Chapter 296

“…I promised. Yes.”

Leo’s gaze remained fixed downwards, his hand still pressing on his forehead. He mumbled as if to himself, then spoke in a clearer voice.

“I’ll tell you the truth. You can travel through time, but I can’t.”

“……”

He said it right away, more frankly than I expected. He must have thought there was no reason to delay the answer any longer, as it was a fact we both tacitly knew. Even though I had anticipated it, my body, contrary to my mind, was stiffening.

“It’s as I first said. I… don’t know what I did in the time you’ve passed. I don’t get memories unless it’s an event you experienced or a time I spent with you, and even then, it’s not something I can call my own memory. It’s all just information extracted from your experience. Information engraved in my head in the form of knowledge.”

Leo paused for a moment, caught his breath, and then continued.

“It’s not a memory. It’s just the information that ‘Lukas Askanian experienced a terrorist attack.’ The me you know must have been doing various things at the Pentalon opening ceremony that day, right? What did I do?”

“…You warped the people in the stadium to the Brandenburg New National Park. Before that, you watched the opening ceremony countdown with Elias.”

Leo was silent for a moment, then smiled.

“So that’s what happened. I remember telling you the warp coordinates for the New National Park and the spectator seats. No, it would be more accurate to say ‘I have the information.’ But I don’t really know the rest. So I watched the opening ceremony countdown with Elias. It’s new to me that I acted the same in the world that has already disappeared.”

“……”

“The reason I said that at the end of that day was, to be honest, because of my own greed.”

Greed.

He had said that before. Back then, he called it selfishness.

“The me you’ll meet next time won’t be the me who experienced the terrorist attack with you, but the me from the past who knows nothing. The me you’ll meet won’t be the me who was waiting for death with you and other friends in a world where 1.37 million people died. The me of that day can never be with you again, no matter what I do, and the me you’ll be leaving behind, the me you crossed the line between life and death with that day, will be the me who was peacefully sitting in a corner of a room looking at documents, not knowing what was going to happen. That…”

Leo’s voice gradually trembled and then broke dryly. With his gaze lowered, he muttered in a faint voice, as if to himself.

“It must have been dissatisfying for the me who was on the verge of death.”

“……”

“When I woke up and heard you say we should go to Bavaria, to be honest, I was relieved. It was the current me, not some other me, who got to be with you. But at the same time, if you were to turn back time once more, I would be cut off from you who are moving forward. Just like the me who would have died at the event venue. And in fact, after that, time was turned back, and I was cut off.”

Cut off.

This was Leo’s perception of his own situation. I cannot imagine the fundamental anxiety he must have felt along with the joy that day. Even though I thought I was prepared, I wasn’t. I had anticipated the content, but the truth spoken by the real, living, breathing Leo in his own language, with his own voice, not my simulation, the eyelids that blinked a little faster at certain phrases, the fingertips that trembled slightly despite being pressed against the desk, were a realm I had not prepared for and could not prepare for.

In the blink of an eye, I feel like I’m standing in a rising tide, my legs in its grip. I watch him, feeling the shock wash over me like waves.

“If I told you I felt chosen by you that day, what would you think?”

A hollow voice, not expecting an answer, spread with a sense of resignation. Leo’s voice sounds detached from my senses, as if coming from another dimension. The light in the reception room stabs my eyes and fades.

I am frozen like a stone, but Leo continues to speak calmly, as if finally letting out the words that have swirled in his mouth hundreds, thousands of times.

“It’s been like this until now, so it’s not particularly strange. In other words, for you, the time you turn back may be continuous, but for me, it’s a moment that never truly happened, and it’s just a fragmented piece of information coming from a completely different world. There’s no reason to feel sad about that. It’s just that, as I said before, my emotions were heightened because I was on the verge of death.”

I waved my hand to signal him to wait, but Leo shook his head slightly, declining. His eyes were still fixed downwards. It felt as if he was deliberately speaking without a break, because if he paused, he would no longer want to talk to me.

