On a sunny afternoon, Li Mo awoke from a daze.
Shigure Kira, dressed in tan teddy bear pajamas, was asleep beside him, her hands wrapped around his arm. Her sky-blue hair was spread messily across the pillow and white sheets, her breathing faint.
It was the first time Li Mo had ever observed Shigure Kira's sleeping face up close. She looked as peaceful and fragile as a baby. The golden glow of sunset, like a clumsy traveler, had lost its way and settled upon her long eyelashes and delicate face.
The sun was half-hidden by the mountains; night was about to fall.
For some reason, Li Mo suddenly felt a sense of urgency.
Deviating from his usual pattern, he inexplicably activated his "Bizarre Vision."
Mei and Hua were in the kitchen making dinner, learning each other's cooking styles.
Pardo was teasing Can with a newly bought cat wand, only for Can to bite the wand and, in a complete reversal, tickle Pardo's cat ears with it.
MEI was huddled under her covers, reading a shoujo manga she had recently purchased, occasionally letting out a secret giggle that was almost never seen on her face. She seemed to have completely immersed herself in the story. Her door was locked tight with a combination lock and a bio-lock; besides herself, probably no one could undo them all.
Kiana was leaping up and down between floors, with Elysia in hot pursuit.
And...
The warm, everyday life hadn't changed. So where was this panic coming from?
The moment his "Bizarre Vision" was deactivated, his surroundings changed dramatically.
He had returned to reality.
The leisurely, perfect time shattered like a bursting bubble.
He stood on the bank of a golden stream. Reflected within it was an identical version of himself, but this reflection had a more childish face, filled with an emotional anger that made him seem more alive. He had a healthy complexion, and his eyes surged with endless questions.
In contrast, the Li Mo standing on the bank was gaunt, like a long-decayed leaf, his face a placid well, utterly devoid of life. His eyes were cloudy and unfocused, his expression stiff and dead.
Li Mo knew with perfect clarity that the reflection in the golden stream was the him who had been killed. The killer was Li Mo.
At this very moment, he still hadn't reached the end of his ideal. The warm, beautiful daily life from before was just a vision he had seen of the future after "The Last Time," made possible by his bizarre ability—"Wish."
Yes, what he had experienced before was the future. And now was still hell.
"..."
"..."
The two of them stared at each other for a long time. Finally, the reflection spoke first.
"The illusion is beautiful, isn't it? My future self, is this the reason that's kept you going until now?"
"A future you can never reach, an ideal you can never realize, even turning you into this thing that's neither human nor ghost?"
The young Li Mo was furious, his brows knitted tightly, his eyes burning with a fire akin to hatred.
"Yes."
Li Mo offered no defense.
Seeing Li Mo treat his own life so cheaply, the young Li Mo, who had read his memories, raised his voice. "You can't bear the price of this choice! Do you dare say you have the unwavering courage and will of a novel's protagonist? Don't be foolish! Endless solitude isn't something a human can withstand, you know that perfectly well, don't you? Any hero will become a mediocre coward in the face of time... I, the you of the past, simply cannot endure the despair and pain this choice brings, do you understand? Even if the end truly exists, what will we have become by the time we get there? Can you truly accept becoming someone completely unrecognizable?"
"Yes."
This time, Li Mo still offered no defense, just a numb nod of affirmation.
The young Li Mo stood frozen, biting his lip, unsure what words to use to reprimand his future self on the bank.
Clearly, his future self had long since decided to sacrifice everything, to walk this path without a second thought.
Emotions, life, morals, beliefs...
The figure standing on the bank, like a lonely ghost, had discarded them all. Only the "Eternal Rule" he had bestowed upon his own soul drove him to reach the end by any means necessary.
For this, he had to endure a solitude that transcended time, and a despair and suffering that no ordinary person could accept.
"Then why... why must you go this far?"
"Because I no longer have to wander," Li Mo's voice was soft, so soft that the last rays of the setting sun lingered for a moment, leaning in to listen.
"If I'm afraid, I'll use the 'Forget' rule to forget my fear. If I'm hurt, I'll use 'Restore' to mend my body. If I'm weak, I'll use 'Restart' to change my fate. If I'm lonely, I'll use the 'Future Sight' rule to comfort my soul. If I'm cowardly, I'll use the 'Exterminate Bizarre' rule to force myself onward..."
