"Dangerous Jungle"

Lumian thought for a moment and asked, "Do the body, mind, and spirit grow closer to the bestower because the bestowed power carries their corresponding imprint?"

He had drawn this inference from the spiritual remnants of the Original Creator and some previous owners within Beyonder Characteristics.

Although a boon consisted of pure power and contained no characteristic, it should still take on something of its owner's nature.

Holding her Tarot cards, the lady nodded approvingly. "Your logical reasoning is fairly good.

"You should thank Aurora for giving you a sufficient basic education."

I don't need you to remind me... Lumian muttered inwardly.

The lady continued, "Even if the bestower has no intention of influencing the recipient, it is difficult to prevent the recipient's body, mind, and spirit from growing closer to Them. If the bestowed power contains none of the bestower's will, the recipient will find it difficult to control, and it will soon dissipate.

"That is why the orthodox gods' boons in this regard are generally temporary and kept within certain limits."

And the evil gods don't care what their recipients ultimately become? Lumian nodded thoughtfully and asked with curiosity, "Can Beyonders-I mean, people with Beyonder Characteristics-also receive boons? Would the two conflict and cause a loss of control?"

The lady glanced at Lumian with a smile and shook her head. "There will be some conflict, but not much.

"Think about it. The bestowed power makes your body change toward the bestower, while your body originally exists in a state adapted to its own Beyonder Characteristics. Once the changes become too great, they will inevitably conflict with those characteristics until a new balance is found.

"Since this conflict doesn't involve the mind or spirit, it normally won't make you lose control, unless you were already on the verge of a mental breakdown at the time.

"The only problem is that you may have to learn to calmly watch yourself grow a third eye or a fourth hand.

"Of course, that assumes the bestowed power remains within you for a long time and is of a very high corresponding level. Otherwise, those tiny bodily changes can be ignored."

Lumian murmured an acknowledgment.

"What if the boon comes from the same pathway or a neighboring one?"

The lady nodded.

"That indeed won't cause a conflict."

Then she smiled.

"But that doesn't mean there won't be bodily changes."

What does that mean? Lumian was about to ask another question when the lady said with a smile, "I thought that after learning about the Person of the Loop, you'd be impatient to ask about the time loop. Instead, you're focusing on knowledge that you might never even have a use for.

"That's not like you!"

Lumian gave a self-deprecating smile.

"I originally wanted to start by asking whether you had a way to help us break this time loop, but then I remembered some things you once said.

"You said the price of having you resolve the problem was the destruction of all of Cordou Village and the death of everyone in it. If we wanted a better outcome, we could only work things out ourselves.

"I couldn't really understand it before, but now I think I've guessed the reason.

"Since you're not a Person of the Loop, is outright destruction your only way of breaking the loop here?"

The lady nodded with considerable satisfaction.

"That's right."

"Then why didn't you explain it clearly before?" Lumian couldn't help asking.

It wasn't as though saying it aloud would cause destruction!

Or had this lady already grown accustomed to revealing half of what she meant and concealing the rest?

The lady let out a laugh.

"If I'd told you back then that the entire village was caught in a time loop, would you have believed me?"

After pondering for a while, Lumian replied, "No..."

Without experiencing it firsthand, who would believe something so absurd and bizarre, like a plot device in a story?

"So," the lady said with a smile, "why would I explain it clearly? Then I'd have to spend a great deal of time explaining it to you."

"..." Lumian fell silent.

He took the opportunity to ask, "Do you know the key to breaking this kind of loop?

"What direction should I work toward?"

The lady shook her head again.

"Divining certain things here is very dangerous."

"Huh?" Lumian didn't understand at first.

The lady had to elaborate. "If I knew where the key lay, I would certainly tell you. The sooner this is resolved, the sooner I can end this journey."

Then she sighed.

"When will I finally be able to take a proper vacation without bringing work along...?"

Work? Seeing that he couldn't obtain any "revelation" from this mysterious lady, Lumian could only ask tentatively, "As long as we don't kill the Parish Priest, will the time loop not begin?"

"No," the lady answered definitively. "The loop has several other triggers, including reaching the Twelfth Night. You'll have to figure out the others yourself."

The Twelfth Night... That still leaves quite a bit of time to investigate... Lumian thought for a moment and asked, "Because I activated the special quality within me, will I retain my memories and Beyonder Characteristics through every subsequent loop?"

When the lady nodded, he asked further, "If that's the case, then as long as I can stay alive, keep looping, and keep investigating, I'll eventually find the key to ending all of this..."

This was an application of the "exhaustive method" Aurora had told him about.

"That's correct in theory." That baffling, unreadable emotion surfaced again in the lady's eyes. "But you should have noticed that only Cordou Village and the surrounding area are looping. Everywhere else is unaffected. In other words, time outside is passing normally, and the date is completely different from the one in Cordou Village.

"Those three investigators send a telegram outside at regular intervals, describing their own condition and the village's situation. Once they mention the date, the Intis authorities will be able to detect the anomaly here.

