She was young when she first saw him.
“This is the person you will serve from now on.” With those words, her caretaker handed her a portrait. It was a drawing of a young man. He had handsome features and had the type of face that was especially popular to the ladies, but the confident, borderline arrogant look on his expression seemed like it would crush all the affection he had gained. Yet, what was important to her wasn’t the face on the portrait or the expression on the man’s face but the words she heard while receiving it.
This was the person she had to serve now, and that was how Marilyn learned of Zich’s existence. From that day on, Marilyn learned detailed information about Zich such as his preferences, past, and future. The main reason why this information was passed on to her was simple. After molding her preferences into Zich’s and making her learn about his past and future, they wanted her to become well acquainted with Zich. Yet, the organization wasn’t satisfied by just that. They brainwashed her intensely so that some core beliefs were engraved into her heart.
After finishing her education, the organization’s head asked while showing her Zich’s portrait, “Who is this person?”
Marilyn answered without hesitation. “He is the one I have to serve.”
“And?”
Marilyn’s face reddened. Her eyes looked dazed while her fingers wiggled. She clearly looked like a girl in love.
“He is also the person I love.”
“Yes.” The head nodded in satisfaction. “Like you said, he is the person you will serve and love.” As if he was trying to nail in her mission and emotions, he added, “If you have to choose between the person you love and me, who would you serve?”
“Of course, you, master.”
She was made to truly love Zich so that she didn’t think of loving anyone else. However, the rest of the brainwashing strengthened her loyalty to the head of the organization. Her loyalty to the head was absolute to the point that she could push the person she loved to the pits. Of course, her natural tendencies also had a factor in this.
“Yes. Even if he becomes the object of your love, you have to follow me. That’ll also help you with your love.” The head of the organization chuckled, “To accomplish my goal, I have to do countless regressions. You can meet Zich Moore in every timeline.”
Marilyn’s expression fell into a daze. Seeing this, the head of the organization continued, “Of course, you won’t be able to remember the things from before the regression, but I’m sure that won’t matter to you. The only thing important to you would be to continue standing by his side.”
“In the previous timeline, did I also tag along with Sir Zich everywhere?”
“Of course. As his right-hand underling, you always accompanied him wherever he went. You loved Zich Moore every time.”
“Ah!” Marilyn gripped her hands tightly.
“Work hard, Marilyn Frill. I don’t know when this will end, but until we meet our goal, you will always be with Zich Moore.”
At that moment, Marilyn knew what kind of expression she was making without looking in the mirror. She was making a beautiful, very beautiful smile.
* * *
Marilyn looked toward Zich. As soon as she saw his face, her heart thumped and her face flushed. She wanted to gaze at him forever like this. However, since she had things she needed to do, she eventually pulled her eyes away. She felt a wave of regret but forcefully gathered her heart together. This wasn’t the time to dawdle; the situation was too serious for that. Lyla stated that she had found a way to halt the Brushel System. Her words were enough to flip the entire organization upside down.
From what she knew, the Brushel System was a miraculous system that could cause a regression. It was also the system that supported her organization. Her organization was only able to develop after using the regression as their focal point, so hearing that there was a method to stop it alarmed her.
‘This is dangerous.’ Marilyn naturally felt this way. Her organization was both meticulous and careless. They were meticulous because they planned out their actions with all the information they had gathered through their regressions while they were careless from the confidence that they could turn back time no matter how much their plans got warped. Thus, what if they could no longer use the power of regression?
‘I don’t think they would collapse right away.’ Although Marilyn didn’t know everything about her organization, she knew its members were strong, and they weren’t a weak group by any means. However, they wouldn’t be able to escape the chaos that followed afterward and might eventually fall in the end. Marilyn definitely had to prevent this from happening. However, that wasn’t an easy task.
‘First of all, it’s a problem that my opponents are Sir Zich and Lyla.’
In the future, Zich was supposed to be someone who inflicted the whole world with fear and reached the highest position available as the Demon Lord of Strength. Even right now, although his powers hadn’t fully matured, his immense strength was guaranteed.
Furthermore, Lyla would be an equally tricky opponent; Marilyn didn’t know her identity specifically, but Lyla used to act as the system’s core; while pretending to research beside her these past few days, Marilyn had also become aware of Lyla’s vast knowledge and insights.
‘I also can’t underestimate the others.’
The one named Hans held Estellade which originally belonged to Glen. Furthermore, he had the title of ‘Sun Hero’ attached to his name, which used to also belong to Glen. His name was spreading quickly from this city to everywhere else, and although he was an existence that the organization had completely missed, the fact that he was Esthellade’s wielder highlighted the fact that he was a noteworthy figure. And what about Snoc? Before the regression, he was the ‘Tyrant of the Earth’ who made an entire country collapse. Seeing how the mythical beast of the earth was always with him, he still had the potential to develop into a Demon Person in the future since the beast made him into a Demon Person before. Moreover, there was Elena Dwayne. She was a talent that Glen Zenard put dabs on as one of his future companions. Now, Lyla was teaching a talent like that.