"Until one day, I no longer feel fear, no longer shrink back, and no longer... have the thought of giving up."
Li Mo's expressionless words made the young Li Mo's brow furrow deeply.
"For that? To go back in time and turn yourself into that ghostly thing?" the young Li Mo asked.
"Yes. After all, as you said, the human form is very fragile. Both body and mind. Pain and loneliness can easily destroy it. Despair and grief, time and time again, will give birth to the impulse to die. Humans... have their limits. Both physically and mentally."
"Do you know what a coward is? Someone who shrinks back from difficulty. A coward dies many times before their death. But it doesn't matter. I just have to get back up, until the rules have molded me into a bizarre Entity, with no regrets and no turning back."
"So, to ensure you could achieve your goal, you simply snuffed out the possibility of breaking down or giving up. I really want to curse you!! What do you think you are?! But... after thinking it over, I only have other things to say to you—"
The moment the evening wind swept by, a muscle behind the young Li Mo's ear twitched, as if a hawk trapped in his skull were pecking at his sphenoid bone. In a trance, the wind stopped. The fierce expression on his face suddenly softened, replaced by the gentle smile one reserves for giving a blessing.
"Thank you. Actually, I don't regret becoming you."
"If the future is really like that, then it's certainly worth striving for. So, you have to keep going, Li Mo."
The voice quickly faded, leaving behind ripples of molten gold that spread through the cracks of time and space.
This was not the first time, nor would it be the last.
He would walk alone to the end of this cycle's time, and personally initiate the "next one."
Then he would wake up again, hold a funeral for himself at St. Freya, complete the ritual with Shigure Kira, with all his memories intact—then wake up again, and move forward again...
A human could not do this. Only a bizarre Entity could.
A being that has been completely contaminated cannot be contaminated again. An infinite memory space allowed him to recall every single detail of "every single time."
"Well then, the time should be about right. You... won't be mad at me, will you?" Li Mo, whose emotions had long withered, showed a rare trace of nostalgia and guilt.
He remembered the girl's face, twisted in pain and despair, as he fell into the golden stream...
Her heart-wrenching screams, her desperate struggles to part the water around her. Every swing of her arms made her mangled, bloody fingers even more broken.
The trans-dimensional stream cut at her body. The closer she got, the hotter the blood gushing from her wounds became.
Her several attempts were like being subjected to death by a thousand cuts, the flesh on her body being sliced away layer by layer.
"Don't go! Don't leave me alone!"
"I don't want you to go! Don't go!"
"It's like this every time... It's like this every single time!!!!"
Her vocal cords were severed, spewing thick, crimson droplets of blood.
Tears mixed with the water of the stream. Even when her voice was hoarse and her throat could only produce broken syllables, she never stopped shouting.
The stream suddenly cracked with fine silver lines. Kiana burst out of the water, covered in wounds and mangled flesh, yet she stubbornly bit down on Li Mo's index finger—just like when she was paralyzed in bed as a child, she would always gently gnaw on the tip of his finger holding the medicine spoon.
The person on the bank, the person in her heart.
"I'm sorry, Kiana, for making you worry. Now, I'm here to fulfill my promise. Shall we walk on together?"
Li Mo reached out and gently stroked Kiana's head, his touch as gentle as could be. A vivid smile bloomed on his gloomy face.
A long, long time ago, when Kiana was paralyzed and bedridden, he had also taken care of her so tenderly.
"This time... you really won't leave?"
After their reunion, Kiana didn't blame Li Mo for his broken promise. Instead, in a pleading tone, she waited for him to give a firm, positive reply.
"Not for now. I'll be with you until 'this time' is over."
"Mmm..."
Kiana responded with a disappointed mumble. In a moment of distraction, her throat bobbed, and she instinctively bit off Li Mo's index finger, swallowing it.
"I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! I still can't completely suppress the rules. Mo, don't be mad at me..."
Kiana frantically wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, her head bowed, not daring to meet his eyes.
