-Radiant-

  It had been almost a week since I had joined up with the group of adventurers, and since then I had gotten to know each of them to a certain extent. Currently the ranger Kratimane was roaming around trying to find a good place to set up camp for the night, which I had been told would be the last time we would have to camp out before we made it to the hub outside the Regional Dungeon.

  The rest of us were still making our way through the forested area at a sedate pace as we waited for Kratimane.

  I wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings, which was why I was startled when Kratimane suddenly appeared out of nowhere at my side.

  I jumped away from her and exclaimed, “Holy Jilly!” while taking a combative stance.

  The priest-like man Kachymani in the group didn’t take kindly to my particular outburst of words, and gave me a bit of a scowl. This had happened a couple times over the past few days, but it was understandable why he reacted the way he did. Kachymani obviously worshiped a god/goddess, and any mention of Jilly would understandably make him at least a little uncomfortable.

  This was thanks to Jilly’s notorious reputation as a Godhunter with multiple confirmed kills. So whenever Kachymani heard Jilly’s name he would get a bit rankled, and truth be told his ire was usually (always) directed at me.

  I didn’t give his reactions much thought though, and the leader Minex didn’t seem to care much either. Minex had an upbeat attitude and was like the glue that held the rest of the team together, while the other girl in the group, Yesemio, was the supporter, not only of the group, but also of Minex, and if the two of them weren’t married then I would bet that they were definitely boyfriend girlfriend.

  Kratimane didn’t pay any mind to my reaction and casually reported that she had found a place to set up camp not far away from here. So we stopped walking along our current path and started following Kratimane towards where we would set up camp.

  After actually setting up the camp, the last person in the group started to prepare the food for everyone. Everyone called him Mage, but I hadn’t found out whether that was a nickname or his chosen name; though there was always the possibility that it was his given name, but that would be a bit strange to give a baby such a name.

  Having gone through this routine multiple times, we all settled around an enchanted lamp after we finished our meals and waited for night to fully fall.

  However, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I felt an invasion of foreign yet familiar mana into my mind and soul. I tried to defend myself against it, but it was like trying to move a sleeping limb, whatever was invading my mind was too familiar to quickly put any defense up against it.

  Time seemed to slow down dramatically, and my vision and other senses started to fade away as the invasion succeeded in whatever it was trying to do to me.

  -Break-

  Almost as suddenly as I had fainted, I came back to consciousness. Before I could figure out what was going on, I suddenly appeared in front of myself. However it wasn’t my current appearance, but my appearance that others would know me by, that is to say that my hair wasn’t shiny like crystal, and my eyes were normal as well. As soon as I saw this I knew something terribly wrong was happening, but I had no way to defend myself against whatever was going to happen.

  Yet, contrary to my expectations, the other me just started to casually speak, “Hello, Radiant. This is a message from the future. Unfortunately there have been some things that we’ve learned that will be extremely detrimental, and are getting progressively worse the longer they are delayed, so they need to be taken care of before they become unfixable.”

  Hearing this message I was a little suspicious, not because the contents of the message were suspicious, but because it said it was a message from the future. One of the first things one learns about backwards time magic is that there are many different variables that increase the cost and difficulty of the magic. And one of the most powerful shackles increasing the cost was Karmic Weight.

  Karma is an esoteric and hard to specify field of study, and Karmic Weight was a subfield of study within it, but there was no need to know all of the specifics in order to understand why I was suspicious.

  An extremely basic explanation was that a person/thing’s impact on the universe had weight, and the more impact an existence had on the universe the more weight their existence would have. For example, escaping from a max security prison and successfully evading capture would add a significant amount of Karmic Weight to my existence. This didn’t mean that backwards time magic was impossible in the future, but it did mean that the cost would be too much anywhere in the near future.

  However the message didn’t stop, it continued, “The most important thing to take note of is safely getting rid of the Kraken’s memory packet. It is insidiously corrupting our mind, and it will be too late to fix it if you don’t act now. Fortunately I was able to find out that there is a temple within Tri-Heart City that can deal with this problem. All you need to do is---nd then you ca---a person named---et in tou----”

  The words and vision started to cut out like a bad connection, and I couldn’t make out what it was trying to say. Maybe the cost of sending the message back was too high? But shortly after the vision completely went black, there was a slight static and then there was sound once again.

