3/3 Bonus chapter thanks to @drew on Ko-fi!
9:52 AM
Third-year classroom after a theory class.
Quinie kept fidgeting with her eyeglasses, which were perched awkwardly on the bridge of her nose.
“Hey, Quinie, did you get new glasses?”
Her friend Anne approached and asked.
“Oh, yeah. It seems like my eyesight is getting worse.”
Quinie covered it up with a convenient lie.
“They look good on you! Anything looks good on you because you have such a pretty face.”
“Whatever.”
Quinie waved her hand dismissively at the insincere-sounding compliment.
She checked the scenery through her glasses again.
‘It’s a bit distracting.’
Quinie checked the bottom left of the view through her glasses.
[9:52:32]
The time, down to the second, was always displayed on the bottom left of her field of vision.
‘So, if this time suddenly jumps, it means I’ve lost my memory?’
If ‘he’ erased her memories, that amount of time would have passed. Then, as far as her eyes could see, it would look like a significant amount of time had passed.
‘Who the hell is he?’
There was a high probability that the masked man was a student at Constel.
She didn’t know his exact purpose, but Quinie knew that there weren’t many reasons for someone to target her.
Either for the Viet family’s ‘assets’, the family itself, or revenge from another family whose shady crimes were exposed because of her.
‘But seeing how he brought up my past, it seems like he has something specific in mind for me.’
And he even lied that Kora was the culprit behind that incident.
Just thinking about it made her head throb, but that could wait for later.
She would find out everything once she caught him.
‘……But these glasses.’
They’re too obvious.
Quinie didn’t normally wear glasses.
Would he really approach her if she suddenly started wearing glasses the day after meeting him, when she never wore them before?
On top of that, there weren’t many models of glasses that could display the time, down to the second. ‘He’ might already know about these glasses that were hastily prepared.
Quinie was nervous on the inside but earnestly watched the clock.
Since Quinie herself couldn’t think of any other alternatives, she figured that wearing these glasses would at least make him wary, preventing him from easily using his powers. She decided to take comfort in that for the time being.
Ding—Dong—Dang—Dong—
The bell signaling the end of break time rang.
Afterward, Quinie pretended to focus on her classes while checking the clock. It was the same during break time.
However, even after the morning classes, lunchtime, and afternoon classes had all passed.
Even after school, the clock did not skip ahead in time.
As expected. This plan is a failure. He is not approaching.
Buzz—
That’s when Quinie’s phone rang. There was a message.
As half expected, it was from Frondier.
[Senior Quinie.]
A message that seemed like a greeting.
He probably wants a report on the situation. Quinie smirked and started typing a message.
‘I failed the mission. Nothing strange with the clock.’, she typed, and then,
The next message.
[We found him. Thanks to you.]
“…Huh?”
Found him? How?
Thanks to her? Why?
Her head was in turmoil, and then another message came.
[Senior, so I have one question for you.]
She didn’t reply this time. Frondier’s words were too confusing, and she was busy trying to organize her thoughts.
In the meantime, another message arrived.
[Was it a lie that Kora was coming today? Or is it true?]
“What?”
An even stranger conversation.
If she tried to understand the content of the messages,
It means Quinie talked to someone about Kora today. The fact that Frondier is asking about its truth means, in short.
‘Did I, lose my memory?’
She felt chills upon realizing it belatedly.
* * *
The night before.
After sending a message to Quinie, I shared its content with Gregory.
[Glasses for Quinie?]
“Yes. If she loses her memory, she’ll forget the time that has passed. To someone who’s lost their memory, it would seem like time has skipped.”
Although it’s possible to make someone lose their memory, we can’t do anything about the time that has passed.
If she can always check the clock, even if she can’t prevent losing her memory, she would be able to realize that she has lost her memory.
——but in reality, it isn’t.
“……or so Quinie will think.”
[What? So it’s different in reality?]
“It’s not different. The bastard’s ability doesn’t erase memories entirely, it just erases his own presence from them.”
According to Gregory’s report, Quinie remembers her ‘fear of corpses’ as a result of the wolves’ attack.
‘But Kora was probably the one who killed the people in that incident.’
Kora, who has inherited the blood of the white tiger. It wouldn’t have been difficult for her to kill several people if she wanted to.
However, it’s likely that it wasn’t her own will. The masked man must have made Kora rampage in some way. Whether it was through magic or drugs.
Anyway, Quinie hasn’t completely forgotten about that incident. In other words, her memories haven’t been erased entirely, they’ve just been rearranged without the masked man and Kora’s memories.
The masked man’s existence was erased, and Kora was caught up in the process.
“So even if Quinie looks at the watch, she won’t notice anything strange. Not all of her memories are gone, just the memories of that person are gone, and her mind fills in the gaps. Since it’s her own thoughts, it’s impossible for her to doubt them.”
[Then why did you tell Quinie to get glasses? It won’t help her resist his ability. If anything, it’ll just make him more arrogant, and—]
The crow closed its beak mid-sentence.
It was a rare sight to see Gregory realize something on his own. The crow’s beak would usually move rapidly before snapping shut halfway through.
I said,
“That’s right. He’ll be more arrogant and use his ability without restraint.”
Quinie’s defenses are a misguided response to the masked man’s ability.
We’ll throw bait in the place where Quinie thinks she’s mistaken.
“That guy seems to think he’s pretty smart.”
Let’s see if he’s as smart as he thinks he is.