Sayings

Lumian deliberately observed the entire process of "getting acquainted" with Lya and the others, going through it from beginning to end until they reached the church of the Eternal Blazing Sun.

He tentatively confirmed that these three foreigners really no longer "knew" him and were completely unprepared for his corresponding "pranks."

Had time really turned back...? Lumian felt dazed for a moment.

"We've been here. There's no one inside." Valentine looked at the imposing building ahead, half swallowed by the night, and delivered his "scheduled" line.

Lumian steadied himself and stopped following the script.

He said bluntly, "That's because the Parish Priest doesn't want to deal with you."

He intended to leave these three foreigners, whom he suspected were official Beyonders, with the impression that he liked joking around but wasn't malicious.

"You mean the Parish Priest is inside the church, but something is keeping him from answering the door?" Several possibilities occurred to Lya.

Lumian smiled.

"It wouldn't do to have people catch him having an affair inside the church."

After saying this, he instinctively muttered inwardly, What a shame. This time, I won't get to hear that classic line, 'You've disrupted the sacred Church's operation.'

Of course, after learning more about Madame Pualis, he felt that, in a certain sense, the Parish Priest's claim wasn't entirely unreasonable.

Couldn't the Parish Priest be like the protagonists of Aurora's undercover novels, willingly enduring temporary humiliation and selling his body to infiltrate the evil forces represented by Madame Pualis, all to accomplish an important mission?

"Having an affair in the church?" Valentine abandoned his indifferent attitude and demanded urgently.

Lumian spread his hands.

"What's wrong with that? It's an everyday activity for the Parish Priest.

"You don't need to get so worked up. Isn't there a saying, 'Times may change, but men will always bed other men's wives'?"

"But this is a church!" Valentine said harshly.

Lumian thought for a moment, then asked curiously,

"So you're saying it's acceptable for clergymen to have affairs as long as they don't do it inside a church?"

"This is blasphemy against God!" Valentine looked ready to explode.

Ryan patted his shoulder, signaling for him to calm down.

At the same time, this most composed of the foreigners asked Lumian,

"Do you know who the Parish Priest is having an affair with tonight?"

Lumian shook his head.

"There are too many possibilities. His mistresses, just the ones I know about, include Madame Pualis, Madina Benet, Philippa Guillaume, Sybil Berry..."

"Madina Benet shares the Parish Priest's surname?" Lya keenly picked up on this point.

Lumian nodded.

"She and the Parish Priest are second cousins."

"..." Valentine froze for a few seconds before saying through gritted teeth, "Is Guillaume Béné a servant of God or a servant of the devil?"

Is that the only line you know? I haven't seen you go smash his head in... Lumian deliberately began defending the Parish Priest.

"It's really nothing. There's a saying in the Dalege Region: 'A distant cousin is fine to bed.'"

"How do you know so many sayings?" Lya couldn't help laughing, making the silver bells on her head jingle.

Lumian spread his hands again.

"That's just how it is in the countryside."

At this point, Ryan asked thoughtfully, "How do you know we aren't from the Dalege Region?

"Otherwise, you wouldn't have said, 'There's a saying in the Dalege Region.'"

You told me yourselves... Lumian had spoken too quickly, treating what had happened "before" as information already established between them.

He had no choice but to invent a reason.

"You don't have the air of Dalege locals."

He then pointed at the road leading into the village.

"I've helped you find the Parish Priest. Now I have to go home."

"I thought you'd come inside with us." Lya glanced at him and said with a faint smile.

"I wouldn't dare offend the Parish Priest." Lumian added with apparent nonchalance, "The last villager who informed on him has been missing for a long time."

Without waiting for Ryan and the others to respond, he waved and ran toward the other side of the square, calling as he went,

"Remember to keep my secret, my cabbages!"

With the crimson moon hidden behind clouds, Lumian walked along the country road, bathed in scattered starlight.

His hands in his pockets, he considered the recent events.

As he neared home, Lumian stopped and looked up at the roof of the two-story building with its partly sunken ground floor.

Sure enough, Aurora, wearing a light blue dress, sat there with her knees hugged to her chest, quietly gazing at the stars.

In the night, her silhouette looked lonely and distant.

It really repeated... Could it be that those earlier events were real, and I'm dreaming now? Just as this new possibility occurred to Lumian, he suddenly noticed a difference between the two March 29ths:

Today, he hadn't seen the lady who had given him the Wands card and taught him mysticism in the old tavern.

This left him uncertain whether he was dreaming now.

I'll check tomorrow... Lumian gathered himself, walked up to the house, and pushed open the door.

