Chapter 115 Volume III - Chapter 36: Old Seer
The wind, carrying the cold of the approaching winter, blew in my face through the window of my wooden hut. I took a sip of my steaming tea and sighed.
Old age was now hitting my body. I was about to turn one hundred and thirty-five, and if the incident of eighty years ago had not happened, I would probably have passed away long ago, but now... here I was.
I took another sip of my tea but realized the cup was empty.
I sat up from my chair, even though it was hard on my body.
I'd had too much tea, I knew I'd had enough, so I was going to put my cup aside to clean it, but then, all of a sudden, a pain shot through my head.
I knew what pain was, I had experienced it many times, so I knew it was something important.
The glass fell from my hand, and I dragged myself to my bed as the headache continued to grow. The world suddenly became brighter, the voices started to blend together. When I finally let myself fall into my bed, I breathed a sigh of relief.
First I calmed myself down, focused on the world changing before my eyes, and poured mana into my skill.
The change of the world accelerated in an instant. The image of my small hut blurred together and one after another images began to appear before my eyes.
First I found myself in a huge hall full of young people, the boys in suits and the girls in carefully selected dresses. The place resembled a ball. Everyone seemed to be having fun, nothing was wrong.
Just then, a notification fell in front of me.
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A change in the timeline has been detected.
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The image suddenly flickered. The view of the hall suddenly changed and flames surrounded the place. Gunshots echoed in my ears. I heard young people screaming for help, the glow of the spells preventing me from keeping my eyes open too long.
Even though what I saw was frightening, I didn't panic. I focused on memorizing everything in every detail and that's when I saw another notification.
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A change in the timeline has been detected.
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The image flickered again, and a dark-haired boy suddenly appeared in front of my eyes. I couldn't see his face because his back was to me, but he was skinny. He didn't look very old either, around high school age. He seemed to be talking to someone.
I quickly tried to see who he was talking to, but then I realized that there was nothing where he was talking. I frowned, dumbfounded.
This little boy with black hair... is he talking to the void?
No... it can't be.
I poured extra mana into my ability, I focused all my senses, everything I had on that void. I did everything I could in the hope of finding something, and then, as if someone had noticed my efforts, a message notification appeared in front of me.
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Congratulations! Your [Clairvoyance(A+)] skill has been upgraded to [S-]!
Your mana capacity has increased significantly!
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The void suddenly began to change. I focused even more, hoping to understand what was happening, but then... the change suddenly stopped.
Where there had been a void before, there was now someone who seemed to be censored. His clothes, his hair color, his facial expression... Everything was blurry, I couldn't understand anything.
For the first time in a long, long time I was in shock.
I hadn't even heard that clairvoyance could be elevated to S- grade, I was very likely to be the first person in the world to experience it, but even that made me only see this person in the image as a... blur.
So an idea popped into my mind.
Could this person be the cause of all the strange things that have been happening lately? Is this person the reason why the skill has gotten out of hand?
I poured even more mana into the skill, an amount of mana that would normally never be seen by the rest of humanity, reaching its limit. I could feel my reserve running out, the vision would soon end, but I didn't care.
I focused, I tried to understand at least a few features of the censored person, but the moment I tried to do so, the blur suddenly moved, independent of me. Although I couldn't see it because of the censorship, something he was holding stabbed the black-haired boy in the chest.
The black-haired boy's whole body trembled as blood trickled down his body. His lips curled slightly upward for a moment as if he was smiling, but that was it.
A notification fell in front of me again.
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An excess in the flow of time has been detected.
Successive changes in the timeline have been detected.
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My head suddenly ached like never before. The image in front of my eyes cracked as if I had been looking at it through a screen.
I suddenly found myself in my hut.
<<------------------------------
Your Mana Efficiency stat has increased to [S]!
Your mana capacity has increased drastically!
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I didn't wait a second, I poured the water next to my bed down my throat. I had encountered two very important developments today, but neither of them was important.
