The man behind the System existed in a timeline that would soon get erased.
It was a timeline that shouldn’t exist.
Daniel could feel it. Time was telling him not to go there.
Time had always showered Daniel with care.
If not for it, Daniel couldn’t have regressed thousands of times and not get punished by a Time Death.
Time never asked Daniel for compensation.
This was Time’s first request for Daniel.
Don’t go to the time that shouldn’t exist.
Going there would be an insult to Time.
Daniel would fall out of favor with Time if he did not stop.
There was a high chance he would never be able to regress again.
Time warned him.
If he didn’t listen to it, he would regret it.
“Sorry,” Daniel said.
His time elementals flared.
They clashed against the ambient Time elementals.
Wisps of energy drifted around him.
He increased the output of his trait.
Time tried to stop him.
It requested Daniel.
Again and again.
The requests turned into threats.
Daniel could tell his actions were angering Time.
Yet he didn’t stop.
Daniel had to go there.
He needed to meet the man.
To thank him.
To ask him why he had done so much for their world.
The barrier stopping Daniel shattered.
His soul was pulled out of his body.
His vision blurred as reality twisted around him.
He blinked and appeared in a broken world.
The place was devastated.
The sky was filled with ashes, and the ground was burned and cracked.
Maggots writhed in every crevice Daniel looked.
The edges of the world were crumbling away.
It was the proof Time was erasing the world.
“Why are you here?”
Daniel turned to the source of the voice.
He saw a humanoid mass of red lightning.
Bolts arced around its body, flickering weakly.
It was slowly disappearing.
“You…”
Daniel’s words were struck in his throat when he noticed the man’s condition.
He wasn’t even alive anymore.
He was forcefully keeping his existence together with Death element.
“Why?”
He had prepared countless questions to ask the man.
But only a single word left his mouth when they met.
“Why what?” Neo asked, surprised but having expected Daniel to come meet him.
“Why did you do all this? What was in it for you?”
Neo chuckled at Daniel’s naïve question.
“Do I need a reason to save my home?”
“….That’s the only reason why you struggled for thousands of years?”
A look of fury appeared on Daniel’s face.
“That’s the only reason you gave away everything you had to me!?”
“Why are you angry?”
“Why won’t I be angry?!”
Daniel glared at him.
“It was you who taught me to be selfish!
“You told me it was okay to do whatever I wanted.
“And… and you are doing this? Sacrificing yourself for what? Greater good?”
Daniel felt an intense surge of anger.
It was why he did not want to meet the man.
“If you did not take breaks between loops, your mental self would’ve been crushed. That’s why I told you to be selfish,” Neo answered.
“And what about you? You don’t need to worry about yourself!?”
Neo let out a troubled smile.
The last thing he expected after meeting Daniel was getting shouted at.
“Calm down—”
“Why did you come to the past to save the Child of Mana?” Daniel asked, cutting off Neo.
“…?”
“There had to be a reason if you were trying to save my sister.”
“It was my Shadow Trial.”
Neo didn’t see the reason for hiding the truth.
“Shadow Trial?” Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “You tried to make me save my sister too. Was it also related to your trial?”
“Kind of,” Neo chuckled. “If we could’ve saved your sister, I wouldn’t be getting erased by Time here.
“But well, saving the world is good enough.
“Anyway, congratulations on—”
“Then I’ll save my sister.”
Daniel cut off Neo abruptly.
He had expected Neo to have a reason for trying to save Child of Mana.
He asked Neo for the reason to as he wanted to give Neo a parting gift. Enjoy new stories from empire
But this was better.
Saving his sister would save Neo.
It was two birds with one stone.
“If I save her, I can save you too, right?”
Without waiting for an answer, Daniel advanced toward Neo.
“There is no way I’m letting the guy who saved the world die.”
His voice was filled with defiance.
“It’s already too much you aren’t getting either a reward or recognition for it, but dying for saving the world?” He
took a sharp breath, his words laced with a growing intensity.
“That’s crossing the line.”
Daniel felt stupid for thinking that System might’ve seen him as a tool.
The only thing he saw as a tool was himself.
A tool to help others.
“You aren’t dying under my watch.”
He stepped back, looking Neo in the eye.
“I’ll save you, no matter what.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible for me,” Daniel spoke with confidence. “I’m the man who regressed thousands of times and survived.
“If I can do that, then I can do anything I put my mind to.”
Neo chuckled.
Was this how Neo looked to others when he claimed he would do something impossible?
“I wonder if you can back your words,” Neo said.
“Watch me do it.”
Daniel’s soul form started to tremble.
His trait’s activation time was about to run out.
“Goodbye,” Neo said.
“See you later,” Daniel replied.
Daniel’s soul was pulled back into his body.
His eyes snapped open.
He was back to his own ‘present’.
Before he could move, his legs gave out.
He fell face first into the ground.
“….?”
Daniel realized he was breathing heavily.
His clothes were drenched in sweat.
Ignoring everything, he tried to activate the World-Time Spell.
“Huh?”
The Spell failed.
It didn’t take Daniel long to realize what was wrong.
Time.
It refused to let him go back.
Daniel wasn’t disheartened.
He had expected this.
Besides, going back in time wasn’t going to help.
He had regressed over a thousand times yet he could never save Selene.