicament.

"Then this Stone Fragment of Records is why we traveled back in time?"

"Probably."

Amelia readily agreed and continued. Legend held that the Stone Fragment of Records could let someone return to the past and change history. That was why she'd spent her entire life trying to obtain it.

"Then why did you use it while you were with me?"

"That... wasn't my choice."

"What?"

"I didn't even know how to use it in the first place. I planned to study it properly once I returned to the city."

From what Amelia said, even Noark's lord hadn't known how to use it and had merely kept it safe. Until "one called by the age" appeared, as Auriel Gabis had said when handing over the Stone Fragment of Records.

'Fucking hell.'

They said sighing chased away your luck, but I couldn't stop.

"Then you don't know how to get back either?"

"... Correct."

She sounded apologetic, but her eyes had been shining all along.

Well, I could understand. From her perspective, her lifelong wish had come true. Her main concern would be how to change the past, not how to return.

'If I've come here, what happened to the other side? Is it just frozen in time?'

My mind grew tangled. Still, no amount of thinking would give me any answers right now.

For the moment, I decided to satisfy my curiosity instead.

"So what happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm curious what made you go to such lengths to return to the past."

"..."

Amelia clamped her mouth shut at my question.

Come on. If you didn't want to answer, you could just say so.

"..."

"..."

An awkward silence lingered for a long time. Having suddenly been thrown through time, I had plenty to think about, and so did she.

"The sun's coming up."

Time passed, dawn broke, and we stayed where we were. We judged that venturing out for no good reason might lead to an awkward encounter with the clan.

Ugh. If only the men we'd killed had owned a boat, we could have escaped the island on it.

'Who would've thought they controlled the whole island?'

I'd learned during the interrogation that Parune Island was their clan's territory. Apparently they used it as a base to roam the neighboring islands, targeting only clanless explorers to plunder.

The five had been patrolling the island to check for explorers who'd come ashore while the clan was away...

'Still, at least we only have to hold out today.'

On the sixth floor, the Labyrinth closed on day sixty. Amazingly, that was today.

Though after time travel, I supposed there wasn't much left to be amazed by.

'I wonder how the others are doing... They still have another month before the Labyrinth closes over there. They'll manage without me and get out safely, right?'

I suddenly worried about the companions I'd left behind, but didn't dwell on it. Right. I should worry about myself first. I didn't even know if I could return.

'Maybe everything will go back to normal when the Labyrinth closes?'

While I was entertaining that idle thought, Amelia called to me.

"Barbarian."

"My name is Bjorn, son of Jandel, human."

"..."

"So what were you going to say?"

"I was going to tell you to choose an identity tag from the backpacks in advance."

Huh?

'Oh...'

At first I didn't understand, but it quickly clicked. If we returned to the city of the past as we were, we wouldn't even make it through the checkpoint.

I promptly searched through the backpacks and gathered all the identity tags in one place. There looked to be a good forty of them.

"... Why were they collecting so many tags, anyway? They could serve as evidence of plundering."

"It's common practice. Identity tags fetch a fair price too."

Apparently, even aside from people from Noark with no legal identity in the city, there were plenty of people who wanted new identities.

'True, searching their backpacks would expose the plundering either way. Might as well take the tags and sell them too.'

We examined the tags one by one, choosing ones we could use. Unlike Amelia, who was human, I had no choice. Out of all those tags, only one belonged to a barbarian.

"Amelia Berrywells? You found a good one."

She'd chosen a tag with the same first name. Race: human. Sex: female.

"Twenty-one years old. Have you no shame?"

"... I-I didn't choose it because I wanted to."

Huh? What was that reaction?

"Wait, Amelia. Just how old are you?"

"... Stop taking an interest in me, Bjorn Jandel."

Quickly returning to her usual self, she cut me off coldly. It was the first time I'd seen her stammer, so I'd wanted to tease her a little.

"If we stay here long enough, we'll have to pay taxes. I simply chose one that would keep them as low as possible. Having the same name will be convenient too."

Right. She was already considering the possibility of being trapped in this time for more than a year.

'Tsk.'

I smacked my lips and looked over the tag in my hand again, reviewing what I needed to memorize.

'Name: Nivels Enche. Age: twenty-one. Explorer rank: six.'

That covered the essential information. Still, at rank six, he would probably have a few Essences registered with the guild. It would be wise not to use things like [Gigantification] in public.

"If you're done checking, let me see."

"Huh?"

"You told me not to call you barbarian, didn't you? I can't call you Jandel in front of other people."

Oh, good point.

I handed Amelia the identity tag I'd be using for a while.

But what was this?

"Nivels Enche...?"

She froze with the tag in her hand, as though it were the name of someone she knew.

* * *

"Don't tell me you know him?"

Amelia shook her head at my question. Saying it was probably just a coincidence, she offered no further explanation.

She really did have a talent for driving a person crazy.

'Then don't let it show in the first place.'

Anyway, we continued killing time in the cave until the Labyrinth closed. We talked now and then, and one exchange in particular left a strong impression on me.

"I'll take responsibility for finding a way back, so avoid drawing attention to yourself as much as possible. You might cause something irreversible."

"Something irreversible?"

"Something a mage happened to tell me once. If returning to the past were possible, even the smallest change could cause a nation to fall."

She seemed to be talking about the butterfly effect. You know, the idea that a single flap of a butterfly's wings could cause a typhoon on a continent across the ocean.

'... Wait. What happens if the Bjorn of this era dies?'

The thought suddenly occurred to me. This was twenty years ago, so Bjorn should exist in this era too. He'd be just old enough to suck on a bottle.

But what would happen to me if that child died?

'... Maybe I'm in an incredibly dangerous situation.'

Once we returned to the city, it would probably be best to follow Amelia's advice and quietly observe things for a while.

"All right. Don't worry, I won't cause any trouble."

"... I'll trust you."

Saying that with eyes that didn't trust me in the slightest, Amelia sank back into thought.

More time passed. A few clan members searching the island for their missing comrades passed nearby, but thanks to Amelia's thorough camouflage at the entrance, we escaped notice.

And finally...

[00 : 00]

The clock's hour hand moved with a click. It was time for the Labyrinth to close.

WHOOOOSH!

Pure white light enveloped my body. My vision immediately blurred, and then color gradually returned. Staring blankly up at the sky, I let out a small chuckle.

'It was gloomy here even twenty years ago.'

Raphdonia's familiar gray sky.

"Hey, you're not heading straight back to your lodgings, are you?"

"Of course not. First, we drink."

The Dimensional Plaza bustled with throngs of explorers.

Right. This was what it used to feel like. So much had happened lately that this peace felt stranger instead.

Little by little, it began to sink in.

'... This really is the world twenty years ago.'

And I would have to live here for a while.