Chapter 206: Ghosts of the Past

  “...Prota.”

  That was all Prota could think of saying.

  Thankfully, her eternal poker face was helping. Destiny didn’t know her well enough to tell the difference between her various expressions, so to him, she must’ve simply looked bored or sleepy. Truthfully, she was panicking inside, and her name was the first thing that had come to mind.

  It wasn’t random, though. At the moment, Prota’s current strategy was simply doing what she’d seen John do. Baiting Destiny into a conversation was one of those things, and it looked like she’d accomplished her task in doing so. However, without knowing what she’d say, she could only do what she felt was appropriate.

  In her past life, John had always responded to this question with his own name, and slightly before her death, Prota had understood the statement. What else could one say? They were themselves. Prota was a lot. An experiment. A broken child. The reincarnated corpse of her mentor. An [Anomaly]. A [Character].

  But ultimately, what did any of that matter? It might affect how some people saw her. It might change how others treated her. But she wasn’t so one-dimensional as that. She wasn’t just the opinions of others.

  She was simply herself.

  “That’s not- who sent you?” Destiny continued, pressing in harder. “What are you doing here? And what is your goal?”

  Prota looked at Destiny, trying to calm herself. His eyes were glowing. That meant he was using his truth detector on her.

  But… he didn’t know that she knew of his ability, right?

  Unfortunately, that was as far as she got with that line of thought. Knowing that he had a truth detector only meant that she should tell the truth. She couldn’t really use this knowledge in any other way. Of course, she was aware of the fact that the truth detector didn’t know the absolute truth, but that didn’t help her at the moment.

  For a while, Prota remained quiet. Destiny continued to hold his blade, unwavering, but he didn’t say anything either.

  Finally, Prota knew what she had to do. The only problem was, she didn’t know if she could handle the backlash. However, it was as John always said.

  That was a problem for later.

  “Destiny,” Prota said simply.

  That got a reaction out of the boy, although he managed to recover quickly.

  “What- that’s- what are you saying?” he said, lowering his blade ever so slightly.

  “Destiny Windwalker,” Prota repeated, pointing at him to make sure the message got across.

  Unfortunately, the reaction he gave was not the one she was looking for.

  “Who are you?” he hissed, pressing the blade closer. “Are you working for the Shadow Order?”

  “The- huh?” Prota tilted her head in confusion. “...no?”

  Destiny’s grip on his blade grew tighter for a moment, but then he slowly backed off, much to Prota’s surprise.

  “You… you’re telling the truth. Then… how do you know my name?”

  Prota didn’t know how to answer that. Of course, she knew what the answer was . She came from the future and had regressed in order to save the world from someone she knew was coming. However, she didn’t have the speech skills nor the confidence to communicate such a thing.

  Instead, she pointed at the fox on Destiny’s shoulder.

  “Kit.”

  That got an even more visceral reaction.

  “Hey. Just… what are you?” Destiny frowned.

  At this point, it seemed the hero didn’t know what to do anymore. His sword had dropped to his side, and his stance was unguarded. That didn’t mean he was relaxed, though. In fact, his body and posture seemed more tense than ever.

  Well, that made sense.

  “Kit Ninetails,” Prota repeated. “Um… ran away from home. Right?”

  The fox began to snarl, and Prota backed off a little. Right. They weren’t friends. Such a thing could definitely bring up some bad memories. But she needed to say a few more things.

  She wasn’t sure what their relationship would be like now. She desperately wanted to be friends again. To talk. To joke. To hang out, just like old days. But Destiny didn’t remember any of that. He would never remember any of it.

  Because it didn’t exist to anyone but Prota.

  But that was fine. She had to keep going. Even if the old Destiny wasn’t here… perhaps she could convince the new one to become her companion.

  “...hero,” she said finally, pointing at Destiny.

  “Who… are you?” Destiny said again, although this time, his words were no longer a demand.

  He was asking a question.