  A tired voice spoke through a little bit of lingering static, “I guess if you’re hearing this, then we’ve failed once again.” It was still my own voice, but in a completely different tone from the first message.

  “Ah! Why!? We literally just escaped from prison, and now we have to escape from some god or goddess? Gah, the world must really be jealous of our talent!”

  I raised my metaphorical eyebrow at the dramatic change in tone, but I couldn’t help but notice the mention of escaping from a god/goddess. I don’t like the direction this future message is taking.

  “Whew. Sorry about that, I just needed to vent my emotions, after all I’ve had to go through these past three years.” The static completely went away, and the message continued without any visuals, just a steady voice cutting through the black, “Anyways, I’m sure that you’re pretty confused about this strange message. I would know because I too had to go through it.”

  Questions started to pop up in my mind, but the message really did seem to know what I was thinking, because it continued with, “Yes, yes, I know that you have a million questions. Don’t worry, I'll answer everything I can.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “To start. We are in a janky time loop situation at the moment. No, we aren’t the ones powering it. And most importantly, we are in this situation because we were hit with some sort of soul mark right before we came back from the future.

  “The good news is that if we can find a way to get rid of the soul mark, then we won’t have anything left to worry about. At least, nothing to worry about in relation to whichever god or goddess is hunting us down. The bad news is, these future messages have some limits in how much information we can send back in time, and unfortunately we seem to have hit that cap about 3 loops back and have had to cut out some of the information to make room for other things.”

  This was starting to sound very disheartening.

  “But don’t worry, I’m told that the information we had to cut wasn’t that important. Though I have no idea what that information is, since you know… it was cut.”

  If I had a hand in this message space then it would’ve hit my face. And since I knew myself so well, the message actually chuckled.

  “Hehe. But anyways, there isn’t much time left to talk to you like this. It’s extremely inefficient to convey information like this, but I’m overwriting the original god/goddess’ message right now, and that means I have to use the same format. If I didn’t do that, then they might be able to find out that something is wrong with the message, so if you fail too then just remember this.”

  It was nice to know that I wasn’t stupid enough to send back only a spoken message like this, but I didn’t seem to have much confidence in myself.

  “What else… Oh yeah, don’t worry about the Kraken’s memory packet. There’s nothing wrong with keeping it, and it actually works as a great defense against mental intruders, which is probably why the original message wants us to get rid of it. But I think that the end of the message is coming soon, and after it there’ll be a memory packet with a lot of information.”

  The voice paused for a bit, and I almost thought that it was over, but then it left behind one last sentence.

  “Haaah… Hey, I just hope my efforts are actually worth it. Maybe it won’t be as meaningful as Radiant zero’s extraordinary feats, but I at least don’t want my efforts to be meaningless…”

  I thought the message would continue after that, but the silence stretched on, and eventually I felt a compressed memory packet enter my mind, and I felt that I could wake up any time I wanted.

  But that last bit of the message really resonated with me. My current situation might not be ideal, but this was basically a time loop situation right? So there should be no need to worry right?

  However, I wasn’t actually going back in time myself, and I was essentially getting erased with every loop, leaving behind only a few extra pieces of information that I didn’t know whether they would be meaningful or completely useless, maybe even being cut out once they were deemed unimportant.

  I mentally sighed, but the world was still flowing along and I still had a memory packet to sift through. Hopefully I will be able to make this the last loop, but if not, then I hope my efforts will bring a future me closer to freedom.

  I didn’t immediately wake up. Instead I quickly browsed through the memory packet to look for anything that stood out as important and urgent. Funnily enough there was something that immediately caught my eye; a mental ‘file’ named README.txt, and the ode to Earth’s internet culture gave me a lighthearted feeling and made me chuckle.

  The README.txt was just simple text, and the file held a bunch of useful information on where certain types of information could be found within the memory packet, as well as a few other things that should be looked at as soon as possible. However, right at the top of the file was a simple message, “I know that you’ll read this text file first, so I’m just going to write here that you should wake up quickly. Your body is currently running on autopilot, and will shortly require your direct input in order to avoid a rather awkward situation. You’ll have about a minute or so before your input is needed, but you’ll really want to not miss it.”