‘I might be able to beat them one by one, but my chances of winning greatly decrease with even two people.’
Their group was really too powerful for a five-person party.
‘A direct confrontation will be impossible.’ Just Zich would be able to ignore her curses and split her head in two. ‘I should gather information first.’
Marilyn asked Lyla after she just told everyone that she found a way to stop the Brushel System and was now eating, “So were you able to find out how to stop the Brushel System?”
“Yep. Are you interested?” Lyla said this as she put a spoonful of soup into her mouth.
“Of course I’m interested. It’s a system that’s constantly mentioned in an emperor’s grave of a powerful empire. It might be a clue to an amazing spell or a new device that hasn’t been discovered yet.”
“There’s a high chance that it’s probably related to magic. It seems like it was related to that tree.” Lyla took out the spoon from her mouth and pointed at the tree on top of the pyramid.
“Would you be able to tell me what you found out?”
“Yeah. It’s not really a long story though.” Even though it might have been bothersome to deal with Marilyn who kept asking questions while she was eating, Lyla easily replied, “I don’t know what exactly the Brushel System is, but I think it’s a system that uses that tree as its base. In short, it uses the tree’s mana. That green tree inside the pyramid is a system that suppresses the tree’s power.”
This was information that had already been discussed while researching the tree, so Marilyn nodded and urged Lyla to say the next word.
“From what I read, if we increase the strength of the green tree to make it easier to suppress the tree’s power, the energy transported to the Brushel System would decrease and the system would collapse. It also says that if we want to start the system again, we need an extensive amount of preparation time, so if the mana output of the tree becomes unstable, it’ll tell us to destroy the suppressor. Apparently, that’s better.”
Marilyn listened to Lyla’s explanation with an expression full of curiosity. However, unlike her face which showed only pure curiosity, her thoughts became more complicated than ever.
“Perhaps, could you tell me where you found that information?” Marilyn carefully asked with nuance as if she was merely curious and had no ulterior motives. The answer she got back was utterly disappointing.
“I don’t know.”
“But aren’t you the one who translated it?”
“I told you. I wasn’t going to take a long time translating the texts. If it was like usual, I would have recorded every place where I found each specific line, but I had no leisure to do so this time. While I’m reading through the passages, if I find something important, I just write it down and immediately move on to my next text so I don’t know where each of the passages is. Well, judging by the location of my notes, it seems like it’s around the middle area of the tomb.”
It was hard to locate the source of information just by knowing it was from a stone chamber in the middle area.
‘Should I ask a bit more specifically?’ However, if she dug further, she might draw out people’s suspicion. Marilyn’s eyes followed Lyla as she stretched out her arms.
“Since it’s a system that constantly gets mentioned, it might be a super important system, but I finished translating anyways, so I’ll be going back to researching the tree.”
“In the end, translating the passages ended up as a futile effort.”
“Yeah, I already said that,” Lyla grumbled at Zich’s words.
“And you don’t know what that Brushel System is at all?”
“No. The only thing I can guess is that it’s a system that might be supporting this tomb with mana? It’s also the tomb of past emperors. The afterlife rituals of the empire might have believed that the emperors would go to heaven only if these facilities were maintained.”
“If not it, the statues or shadows we faced might be the Brushel System. Like a defense system for the tomb.”
“That’s also a possibility.”
Zich and Lyla both looked at the top of the pyramid.
Zich said, “Then, won’t it be fine if we stop the system momentarily?”
Marilyn was startled. If Lyla’s words came into fruition, she needed to employ all possible means to block them from stopping the Brushel System. However, she couldn’t strongly stop them, because this would only draw out suspicion. Marilyn fiercely repressed a shocked cry rising up her throat and tried to react in a logical manner.
However, Lyla reacted first. “Are you planning to recklessly stop a system that we’re not sure about? What if something unexpected happens?”
At that moment, Lyla really looked like a goddess to Marilyn.
However, Zich didn’t easily back off either. “We don’t have much time, Lyla. You know we can’t just stay here and do research for the rest of our lives. Moreover, we’re not trying to start the system, but we’re trying to stop it. Rather than something happening, it’ll probably disappear.”
“Then, you should think about the possibility of causing damage by erasing such a system. For example, what are you going to do if this enormous space was being maintained by that system? If this whole place collapses, it’ll obviously affect Violuwin. An enormous number of people will die.”
“I also think the same way,” Marilyn intervened and added strength to Lyla’s opinion.
Zich took a step back as two people opposed his plan. “Fine, if those are your thoughts. But keep in mind that we can’t stay here forever. There might come a time when you two will have to choose between stopping this system or giving up on your research.”
“I know. I’m not disagreeing for no reason. I’m going to at least research those two trees and see where their mana are heading towards. We might be able to find out if that system is maintaining this tomb or not.”
“I’ll send you my best wishes.”
After their conversation ended, Marilyn let out an internal sigh of relief.