Chương 177: Otherworldly Future Visitor
The Magic City of Sharia was bustling with activity. Rumors of the Church of Milis intervening in the slave trade quickly spread, fanned by those who were both freed and given the resources to return to society.
There were also rumors of a quickly growing population of devout believers in the Milis religion... though quite a few of them praised 'Lord Rudras' in the same breath as 'Saint Milis'...
The Greyrat family was busy as well, preparing for upcoming weddings. The brides-to-be and their family were deep in wedding reception and wedding venue planning. The groom's family was busy prepping unique attire for each wedding as well as looking for gifts, spending most of the day shopping using said groom's personal funds.
As for the groom himself…
Well, he focused on his job as the sole professor of the Ranoa Magic Academy.
It would be a lie if he said he didn't regret taking the position considering the amount of sheer paperwork he had to handle when doing the work of over ten different professors.
Fortunately, magic was everything, and he managed to automate a system to sort it all out.
...It totally wasn't inspired by the old days when a substitute teacher would roll in an old projector and play a movie for the class. Definitely not.
But regardless, time marched on, and soon it was the day before Eri's wedding ceremony.
Since all the weddings were timed to be on the last day of the week, with any pre-wedding celebrations and the ceremony itself thus on the weekend, that meant that Rudy was free.
Though everyone else was busy making last minute arrangements and logistics planning, Rudy was left to his own devices.
...Probably because everyone was worried he would cause things to get out of hand.
Rudy didn't see how. He was a perfectly reasonable person, and he also wasn't going to ruin his lovely wife's special day for his own pride.
But whatever. Since he was free, he was spending the day taking a stroll around Sharia. It was going to be his second (Third? Fourth?) home in the future, so he figured that he would map it out.
The residential district, the entertainment district, and then the commercial district.
Rudy took his time walking around and just unwinding for the first in a while. And then someone called out to him. And in Japanese.
"Excuse me, Sir. Are you Mister Rudeus?"
Rudeus paused and looked towards the speaker.
It was a young man. He had an unfamiliar face, but from the black hair, clear Japanese facial features, and even polite Japanese mannerisms... plus recent context clues, Rudy had a good handle on the guy's identity.
Smiling, Rudy turned towards the young man and smiled. Speaking in Japanese, he said, "That's me. And I guess you must be Shizuka's 'friend' from the future. Akihito or something, right?"
The young man glanced at his left wrist, looking at a watch. After that, he let out a relieved smile and looked back at Rudy. "Yes. I'm Akito. Shinohara Akito." He let out a deep sigh after saying that and said, "You're a difficult person to track down, Mister Rudeus..."
Rudy laughed. "Well, I've been busy."
-RNG-
Shinohara Akito.
This guy was apparently the lynchpin behind all the crazy time shenanigans that involved 'Rudeus Greyrat.'
That was enough to be curious about the guy, especially since he still hadn't shown up even after Rudeus died in that other timeline.
But what interested me more was that this guy was Stella's- No, "Shizuka's" boyfriend.
Slightly messy hair, a confident but also somewhat awkward vibe... He was wearing a black blazer and jeans which surprisingly didn't stick out much in this city because of the academy. Still, it was clearly a Japanese high school uniform instead of the one at Ranoa Magic Academy.
There was no doubts about his identity. The timing was a bit strange, but assuming complex time shenanigans involving an alternate version of my cute but hyper-inquisitive and smart baby sister, I could believe it.
We were walking together around the city now, just strolling and chatting. Since the city was bustling with activity these days, we didn't stick out much just chatting.
I did place a few magic formations up so that people would hear our talk as random chatter, but overall, everything was fine.
Standing beside me, Akito let out a sigh of relief and said, "I was getting a bit worried. Shizuka said there'd be plenty of time, but we're running pretty close…"
"I'm assuming you didn't just drop in then?"
Akito shook his head. "I've been in this world for a while now trying to find you after checking certain things." He let out a sigh and said, "It's been hard. Thankfully, Mister Orsted has been helping out a lot."
He has? But he hasn't told me anything...
Wait.
No, that makes sense.
Orsted was a serious guy, so he probably wanted me to focus on getting ready for my weddings.
I should get him a nice gift for that. He looked like a tough guy, but maybe he liked sweets... I should ask him next time I see him.
But anyway.
I looked back at Akito and said, "So what's the message then? Since Shizuka went out of her way to send you here, I'm guessing it's serious?"
"Right!" Akito smacked his fist into his palm and said, "I almost forgot. One second..." He fiddled with his watch for a bit, and then a folded piece of paper popped out. "Here it is." He handed it over and said, "I don't understand anything, but Shizuka said you would?"
I grabbed the paper and read it.
Like Akito said, it was from Shizuka. And while there was a lot of information, when ignoring the complex mathematical proofs and summarizing the conclusions...
Basically, the hypothesis about twisted and overlapping parallel timelines I had was practically 99% confirmed.
My timeline, the future Rudeus's timeline, and the other timeline we visited were twisting into each other while still trying to run parallel courses of history.