  After reading that, I quickly skimmed the rest of the text file, and since I didn’t find anything else urgent, I stopped reading and woke up.

  -Minex-

  We all sat together in a circle after having set up our camp for the night. We had just finished eating, and everyone had been talking. But our impromptu companion seemed to have fallen asleep while sitting. Seeing this, I asked the group, “Did he fall asleep while sitting?”

  Everyone looked over at the new guy and seemed to come to the same conclusion, and the person closest to him, Kachymani, reached out to poke him. After Kachymani lightly poked him, the guy made a huge spasm looking like he was getting ready to fight, but Kachymani had quickly pulled away, and after not sensing anything further the new guy seemed to relax into deep sleep once again.

  Yesemio spoke first, “Well that was a strong reaction to being poked in your sleep. I wonder what kind of environment he grew up in to make him react like that. Or maybe he’s just jumpy?”

  Everyone seemed to get different amounts of enjoyment out of the intense reaction, and Kachymani seemed to be inordinately amused, maybe Mr. Noble's repeated mentions of Jilly had more of an effect than I thought.

  Thinking about the runaway noble’s behavior and actions the past week, I couldn’t help but notice how strange he was.

  So I said, “I don’t know about him being jumpy, but he’s definitely strange in many ways.”

  Mage spoke up, “Yeah. I’ve been watching him over the past week, and he’s definitely not your typical noble.”

  I said, “Exactly. The more I watch him, the more strange he seems. If nothing else, I’m positive that he’s not a member of the Underrich House.”

  Yesemio quirked an eyebrow at that, “But if that’s the case, then why in Tallenor's name would he be wearing a coat with their crest on it?”

  I said, “Beats me, but whoever he is, he has way too many mysteries about him.”

  Mage said, “Yeah, like his magic for instance.” He carefully looked over the sleeping guy, “Every spell he uses is unlike any orthodox magic I’ve ever seen, and yet at the same time they only feel like entry level spells. It’s the strangest thing, it’s like someone gave an entry level mage access to vast amounts of mana and didn’t bother teaching them anything higher grade.”

  That piqued my interest, “That is strange. And I might not be well versed in the magical arts myself, but even I can tell that there’s something different about the kind of magic that he’s using.”

  Mage, “In any case it’s definitely not a magical tradition practiced in Tallen.”

  Yesemio spoke up, “Now that we’re on the subject, I’ve noticed that he is way too awkward for a noble. Not saying that nobles can’t be awkward, but… I don’t know, it kinda seems like he knows how a noble should act but has never actually done it before.”

  I said, “Hmm, you know if Kachymani didn’t verify that he was telling the truth with his blessing, then I would think that he’s scamming us. But even then, his story is hard to believe. I mean, being chased by assassins? Falling through a portal that lead to the anti-magic forest? Wanting to leave everything behind and just study magic? I mean it sounds like the backstory of a God’s Realm character.”

  Kratimane said, “No kidding, it’s like I’m on a quest in the game.”

  Kachimane said, “While we’re on the topic of Mr. Noble here, I’ve noticed that he doesn’t seem to have a Class either. I might just be misreading things, but my god’s blessing has more uses than just allowing me to detect lies, and I haven’t noticed any of the signs that having a Class would give off. It’s like his soul is as pure as a child’s.”

  This new information really threw my mind into a loop. No Class? I guess it could be a part of his beliefs, or maybe he has something against gods? He does mention Jilly a lot. But even if that were the case he should have some kind of soul addon, right? Or… maybe!

  I spoke my thoughts, “Maybe he’s some sort of noble’s experimental subject? Maybe he escaped from somewhere and has never had the opportunity to go to a temple to get a Class before. Hey, why don’t we bring him to a temple and-”

  Radiant shot up all of a sudden, like he had just experienced a huge fright. He blinked his eyes a few times to get the fright out of his eyes as he looked around. Then, seemingly in response to our silence, he spoke, “Huh, were you guys talking about me or something? Don’t mind me, just continue your conversation.”

  We all shared a glance, and Yesemio said, “So, about tomorrow.”

  We all tacitly avoided talking about Mr. Noble after that. After all, speculating about someone’s secrets while they were listening was said to be bad luck.