  “...I’m Prota.”

  That was all she could say. That was all she wanted to say.

  Because that was who she was.

  “Haah… it doesn’t look like I’m going to get anything else out of you. Are you… are you here to threaten me? Is that it? Are you trying to send a message?”

  “...no.”

  “Then what do you want? What’s the point of telling me all this? No, hold on. How did you even learn all of this?”

  “...you’re from Earth. You’re the hero. Ability is, um… God Slaying Sword.”

  “Enough!” Destiny yelled.

  His blade was no longer up. He no longer had an aggressive stance.

  Good.

  “What do you want? Choose carefully. Your next words… you’d better start explaining yourself.”

  “...help me.”

  Destiny froze. Prota couldn’t see his face, but from the way he looked, he definitely hadn’t been expecting that to be what Prota would ask. Well, that made sense. It was definitely a strange request given everything else Prota had just said.

  It was then that Prota realized how Destiny’s skill could be used.

  “What do you mean… help you?” Destiny said carefully.

  “Lie detector. Use it,” Prota said confidently. “Now.”

  “You know even about- seriously what am I even doing…”

  His eyes began to glow once more as he stared at Prota, his gaze now somewhat curious.

  “I… I, um…” Prota stammered as she struggled to remember the word. “Ah. I regressed. Um… yes”

  “Regression?” Destiny said softly. “That’s… that’s possible?

  “...you told me everything,” Prota said quietly. “About… about you. About Kit. I…”

  Suddenly, Prota’s hard shell cracked. It wasn’t a lot. But the barrier she’d been holding, the dam that had been withstanding her torrent of emotions, it cracked just a bit.

  It was as Jinae said. She did want her friends back. She did want the happy, peaceful days to return. But they wouldn’t.

  They couldn’t.

  And Prota had to accept that.

  But it was still so, so hard to be fine with it. To internalize it, to be ok with how things were proceeding. It would be hard for anyone to be fine with such things.

  Perhaps Prota would never truly be whole.

  But that didn’t change her will. Her goal.

  So she had to press on.

  “We were friends,” Prota said.

  The truth. She had to utilize as much of the truth as she could. Destiny could verify her statements, so she wouldn’t need to worry about proving herself. All she needed to do was tell the story of their past life, a task she’d never done before.

  But her brother was a storyteller.

  So maybe she could be one, too.

  She did her best. Her best wasn’t a lot, but it was all she had.

  If someone else were there, they might have told her she was doing it wrong. That she was ruining things, or that she was interfering with things she shouldn’t. But Prota didn’t know any of that. She didn’t know the “rules” of time travelling, the restrictions that should be put in place, or any of that.

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  She just wanted a friend back.

  Of course, she didn’t quite explain everything. It wasn’t that she was intentionally withholding information, but she didn’t really know how to explain things in a coherent manner.

  However, it wasn’t the worst explanation. She vaguely talked about how they’d done quests together in the Town of Beginnings, how Kit had taught her magic, how they’d worked together to solve the issue in this town, not using any names, not out of caution but out of lack of experience.

  “You… you know about that too, huh…” Destiny let out a defeated laugh. “I might just have to believe you at this point.”

  Suddenly, there was a flash of light, and Kit appeared in her human form. She wasn’t upset, however. In fact, she seemed incredibly excited.

  “Des, Des, did you hear that? That girl! I taught her!” Kit said, her expression giddy. “You saw what she did in the test, right? That’s me! I did that!”

  “Hold on, Kit! I never even told you if she’s telling the truth!” Destiny groaned. “And I thought you needed to hide yourself?”

  “Come on. This is way more important. Regression? Strange events? Isn’t that fascinating? I didn’t even know magic was capable of that!”

  “Um… not magic,” Prota said apologetically.

  This, at least, was familiar.

  “Not magic?” Kit frowned, turning to Prota. “What else is there?”

  “...new energy,” Prota said quietly “Uh… too complicated. Sorry. But… not good.”