“Do you know what happens when you turn back time? You stop breathing.”

“……”

“Even so, it was probably more like you went back to the past rather than dying, unlike what I perceived. When I accepted your memory from the Primrose Path, I didn’t find death in your memory. At least, you probably didn’t have the sensation of death. That was some consolation.”

Leo let out a laugh that had no strength in it.

“And the moment I realize you’re not breathing, I wake up in a moment of the past as if someone had turned off a machine and then turned it back on. But at that time, I don’t know what happened to me. If I was in parliament in that past, I continue to vote in parliament without knowing anything, and if I was at school, I continue to attend classes without knowing anything. And then…”

“……”

“When I meet you, that’s when the information comes in from you. That’s how I know I saw your end. I don’t know if I should call it lucky or unlucky, but there are often cases where I don’t see the end and am turned back separately.”

That would be when I turned back time in a place where Leo wasn’t present. The moments he witnessed my cardiac arrest would have been during the Abraham incident and the Pentalon terrorist attack, and that memory, as he said, would have returned ‘when he met me,’ that is, when he received my call or saw my face.

And, following ‘you stop breathing,’ ‘as if someone had turned off a machine and then turned it back on.’

Doesn’t that smell like something I’ve experienced before?

When I return to reality from the Extra Chapter, my body collapses on the spot. While I’m in reality, time in the Extra Chapter doesn’t flow, or if it does, it’s only for an instant. Then, when I re-enter the Extra Chapter from reality, I move as if I had collapsed and then come back to life. The Old Human student who woke me up then said he ‘thought I was dead,’ and ‘came because he heard a thump.’

Then, does the past turned back by Retry become a kind of Extra Chapter? If so, the world of the past would stop at that moment. Just like the Extra Chapter doesn’t run without me.

That’s at least hopeful. I’m not sure if creating a world that doesn’t run without me can be called hopeful, but at least in terms of Leo’s fate, it has avoided the worst-case scenario. Still, it can’t be called the best, and it’s definitely the second-worst.

But what if, by some chance, the characteristics just happened to overlap? In other words, even if the possibility is low, what if I really did die without realizing it, and that world continued to flow in its own time?

My head is a mess. Neither Leo nor I can be sure of anything. No one knows the abilities that this system grants.

I looked down at the tablecloth and continued.

“…The time of the world I erased by turning back doesn’t continue to flow, right.”

“Whether the time of the world you turned back truly flows or not, only the me of the past would know. The ‘me’ of the present will continue to not know. I’m just considering the possibility.”

“When did you start considering this.”

“Before I heard the truth from you, when I was guessing on my own.”

“…So from the beginning, you thought there was a possibility that your own time would continue to flow in the world where time was turned back. Knowing there was a possibility, how could you have told me to turn back time all this time. Even when you were caught by Abraham, you looked at me and said let’s meet in the past. And ever since then…”

I expected it. I expected this much too. But there’s a big difference between hearing it directly and expecting it. I came here today with a solution, but nevertheless, now that I’ve heard the story from his own mouth, I had to try to maintain my composure. Leo must have sensed that I was showing an unexpected reaction, as I can feel him looking at me.

I cleared my throat and asked again.

“Why did you tell me to turn back time?”

“The sight I saw was so tragic, I couldn’t help it.”

I feel the illusion that the world before my eyes is shaking in a place where there is no haze. I looked at the person sitting in front of me. I couldn’t even properly tell what I was looking at.

“Even while you’re saving me and going back, you’ll still feel pain. You eventually died as a price for turning back time…. I said that that day because it was the first time I knew your breath stopped. And after that, I realized you don’t think you’re dying yourself, and in fact, you’re living a continuous life without dying, so I said it considering your situation.”

“……”

“You don’t turn back time lightly. Every moment was the result of deliberation for the best choice. Knowing that, as a friend, what do you think I should say?”