"I won't." Li Mo didn't pull back. Instead, he actively placed his restored index finger back into Kiana's mouth.
Back in the Duck's world, although Kiana had defeated all the women connected to him who had turned into bizarre Entities and had regained her sense of self, she would still occasionally lose control like just now, dominated by the instinct of possessiveness.
Besides, he had pushed her away a whole ten thousand times...
"You don't have to hold back on purpose. When happiness knocks, don't hesitate. I think that's what someone wrote on a note hidden in my birthday cake once."
"How do you still remember that..."
"I will never forget a single thing about you."
"Mmph! Mmm! I love Mo the most! Mo is the best!"
Kiana laughed freely, and Li Mo saw a flash of light as brilliant as gold.
"Mo, I keep eating you... Are you really not angry?"
"How could I be? With you by my side, at least I don't have to wait for the 'next time' like a lonely ghost."
"Then... do you want to revive a few people? Even if they're just false beings carrying memories, it'll be more lively. Don't worry, I'll only be mad at those vixens for half a day!" Kiana grumbled, reluctantly using her Herrscher powers to create figures of several women who were close to Li Mo.
"We'll meet again. Both the people we hate and the people we love..."
Li Mo showed a rare hint of nostalgia. For him, this state was just a final flicker of life before his consciousness sank into dormancy again. Creating puppets of old friends with memories, even with his bizarre powers, was meaningless.
Besides... if they knew he had done something like this, they would surely gossip behind his back. Especially MEI. She would probably secretly contact the others to laugh at her pitiful, lonely man for resorting to such things...
"Stare~~" Kiana let out a low, cat-like hiss and, pulling the reminiscing Li Mo along, ran towards the long-abandoned ruins of the city.
Broken branches recorded the monsoons in their wooden veins.
At the tip of a rusted crane, a dandelion seed was practicing levitation...
The withered husk of the world still held the coordinates of a cocoon's hatching, saved for some future spring.
The two of them walked without direction, without a destination.
This was a journey that would last forever.
As time went on, Li Mo's consciousness grew increasingly blurry. He would remain in a daze for long periods, collapsing to the ground without awareness, falling from high places, or sinking into the deep sea.
But no matter where, when, or what happened, Kiana was always by his side.
If Li Mo fell from a cliff, she would fall with him. If Li Mo walked into the depths of the sea and sank, she would sink with him into the abyss...
Their boring journey would occasionally have small interludes, and Li Mo would sometimes regain his senses—
Li Mo: "You bit my tongue off."
Kiana: "Huh? Ehehe... Sorry, I'll control myself. One more time! I'll control myself this time!"
---||---
---||---
At St. Freya in December, snow began to fall from the sky. An amber halo spread over the snow-covered eaves, and flurries of snow danced in the daylight.
Li Mo stood with vacant eyes and a haggard expression, like a corpse ready to wander aimlessly in a world devoid of people.
In a daze, Li Mo saw a snowscape. It was very familiar. "Every single time" began in a snowfield.
"Should I be saying... 'You're awake? Have some porridge. This is all I have under the circumstances'?"
That was the first thing he had said to the young Kiana after she woke up.
"Showing off again!" Theresa complained. "Or did you space out again? You're always so mysterious. Damn those bizarre, turning a young man into this. What a menace!"
"Li Mo, we're all here. It's snowing at St. Freya, and we're all watching the snow together," Shigure Kira quickly explained.
Coming back to his senses, Li Mo stood frozen in place, quickly gathering his thoughts.
...The cycle was over. There would be no new beginning. Every "time" he had gone through had bought more time for this final "one." So this was it, the world with an eternal future.
"Why are you standing there like a dummy, you idiot Mo!" Kiana rushed over and grabbed his hand tightly. "It's time for a snowball fight! I've got your back!"
In the very end, small and large snowballs of cold ice hit his face, yet they felt warmer than fire. A dazzling light, like a fluttering butterfly, illuminated his slightly bitter smile.
Amidst the clamor, there was a faint, silent confession, but the voice was indistinguishable.
"I'll tell you a secret... I love you more than anyone else..."
A winter that wasn't cold. People often recall it at some point in the future, and they call it—happiness.
—END OF BOOK—