Marilyn quickly took care of the most urgent problem. However, not everything was fixed yet obviously. There was still the great pressing threat that Zich and his companions could halt the system. Marilyn had to figure out the solution to this problem as soon as possible and the first thing she had to do was to find out whether Lyla was telling the truth or not. However, that was also impossible.
“I really don’t know what to do. I only thought about finding a clue, and when I saw that there wasn’t a clue, I just thought I could join their research about the trees.”
While carefully choosing her words, Marilyn asked about the location of the writing that Lyla read.
Lyla answered, “I think it was around there?” Lyla pointed at a point of the tomb and twirled her finger to give its general location. Yet, there were many stone chambers in the area. Marilyn counted the number of chambers and when the number exceeded 50, she stopped.
‘I can’t even check it out in secret at this rate!’ Unlike Lyla, Marilyn wasn’t in the position to go around investigating as she pleased. Although she knew the ancient empire’s language, there were too many stone chambers she had to read in secret away from Zich’s and his companions’ watchful eyes.
‘How the heck did Lyla look through all those stone chambers!’ It was an outstanding feat. As if the tomb showcased Clowon’s long history, the number of statues in this place was truly vast. Marilyn also knew that reading through all of them wouldn’t have been an impossible task for Lyla. She was stunned when she saw the speed Lyla took to read the ancient texts inside the Golden Emperor’s stone chamber. It was astonishingly fast, and Marilyn was sure that Lyla had also used magic to increase her reading speed. Since she almost couldn’t believe it, Marilyn even tested her sneakily, and to her disbelief, she found out that Lyla had perfectly grasped the text’s contents.
‘I thought she learned the writing system only recently. How can she read them so fast while even using speed-increasing magic!’ It was then that Marilyn truly grasped the gap between their talents. Considering that Lyla investigated the stone chambers with all her talents without sleeping, Marilyn could accept the claim that Lyla had managed to go through all the chambers in this tomb—a feat that was simply impossible for her to do.
She couldn’t step out to investigate the stone chambers now. She had pretended to not know the Clowon’s scripture. While Zich was pressuring them to speed up their research on the trees, it would seem unreasonable for her to go off to investigate stone chambers with writings that she wasn’t supposed to know. Nobody would accept her excuse.
‘I bet they would all become suspicious of me.’
Her only choice was to investigate in secret. With her severely limited time, searching through many stone chambers would be an impossible task. Even if she knew Clowon’s scripture, she could only translate bits of it at a time and didn’t have the skills to speedily read through them like Lyla.
‘Actually, investigating even just one or two of them might be impossible.’
Zich, Hans, and Snoc took turns guarding the pyramid in case of dangerous situations while the rest continued to wander around the tomb, looking to see if there was anything useful. She could be found by them.
‘Sir Zich is especially dangerous.’
Marilyn knew the abilities that Demon Lord Zich Moore had. Thus, she knew that his detecting abilities and the scope he could sense were immense. Even if he hadn’t reached his full potential, he could still sense across a wide perimeter.
‘He must have widened the perimeters he is sensing to keep an eye out for unexpected events too.’
With Marilyn’s current skills, it was difficult for her to escape Zich’s detection. In short, this all meant that it was impossible for her to check if Lyla was speaking the truth or not.
‘I will just get rid of that plan.’ It was a waste of her time to hold onto a plan that was impossible for her to carry out.
‘Should I just leave when the situation arises and make a report?’
Although she had met Zich and his companions coincidentally, she had also approached them calculatingly. It was true that a large part of the reason why she approached them was because of her personal greed to stay around with Zich, whom she loved. Truthfully, she did feel like she was on cloud nine ever since she started staying with Zich. However, Marilyn’s biggest reason for getting close to them was to dig out information from Zich and his companions. Zich and his companions were great figures of interest. According to her master, they were creating too many changed variables in this timeline. Her organization was even beginning to judge that this timeline was hopeless.
‘Although the master said that idiot is still playing hero even in this situation.’ At this point, that idiot’s obsession with being a hero seemed to even surpass her own love for Zich. Nevertheless, since her master had made sure there were critical changes in this timeline, she thought she could make use of her coincidental meeting with Zich and his companions to extract information from them.
So far, the information she had just gained was far beyond a couple of changed variables that her organization was worried about. Even though she couldn’t verify the information, it wasn’t something she could ignore. It was preferable for her to keep this information in mind and send it to her master after leaving the tomb with Zich and his companions. Of course, Marilyn also had her share of worries about that plan.
‘What if they try to halt the system before that?’ What if that really led to stopping the Brushel System? Zich had backed off because of her and Lyla’s disapproval, but that was only temporary. Lyla didn’t seem to be completely against the interruption of the system. If the tomb didn’t show many anomalies even if they halted the system, they might attempt to do exactly that.
