TL/ED – Miso
Along with the crack in the mirror, soone other than was reflected on its surface.
Naturally, it was Sharmia. The Sharmia of the age I knew.
The expression on her face in there was, how should I put it…
[?]
She looked utterly dumbfounded.
She rubbed those large eyes of hers several tis, showing a face of sheer disbelief, then quickly scribbled sothing on a nearby piece of paper and held it up.
[Why are you there?]
It seed she couldn’t transmit the sound of her voice.
“Can you hear ?”
[Yes. But…?]
“I have absolutely no idea either. Where on earth is this place?”
Sharmia looked genuinely flustered, scanning my surroundings through the mirror with an incredulous gaze.
[First of all, the fact that you’re in that place doesn’t make any sense to . How did you get in there…? How is this even possible? No, what happened? Seriously?]
“Well, obviously sothing went wrong with the magic Lady Dersia cast, didn’t it?”
[No, even if sothing went wrong with that, there’s no way Jern could be in there. Are you really Jern? You’re not a fake?]
“…?”
What was she even saying? She was looking right at and still saying this?
Was this soone else who just looked like Sharmia? When she saw suspicion coloring my gaze, she frantically waved her hands.
[Oh, I’m sorry. I just can’t wrap my head around it.]
“I don’t really understand what you’re getting at. What is this place that makes you say such things?”
[Hmm…]
Sharmia pondered for a mont, made a face as though this were difficult to explain, and then sumd up the current situation in a single sentence.
[That place is inside my mories.]
“?”
…It was an absurd thing to say, but.
***
When I stood frozen for a mont, Sharmia added further explanation.
[Did you think that place was the past? Yes. You’re not wrong. It really is the past. If you do sothing there, say, scratch a wall, that mark would exist in the Imperial Palace right now too.]
“Then why do you call it inside your mories?”
[This is… well, honestly I didn’t ntion it because I was afraid you’d think I was crazy, so could I first assure you that I’m ntally sound before I explain?]
“Go ahead.”
I doubted anything could surprise more than this at this point.
I crossed my arms and replied curtly, and she began poking at the paper with her finger, jotting down her explanation.
[The thing is, I’m actually the one maintaining the world. If I die, this world disappears too.]
“…Excuse ?”
Even so, it was enough to make tilt my head in confusion.
What was she talking about? Was she actually insane? As I was thinking that, I could see her sigh from beyond the mirror, as if she had expected this exact reaction.
[What I an is, the way I return infinitely to the past is a little unusual. I was chosen as the person who keeps this world from collapsing… so if I die, it falls apart. But it’s absolutely ridiculous for the world to end just because one person dies, right? What’s one person compared to an entire world?]
“So the world goes back to the past to undo your death?”
[Good guess, but slightly off. When I die, another chosen person takes my place. That’s a much simpler solution, after all.]
It seed like this “chosen person” was the role the Crimson Circle referred to as the Priestess.
Whether Sharmia knew that or not, she picked up another sheet of paper with a bitter expression.
[But no matter how I look at it, no one other than seems to be able to receive the Selection. In the end, I always beco the pillar that sustains the world again.]
“But at that point, your death…”
I was furrowing my brow when.
I realized sothing, and slowly opened my mouth.
“…That’s how you go back?”
[Yes!]
Unlike her, writing her answer in lively handwriting, I couldn’t form another word, my mind frozen despite understanding the gravity of the situation.
“That’s…”
In other words.
When the current Sharmia dies, soone must inherit the position of Priestess and maintain the world.
But no one other than Sharmia can be recognized as the Priestess.
And so Sharmia is chosen through Selection once again, the Sharmia of the past, still alive.
“That’s absolutely horrifying.”
[Is it? It’s still bearable, though.]
I couldn’t understand her, answering as if she found nothing strange about it.
At the sa ti, I finally understood what the Priestess truly was, the title the Crimson Circle used for her position. Sothing I had only vaguely understood as a being who could see the future and possessed the power of Regression.
The Celestial Realm. The world we currently lived in ultimately needed a dium to intervene in the Real World.
For example, without , the Deep Sea would be nothing more than a fake buried away sowhere, unable to exert any influence on the Real World. If the Deep Sea had sothing like a will of its own, then it had chosen .
And the Celestial Realm had also chosen. It had chosen Sharmia as its vessel, the elent through which it would influence the Real World.
It had cast her into Purgatory.
‘Perhaps even this…’
Could it be a sche the Celestial Realm had devised to prevent its Priestess from falling to the Crimson Circle?
As I said before, could sothing like a world truly possess a will of its own?
Of course, there were cases like the Puppet, but that was rely sothing the Void had forcibly created.
Looking at everything the Celestial Realm had done, I couldn’t help but think it was acting with so kind of intent…
As I piled thought upon thought, there was another crackling sound from the mirror.
[Excuse ? Jern?]
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Whatever the case, this wasn’t the ti to think about that.
Right now, the priority was finding a way out of Sharmia’s mories, that is, out of the past.
No, wait. Did I even need to? A sudden question occurred to and I asked it outright.
“But wouldn’t it be better to just deal with the Crimson Circle from here? If this really is the past like you said, if it’s inside your mories…”
[Ah, I figured you’d think of that. I’ve tried it several tis myself.]
“…What happened?”
