Episode 13
I used my ability without saving the current timeline and said goodbye to her.
“It was nice meeting you after all this time, Rosemary. I’ll send your older brother my regards. I’ll be coming to save you soon, so don’t cry and stay strong, okay?”
It was just as I tried to activate my ability.
In an instant, without any warning, the parlor door swung open.
“Tania!”
The person who had burst through the door was Elision, who had hurriedly rushed out of the Papiope estate that morning.
He appeared suddenly, his face twisted with an intense, inexplicable anger as he strode toward me.
“You—what in the world…!”
Huh. What could Elision possibly be angry about?
When I had visited him earlier that day, everything had been the same as usual.
In the blink of an eye, he reached me and grabbed my wrist.
Taken aback, I instinctively activated the ability I had been holding in reserve.
Oh, no.
[Moving to Timeline 1.]
Seeing my field of vision lower and my hands and feet shrink, I furrowed my brow.
What was that? Why was Elision angry with me?
That thought was short-lived, as Raspi’s cold voice snapped me back to reality.
“You must explain what you just said.”
His face was etched with wariness; he didn’t know I had just met a future version of Rosemary.
I blinked slowly.
“…What was the last thing I said?”
“Didn’t you ask why Rosemary left me alone!”
Ah. So that’s where it ended.
“I saw you end up in trouble through foresight. I was just curious why Rosemary, who is still alive and well in the future, left you alone.”
“How am I supposed to believe that?”
Whether he believes me or not is irrelevant. However…
“I foresaw that your sister is alive, so you had better hope that I’m right.”
Raspi, who had desperately prayed for his sister’s survival, parted his lips, then closed them again quietly.
“Rosemary is definitely alive in the future. But it seems some kind of trouble will befall you while you’re saving her…”
“It doesn’t matter. I have to go save her regardless.”
Tsk.
He had no idea what would happen to him, yet he remained pointlessly stubborn.
Well, how could I stop a kid determined to walk straight into danger?
I let out a small sigh and parted my lips.
“Then come with me.”
Fortunately, since Raspi’s ability was the most broken of all broken abilities—beast control—I didn’t think I would need to shift the timeline much.
But upon hearing that I wanted him to come along, Raspi’s eyes contorted in frustration.
“I don’t need that kind of help. I don’t trust you yet, and you’ll only be a burden if I take you with me.”
“Ho-ho, and do you even know where to go to find your sister?”
“…….”
As if I had expected as much, I shrugged my shoulders lightly and crinkled my eyes into a bright smile.
“So, we’re going together then?”
✦ ✦ ✦
First, I calmed down Raspi, who looked ready to bolt at any moment.
After that, I made him eat food he claimed he didn’t want and forced him to sleep.
And the next day.
I served Raspi the stew and bread the neighbor lady had brought over for breakfast.
He argued with me, asking where we would find the time to eat, but when I told him we wouldn’t depart unless he ate, he shoved the food into his mouth.
He had put up more of a fight yesterday, so I suppose he’d grown a little more comfortable with me in the span of a day.
I watched with satisfaction as he ate, then asked him something I’d been curious about.
“By the way, why were you collapsed near the cigar shop yesterday?”
“……I was searching for Rosemary. I heard intelligence that ability-user trading took place at that shop, so I went to check.”
“And then?”
“Up until that point, I hadn’t realized how tired I was and kept searching frantically, but as soon as I saw the empty shop, my strength just completely drained away…”
Raspi had many small scars on his body, but not enough to make him collapse from illness.
If that was the case, then in all likelihood…
“Raspi, have you even eaten lately?”
He shook his head slowly.
Well, seeing how gaunt he was, I could have guessed.
As an orphan, he probably didn’t eat well to begin with, and he likely couldn’t even beg while he was busy searching for his sister.
Just as I was looking at his malnourished state with displeasure, he set down his utensils with a look of fullness and asked.
“But Tania, are you sure you don’t need to get permission from your parents to do such dangerous things?”
“Hm? There seems to be a misunderstanding; I don’t have parents.”
“……Pardon?”
“I’m an orphan. For your information, this isn’t strictly my house, either. I’m just staying here temporarily with the help of a kind person.”
I held up my thin arm to show him as if it were proof.
He stared at the empty plate with a rare look of bewilderment.
“Then the food you gave up for me yesterday and today…”
“Forget it. If you’re done, let’s get up. We have to hurry and save Rosemary, who must be terrified.”
When I dismissed it like it was nothing and changed the subject, he bit his lower lip.
He wore a look that seemed complicated in many ways.
“……Do you have a rescue plan?”
“Something like, you draw the beasts out and cause a ruckus to pull their attention, and I save Rosemary in the meantime?”
“How can an Abilitator without any combat power like you save Rosemary? It’s not that simple.”
“It’s fine. I saw myself saving Rosemary through foresight.”
Faced with a statement that left him speechless, he let out a small sigh.
“……I don’t know if I can trust you.”
Just as I was about to tell him it was too late to regret it—
“But I am certain that you do not hold any malice.”
The eyes that had been wavering with anxiety at the lack of a plan were, at some moment, capturing me clearly.
“……So?”
“I will follow you.”
Having said that, Raspi kissed the back of my hand as if swearing an oath to his lord.
I stared at the sight blankly and thought:
‘Where did a brat whose hair isn’t even dry yet learn to do something like that?’
✦ ✦ ✦
A dark underground, a place filled with rooms lined with dense iron bars.
Every time I inhaled, a fishy, metallic scent and the smell of mold wafted in.
The Abilitator auction house.
To save Rosemary, I had intentionally let myself get captured to act as bait.
Looking around through the narrow iron bars, I slumped down where I stood.
“They called it an Abilitator auction house, but it seems there are far more ordinary people here.”
Well, capturing an Abilitator was an incredibly difficult task in itself, so it would have been stranger if there were many.
To run an auction house this large, they would need ordinary people to maintain operations.
“Scum-like bastards.”
In the previous timeline, I had crushed this place together with Elision.
Even though I had come here on purpose, the feeling of actually being a captive was strange.
While being dragged here, I had spotted Rosemary curled up in a corner through the iron bars we passed.
In a place of this scale, they didn’t put people up for auction immediately after kidnapping; they conducted various examinations for several weeks to set a minimum price.
Fortunately, it seemed Rosemary hadn’t reached the auction stage yet.
Now that I had located her, all that was left was to save her.
“I wonder if Raspi is waiting patiently outside…”
It was then.
Amidst the noisy voices of the captured people, someone’s slow footsteps echoed through the underground.
Click. Click.
I saw an old man leaning on a cane, walking by and scanning the people inside the cages.
He had a distinct, commanding presence and aura.
Although he wore a mask that covered his entire face, I recognized his identity at once.
“……I didn’t know this man’s hobby was people-shopping.”
VIPs of the auction house would inspect and purchase items before they were put up for auction; it seemed this old man had come to take a look in advance.
He was someone I had held in relatively high regard in the future timeline, so I was disappointed to see him setting foot in a place like this.
The old man, who hadn’t taken any action other than peering into the cages, stopped in front of me.
It seemed he had noticed me staring directly at him.
“You do not avert your gaze from me.”
The old man’s eyes sparkled with interest.
“Are you not afraid?”
I tilted my head to the side, as if I didn’t understand what he meant, and asked back.
“By ‘afraid,’ do you mean you, sir? Or are you referring to the situation I’m currently in?”
“……Hmm, let us say it is both.”
“I am a bit afraid of an old man with the strange hobby of buying people with money. But as for my situation, I’m doing quite fine.”