"Even if the investigators never manage to send a telegram during any loop, or never mention the date, the authorities will surely discover the problem as time passes. When that happens, what method do you think they'll use to resolve Cordou Village's loop?"

Lumian fell silent. Only after a long while did he say, "They'll probably do what your backup plan calls for-destroy it outright."

"That effectively prevents the anomaly from spreading and affecting other people," the lady said with a wistful sigh. "If you ever have a chance to visit the Sonia Sea, you can ask about Bansy Harbor. It suffered some kind of corruption and was destroyed outright by the Church of the Lord of Storms. Not a single person escaped."

Her account strengthened Lumian's determination to find the key to the loop himself.

He mocked himself again.

"Looks like I don't have much time left."

At most, he had another three or four loops, and he couldn't let every one run until the Twelfth Night.

The lady stood and said calmly, "At least you still have a chance to save things. Some people don't even have that."

After leaving the old tavern, Lumian stood in the street and looked at the scattered pedestrians and the houses around him. Everything in Cordou Village seemed perfectly normal. People had joy, anger, desires, and feelings, no different from people anywhere else.

Yet this village, where peace and bustle seemed to coexist, where harmony mingled with noise, concealed an unimaginable horror. Time here, and every person here, were trapped in a loop, living through the same few days over and over.

Apart from the handful that included Parish Priest Guillaume Béné, the shepherd Pierre Berri, Pons Béné, and Ava Lizier, Lumian still couldn't determine who was abnormal and who was innocent.

Even with Raymond Klegg, who was usually rather foolish and guileless, he couldn't be completely certain that nothing was wrong with him.

And the abnormal behavior of most of the young people at the end of the Lent Festival might have resulted from the Parish Priest influencing them with supernatural powers on the spot, rather than any preexisting problem.

For a moment, Lumian felt as though Cordou Village were a primeval forest, full of danger at every turn, and he couldn't distinguish the prey from the hunters.

Caution and patience were the foremost requirements for surviving in such an environment. Ability, courage, intelligence, and experience all came after them.

It bore some resemblance to life as a vagrant, yet also differed from it in obvious ways.

As these thoughts surfaced, Lumian inexplicably sensed signs that his Hunter potion was being digested.

Is this the first step of the acting method?

That was pretty quick. I thought it would take a month or two just to get started...

At that thought, Lumian suddenly grew excited.

Could I digest the Hunter potion within one or two loops?

Then, combined with hunting in the Dream Ruins, he might soon become a Sequence 8 Provocateur, gain greater power, and improve his chances of resolving the time loop.

Lumian walked as he pondered and soon reached the Village Square.

His current plan was to have a "chat" with the Parish Priest and sound him out, hoping to discover something unusual and obtain some clues.

Just then, he saw a figure walking toward the church.

The figure wore a dark brown hooded robe with a rope tied around his waist and a pair of brand-new shoes made of supple leather. It was the shepherd Pierre Berri.

Him... Lumian hurried over and deliberately asked, "Pierre, what brings you back?"

Pierre Berri's black hair was still greasy and curly, and his beard clearly hadn't been shaved in a long time.

Hearing Lumian's question, he answered cheerfully, "The Lent Festival is coming up, isn't it? I haven't taken part for several years. No matter what, I couldn't miss it this year..."

His blue eyes brimmed with a gentle smile, making him utterly unlike the shepherd who had left such a deep impression-and even a lingering shadow-on Lumian.

Huh, with a different person asking in a different place, his answer differs somewhat from the last loop. The substance hasn't changed, but some of the wording is different... Lumian listened attentively, then glanced down at Pierre's new shoes and asked with a smile, "Made a fortune?"

"Not really. Let's just say my employer this time was very good to me and gave me quite a few things." Pierre was delighted. "I'll buy you a drink tonight."

"All right." Lumian accepted, then pointed at the church. "Going to pray?"

"Yes. It's been too long since I prayed to God in a church," Pierre said with a sigh.

There was nothing inherently wrong with that statement, but the more Lumian considered it now, the more suspicious it sounded.

Shepherding didn't mean completely leaving human towns behind. There were plenty of villages around lowland pastures. Mountain pastures were desolate, but shepherds went down the mountains at regular intervals to replenish their supplies. How could he possibly fail to find a church?

Of course, if Pierre Berri had moved his flock to Feynapotter or Lenburg this time, he really wouldn't have been able to find a church of the Eternal Blazing Sun. It was just that Lumian's preconceptions made him feel that every sentence Pierre Berri uttered was suspicious.

Pierre Berri asked in turn, "Are you going to church too?"

"No." Lumian shook his head. "I thought there'd be people chatting in the square, but it turns out no one's here."

Then he waved.

"I'm heading home."

"See you tonight." Pierre Berri waved back.

After watching the shepherd head toward the church, Lumian turned back into the village.

He had abandoned his plan to chat with the Parish Priest. His next destination was:

The shepherd Pierre Berri's house!