Chapter 363: The Time Difference
"Can the both of you just realise you do not have enough Gravitational Law comprehension to understand how to make a planet a Square?"
"..."
"..."
Arthur and McEnda turned silent when he spoke, and the two of them looked at each other before speaking.
"You know, when he says it like that..."
"He’s actually kinda right..."
"Yeah, he’s right."
Arthur spoke as he waved his hand and used destruction energy to ’delete’ the ’little solar system’ that he and McEnda had created, while Sigesi silently placed the next batch of documents in front of the Archdemon.
The boy’s actions were reminiscent of his mother’s, as he erased the metre-wide construct the same way his mother erased real star systems that were billions of kilometres across.
"General, these require your signatures."
McEnda returned his focus to the papers Sigesi had arranged for him, and he began stamping and signing them one after the other, trusting that she had filtered the absurd ones.
However, as if to undermine that trust in an instant, his eyes caught onto the logo on the top left of the paper he was about to sign, noticing it to be from a nonmilitary organisation.
He dropped his stamp and held it up, narrowing his eyes as he read out the heading.
"Marriage Certificate?"
"Oh, that must have gotten mixed up with these files."
Sigesi casually pulled the paper out of his hands and put it away at lightning speed, but that did nothing about McEnda’s skeptical gaze towards her.
"I think I’m going to have to read through every single one of these now..."
"As you should, since it’s your job."
Alvey didn’t miss the opportunity to scold his best friend, all while moving his hands to cross out some ridiculous requests from some Noble Demons under him.
They continued their little banter while working, with McEnda heaving a silent relieved sigh when he noticed that Sigesi didn’t put anything strange in the files he was meant to deal with.
As for Arthur, the boy spent most of his time binge-watching some movies on one of his tablets with Celestia who was floating beside him.
None of the three Gozonian demons showed any hints of surprise when they saw the tablet, confirming his guess that such a level of technology wasn’t unfamiliar to them.
He was also able to glean a bit of information from Alvey, that the Demons were suspecting Aramis’ low technological advancements was due to the gods limiting the planet’s development.
Well, it was only a suspicion and it could be wrong.
One of them did show surprise when Arthur began watching movies on his tablet, not because of the tablet, but because of the fact that Celestia was able to project her voice outward, something considered pretty difficult, even for very powerful ego weapons.
The Sword was about to start boasting about how special she was but she quickly shut her figurative mouth when she saw Arthur motioning to turn off the tablet.
Just then, Arthur suddenly remembered Lucifer’s cryptic words regarding the time difference between Hell and Valmone, prompting him to direct a question to the two oldest men in the room.
"The Prophecy about the birth of the ’child with the power to end the gods.’ You guys know about it, right?"
"Hmm? Yeah."
Alvey had spoken about it some days back, so though Arthur knew they were aware of it, he asked again as a build-up for his next question.
"How many years ago was it?"
McEnda tilted his head to the side and thought for a few moments, twirling his pen around his fingers before giving Arthur a reply that exceeded his expectations.
"Despite the buzz over it, it’s been quite a while since then. Was sometime between 40 and 45 years ago. Can’t really remember, I was only a kid then."
"You’re still a kid even now."
"Dude...why are you picking on me?"
"I’m not. I simply stated a fact."
The two best friends were about to proceed into their friendly banter but Arthur interrupted them with his next words.
"That prophecy came out exactly 9 months before I was born."
Both of them initially looked at him in with questioning gazes, wondering why he suddenly said that, but in the next second, their eyes widened as they realised the discrepancies.
And Arthur hammered the mail with his next statement.
"I’m 17 years old."
"""..."""
At this point, it was clear as day that there was a massive time difference between the Universes. Arthur hadn’t used his Pseudo-Authority to Synchronize himself with Aramis due to the fact that the world itself had been repelling him, given that he was a foreign entity from another universe.
There was also the fact that the boy completely forgot about the time difference issue but let’s leave that aside for now.
Aramis’ repulsion had weakened in the past week; enough that he could use us Pseudo-Authority without suffering any backlash.
And he did just that.
|¬Resonance Alignment¬|
Sigesi winced uncomfortably when she heard his faux true voice, but her reaction was pretty mild, considering she wasn’t a Transcendent yet.
The ambient temporal law energy was absorbed into his body, mixing with his own innate energy and from it, he could compare the differences.
"Time...is a really messed up concept."
Arthur muttered to himself when he got the answer to the equation on how much time difference there was.
"24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Yet Valmone is somehow faster than Hell."
From what he just discovered, a Day in Valmone; or rather, Aramis, was approximately 9 hours in the Hell Universe’s Planet Aeturn. His comprehension in the law of time, however, was not enough for him to figure out the reason why this was the case.
"Honestly, I couldn’t care less. All I care about is how good for me this is."
"Good for you? How?"
Arthur leaned back on his chair and tapped the cosmic teleporter on his right hand, while he spoke about his plans that none of them were aware about.
"I was originally planning to leave this Universe after four months, but seeing that there’s a time difference, it seems I can go to a few more places before my 1-year time limit is up."
He had been planning to go to at least three of the locations recorded in the Cosmic Teleporter, splitting his 1-year time frame between the three of them.
This meant that he would have had to spend relatively short periods of 4 months in each location.
"But knowing this, even if I spend a year here, it’d only be about 4 and a half months when I get back home.
This is very good to know."
The Devour Class System made it a lot easier for one to grow their strength, so Arthur was certainly hoping to take advantage of it for as long as possible.
’I don’t want to spend all the time I have in one place, otherwise, it would have been nice to stay here longer.’
Arthur set a goal for himself, one that would make people call him crazy if they heard, but with his circumstances, it was very possible to accomplish.
His goal was that by the time he leaves Valmone next year, he’d be at least, a Superior Stage Legendary. If he could get to the Sovereign realm, then he wouldn’t hesitate to take the jump.
Just when he was deciding the most efficient way to go about this, Alvey’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
"Right, Arthur. It’s high time you picked when you are going to go for your mission."
"I’m picking?"
Arthur raised a brow in light surprise when he heard Alvey’s words, but the Demon General causally replied while tidying his desk.
"I did say I was going to let you do things at your own discretion, didn’t I? This is one of them.
The files I gave you yesterday contain all the details of the Duskhand Bastille:
Location, Military Power, affiliation, Highest Combat Personnel and many more."
The young progenitor switched the device in his hands for the files Alvey spoke off, and when Celestia complained, he stuffed her into his subspace as well before sealing the entrance.
"So, what is it about this Duskhand place that you all dislike so much?"
It would be stranger if Arthur missed the way the Demon Army higher-ups reacted whenever Duskhand was brought up. Even Sigesi’s expression momentarily darkened when Alvey spoke just now.
"That’s what you’re there to find out. Your mission is to go there and explore."
"What am I supposed to do after that?"
"Whatever you want."
"...for real?"
Arthur couldn’t help but question Alvey’s decision, wondering if the man was messing with him but the man looked every bit as serious as always.
"Exploring is your mission, then you can do whatever you want after exploring."
