By Zephyria 
“Do you actually believe that? That the Captain came from another dimension?”
Nero asked his seniors in a dissatisfied tone, leaning back with his hands behind him. Taylor, who had been sitting with an unusually sentimental expression, and Finder, who was playing with a lizard, both rolled their eyes at him. Neither Leonardo nor the child were present.
“No, I mean, think about it. It makes no sense. Of course, we don’t know much about the Captain’s origins, but there are plenty of bermuda-born people appearing in the world; are you saying all of them crossed through a rift of time? Spatiotemporal Distortion isn’t exactly a common phenomenon. We’ve barely seen it ourselves in our entire lives.”
Nero countered the child’s claim based on his own logic. His demeanor was a complete departure from when he was preparing the ritual to shake off residual thoughts. The two seniors simply stared at his agitated state. Only after reading the anxiety etched on his face did they finally understand his behavior.
If the Captain had a place to belong, it should be by their side, not with some residual thought or world whose very existence was uncertain. That was what Nero wanted to say.
Perhaps worried about Leonardo, who had fearlessly followed the child to the backyard claiming he wanted to know the truth, Nero kept gnawing on his lower lip.
Watching him, Taylor brushed back her stray hair and replied.
“Honestly, I agree. The owner of the supply shop introduced her? It makes no sense to just trust that and then believe everything a strange old woman says. To begin with, she talks like a grandmother but looks like a precocious brat. She’s already suspicious, isn’t she?”
Even as she spoke, she rolled her watery blue eyes to look down at the coordinate system synchronized with the tracker. The coordinate system was still maintaining the coordinates of the area they had randomly visited when they first went to meet the Captain. It was as if it perceived that Taylor was still staying there.
Normally, the tracker updates the location incessantly unless an electric shock is applied every 30 minutes or so. However, since entering this place, the coordinates had not changed once.
In other words, it either couldn’t recognize where they were or had gone completely dead.
Seeing this phenomenon, it was clear that the current space was extraordinary, but Taylor and Nero wanted to leave this bizarre place as soon as possible. They hated continuing to hear about the residual thoughts clinging to the Captain, and they didn’t particularly want to acknowledge another life of his that they knew nothing about.
“Let’s say we had no choice but to leave him in her care because the Captain lost consciousness. But since the ritual failed, is there any reason to stay here longer?”
“Right? Exactly! For once, I’m on the same page as you, senior.”
Finally gaining support, Nero leaned his upper body forward and continued.
“What do you think, hyung? Should we go and rescue the Captain now?”
“The Captain told us to stay put.”
Finder expressed his refusal while lying on his side, propping his head up with one hand. With the other hand, he poked the lizard’s flank. Though he said he was playing with it, it looked more like he was pestering the creature to play with him. When the lizard occasionally showed signs of annoyance and tried to nip him, Finder waved a piece of leftover cornbread to tempt it.
“Since when did you start listening to the Captain so well—? Then why did you even go to the arena?”
Who would think that thing was a dragon kin cousin? It was clearly just a pet lizard. Nero was looking displeased at Finder, who was lounging peacefully with the creature, and was about to press him further when—
“That’s one thing. But maybe it’s not a completely absurd story.”
“Huh?”
Shrugging, Finder placed his palms behind his head and flopped onto his back.
“Think about it. Remember the things they used to say as a joke to haze the rookies back in the Dark Silver upper ranks? Like how if you don’t exit through the designated gate within three seconds of passing through a temporary portal, you’ll wander forever, or how if you stuff an Artifact to its limit, it’ll eventually explode and suck you inside.”
One of Nero’s eyes twitched. He had heard those urban legends to death, but those were just nonsense told by mischievous seniors like Taylor.
“Weren’t those all lies?”
When Nero asked, Finder murmured softly while scratching the lizard’s nape with his fingertip.
“Well, they were said as jokes. My point is, looking back, there are quite a few gateways like dimensional boundaries or rifts around us. Even Teleport is like that. And the Holy Spear you and the Captain jointly retrieved from the peninsula—that was originally in a subspace. It’s not an unbelievable story.”
Nero fell silent as the examples were listed.
Hearing the lizard’s contented purring, Finder continued, his fingertips still moving.
“Who knows. Maybe one day we’ll suddenly end up inside one, or maybe something will actually pop out.”
When looking down at the child’s cottage from the air, there was actually no such thing as a backyard. The house, covered by a rounded roof, had its interior completely hidden except for an open veranda, and on the opposite side of the veranda, there were only stairs leading to the water. Descending the stairs, there was nothing but the lake, without even a small gap to step on.
