86. A New World

Chapter 086
A New World

“Good morning, brother!” Kirielle screamed, her voice disgustedly shrill and cheerful. “Morning, morning, MORNING!!!”

Zorian sighed, stretching his arms and legs while Kirielle babbled on top of him. Another restart, another annoying wakeup call from Kirielle. He gave his little sister a silent, complex look, which caused her to hesitate for a second and ask him what’s wrong. Zorian didn’t answer. Instead he suddenly started shaking like a madman, taking advantage of that brief moment of indecision when she loosened her grip on him to push her off to the side. She fell on the floor with a soft thud and an indignant yell. She was back on her feet in a flash, though, annoying him with questions about the academy and requests to ‘show her some magic’.

In other words, she was still the same old Kirielle he had come to know over the restarts. He had thought about including her among the many people who gotten a temporary marker in the previous restart, but in the end he had decided bringing her into the time loop would be reckless and cruel. Unlike the others, Kirielle was just a child. Her personality had yet to fully form, and there was no telling how being stuck in a constantly repeating month would warp her thinking. She also couldn’t keep a secret to save her life and had no way to really contribute to their projects. Not to mention that if he failed to find the way to extend the temporary markers before the sixth restart was up, he would have to watch her forget six months’ worth of memories… that would be a hard pill to swallow.

No, the idea was definitely off-limits. While he would have appreciated a chance to have more meaningful interaction with Kirielle, it wasn’t worth inflicting existential dread on a nine-year-old and dragging down everyone’s chances of survival just for that.

After a few minutes, he finally coaxed Kirielle into leaving the room. He promptly locked the door and created a single simulacrum. It was a simple ectoplasmic copy. This early in the restart, he had neither the time nor the materials to create the golem bodies necessary for the improved mechanical simulacrums he usually liked to use. However, accessibility was more important than mana efficiency in this case. He needed the simulacrum now and not later.

The moment it popped into existence, the simulacrum gave him a silent nod and then teleported away. There was no need to explain anything. The simulacrum had a simple task, planned out all the way in the previous restart and now simply put into practice. His copy was to go to Cyoria and immediately hunt down and dismantle all four cephalic rat swarms lurking in the city. It would doubtlessly alarm Quatach-Ichl if he did that, but it had to be done. With all these new time loopers walking around, the swarms were too much of a threat. They needed them gone, and the sooner it was done, the better.

After dispatching the simulacrum to his task, Zorian went down into the kitchen to eat something while waiting for Ilsa to arrive. He couldn’t help but be a little nervous. While Ilsa’s visit at the beginning of the restart had long since become repetitive and routine, meeting his invocations teacher should be different this time around. She was, after all, one of the people they placed a temporary marker on. If everything went well, she had retained her memories of the previous restart.

He shook his head, trying to collect his thoughts. He was kind of annoyed at himself for being so emotional over this. Previously, when he and Zach were considering going down this road, he had imagined himself facing this scenario with a stoic attitude and cool assurance borne out of years of experiences and conflicts in the time loop… but reality was cruel and his nerves were not as steely as he imagined them to be. Would the temporary markers work as advertised? Would they work at all? Would Ilsa be able to take first-hand experience of the time loop in good grace or would she flip out and start flinging spells at him, demanding answers? He couldn’t help but worry about questions such as this as minutes ticked by. What was taking her so long, anyway? He wasn’t sure, but he thought it didn’t usually take this much time before she–

There was a knock at the door.

“I’ll get it!” said Zorian quickly, rushing for the door. Mother looked amused at this kind of reaction, but said nothing as he ran past her.

He opened the door and found Ilsa standing there. She looked… no different than she usually did at the beginning of the restart. The same clothes, the same judging look, the same stack of documents held in her hands. However, that was only outward appearance. To his empathic senses, she was practically radiating uncertainty and apprehension.

They stared at each other in silence for a while.

“May I come in?” Ilsa eventually asked.

“Hmm? Oh!” said Zorian with a small laugh, wincing inwardly at his behavior. “I guess I spaced out a little. Forgive my manners, Miss Zileti. Come in, please.”

“Thank you, Mister Kazinski,” she said, stepping into the house.

Although his momentary brain freeze wasn’t the most flattering way to start a meeting like this, it seemed to have put Ilsa at ease somewhat, as he felt a lot of the tension drain out of her in the aftermath.

Like usual, Mother immediately left the house when she realized who had come, taking Kirielle with her. This left Zorian alone with Ilsa to ostensibly discuss his electives and whatnot. But, well…

“Same as the last time, I suppose?” Ilsa asked, waving the academy documents in front of her. When Zorian answered yes, she simply threw the stack to the side and sighed. “Of course. You probably heard this all a hundred times by now. I don’t even know why I brought these along with me.”