The censorship I had seen could be the explanation for why our visions of the future kept changing and why things we had foreseen suddenly started to change.
Excited, I quickly took the phone out of my pocket.
I was going to call the others, tell them about this important information I had discovered, and then... something unexpected happened.
The door to my hut opened slowly but distinctly.
My brow furrowed, beads of sweat slowly appearing on my forehead as my eyes turned to the rapidly opening door.
I must have been the only one here, not a single person in the world knew I lived here. The opening of my door... was not a good omen.
So the person who opened the door entered step by step.
She had a big smile on her face. Her short dark green hair was slightly wavy. In contrast, she was a young and short woman with dark red eyes. She looked excited, and on her back was a double-edged axe, which was obviously quite heavy, even though she looked quite thin.
When she saw me, her expression turned puzzled, she came quickly to me and shouted in a worried voice.
"Oh my! Are you okay, Auntie? Do you want me to help you? You look so pale!"
I opened my mouth, but as soon as I did, she put her index finger to my lips, preventing me from speaking.
"Shh! You look sick, auntie. You shouldn't talk!"
She took a bottle out of her pocket and handed it to me. The transparent liquid inside, resembling water, was so thick that it was easy to see that it was not water.
"Come on, drink this, you'll be as fit as a fiddle!"
She uncapped the bottle and threw it aside, and without waiting for a second, she brought it to my mouth.
I quickly pulled my mouth aside, but there was no point in pulling back, I was powerless, all I could do was... question.
"Who are you?! How did you get here?!"
The woman pursed her lips.
"B- but I'm trying to help you... and you're yelling at me! You're so hurtful, Auntie!"
Her eyes watered, her pursed lips pursed even more; she started to cry.
Who is this woman...? Was she really worried about me? How did she find this place in the first place?
In the midst of my thoughts, I suddenly felt a warmth in my stomach.
It was very sudden, and when I turned my head down, what I saw in my stomach was... a dagger.
My eyes widened, and blood rose in my throat as my body trembled. I pushed her arm away from me, but my muscles contracted so much that I fell off the bed the moment I did.
"Ahahahah! You really believed it for a moment, Auntie."
I couldn't look up, all I could see was her feet right next to me.
"Your reaction was spectacular, I give you nine out of ten."
Suddenly the handle of the axe landed next to her foot and the wooden floor of the hut trembled with the force of the axe.
"You'll have to excuse us, the seers are giving us a lot of trouble... We're afraid you might ruin our business. You understand, right?"
I vomited blood, tried to crawl as my whole body trembled, but my old body wouldn't let me.
"You were seeing things before I came, weren't you? Your eye was glowing blue and blue."
There was excitement in her voice, and by this time the world was spinning and my vision was blurring.
"I wonder what you saw, can you tell me?"
I coughed, and the voices began to blur together as the world went dark.
I felt regret.
"Ah, it's like you can't tell me because you're going to die... I've always wondered what it would be like to see the future, but it seems I'll never know."
The handle of the axe lifted and the woman's feet moved into position to steady herself.
"Anyway, you've already lived too long. In case you're wondering, I'm the Representative Candidate of Envy, although I guess it doesn't really matter anymore... Anyway, goodbye, Auntie!"
I saw her move and felt an unimaginable pain where my stomach had been before my world went completely dark.
Yet I did not cry or scream.
I was not afraid of death or pain. I knew I was going to die in pain, I knew I was going to die with an axe. I was confused by what I saw at first, but now I remembered.
There was no way out of here. I had prepared myself for this a long time ago.
The only thing I felt was regret, regret that I had failed to warn even one person.
And hope, the hope I feel about the one who will come in my place...
*(A/N: I want to try something with this chapter, and I also wonder how many people will respond to it. If the novel gets 20 power stones within 24 hours after the chapter is published, I will publish two chapters the next day. I can apply this kind of system every day if there is an increase as I think. For now... let's see what happens.)*
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