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Chapter 55: Bad First Meeting
🕑 Added 2024-09-13 16:12:16 +0000 UTCIt was a swift transformation. In a magical girl manner, her clothing changed. Such magical means are enough to shock Aleph in the past.
Her middle school uniform was changed with a black-red lolita dress. He could tell Kurumi placed her mind into creating it.
“Is it customizable?”
“Yes?”
Kurumi seemed interested in his reaction.
“Isn’t it normal that magical girls can’t choose their outfits?”
“Fufu… I can. In fact…”
Her outfit changed in an instant after being wrapped by light particles. It changed to the exact blazer Aleph wore.
‘It really fits her…’
He had the same thought years ago; he still had it now.
Kurumi’s outfit reverted to her previous one. Out of nowhere, a flintlock and a musket appeared in her hands.
“Do you have something you can break?” She asked.
Aleph’s expression remained natural as he took out a pair of glasses in his chest pocket.
Crack-!
With a snap, he broke it in half.
“Throw it.”
He did as he was told. The moment it was midair…
Bang-!
By the time he caught it, the broken glasses were repaired—rather, time was rewound back to its unbroken state.
“It’s time.”
“As expected. It can’t escape your eyes.”
The two began talking about Kurumi’s power. It was Aleph’s first time seeing something as magical as that back then.
‘I thought about the Project Soldier that time. Mobius’ immortality seemed like magic.’
With a sigh, Aleph prepared himself for what’s about to happen next. He kept trying to summon forth his cursed energy but to no avail. It was as if he didn’t have an ounce of them since the beginning.
‘Great Sage..?’
Even the reliable [Great Sage] wasn’t present, cementing his theory that he was experiencing his past the second time.
When Aleph found out that he couldn’t utilize cursed energy, he sensed everything in his body next.
Click.
‘There’s really something..!’
He was surprised to feel something. It was hard to describe it in his own words.
‘It should be time…’
Just then, the world turned dark black. Time paused when Kurumi was smiling in front of him.
‘Use it..!’
An indescribable force emerged out of nowhere. It was akin to a large cannonball headed to his own body.
The moment his pointy finger moved, a glass-like wall emerged from him.
Crack-!
Crack-!
Aleph’s entire body began to break free from its frozen state. Moving around was like removing frozen chunks of ice from his body.
By the time he shifted his torso, the ‘force’ broke through his ‘wall’.
Shatter-!
Psshk-!
Splat-!
A baseball-sized hole appeared on his right chest. At that very second, blood emerged from his next attempt to breathe.
In his perception, everything moved in slow motion. He saw Kurumi’s expression change from a smile to a shock.
Psshh-!
Aleph was about to fall when his right leg stepped forward. It slid until he prevented his fall.
‘It’s this. Back then…’
He touched the gaping hole in his right chest. Flesh stuck out of it. Blood kept falling out. Chills were sent down to his spine.
It wasn’t exactly pleasant to see and feel a hole in your chest.
Back then, it wasn’t just a hole in the chest. His heart was blasted by that force.
Aleph looked up behind him. His face was extremely pale, with cold sweat falling from his forehead.
“Ain?!”
Click.
Kurumi decisively pointed the flintlock behind his back.
“Dalet.”
Bang-!
The bullet which contained the power to reverse time struck his body. However, it didn’t have any effect.
“It’s no use. This… thing… cough… strange.”
Bang-!
Bang-!
Aleph disregarded Kurumi’s desperate attempts at this time. He looked at the person who did this.
The person’s entire silhouette was covered with darkness. All light that attempted to come close to it was devoured by darkness.
“...”
The person in question seemed oblivious to Aleph’s peeking. It already disregarded him as a dead man. The only reason for its unexpected appearance was the power within him.
Now, it could see a forming connection between Aleph and Kurumi. It was another sensation Aleph felt; as if he could pass a portion of this power to someone else.
‘...I see her.’
Silver pupils.
Long silver hair.
Aleph’s eyes were able to see through that darkness, albeit only a little. In the past, he saw through her silver eyes. Now, he saw her hair and half of her face.
‘Next time..!’
“There’s a way… Where is it…”
Kurumi’s voice cracked. Despite trying to keep her calm countenance, she couldn’t do it. Everything was too sudden. One moment, they were talking normally; the next moment, her friend was in danger.
A few seconds passed after he got shot. Breathing became more laborious due to his punctured lung. He had long collapsed to the dirt ground.
Dozens of kittens surrounded him in an organized manner. They didn’t prevent Kurumi from attempting to treat him.
Aleph pushed himself up with his arm, though he couldn’t. The best he did was to turn his entire body over.
“Don’t move! You’re making it worse..!”
“Heh… It’s… dis…tasteful. First meeting… like this.”
Blood kept bubbling up his throat with each breath. His punctured lung was rapidly deflating until it could no longer function.
Seeing Kurumi’s tearful face, a pang of guilt assaulted him.
The exact same thing occurred years ago. Although, he couldn’t even talk as much as now. Aleph could only point out “silver eyes” before his consciousness disappeared.
Now, his situation was much better.
“Don’t… No…”
Aleph could no longer talk. The only thing he could do was hold her hands. With a smile on his face, he experienced a fake death once more.
Just as his consciousness went dark, his body felt weightless. Aleph received the sensation of ‘swimming’ through something, akin to doing a backstroke in swimming without moving his body.
By the time he came back to himself, he was still greeted by a pang of pain. Though, his consciousness became clear. His sight became clear.
Aleph’s body went back to his original strength.
“Am I back..?”
{Answer: You are in another world.}
The girl’s voice with a straight tone finally responded back to him.
Instinctively, Aleph used thought acceleration and parallel mind to process everything. He analyzed his situation as he slowly stood up from the ground.
Aleph touched his chest and found the same hole in it. He was still wearing the same blazer as his middle school.
However…
“Cursed energy.”
A black-purple energy emerged from his fingertips.
In an instant, he performed cursed energy enhancement to his body. The pain became fainter as his right lung worked at multiple times its efficacy.
“How injured am I?”
{Answer: With cursed energy enhancement, you will last for a total of three minutes. After that, your organs will fail all at once.}
“Prolonging my death… What happened just now?”
{Answer: A portion of your consciousness is brought to another spacetime similar to a mirage. The damage brought over from a time period remains until the end of this experience. Upon dying, your consciousness will return to your body.}
Aleph digested [Great Sage]’s explanations. Aside from the entire experience, he also asked about the fake death it once mentioned.
{Answer: No true deaths will occur during the projection. A power protects your soul during projection. It preserves the soul while the material body dies.}
Fifteen seconds later, Aleph’s attention was taken by his surroundings.
Rumble-!
Fuzz-!
As the ground shook, the temperature became lower. It didn’t take a few seconds until he saw what was happening.
“Robots and… girls?”
The robots are fighting against a girl with a green hoodie. At that moment, he sensed the gazes from the ones in the robots.
“Two spirits?! There’s a change!”
“What bad luck!”
“How about the spacequake alarm? Why didn’t it go off?”
Sensing their gazes turning hostile, Aleph sighed.