I didn’t answer. Then, Leo stared at me and continued.

“If you don’t turn it back, you can’t even create the best timeline. In some world, you have to be alive. If I get swayed by my own vague anxiety and beg you not to use your ability, and so you can’t use your ability? Then you’ll just end up completely dead. The possible world where your existence moves forward will completely disappear. Now do you see why I didn’t want to tell you?”

“Then you.”

I felt my head go cold and opened my mouth. You? ‘Because I realized you’re living a continuous life without actually dying’? Then me? How should I accept that Leo is living a non-continuous life?

I hadn’t even finished my sentence, but Leo shook his head firmly.

“My problem is uncertain. I definitely become a different being from the me you knew just before every time you turn back time, but that is still Leonard Wittelsbach. In a situation where I don’t even know if I’m alive alone in the world you left, what should my best choice be?”

“That’s nonsense. It’s a situation where you clearly can’t regard yourself as a continuous entity. Whether the world of the past I turned back disappears or not, that’s enough now. You’re thinking of yourself as a different you.”

Yes. I know.

Normally, the difference wouldn’t feel so severe. But it’s as Leo said. At the moment of a major life event that threatens the existence of a person, ‘I’ am cut off at the point of that event. The me before the event becomes a different being from the me who faced the event. An irreversible river flows between me and me.

You can’t know this before you experience it. Those who have never experienced it can’t even imagine that the me of an hour before an event is like the me of a moment a hundred million light-years away.

This is what I felt in my life in 21st century Korea, and it’s the same in Leo’s situation.

I understand why Leo said it was a trivial problem. The problem of concept easily becomes a subject of misunderstanding. But for me, who can understand his senses, it’s no longer trivial. It’s a fact that his mind doesn’t cross over continuously, and it’s a clear fact that he feels a sense of alienation from his other selves as if they were other people.

Leonard Wittelsbach, who was 2 minutes and 30 seconds from death with me at the Pentalon opening ceremony, is a different person from the Leo in front of me who successfully dealt with the Pentalon terror, and he died there. I believed that we who had crossed the river together would defy death together again, but he was left behind, and I returned with the fragment left by the Leonard Wittelsbach who ended that day and gave it to the more innocent Leo from before crossing the river.

The result is, ‘if I told you I felt chosen by you that day’.

A bitter taste fills my mouth.

“Yes. I see myself as a different person.”

Leo nodded calmly. His gaze was directed at me.

“I was prepared, and I am prepared. It’s fine if you just change your perspective. Even if the worst-case scenario happens and I remain in the disappeared time, I’ve been dealing with you with everything prepared since I considered that possibility.”

“You haven’t experienced being left alone in that time.”

“Right. I haven’t. But why does that matter? Because I haven’t experienced it, so I don’t know the pain?”

That’s not what I meant. It was just a belated monologue uttered from the feeling of wanting to undo what had already happened, even if it meant grabbing the hem of his clothes. I too know that it’s meaningless to him who has finished all his preparations alone.

Leo said that and then wiped his expression.

“I want you to forget.”

“……”

“Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. If you hesitate to turn back time because of this, I’ll regret today for the rest of my life. I’ve told you what you wanted, so now, forget it.”

“No.”

At my refusal, Leo narrowed his eyes slightly. A sense of fatigue washed over his face.

“I wouldn’t have asked if I was going to forget.”

“……”

I understand that fatigue. But I haven’t been pestering him to tell me for no reason. Not out of curiosity, not out of impatience that can’t stand uncertainty, and certainly not because I take the heavy responsibility he feels for my life lightly. It’s not because I think we have to know everything about each other either. It’s because if he’s carrying the burden alone, I have to share it.

And apart from the shock of hearing the truth from his own mouth, I am confident I can lighten the load.

I took a deep breath and looked at Leo.

“What if, I could go back to the past with the current you?”

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