“Clinging to a sense of normalcy in light of a very bizarre situation,” Zorian guessed. “I was the same, back when I was first dragged into the time loop. I spent quite a few loops going through the motions.”

“You were a teenager who barely started learning magic, though. I am an experienced adult mage. I should be better than this,” Ilsa countered, frowning slightly. She was silent for a few seconds, tapping her fingers against the table as she considered what to say next. “So this is real? We really travelled back in time?”

“It’s a little more complex than that, but yes,” Zorian said. He didn’t want to get bogged down in details of how the time loop actually worked. “Did the marker we gave you work?”

“Obviously,” she scoffed. “How would we be having this conversation otherwise?”

“What I meant was… did you completely retain your magic and memories?” Zorian clarified. “Any holes in your recollection or difficulty in doing magic?”

“That’s a possibility?” she asked, surprised.

“It might be. As I said in the previous restart, this is the first time we have done something like this,” Zorian said.

She gave it a thought for a minute before shaking her head.

“I don’t feel there are any obvious blanks in my memories,” she said. “I did forget quite a few things, but I think that’s just me being forgetful as usual. My memory is hardly flawless. As for magic, well… I’m a grown mage that has reached most of her potential years ago and a month is not that long of a time. Plus, it wasn’t like I did any real training sessions in the span of this month.”

“In other words, any growth in shaping skills you may have experienced is so miniscule that you wouldn’t even notice if it was gone,” Zorian surmised.

“Yes, that,” Ilsa nodded. “I guess I can learn a new spell or two this time just to see if I retain them the next time the world… resets.”

“I can probably just ask Kael. The effect of even one month on his shaping skills and spell knowledge should be dramatic enough to tell,” pointed out Zorian.

“I suppose that’s true,” said Ilsa. “Plus, now that I think about it, I’m probably going to improve my shaping skills and learn quite a few new spells just by helping you out over time. Though you never did really explain what you wanted our help with…”

“Yes, we did not explain our plans and reasons too deeply in the previous restart,” admitted Zorian. “Partly because we didn’t want to overwhelm people with information, but also because we suspected you would only take us seriously after you witnessed the time loop with your own two eyes.”

“Ha. Well, you’re probably right about that,” Ilsa laughed. “Xvim tried to explain how the time loop worked when he was trying to convince me to accept a mysterious soul marker from my two teenage students. I confess I didn’t pay too much attention to it, since the whole idea was so crazy. I’d have probably been even less interested in what you and Zach had to say.”

Well, at least she was honest.

“Do you want me to explain now?” Zorian asked.

“No,” she said immediately. “I don’t think I could pay attention well enough at the moment. I’m still rather disturbed at reliving the same month all over again. You said this has been happening for a while now?”

“Yes. The time loop has repeated itself many, many times,” Zorian said. “This is just your first time remembering it.”

“So, before this I was just… obliviously reliving the same month over and over again? Repeated the jobs, taught the same classes and spoke the same conversations?”

“Well, sometimes me and Zach shook things up a bit and you reacted accordingly, reacting to the changes,” Zorian said. “But yes. Without a marker, people do not retain continuity across restarts.”

“I tried to talk to some of the people around me before coming here,” Ilsa admitted. “Just to check if they really don’t remember anything. I couldn’t resist. I don’t think I revealed anything crucial, but I feel it’s only fair to let you know.”

Zorian sighed. He suspected she wasn’t the only one to make such ‘discreet’ tests, and that there would be more of that stuff to deal with later… but that was okay. They kind of expected that.

“I understand the need for confirmation, but please try to be responsible about this,” he said. “It would be a disaster if the knowledge of the time loop reached certain people.”

“And now I’m being lectured by one of my teenage students,” Ilsa said, clacking her tongue. “How low the mighty have fallen. But fair enough, I do understand we have a mighty, millennia-old lich breathing down our necks. Your fight against him has left quite an impression on me, I must say…”

Zorian just made a slightly sour expression in response. Unsurprisingly, Quatach-Ichl had taken great offense at them trying to look through his memories and stealing his crown. While Zach and Zorian were placing temporary markers on people, Quatach-Ichl was burning down the Noveda estate and Imaya’s house as the first step of his revenge. Fortunately, all inhabitants of Imaya’s place had been evacuated to Koth by that point, and Zach couldn’t care less about the Noveda estate. The ancient lich remained quiet after that, probably because he couldn’t find them and still had an invasion to execute.