[Tampering with the past doesn’t really make for a good solution. The effort you put into altering the past is what creates the future. After a few attempts that led to truly terrible outcos, I realized there was absolutely no escaping it, so I gave up.]
…Like a Greek prophecy.
In other words, no matter what I did here, the future wouldn’t change from what I already knew, and in the worst case, I might be the very cause of those events.
If the birth of the Crimson Circle had been because of … A chill ran down my spine, and I pulled my hand away from the vanity I had been gripping.
Surely being spotted by those guards hadn’t changed anything. As I fretted over that, Sharmia held up a sheet of paper with an urgent expression.
[I have no idea why Jern is inside my mories, but honestly, this is a really dangerous situation. I’ll look for a way to get you out by whatever ans possible. But there are a few things you need to be careful about.]
“What?”
[Don’t die.]
Her usual playfulness had completely vanished, replaced by an utterly serious expression.
[If you die in there, there will probably be no way to co back. Because it will beco history. No matter what I do, it’s over.]
“Yes. Understood.”
Death is death.
Simple as that. When I nodded, she looked slightly relieved, then wrote the next line, one that struck as a little puzzling.
[Also, the in that place can’t die either.]
“Why is that? It shouldn’t be that big of a problem, should it?”
[…It’s still ! Why would you say that! A-are you planning to kill ?]
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was just wondering if that was the only reason.”
[To be precise, if that version of ends up going back through Regression, that too becos set in stone as history. There would likely be no way to escape it… and it would lead to a similar outco.]
“Understood.”
In short, don’t die.
And don’t let Sharmia die.
Those were the only two rules I needed to follow.
“Were there any major events during this ti period?”
[Major events… I don’t recall any. Oh, there were plenty of assassination attempts though. The Empire was in absolute chaos back then. It was such a ss that even I, a Princess, was being targeted.]
Assassination attempts didn’t count as a major event…?
[Honestly, back then, I wasn’t all that afraid of dying.]
“Because you knew you could co back?”
[Even before I knew that.]
“You must have been quite cynical.”
[That was, um, there was so kind of turning point…]
As I watched Sharmia tilting her head, trying to recall sothing, a different thought suddenly occurred to .
“Have you ever seen there? What if I’ve already altered history?”
[No. And even if you had, I probably wouldn’t rember. It was so~o long ago.]
“That long…”
I was about to ask just how long ago it had been, but then I recalled that she had repeated this cycle who knows how many tis.
…She might even be older than Dersia, for all I knew. I swallowed the rest of my words and nodded.
“Understood. Is there anything else?”
[There is! The most important thing is still left!]
“?”
[Let see… this should work.]
Sharmia suddenly picked up a croissant from the desk.
Then, with complete seriousness, she held it up to the mirror.
[Rember this croissant.]
“Mm.”
Just as the theory that she might actually be insane was gaining so traction.
She added a supplentary explanation.
[If I’m not holding a croissant, you must never, ever believe what I say. Just run. No matter what I tell you, don’t believe it. Refuse. This is really important.]
“Understood for now. But could I at least hear the reason?”
The rest I could let slide, but this particular piece of absurdity was novel enough to warrant a follow-up question. When I asked, Sharmia wrote her answer with a grave expression.
[This place is inside my mories. I have a hobby of revisiting mories, things I’ve forgotten, things that made happy, and I’m not the only one with that hobby.]
“You’re saying soone else looks into your mories?”
[Exactly. No one but can see them. So the one looking is the future .]
“…? Then there’s no problem, is there?”
[…]
The Princess fell silent for a long while.
Then, with an expression as though sothing stung, looking like she wanted to crawl into a hole, she wrote the words out.
[The thing is… that, future . Yes.]
“Yes?”
[…This is the first ti I’ve ever told anyone this…]
I had lost count of how many unbelievable things I had learned today.
[That, future … joins the Crimson Circle.]
“…What the f, are you out of your mind?”
[Ehehe…]
This one was absolutely impossible to let slide.
“This isn’t sothing you can laugh off. You said that future can never be changed.”
[That’s right.]
“Then, at so point, it’s a certainty that you’ll be with the Crimson Circle?”
[Y-yes, I suppose so.]
“No.”
What even was this?
Sharmia, what on earth was she fighting against?
…Why was she even trying?
What had this transcendent being felt upon seeing that the future she least wanted was guaranteed to arrive?
Watching a future version of herself, one who carried all the sa actions, mories, and feelings, make that choice. What had she felt?
The words swirling inside were too heavy to escape my throat. I simply stood there, dumbstruck, and she fidgeted as she added more words.
[Anyway, please rember this, okay? The future will definitely try to make you and the current submit. You really need to be careful.]
“…Understood.”
I couldn’t bring myself to ask right now. This wasn’t the ti for that.
I simply buried it in my heart and slowly nodded.
As I watched her looking relieved, sothing else suddenly ca to mind.
“But that croissant thing, doesn’t the future… the Crimson Circle version of you already know about it?”
[Yes. She would know.]
“Then isn’t it completely aningless? She could just bring the sa croissant.”
[Oh, that won’t work.]
“Why not? It’s just bread.”
If it was the sa croissant, anyone could make one.
I asked with that thought in mind, and she smiled bitterly as she wrote her reply.
[In that future, they can’t make things like bread.]
“…”
For the third ti.
My mind went completely blank.
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