Just as he had "last time," he climbed onto the roof using the ladder on the second floor, walked lightly over to Aurora, and sat beside her.

"What's so interesting about this?" Lumian asked deliberately.

Aurora turned her head and sighed. Just as she was about to speak, Lumian added, "I mean, what does looking at the stars actually mean to you?"

Aurora looked him up and down a few times.

"So direct today?"

She turned her gaze back to the stars and said wistfully, "You know I'm not from Cordu, or even Dalege.

"I don't know if you've heard this saying: a place only becomes your homeland when you can no longer return..."

Lumian didn't joke. He gazed at the stars with her.

After Aurora flew into her bedroom to write to her pen pals, Lumian returned to the second floor the way he had come, without revealing that he had become a Beyonder, and chatted with his sister for a while about her pen pals.

Then he closed Aurora's door for her and returned to his own bedroom.

Looking at the bed with its white four-piece bedding set, Lumian suddenly had an impulse. He walked over and lifted the pillow.

A card lay quietly beneath it-a Tarot Minor Arcana card representing the Seven of Wands!

Looking at the resolute-faced man on the card, dressed in green and wielding a wand to fend off enemy attacks, Lumian immediately recalled the lady's interpretation of the card:

"Crisis, challenge, resistance, courage..."

The more Lumian thought about it, the more he felt that these four words accurately revealed his present circumstances.

He had most likely already been caught in a crisis and facing a challenge before drawing the card!

What I need to do next is summon my courage and confront the problem? Wait, hasn't time already turned back? I haven't even met that lady yet, let alone drawn a card. Why is it here? Lumian was startled, and his earlier conjecture became uncertain again.

All kinds of thoughts and deductions rapidly surfaced in his mind, like bubbles rising through boiling water.

They made Lumian's head throb, leaving him feeling as though he was about to go mad.

In the end, he temporarily classified the lady and the items she had given him as "exceptions," keeping his thoughts from exploding altogether.

Given the mystery and extraordinary nature she had displayed, it was reasonably unsurprising that she would remain unaffected by time turning back!

If I can find her tomorrow and she still recognizes me, that will prove my deduction is correct... Lumian exhaled, feeling mentally exhausted.

He went to the washroom for a quick wash, then went to bed early.

Lumian woke amid the familiar, faint gray fog. He sat up and saw the wooden table by the window and the chair set at an angle.

He had once again entered this special dream.

After discovering that the Wands card still existed, he had known he would definitely be able to enter again.

Lumian instinctively felt his clothes' inner pocket, and his expression abruptly froze.

The gold coins were gone!

All those gold coins were gone!

Lumian hastily jumped out of bed, searched his entire body, and checked where he had been lying, but still couldn't find the money he had painstakingly collected.

There wasn't even a one-Kopek copper coin!

"Has time turned back here too?" This conjecture suddenly occurred to Lumian.

He looked around but didn't see the shotgun, axe, or steel pitchfork that should have been there.

Lumian composed himself, left the bedroom, and walked through the corridor to the ground floor.

The nearly two-meter-long steel pitchfork and the iron-black hatchet lay undamaged in their original positions, just as they had when Lumian first explored the dream ruins.

Likewise, the bucket of corn oil hadn't yet been placed beside the stove.

As for the shotgun, Lumian searched everywhere without finding it.

He increasingly leaned toward the conclusion that time had turned back here as well.

I'll go to the ruins and see if those two monsters are still there... Lumian told himself silently, then picked up the axe, opened the door, and left.

Before long, he crossed the cracked wilderness where no weeds grew and reached the edge of the ruins.

Unlike during his first exploration, now that he was a Hunter, a casual glance revealed numerous traces left by living creatures.

When he concentrated, he could even distinguish that two creatures frequented this place. One set of shallow footprints led around behind the half-collapsed, burned house.

If I'd had supernatural abilities like these before, how could I have nearly been ambushed on my first exploration? Axe in hand, Lumian entered the building.

He headed straight for his "destination," reaching the broken earthenware jar.

A glimmer of gold showed from inside.

Lumian bent down and picked up the Gold Louis.

Its color was exactly the same as when Lumian had first picked it up.

Time really has turned back. Apart from a very few exceptions, everything has returned to its "initial" state... Lumian sighed.

Suddenly, he took two quick steps forward, twisted at the waist, and half turned to his right.

With the force of that movement, he swung the axe in his hand.

The skinless, blood-red monster had only just leaped from the roof when it lost sight of its target. What greeted it was an axe.

Thwack!

Its head flew clean off, and its headless body crashed heavily to the ground amid a spray of blood and pus.