  Those words sobered everyone up. The explanation was childish and incredibly lacking in information, but that just made it worse.

  Not good.

  If that was all that Prota could say, then it definitely wasn’t good.

  “Um… I’ll continue.”

  Prota explained how she’d been with John, someone who’d taken her in and taught her how to fight and live. He was the progenitor of this strange ability that existed within the world. She explained, somewhat roughly, that it was his ability to regress and come back to life.

  “Then… where is this John guy now?” Destiny said. “If you regressed, then…”

  “Um… ah…”

  Prota looked away awkwardly.

  “Hey, if it’s something bad-” Destiny started, but Prota shook her head.

  “No. It’s ok. Um… I need your help.”

  “My help?”

  “John… might destroy the world. So… you have to help me.”

  “Destroy the world?!” Destiny exclaimed. “Wait, you can’t just say something like that so casually- hold on, you’re telling the truth?!”

  “Nn,” Prota nodded. “It’s… I don’t want to hurt him. But… I want to stop him. But I can’t do it alone. So… help me?”

  Her words and voice were definitely childish. But the weight and meaning they held were beyond that most people would ever have in their lives.

  Saving the world.

  “I… that’s a lot to take in… Prota, was it?” Destiny said, rubbing his chin. “I…”

  “Pretend he’s the Demon King” Prota offered. “Just… someone for you to beat. Because you’re the hero. Destiny said before… he wants to protect his loved ones. So that’s what I’m doing. Protecting loved ones. That’s it.”

  “I said that, huh…” Destiny let out a laugh. “Yeah. If I told you that, then we probably were good friends in our past life. For me to tell you what I wanted in this world…”

  For a moment, he was silent. Well, it was a strange decision to make. It wouldn’t be strange if he just turned her down right here and now.

  “Alright, Prota. I’ll help you. So, what do we do first?”

  Prota felt her heart leap in joy. Of course, it didn’t show.

  But this was huge.

  Still, she had to stay calm. For now…

  “...nothing.”

  “Wha- sorry, I don’t think I heard you right. What did you say?”

  “Nothing. Listen to Albert. Help this town. John won’t appear for a while. I tell you when. So for now… do nothing.”

  “Wait, but don’t you know the future? Then, at least, with this town-”

  This time, surprisingly, it was Kit who came to Prota’s rescue.

  “Des. Regression… isn’t as simple a thing as you might think,” the Mystic said carefully. “Many Mystics have done research on it, meaning we’ve also looked into the potential consequences. Have you heard of the butterfly effect?”

  “...no?”

  Kit explained, and while Destiny was learning, Prota was also listening.

  To be honest, she didn’t really get how her actions would influence things. She understood that they could influence the future, but how that would happen was something she had yet to figure out. Of course, she remembered John constantly worrying about how his actions would affect things, but she hadn’t connected the dots until recently.

  So hearing Kit’s explanation was quite useful indeed. The risks of knowing the future involve taking action based on that knowledge. It was the same as prophecies: trying to prevent them often resulted in a new result being generated, meaning that other factors would no longer be consistent. It was, of course, possible to try and change the future, but the problem was that once things were changed, certainty was no longer guaranteed.

  The problem here, then, was that trying to solve things faster than normal would potentially ruin the advantage they had. It wasn’t knowing the future that was the issue.

  It was understanding when to act that was crucial for their success.

  “Ah… that makes sense,” Destiny said slowly. “I suppose…”

  “But still… how fascinating,” Kit continued, her eyes shining. “And I really taught you?”

  Prota flinched as she was brought back into the conversation, but she managed to nod.

  “Nn. You helped. A lot. Um… thank you.”

  “What? What spells did I teach you?” Kit said excitedly, rushing forward to grab Prota’s hands.

  To Kit’s surprise, Prota moved back, dodging her grasp.

  “Ah. Um… no touch. Please.”

