Marilyn was surprised—no, she was astounded. If it wasn’t for the stone statue, Windur would have split her into two instantly. Furthermore, she was shocked that Zich had expected her betrayal, but what surprised her the most was the word Zich had spat out: Witch. It was the title that other people were supposed to call her in the far future when she became Zich’s subordinate. It wasn’t a word that was supposed to appear now, especially from Zich’s mouth.
“Hmph!” Zich gripped his sword harder and pushed the stone sword away. Marilyn quickly gathered her senses, backed away, and gathered the shadows in front of her.
Baam!
“Kyaaah!” As the mana coming out of Windur flew across her, Marilyn screamed and covered her face with her arms. Fortunately, the shadows acted as an effective shield for her, and she didn’t receive any damage; only the rough winds created by the sword’s swing struck her face. But he kept going, and Marilyn backed away even when she couldn’t see everything in front of her clearly. Statues and shadows replaced her previous location.
Bam! Bam! Baaaaam!
She heard more collisions. Zich was crushing everything in his path.
Cruuuunch!
Ice pillars shot up from the place where she used to be—the magic belonged to Lyla. Yet, thanks to Marilyn’s quick thinking and adapting skills, Zich and Lyla failed to inflict any damage on her.
“She’s a quick thinker,” Lyla said while shattering the frozen shadows.
“She’s someone who will be my subordinate in the future. Furthermore, even though she usually worked from behind, her battling skills weren’t bad either. You must know since you battled her.”
“Yes, I do.” Lyla recalled the recent battle; even though Marilyn was a curse caster, she displayed considerable fighting abilities although curse casters tended to be at a disadvantage in a one-on-one battle compared to traditional mages.
‘Future subordinate? Working from behind?’ While listening to their conversation, Marilyn’s shock deepened. Becoming Zich’s subordinate in the future and taking on staff roles were part of her organization’s plan and were all things Zich shouldn’t have known. Marilyn’s face hardened chillingly. She didn’t think that Zich knew about regressing but seeing his and Lyla’s attitude, they definitely knew about the concept. She felt goosebumps on her back now. Her organization’s greatest secret had been uncovered. Worst of all, it was the future Demon Lord of Strength Zich Moore, and the System’s Core, Lyla.
‘But how?’ The first thing that came to her mind was that someone from her organization had leaked information. However, that seemed unlikely. ‘Very few of us know this information.’
Even though she didn’t know all the members in her organization who had this knowledge, she knew the number didn’t go above ten fingers. Additionally, they all went through intense education to the point that they didn’t even share information with each other. There was an extremely low possibility that the very small and special minority in her organization who knew about regressing would have leaked that information. Glen Zenard was also out of the equation.
‘There’s no way that crazy guy in his hero play would go around babbling about that.’ Ironically, she could trust a crazy guy like that in this aspect.
‘Then, is it perhaps Lyla?’ Marilyn was aware that a huge amount of knowledge was stored in Lyla since she was part of the system. Yet, only the system could disclose the knowledge inside her, and although small bits of memories could appear in Lyla’s mind, it wouldn’t go beyond that.
‘They told me that she wouldn’t be able to recall her memories to the point that she would be sure of the concept of regression…’ At most, they said Lyla would believe that she had memories of the future. Furthermore, they said Lyla’s memories would fade gradually after a burst in the beginning.
‘Still, that’s the most plausible thing that I can think of.’ Marilyn wasn’t sure what happened, but she guessed that Lyla’s memories were clear and exact. However, she didn’t have any more time to think about this matter.
“You must have a lot of free time.” After striking away two stone swords in his way, Zich rushed towards Marilyn again.
“Urgh!”
Marilyn hurriedly moved the shadows, and Zich’s feet slowed. Marilyn launched more curses at Zich. However, her curses’ lights got stuck in Windur’s fancy trajectory and were sliced in half. Yet, Marilyn wasn’t even disappointed. ‘I didn’t even hope for anything more!’
Seeing Zich’s current movements, it seemed like no matter how strong the curse she shot was, Zich would be able to split them in half. Furthermore, what she wanted wasn’t to stop Zich’s movements—her goal was something else.
Boom!
The stone statue approaching Zich’s side twisted its direction sharply. It raised a heavy stone sword and struck it down. Its goal was Lyla.
“Tch!” Lyla clicked her tongue and stretched out her hand sideways.
Pop!
Sharp wind blades stretched sideways and sliced all the shadows in the path. An empty space appeared by Marilyn’s side instantly. Lyla quickly flew towards the area.
Baaaam!
A stone sword collided against the ground and created a large mark while flying dust and stone pieces dispersed into the air. Lyla scowled as she dusted away the dirt and stone powder from her robe, but she remained uninjured. However, that wasn’t the end of the attack.
Whoosh!
Another stone sword fell to the ground. Like before, Lyla cleared an area with magic and flew over there. She managed to escape three swords in the same manner; it was an amazing feat if one considered a mage’s average physical abilities. However, she still had her limits as a mage.