There was a 'loop' in each timeline, but since everything was so tangled, it was also staggering said loops, causing a lot of weird anomalies. Not only that, but there was a master loop encompassing all the timelines.
To resolve that loop, we had to split the timelines and eliminate the cause of each loop.
For the future Rudeus' timeline, the loop would end when my timeline and the other timeline was cleanly severed.
As for how to sever said timelines...
Shizuka wasn't sure, but she hypothesized that we had to confine Hitogami to one timeline, either mine or hers.
But we also had to clear up the loop conditions too in each timeline.
For hers, she was sure that it was keeping Akito alive and taking care of Hitogami. Unfortunately, that, and I quote, "blockhead" was as fragile as a bubble according to Orsted and was prone to dying.
That was why she sent him over to my timeline, since I was ridiculous enough to keep the man alive.
As for my timeline... she said I would know better about the exact conditions, but it definitely wasn't the same as hers.
On the surface, it seemed like Shizuka left me with all the hard work.
But I pretty much knew the cause of the potential 'loop' here already. I mean, it was pretty simple.
Setting Orsted aside, the person who would forcibly rewind time... and the person who had done that once already...
Was me.
I mean, that was obvious considering all the 'Alter' versions of me running around.
To stop the loop here, I just had to murder Being W and make sure my family was safe. If I did that, I wouldn't flip the table and do a hard reset by trying to rally against the heavens.
In short, kill god, save the girls, live happy.
Easy enough, right?
Akito looked over and frowned. "...Is it complicated?"
I tucked the paper away in a pocket of folded space. "Not really. Just gotta keep you from dying and kill god. Easy."
Akito let out a relieved sigh. "That's good- Wait. Keep me from dying?"
"Yeah." I chuckled and said, "Shizuka said you're as fragile as a bubble. Apparently, you can die at the drop of a hat."
Akito paled. "Is... Is that why all those crazy things kept happening to me? Like the random falling meteorite? Or the sudden collapsing ground? And the glass shard in my drink...?"
"...Okay, first off." I held out my hand and conjured a bracelet.
Weave a boatload of protection spells, good luck blessings, bad luck blockers, Anti-Being W magic formations, offensive spell programs, defensive spell programs, passive homeostasis healing spells...
And good to go.
I tossed the bracelet over to Akito and said, "Put that on and you'll be fine."
Akito blinked and then shook his head. "I-I can't accept something like this!" He looked at the glittering gold bracelet and said, "This is pure gold, isn't it?"
"Something like that. But I'd rather you not go dying on me while you're my guest here."
Especially since Stella would freak out if she found out her ex was both here and then randomly dropped dead.
...Wait, was this guy her ex?
I don't think I ever asked her directly about it since it was extremely traumatic...
...Meh, I'd find out when she reacted to him.
Akito slowly nodded and said, "Okay then, Mister Rudeus." He snapped the bracelet open and then clamped it over his right arm. The moment he did, the bracelet shimmered and dissolved. "E-Eh?"
"Don't worry about it. Intended design feature."
Akito blinked and then slowly nodded. "Okay. Right, isekai."
"So." Since that guy was safe as he could be now, I crossed my arms and said, "Anything you want to do in particular?"
Akito shook his head. "I've checked the things Shizuka wanted me to check, and I don't really have anything to do... But if you're serious about the killing god thing, I can help!"
I blinked. "...What? How?"
Akito's ears turned red and he coughed. "W-Well, okay. Not directly, but I've read a lot of manga and played a lot of games! Shizuka said I should be able to help you find a loophole! Plus, you're a ridiculous cheat character who got isekai'd, so if we work together and go through all the stuff I've read, *something* should work, right?"
...Huh. A guy who looked like a 'normie' but was a die-hard otaku.
Wait. 'Cheat character?'
I frowned and said, "Just to confirm, by Shizuka, you don't mean Stella, right?"
Akito blinked. "Satella? Like the Witch of Envy from Re: Z*ro?"
"Re: Z*ro?"
"Yeah." Akito nodded and said, "It's a web novel about a guy who gets sent to another world and then has the ability to go back in time on his death. There're a few hints that it might not really be going back in time though. And the female lead is this girl with silver hair. She has a floating white cat that's actually a primordial ice spirit or something, but she's commonly mistaken for Satella, the Witch of Envy who's like a taboo and super evil lady who's probably the big bad. The web novel's not very far along yet, but it's super cool!"
"I... see."
That guy just said a whole paragraph in a single breath.
Definitely diehard otaku. But that aside...
It was an interesting concept.
A bit too many parallels for my liking, though. Especially the part about the female lead.
Floating white cat that's secretly a primordial ice spirit owned by a girl mistaken for 'Satella' who is a 'Witch of Envy'...
...Mm. Let's not think about the world entirely in terms of anime, manga, and light novels.
Akito paused and then turned a bright red. He coughed and said, "Sorry about the rant..."
"No, no. It's fine." I laughed and said, "Don't get me started about the moon."
"The moon? You mean Type-"
"We don't talk about that here. Now." I patted the guy's shoulder and said, "Let's get you a place to live. There's been a few recent evictees and evacuees in town, so we can probably get you a place for cheap..."
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