  “No… alright,” Kit laughed. “But still. Tell me. Which of my spells did I teach you?”

  “...none.”

  Kit’s jaw dropped. “None? What kind of teacher was I, then?”

  “...you helped me make my own spells.”

  Even Destiny turned his head at that. “Make your own- isn’t that what an Archmage does?”

  “...nn.”

  “But- then- wait, so that spell at the test-” Kit stammered.

  “Nn… yes. My own.”

  “Can you show me another one?”

  Prota thought for a moment, then shrugged. If she was going to work with them similarly to show she’d worked in her past life, there was no harm in showing them a little more.

  A blue flame lit up the surroundings as it flared to life before them. Then, against all laws of nature, it began to freeze over. Layer after layer of clear ice folded on top of it, encasing it in a beautiful blooming flower. The ice, like crystal, shimmered brilliantly as the light inside struggled to escape, creating an incredible light show in the dark forest around them.

  “How… beautiful…” Kit said breathlessly, reaching out to touch it.

  “Ah! Um… don’t touch,” Prota said nervously. “It might explode.”

  “Ah.” Kit laughed awkwardly. “Right.”

  Prota dismissed the spell, then turned back to the other two.

  “Um… I’m tired. I’ll… I’ll go home now. Sorry about…”

  Her voice trailed off. She was tired. Very much so, both mentally and physically. Before, she might have leaned on John, but now…

  It was draining just being alive.

  “It’s… no. It looks like you’ve had a hard time,” Kit said gently. “I don’t know how old you really are, or what your identity is, but… you seem like you have a lot. Your methods for approaching us were questionable, but it seems you don’t really know what you’re doing. Then… go. Rest. And take care, little one.”

  Prota nodded and turned to leave.

  “Ah,” she said, turning back. “One more thing.”

  “Hm?”

  “...I can use Soul Steal. But I’m not a dragon. Um… nn. Ok.”

  With that final, awkward statement, Prota ran back home.

  ~~~

  Destiny was sitting on his bed. His mask was resting on his nightstand, revealing his expression: one of utter shock. He’d managed to drag himself home, but the bombshell that’d been dropped on him was one that would take a while to process.

  This wasn’t just a matter of something like John revealing Destiny’s secrets. That, of course, was surprising, but it was within reason. Information, after all, was impossible to keep secret no matter how hard one tried, especially in a world like this.

  What Prota had said, however, was something else entirely. Time travel? The end of the world as they knew it? A different timeline in which this random girl had been a strong companion and had gone on numerous adventures with him?

  Soul Steal?

  “I don’t know, Des,” Kit said in his mind. “I mean… it’s unbelievable, but it’s also too absurd not to believe. I think we’re gonna have to trust her on this one.”

  “It’s just… I mean, it might explain how she’s so strong,” Destiny sighed.

  Kit, even in her fox form, managed to show an expression of uncertainty.

  “That’s… that might not be true.”

  Destiny flinched. “What?”

  “Well… dragons are strong because of Soul Steal, yes, but at the same time, that’s not what allows them to use magic the way they do. They’re just born with naturally absurd mana cores, similar to Mystics. Soul Steal is just an ability that lets them be even stronger. So if she’s being honest about being human… well, you heard her, though. She regressed. Magic isn’t like fighting. Muscle memory isn’t really a thing. You should know this.”

  “I guess… It’s just… you know.”

  Kit laughed. “Of course it’s hard to believe. But then again, I wouldn’t believe that you were from another world, you know? So what’s so ridiculous about this?”

  “You’re taking this awfully well,” Destiny said with a small laugh. “Are you sure you’re not a regressor, too?”

  “Me? I wish,” Kit snorted. “But… when you study magic, you have to try and find the impossible. That’s how you grow. Having an open mind and a vast imagination… look, put it this way. Would you have ever thought you could shoot fire out of your hands? From what you’ve told me, your old world didn’t have mana.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Destiny sighed. “It’s just… wow. An entirely different life, huh? I wonder what I turned out to be.”

  “It’s best if you don’t know,” Kit said gently. “That was that. This is now. Don’t focus on what you should become. Focus on what you want. After all, isn’t that all you can do?”

  “But she-”

  “Has her own burdens to carry. It’s a shame that it has to be someone so young, but… It seems she is the one who chose this.”

  “Huh?” Destiny frowned. “How do you know that?”

  “Did you see her eyes?”

  “Her eyes?”

  “She doesn’t carry the look of someone worn down by life. Someone like you, for example. She is mature, but not by age. She is mature by experience. Inside… she is still young. But she seems determined nonetheless.”

  “...does she?”

  “I suppose you haven’t learned how to read people yet,” Kit laughed. “No matter. Just do as you’ve done, Des. You have your own burdens to worry about. If the time comes… well, I’m sure you’ll make the right choice.”

  The hero sighed, falling onto his bed.

  “Thanks, Kit.”

  “Of course.”

