Back in the present, Konrad's head was about to explode.
Someone else's memories flooded his mind with a force that had him blank out.
Glimpses of his past from a different perspective, explaining one's choices.
A blurry vision of a future that could have been. A life with steep ups and downs.
Nothing like the mundanity had gotten instead.
He could have been the President of the United States.
A successful one at that, the most popular one in decades—until he wasn't.
People celebrated him for stopping two devastating wars, but he saw the writing on the wall.
A plague was coming, and to prevent it, he tried to run for his third office, and—
A lone shooter ended his ambition. Those were Lily's—or Lilith's?—reasons to hook up with him in his previous life. To alter that fate, but—it made no sense to him.
Nor did the other disturbing details about his guardian angel.
"H-he protected Hitler?!" he choked out after regaining his footing.
"Who did what?" the others asked in unison.
Of course, he was still in his office, and it was getting crowded.
What seemed like an eternity for him was only a short moment for everyone else.
"Oh, the man with the funny mustache," Lily chirped. "Yep, he did a 'great job' with that one."
More confusion. They couldn't see what he did, nor could they understand his past life.
Well, they knew about it now, but nothing about the history of that world.
The most devastating conflict upon its soil, and that somehow, he was a part of it.
No, well, Lucifer was, and through him—
"That's kinda messed up," Maple noted, the dragon reading his mind better than he could.
Lily shot her a glance, and she fell silent, but Vargas and Eyna looked more confused by every second. How does he even start to explain this? He himself did not understand.
And should he? Would it matter? Did it matter to him?
Of course it did.
"You took all that from me?" he mumbled, still under the influence of those foreign images. He didn't look at Lily, but he could tell the girl was avoiding his eyes, too, fiddling. "Why?"
"I showed you, please don't be mad," she muttered, her voice almost a whisper.
"But I don't understand," Konrad shook his head, feeling lost in his own office.
"It's simple, the way I see it," Maple offered. "She wanted to get back at an old rival and corrupt that angel guy. You were her means to do it—and she feels bad, but it is what it is."
"Mind getting out of my boyfriend's head, wyrm?!" Lily snapped, but her face was all red.
Right. He wanted to learn how to defend himself against mind probes, too.
All that secrecy meant nothing if people could read him like an open book.
But this wasn't the time. He had a much bigger mess to set right in his head.
"Boyfriend," he repeated Lily's word, absent-minded. "Is she right, though? You hooked up with me to ruin my life on purpose, then—you even followed me here?"
"D-don't be so dramatic, baby," the girl sprouted cat ears again, trying to act all cutesy as usual.
It almost worked, too.
Her charms were so devastating that it was no wonder he had fallen for her twice.
"Don't forget it was to protect you from that assassination—"
She cut herself off when their eyes met, unable to hold his gaze.
"You 'protected me' from greatness, by making my life a mundane ruin. And then I died to the same pandemic I was trying to prevent in that other timeline." That summed it up too well.
"When you put it that way—but in my defense," Lily straightened her back. "That plague would've wiped out half your country after your assassination. You gain some, you lose some."
"Didn't you say your predictions are often inaccurate?" Konrad shot back.
She saw him die on many occasions in the last months, and always rushed to the rescue. When she saved him from the dragon in the last minute, she was right, but two weeks ago?
"Look, I'll admit," the ginger snapped. "My goal wasn't to help you—"
"Could you take me back?" Konrad interrupted, asking with genuine curiosity. "If you're sorry, you could undo it all. Right? Time travel exists, and all that—"
"No, it's forbidden," Lily raised both hands, shaking her head.
"I did see a time traveler," Maple noted, and Konrad could only imagine her still reading all his thoughts. He also had a hunch that she wasn't on either of their sides, but was having great fun.
"That time traveler is why we're in so much trouble now, and Gabby patched that loophole."
Another explanation that gave him nothing to work with.
He could only wish someday he'd understand this four-dimensional chess they were playing.
That he could stand with them as an equal, not as a mere plaything in that chess game.
"I'm a demoness, what did you expect?" Lily pouted, using her cuteness as a weapon again.
"So was it worth it?" Konrad asked, feeling more lost than ever before.
He wanted to know why he had to suffer through that mundane life—and what to expect now.
"In a sense, yes," the girl said with a shrug. "Lucifer got more corrupted than I'd expected. Too much even—and he stole you from me. I wanted to make it up to you in your next lives, but—"
"But?" He raised an eyebrow, expecting another slap in the face.
"Ugh, that's wild," Maple interjected again, her face turning pale, almost blue. "He fucked up."
"Stop reading my mind, damn it," Lilith shouted.
So even she couldn't resist her probing?
He couldn't think about it for long because her skin turned an unnatural red. Rather than cat ears, horns and wings sprouted from her body, turning her into a true demoness.
The first time Konrad had ever seen her this way.
Not that she wasn't beautiful like this—scary, for the most part—but if this was her true form—
It only lasted a few seconds, then she was back to normal, panting, trying to calm down.
"Sorry, sorry. Yes, he did fuck it up," she whispered in the dead silence. "He played with things he shouldn't have, and cut you off from the Eternal Cycle. And I'll admit, it's in part my fault."
"W-wha—No. Say it in a way I understand," Konrad demanded, expecting the worst.
Again, Maple to the rescue.
"What she says is that you're stuck here, in this life. There will be no more."
Her words didn't even register.
Well, he didn't know about reincarnation until he actually reincarnated. He always thought he'd have one shot in life, and cursed himself for wasting it.
When he got his second one, he treated it more like a challenge than, well, a chance.
But now that they told him, this was his only other shot at it?
He let the silence stretch thin, only for Lily's whisper to break it.
"I can make you live forever, though. And I'll be here to make up for what I did. I'm not evil, you know, I saved millions of lives, while also messing with the angels, and—"
"But this Maou Midori guy is on his way to get me. Right?" was all he had to ask.
And the silence stretched even longer.