Yuna’s story left a hollow ache; Lucimia could only offer warmth, arms opening like a shawl, and she pulled Yuna into a quiet embrace.
This was still another world; beyond the Royal Capital, the hinterlands lay like dim villages, where trafficking and slavery flickered like old scars—even her last world had them.
Here, the rot only ran wilder, like weeds after rain.
The world was a knife under silk; Lucimia lived calmly only under the canopy of her family and the Church.
They said that where the Church’s light didn’t reach—no chapel raised, no clergy settled, no Magic Array humming—Evil Entities prowled like shadows at the edge of firelight.
Many beasts were tainted and crashed into human settlements like storm waves pounding a shore.
Where the Church covers, life is usually safe; its net of wards is a lantern over night.
No wonder the Church holds heavy weight here, its name carrying iron-clad prestige.
Well—usually.
Lucimia counted as an exception, a reed bending where others stood.
Luckily, she had a way; she shared her plan with Yuna, words laid out like stepping stones over a stream.
Her first move was no move: do nothing.
Avoid clashing early with the Blue Ringed Octopus, so familiar faces wouldn’t fall like lamps snuffed.
Then she’d propose to her father to use Holy Water, to flush out Deceivers hidden in the crowd, especially in the Church’s mage squads, like ink washed from cloth.
Once the Deceivers inside the mage squads were cut out, the Magic Array could start clean, and it wouldn’t swap the entire city like masks at a festival.
Lucimia didn’t fear getting spotted; her gift seemed to slip past probes like wind through reeds.
In this whole plan, her one task was simple: let her father know Deceivers existed, like showing a hidden bruise.
Only with that knowledge would her father, and the Church, have a reason to move, like hammers lifted for a nail.
It wasn’t hard to set up.
She remembered the last loop, day one: she sent soldiers to check an old bookstore, a dust-mote in the streetlight.
On day two, she went to confirm, and they claimed there was nothing, as if rain had washed footprints away.
She guessed then the guards were Deceivers, faces like borrowed masks.
Later, the Blue Ringed Octopus replaced Vittor.
So she could rule out this chain: the Blue Ringed Octopus swapped out the blond first, then some other octopus swapped the soldiers.
More likely, the soldiers were Deceivers first, went to the bookstore, met the blond, then replaced him, like nets thrown after bait.
That line felt most probable, a straight thread among tangles.
So the soldiers had turned into Deceivers on day one, or earlier, like rot seeping under floorboards.
She just needed her father to test those soldiers, a pebble tossed to stir the pond.
Once they showed their octopus selves—no more masks—he would know what to do without her saying another word.
You wonder why Lucimia doesn’t just tell him she came from the future, lay out what’s next like a map?
Sure, that might spur her father and the Church, like a bugle at dawn.
But after the crisis, they’d chase the source of her gift like hounds on a scent.
She couldn’t sell out Yuna; in the end she’d be taken away, a specimen under lamp light.
The Church would study that ability, probe her clean, and any oddity would be trouble, like cracks in ice.
She didn’t want that weight; she wanted a quiet pillow after this, a life at ease—and Yuna beside her.
Still, Lucimia wavered like a needle; should she have the soldiers tested at all?
She feared that pushing her father to probe would leak threads to the Deceivers, and they’d target her like hawks above a lone hare.
Or if her father struck first and culled them, would the rest grow wary and change tactics, like smoke finding new cracks?
The odds were high; the wind smelled of it.
Lucimia was clever and careful; she’d weighed that chance like coins in a palm.
She had another path: don’t rustle the grass and warn the snake—go alone, and sabotage the ritual with her own hands.
But there was a snag in that weave; she had to confirm it before stepping there.
In the last loop, when Lucimia pretended to wreck the ritual, Yuna sensed a flaw.
She couldn’t see, so how did she know Lucimia wasn’t actually altering it?
Yuna couldn’t explain; rules clamped like iron rings.
Heart tight, Lucimia guessed, “Is it that when I alter the ritual, a variable appears?”
“Mm.” Yuna nodded, like a small bird pecking.
It seemed anything discovered on its own didn’t cross Yuna’s rules, like footsteps found after rain.
Lucimia could sketch the rules’ outline: don’t tell others her ability; don’t spill the last loop’s details—no threads handed out.
Something like that, right?
She propped a small hand under her chin, thoughts drifting like mist.
Her nerves tightened like strings. “After I wreck the ritual, does a blazing light or a tremor appear?”
Yuna shook her head, like a leaf denying the wind.
Cold dread pooled. “Then… it failed?”
Yuna nodded, a small weight settling.
So it failed.
How did it fail, though? The path twisted like vines.
If it failed, why would Yuna still push her to do it?
“Was the failure because I was discovered? Or is this Magic Array immune to my ability?
But that can’t be, or you wouldn’t ask me to try—it means my ability is enough.”
When she finished, Yuna nodded, then shook her head, then, after a heartbeat, nodded again, gestures like tides coming and going.
“What does that mean?”
Lucimia stared, blank as a page, confusion swirling like smoke.
“I don’t… know. I don’t understand this part,” Yuna murmured, voice like a moth against glass. “But last time, it did fail.”
She hugged her legs, half her small face buried in her knees, like a sparrow tucked under wing.
“Alright, I piled too much on. I’ll ask one by one,” Lucimia said, calming the ripples.
She bent her legs too and hugged her knees, mirroring her like two moons.
“Was I discovered?”
Yuna nodded, a quiet tap of rain.
“Then you still had me modify it.
If discovery still won’t let me ruin it, does that mean my timing was too early?”
Yuna nodded again, like a second drop.
“Then sabotaging it does cause a reaction, right? Otherwise you couldn’t know I wasn’t doing it.”
Yuna nodded a third time, steady as a drumbeat.
“Then why did you shake your head?”
Yuna went still, then said slowly, “I… don’t know. I don’t know much…”
“Alright, then let me ask: did I succeed in destroying the ritual?”
Yuna nodded, then shook her head, like a lantern flickering.
Right, that’s the knot.
She thought, then reshaped the words like clay. “I was spotted, but I did destroy the ritual.
Yet the ritual still happened and replaced everyone in the city. Is that right?”
At last, Yuna nodded hard, like a bell struck.
So that was it; the picture clicked like tiles.
Lucimia understood, the outline chalked on dark stone.
In her mind, she ran the loop like beads on a string.
She destroyed the ritual, but got spotted and ran.
Maybe it was too early. The octopuses repaired the Magic Array, so her sabotage failed.
So in the next loop—the one Lucimia remembers as the first—Yuna chose night.
She sent Lucimia to sabotage at the very moment the ritual would begin, like cutting a thread at the loom.