  ~~~

  The following month continued to pass without incident. It was surprising, given the strange confrontation she’d had with Destiny, but the hero seemed to treat her more kindly, if anything, after their talk. She wasn’t sure why, but she did know that he was a good person, regardless of whether she knew him or not, so at the very least, his kindness wasn’t with ill intent.

  She continued to take on the occasional quest, mostly to earn a few coins while keeping herself occupied. Staying alone with her thoughts was something she absolutely could not do, because doing so would result in a self-destructive cycle she couldn’t afford to be in at the moment.

  Still, moving around like this brought back a lot of memories. They weren’t all good, since this had been a time of Prota’s life in which she was still under a lot of misconceptions, but there were definitely good moments here and there.

  She’d also taken on a few quests with Destiny, although it seemed he wasn’t completely open to her at the moment. Just because he was being kind didn’t mean he fully trusted her, but that was fine. Prota was half expecting this result anyway.

  At this point, she was seeing him as a different person entirely.

  Interestingly enough, he’d invited her to take on the golem they’d fought in their past life. This time, though, instead of being support, Destiny had asked her to fight on her own.

  “...me?” Prota said hesitantly. “Are you sure?”

  “What? Are you nervous?” Destiny said.

  His voice, while muffled, seemed to indicate genuine concern rather than mocking.

  “Um… why?”

  “I just… well, sorry if this is too invasive, but I just wanted to see what you were capable of,” Destiny sighed. “I know you said we were friends, but I still have a hard time seeing it that way. I’m sorry, but-”

  “It’s ok. I’ll… I will fight.”

  “...thank you, Prota,” Destiny nodded. “Are you sure it’s all right with you?”

  “Destiny already showed me his strongest skills,” Prota explained. “So… no secrets here. It’s ok.”

  She leapt down into the canyon, using some wind magic to lighten her fall. The golem hadn’t noticed her yet. Good.

  Somehow, there was a small element of fear present in Prota’s heart. It was strange, given that she’d fought monsters far stronger than this one, but it didn’t matter.

  Being the underdog was a feeling Prota was incredibly familiar with. It wouldn’t hinder her ability to fight.

  For a moment, she stopped to consider her options. Destiny wanted to know what she was capable of. That meant that this wouldn’t be a simple subjugation. She needed to show off. Showing off wasn’t something she did intentionally, so she wasn’t quite sure how she would show off.

  Well, she just needed to defeat that golem, right?

  She looked up. It was still the size of a house. She didn’t even remember the last time she’d fought something this large.

  If only she had Dance of Fire or Dance of Ice. Well, those were spells she’d cast at the very end of her life. Those wouldn’t be accessible for quite some time.

  Then what should she do? She didn’t have anything suited for large beasts. Most of her spells had been suited for fighting people.

  Well.

  There was one spell, wasn’t there?

  Her eyes began to glow as mana gathered before her.

  “Han.”