Then Zach and Zorian had the bright idea to bring the new loopers to Cyoria on invasion day, to show them how high the stakes really were. Despite being under a plethora of powerful divination wards and constantly moving, Quatach-Ichl somehow noticed them.

The resulting fight completely leveled the street they were fighting in.

“Though Quatach-Ichl is a huge danger, I’m pretty sure the Eldemarian government, the Triumvirate Church, powerful Noble Houses and other powers would also make problems for us if they knew,” Zorian said. “So please be careful.”

They spent the next half an hour discussing various things – the mechanics of the time loop, the way things usually developed if Zach and Zorian did not interfere with things, and the details behind the Ibasan invasion. Ilsa turned out to be just as interested in the invasion of Cyoria as she was in the time loop itself. Then again, that was probably not too unusual. They brought people to witness the attack for a reason.

“You don’t seem to care much for the suffering and devastation we witnessed,” Ilsa eventually said, a note of condemnation in her voice.

“I’m just a little numb to it all, that’s all. I’ve seen it happen too many times, sometimes from the memories of the invaders themselves,” Zorian said. “It’s impossible for me to have the same visceral reaction to it that you probably have.”

“You read their memories?” she asked, surprised.

“I had to,” he simply said.

“Of course you’ve dabbled in mind magic too,” she said in a strange tone.

“Dabbled?” Zorian huffed. “This annoys me more than it probably should. I did not ‘dabble’ in it – I’m a natural mind mage who spent years honing his skills.”

She seemed to be at a loss for words upon hearing that.

“This situation is endlessly bizarre and disturbing,” she finally said after a few seconds.

“Agreed,” Zorian nodded. “I’ve been stuck in this time loop for nearly eight years, not counting all the time dilation chambers, and I still think that.”

“Time dilation chambers?” Ilsa asked. She suddenly shook her head. “No, never mind that for now. Eight years is actually not as long as I thought it would be.”

“I got included rather late into this thing,” Zorian said. “Zach is the one who has spent decades inside the time loop.”

“Ugh. Every answer gives me five new questions,” Ilsa complained. “You know what? Let’s stop this for now. You are planning to take the train to Cyoria, right?”

“Yes, I’m taking Kirielle with me, so I need to pretend I’m somewhat normal. Of course, if you are willing to teleport us to Cyoria yourself…”

“No,” she said immediately. “I’m taking a train ride with you instead.”

Zorian was taken aback at the proclamation. He knew that things would be very much different now that other loopers were walking around, but he couldn’t help but get blindsided by things like this.

“Uh, why?” Zorian asked uncertainly.

“You might be used to it, but I’ve just watched the city get brutally invaded by hordes of monsters and undead,” she told him. “I’d like to stay away from Cyoria for a while, and this is a convenient excuse.”

“Oh,” he said lamely.

Come to think of it, it had only been a few hours at most since the invasion, at least from her perspective.

“You don’t mind, do you?” she asked him.

“Not at all,” he said, shaking his head. “Just watch out for Kirielle if you plan to ride in the same compartment as us. She has an intense interest in magic and anything related to it, and she’s probably going to find you absolutely fascinating.”

“I don’t see a problem with that,” Ilsa smiled. “It’s nice to see kids interested in my work.”

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Zorian didn’t bother to clarify things.

Some things were better as a surprise.

– break –

Mother did not look very surprised when Ilsa informed her she would be accompanying them to the train station. It probably seemed entirely sensible to her that Ilsa would use a train to get back to Cyoria. The two of them got along pretty well with one another, and were soon happily chatting along as they waited on the station for the train to arrive. Zorian mostly ignored the conversation, as it sounded like your typical parent-teacher discussion. Kirielle was too excited about going to Cyoria to care about the teacher that had decided to stick around for a while longer, but Fortov did feel the need to approach the group and say hi after seeing Ilsa present. That was a little new.

“You didn’t include Fortov among those who received the marker,” Ilsa observed quietly.

“No,” Zorian whispered back. “He’s useless and I don’t like him.”

Ilsa had nothing to say in response to that, just giving him a guarded look in return.

Maybe he really was a little harsh towards Fortov. Still, he honestly couldn’t see any good reason to give the guy a temporary marker. Fortov was unreliable and had no work ethic, so including him in the time loop would be about as wise as including Kirielle.

Eventually they boarded the train and set off towards Cyoria. Kirielle became more wary of Ilsa when she realized the teacher was going to stay in the same compartment as them, but… well, it was Kirielle. Patience was never her strong suit. She barely lasted half an hour before she started bombarding Ilsa with questions.