“Kurgh!” Lyla lost her stance after escaping the third stone sword. It seemed impossible for her to escape by flying again; she didn’t even seem capable of clearing an area filled with shadows for her to go to. She looked up to see a stone sword falling from the sky. Marilyn wondered if she had given up. However, there was no sign of despair in her eyes.
Crassssh!
The sword statue dropped like lightning where Lyla was. However, there were no injuries on her body. Lyla calmly continued to swing her staff.
Flash!
The wind flowing around her crushed all the shadows rushing towards her. When Lyla saw that her surroundings became clear, she said, “Sorry, I wasn’t able to last.”
“No need to apologize. I also wasn’t able to push her enough either,” Zich said as he pushed a stone sword to the side.
Thud!
As the stone statue dropped to the side, Zich swung Windur towards the statue’s arm area.
Crasssh!
A large area of the statue’s wrist was shattered. If the statue were a human, it would have immediately dropped its sword, but the statue was still tightly gripping its sword. On the brighter side, stone fragments continued to drop from the statue’s wrist, so it seemed as if the whole wrist would probably fall off with a few more strikes. However, it was still extremely formidable.
The stone statue did not attack again. Instead, it dropped its half-broken wrist and withdrew. The shadows also merely surrounded Zich and Lyla and did not attack. Like this, their fierce battle momentarily stopped. Zich and Lyla’s gazes headed towards one place: the only person who could possibly stop the statues and shadows’ movements right now.
“I had no idea that you were going to immediately attack me from there,” Marilyn sighed. True to her words, it seemed as if Marilyn was very shocked since she used the shadows and statues to protect her like an iron wall. “Sir Zich, why did you charge forward like that? What if Lyla got hurt?”
“Lyla is different from other mages who are weak and need protection. She’s the type of person who’ll smack anyone hastily rushing towards her with a staff. Haven’t you experienced that yourself?”
“Yes, I certainly experienced it before, but I hadn’t expected her physical abilities to be that high.” Marilyn hadn’t expected Lyla to be able to evade so many of the statue’s attacks. Her plan to attack Lyla to separate them had almost failed. As she saw Windur’s chilling blade right in front of her face, Marilyn thought her life in this timeline was going to be over.
“Well, it’s fine if you realize that now, but did you stop the battle to just ask that question?”
“Yes, you’re completely right. Sir Zich, are you going to stop using honorifics towards me?”
“Are you seriously expecting me to keep using honorifics to you after all this? The Witch Marilyn Frill I know is not so shameless like this, even if you continued to hide your secret motive and stab my back in the end.”
Marilyn shut her mouth at Zich’s detailed words. She thought there was a very high possibility that Zich probably heard information about the regression from Lyla. However, judging by Zich’s words, it sounded as if he had experienced regression firsthand.
‘Most of all, that attitude…’
Even from the very start, Marilyn thought Zich’s attitude was more like Moore than Steelwall. However, she thought that was because of the unexpected variable in this timeline. She even thought it was better this way because it would help her find out the variable that changed Zich from Steelwall to Moore. However, another possibility appeared inside Marilyn’s mind now, and that possibility began to take root.
‘It’s not that he changed into Moore from Steelwall. Instead, it feels more like his personality is the softer version of Moore.’
Zich’s memory, actions, attitude, personality, and even all the unexpected variables could be explained by this explanation. However, Marilyn wanted to reject this explanation. This explanation contained a much more dangerous possibility than Zich merely finding out that regressing was possible.
‘There’s no way this is possible. The only one who can regress right now is that hero dimwit.’ Marilyn comforted herself like this, but she couldn’t throw away her suspicions. She needed to confirm the truth. This was the reason why she had stopped their battle while hoping that her worst prediction was not the truth.
“I’ll just ask you one thing, Sir Zich.”
“I can predict what you’re going to ask, but go on. It probably won’t be a hard question for me to answer.”
“How did you know about the existence of regression?” Marilyn gulped her saliva while hoping for Zich to not confirm her worst fears.
“I experienced it.”
“…Please say it to me again clearly.”
“Hey, Marilyn. Don’t act like a fool. You’re a smart person. Why are you pointlessly asking me a question that you already know the answer to? It’s not like you don’t understand. You just don’t want to believe it.”
“Then, did you really…”
Zich tapped his shoulders with Windur a few times and smirked. “You know, the thing about regression is that it’s a very peculiar experience.”
Marilyn almost dropped her staff at that moment. She had heard about Zich Moore’s exceptional strength and power. Of course, Marilyn didn’t feel any fear about this matter. Instead, she felt prideful that the person she loved possessed such an outstanding amount of strength. However, that was only if Zich played around like a puppet and stayed within their plans.
“It was a nice experience to have at least once. I earned quite a lot of things from it. I was able to fuck over my annoying family one time, and I obtained a new hobby. I also got my power much faster than before. But do you know what I like the most from all this?”
Zich’s face changed. His expression looked extremely displeased and frightening, and people who knew about his strength would feel even more terrified. “I was able to find out that there are fucking bastards who dared to play with my life however they wanted!”
‘He knows about the organization!’
Marilyn had no choice but to accept the truth now. Their situation was even worse than she expected.