‘If they still try to stop the system even after all that…’
Marilyn really didn’t want to think about this at all, but she needed to prepare herself.
‘My time with Sir Zich in this timeline would come to an end.’ A faint murderous intent glowed in her eyes.
* * *
Some time passed after Lyla went back to researching the tree. However, Zich and his companions’ actions didn’t change much. The three mages focused on their research and the others took turns protecting the mages. However, the companions began to slowly feel bored while staying longer in a tomb which didn’t change. This was especially true for Hans and Snoc. Their duties were extremely dull as they couldn’t even train in case an unexpected event occurred. On the other hand, they also couldn’t rest in peace either. While they were going through this monotony, they heard some welcoming news.
“You checked it?”
“Yep.” Lyla confidently nodded in response to Zich’s question. “The brown tree’s mana is surrounding this whole space. That’s probably the source that’s maintaining this place.”
“Then, is that the Brushel System?”
“No. This is just a simple magical function that uses the tree’s mana. It’s not worthy to give such a grand title as a system.”
“Then, at least this place won’t break if we stop it.”
“Yeah, that’ll probably be the case.”
“Then, are we going to try stopping the system?” Zich’s eyes beamed. He was also extremely bored by their current daily life.
Lyla nodded. “I researched various matters, but I think there’s little chance that it’ll cause damage to our surroundings. I also don’t want to waste too much time doing more research.” Lyla said this and nodded again. “Yeah, now I’m planning to research how to stop the system.”
“I agree.” Zich seemed extremely pleased by Lyla’s decision.
The others quietly listening to their conversation also brightened up as they saw the end of their lives in this tomb.
However, Marilyn voiced a concern. “We don’t know what’s going to happen, so isn’t it a bit risky to suddenly stop an unknown system?”
“Marilyn, you also agreed that there’s an extremely low chance that stopping the system will harm our surroundings.”
“Yeah, but there’s still a what if.”
“Yeah, of course there is a possibility, but we don’t have much time.”
“Then how about we just leave it alone? Honestly, we don’t want to stay longer in a tomb, and it’s not like we can’t come back again. We can come back next time to conduct research again.”
“Are you planning to come back here many times?” Lyla asked Zich, and he shook his head.
“I don’t intend to settle down near Violuwin. I’m planning to just keep wandering around, and we probably won’t be able to come here frequently enough for you to feel satisfied with your research.”
Lyla contemplated for a short while, but then she raised her head as if she had reached her final decision. “As expected, it’ll be better to stop the system. If we stop it, there might be a very small chance it’ll cause harm to its surroundings, but on the other hand, the system might also be causing harm too.”
“I understand.” Marilyn no longer disagreed.
“I’m sorry Marilyn. I’ve only been pushing my opinions.”
“No, not at all. I also think there’s a very small chance that something bad will happen from stopping it.”
“Thanks.”
Lyla smiled at Marilyn, and Marilyn gave a soft smile back. However, the inside of her mind was completely different.
‘I guess it can’t be helped.’ Marilyn finalized her decision as she continued to naturally exchange small talk with Lyla. ‘In the end, I have to use my final resort.’
* * *
When Marilyn went inside the pyramid to start researching earlier on, the other companions also began moving to do their own work. Only Zich and Lyla were left.
“Is she starting now?”
“Yeah, it’s starting now.”
Zich and Lyla’s gazes headed towards the pyramid, or more specifically towards Marilyn who was inside the pyramid.
Zich said, “If she really is a spy that the robed figures planted, she won’t just stand idly when we told everyone that we’re going to stop the Brushel System.”
“How do you think she’ll react?”
“I don’t know. Regardless, she won’t be able to do anything to us by herself. Even if she’s going to be the Witch in the future, the difference between our current strength is too big.”
Then, Zich stared at where the disciples were. “Well, we should first decrease our fighting power so that Marilyn can move around more freely. I should use an excuse to send Hans, Snoc, and Elena back up.”
“Yeah. We’re the only ones Marilyn probably finds dangerous.”
Marilyn wouldn’t oppose a decision leading her enemies to scatter their forces. Moreover, they also intended to make her movements a bit easier. If Marilyn revealed her true intentions, there was a high possibility that Marilyn might reveal important information such as information about regression.“What I can immediately think of is, of course, information about how to use the tree’s mana.”
“However, that’s only if Marilyn is able to use the tree’s mana.”
“Yeah. So, when you’re researching about the tree with Marilyn, you should closely observe her movements. It’s highly likely that she’ll try to do something then.”
“Should I block her?”
“You don’t have to necessarily do that. Just increase your knowledge about the tree. We don’t know when we’ll need that information later on.”
“Got it.” Lyla headed towards the pyramid. Zich slightly raised his head as he watched Lyla’s back. The enormous pyramid filled his range of vision.
‘What choice are you going to make now, Marilyn?’ Zich’s gaze towards the pyramid did not leave for a long while.