Kronos told Daniel to sit while he prepared tea.
The room was dimly lit.
Watching Kronos retrieve tea cups from a cabinet, Daniel mentally prepared himself.
His fingers tapped anxiously on the armrest of the worn leather chair.
‘I need to explain everything about the previous loop.’
‘But will Kronos believe me?’
Suddenly, a screen flickered to life before him.
[Host should not reveal the information about the future.]
‘Huh? Why?’ Daniel was baffled.
[Fate.]
[Revealing about the future will turn Fate against you.]
Daniel frowned deeper.
He didn’t understand how Fate could attack him, but knowing the System, it wouldn’t have warned him unless the danger was real and immediate.
‘If I don’t reveal I’m from the future, how will I gain Kronos’ trust?’
[Host needs to think about it himself.]
Daniel’s mind churned like a stormy sea.
The System hadn’t forbidden him from saying he was from the future, only from disclosing information about it.
Was there a loophole?
“Here.”
Kronos’ voice pulled him from his thoughts.
The man placed a steaming cup of tea in front of him.
The porcelain cup was delicate, decorated with swirling silver patterns.
The gentle heat radiated against Daniel’s hands as he picked it up.
Watching the steam spiral into the air, an idea slowly formed in his mind.
“Kronos,” Daniel began, “I’m Daniel Caelum, and I’m from the future.”
Kronos raised a single brow.
Yet his expression remained calm, and unreadable.
He didn’t show much of a reaction.
“Can you prove it?” Kronos asked.
“I can’t. I’m sorry.”
Daniel hesitated, then shook his head.
His grip on the teacup tightened as he continued,
“But I know something that might earn me your trust.”
Kronos leaned back.
A playful smile curled at the edges of his lips.
Regardless of whether Daniel was telling the truth or not, the current situation was, at the very least, entertaining to him.
“And what might that be?”
Daniel exhaled slowly.
His gaze met Kronos’, unwavering.
“You want to save the Child of Mana.”
The room fell silent.
Even the crackling fire seemed to quiet, as if holding its breath.
Kronos’ smile faded.
He remained silent, and his expression shifted to something far more serious.
“I don’t know the reason for it,” Daniel continued. “You always said you wanted to save the Child of Mana because of your intuition.
“But at your last breath… you said the reason was something else.”
Kronos’ hand paused mid-air, his fingers resting lightly on the rim of his cup.
“Something else? What was that?”
“I don’t know the reason. You didn’t reveal it.”
Silence descended between Daniel and Kronos.
Kronos seemed to be thinking about something.
His sharp eyes narrowed as he stared past Daniel into the distance.
The only sound was the crackling of the candle’s flame and the faint rustle of fabric as Kronos shifted slightly.
His voice broke the stillness a few minutes later.
“How do you know about the Child of Mana?”
“She is my sister. Selene Caelum. She was kidnapped a few months ago by Sovereign of Wind, Charybdis.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
Daniel had come to terms with the fact he couldn’t save his sister.
The pain was still there, like a wound that refused to heal, but he had steeled himself.
He would make Typhaon pay for harming her.
“Can you show me another proof instead of just this?” Kronos asked.
Daniel’s brows furrowed.
‘Something that can reveal I’m from the future but doesn’t reveal the knowledge of the future…’
He thought hard of a way to prove it.
An idea came to him.
“Can I get a pen and paper?”
“Sure.”
Kronos passed him a paper from the file placed on his desk and his pen.
The desk was cluttered with scrolls and half-written formulas, symbols etched hastily as though caught mid-thought.
Daniel began to draw on it.
Kronos leaned closer.
His expression was neutral until recognition dawned on his face.
The drawing seemed to be something akin to a magic circle, but its intricacy far surpassed the crude sketches scattered on Kronos’s desk.
His eyes widened a few seconds later.
“That’s the World Time Spell I’m creating,” Kronos said. “But my spell is only in prototype stages, whereas yours is… complete.”
Daniel smiled faintly.
The face Kronos was making was worth the effort.
The World Time Spell had been given to Daniel by the System.
He had used it during his last confrontation.
Using it again – just earlier – shouldn’t be a problem.
“Do you trust me now?”
Kronos didn’t respond immediately.
Instead, he opened his desk’s drawer and took out a small, crystalline recorder.
Daniel looked at him with confused eyes.
“This device lets me record the Voices of Time.”
Daniel knew what the Voices of Time were.
Anyone who came close to Time Deaths could hear them.
Kronos continued,
“You asked me why I wanted to save the Child of Mana, right?”
Daniel nodded.
“It’s because of this.”
Kronos played the recorder.
A distorted voice echoed from the device, crackling with static.
“I’m ◼, who interfered with the past for ◼.”
The voice continued to break due to the interference.
Some parts were lost to the crackling sound.
However, Daniel could tell—there was something unmistakable in the voice.
Pain.
Agony seemed to drip from each word, as if the speaker were barely holding themselves together.
“Due to ◼, the past changed, and it caused the world to be destroyed.”
The voice stopped abruptly for a few seconds.
Then, the speaker resumed, audibly struggling to suppress the tremors in his voice.
“◼ to save ◼… protect the Child of Mana from Typhaon.”
Neo, who had been listening silently, was stunned.
His eyes widened in shock as he stared at the recorder.
‘That’s me.’
‘That’s the Time Whisper I left behind.’
His mind raced.
Not all the words left behind by Neo were clear.
But the general meaning was unmistakable.
Neo finally understood.
Understood why Kronos had helped him in his timeline—and why he helped Daniel in Daniel’s timeline.
It was all because of the Whisper of Time that had traveled to the past.
The cause and effect were reversed.
Kronos helped Neo, the world was later destroyed, Neo used the Whisper of time, and the whisper of time travelled to past to Kronos, which made Kronos help Neo in saving the Child of Mana.
Due to the Whisper of Time, the effect came first, then the cause.
“Save the Child of Mana from Typhaon to protect the world,” Daniel said.
His fingers curled into fists at his sides as he stared at Kronos.
“This is the Voice of Time you’ve heard. But… are you sure you can trust it?”
Daniel added,
“What if that Voice of Time is trying to fool us?”
Kronos shook his head slowly.
“I don’t think so,” he murmured. “I’ve seen dreams. Visions, if you’d call them that.”
He pressed his lips together. Explore more adventures at empire
His gaze became distant, as if he were staring into a void only he could see.
“Every day, I see the same dream. Our world, completely destroyed. Only a single man is left.
“He keeps fighting… dying, reviving, dying, reviving…”
His voice cracked.
The haunted memories — nightmares — were too painful to even think of.
“In this endless hell, he keeps fighting to defeat the entity who caused the world’s end,” Kronos said.
“You think that guy is the one who sent the Voice of Time to you?” Daniel said.