Therefore, Leonardo thought that the “backyard” the child mentioned was a metaphorical expression. Since she said the house itself was on the boundary of the domain governed by Rimaxis, he thought there might be a path leading to another dimension, or perhaps the entire lake was her backyard.
Sure enough, contrary to its simple exterior, the inside of the cottage contained unexpectedly complex corridors. It was like a maze of twisted dimensions. A distance he thought would take twenty steps stretched for over two hundred.
Following the child while smelling the deep scent of ash trees, Leonardo tried to gauge the distance by his stride, but eventually gave up and spoke.
“There’s something I don’t understand.”
The child glanced back and asked.
“What?”
“You said that when a being with a self crosses dimensions, it causes chaos in the world. And that memories are erased to prevent that. If you know that fact, then why did you tell me about my previous life? Why are you helping me, who is curious about it?”
It was a question that pierced the core. If the child’s previous story was true, information from another dimension should not have entered the current Leonardo. That in itself would cause great chaos in this world, which harbored doubts about the existence of bermuda-born people, regardless of Leonardo as an individual.
The child stopped walking and answered.
“If Grimbleton’s death is related to you, and he sent you to me just before he died… then granting your wish would be the way to honor him.”
In other words, Leonardo understood it as, ‘Because it was Grimbleton’s will.’ However, his thoughts shifted slightly with the child’s following words.
“Furthermore, there are too many threads of life entwined with you, both in the past and present. Depending on your choices, their lives, including yours, could fluctuate greatly. I simply judged that leaving such a person in a state of ignorance could also lead to chaos in the world.”
“…….”
“And residual thoughts, by nature, have no intellect; they only act upon the intense emotions present at the moment of their creation. Nevertheless, the residual thought clinging to you is moving as if it possesses intellect to protect you even now. This implies that danger will strike your person now or in the near future. In my eyes, your current state looks extremely precarious. That is why I am accompanying you—not necessarily to provide the reason for your life or the answer to that necklace, but to help you find a signpost.”
Leonardo’s brow furrowed. Danger to his person. It would be faster to count the times he hadn’t been in danger, but hearing it so directly made him realize anew that he was standing on a knife’s edge.
“Are you saying I might die?”
“All humans die. Of course, it would be a blessing if it were just death; I cannot guarantee that everyone gets a chance, but one can strive for an afterlife. However, if you go to the World of Void, everything ends.”
The child said only that and began walking again. Following slowly, Leonardo became deep in thought.
‘Does that mean there is a trigger that could send me to the World of Void?’
Would he meet his end while slaying another Ancient Demon? Or perhaps…
Leonardo walked, trying to imagine a future he could not yet see.
After some time, just as he realized he had completely forgotten the existence of ‘time’ in this place, the child spoke.
“There is something I must make clear.”
The child looked back once more.
“I must get out of here safely with those fellows before two days pass.”
Leonardo tilted his chin and gestured vaguely behind him.
“So, you must not cross over to another dimension or be affected by the flow of time there. If I don’t leave on time, I don’t know what those fellows might do.”
It sounded like a threat, but it was the truth. When he had set out with the child, both Nero and Taylor had tried to stop him with all their might.
“Do not worry about that. Peering into memories does not take that long. And if you no longer wish to proceed, stop now. I have no desire to risk myself for someone who is ungrateful.”
The child did not yield in the slightest. Rather, her reaction was quite cold, stating that there was nothing in it for her. Leonardo did not bother to deny or explain. Then, the child stared at Leonardo’s clothes and continued.
“The clothes you are wearing now have been repaired with thread from another dimension. Dragon kin are quite skilled in such trifles. That thread will confuse the dimensions so that you are not swept away by the flow of time.”
“Confuse the… dimensions?”
Leonardo looked down at the clothes he had changed into. It was the clothing the lizard had brought in a basket. At first, he thought the surface, which had been stained with muddy water, had simply been cleaned and the threads tidied. But looking closer, that wasn’t all. The stitching had become sturdier, and a certain mark was embroidered on the hem of the garment where it was not easily seen.
‘A tree?’
It looked like a simplified symbol of a tree. Five small, elongated oval leaves extended in five directions, with a stem and roots continuing beneath them.
‘Did that lizard do this?’
He wondered how on earth it had managed this with those squeaky, blunt paws. Just then, a cool breeze blew in from somewhere. Leonardo reflexively looked up, following a faintly shimmering light.
There, on the wall of the corridor that had clearly been dark and blocked, was a large window. It started from around Leonardo’s waist and extended higher than his head. Nothing was reflected on the surface, which wavered like opaque glass.
The child, standing right next to the window, pointed beyond it.
“Beyond this is the backyard. Shall we go?”