So why did Vittor still get replaced? The question scraped like cold wind against bone.

That’s a hard fact, solid as stone in the road.

What was the Octopus’s motive, a cloud of ink in deep water?

Was that opening a baited flaw, or did Lucimia truly trick it out, a mask slipping by accident?

Does it mean that whether Lucimia poked the Octopus or not, in its net—or in the river of history—Vittor would be replaced?

Maybe Vittor lifted the rock and saw the nest. The Octopus silenced him with a knife made of shadows and swapped him out.

Likely. The odds tipped like a scale heavy on one side.

She remembered the last loop. The fake Vittor said he’d planned to bring food and wine to Julie’s house, share a meal, then confess under a warm lamp.

Maybe that line wasn’t a lie at all. The smoke clears, and the shape remains.

Vittor really went to Julie’s last night. On the way, he stumbled on a Deceiver’s secret, stepped into a snare, and got replaced.

What were the Octopus’s arms doing in the dark water last night?

Damn. I should’ve stayed up, owl-eyed, staking out Vittor.

But if Vittor could meet a Deceiver, then Lucimia stepping in to save him would be like kicking a wasp nest. The Octopus would push pieces the next day to smother change.

It looked like a knot of thorns you couldn’t pull apart.

That’s the price of forks in the road. Every path ran into fog and unfriendly hills for her.

Expose herself, or sell out Vittor. Blade on one side, fire on the other.

Just then, Vittor came out of the storehouse. He held a slab of roast on an iron hook, grease catching light like amber.

“Here, for you.” His voice was rough, warm as smoke.

“Thanks. Then… Uncle Vittor, I’ll get going.” Lucimia took it. Her words were soft as cotton. She bowed out the door.

“Oh, take care,” drifted after her like a fading thread.

…

Outside, Lucimia didn’t stop. Her small legs beat the ground like a sparrow’s wings, hurrying homeward.

Yuna gripped her arm with both hands, ivy-tight. “Or… or. We reset the loop?”

Her heart clenched before her feet halted. She stopped, breath a held string.

She weighed looping again, a coin spinning on the table.

After the reset, save Vittor? But acting would bare her name. She wasn’t like the Octopus with many hands. She was a lone lantern in the wind.

Then don’t loop. Sell Vittor, save the city? One life against a city’s roof, scales creaking.

It could work… Tea turning bitter as it cools.

But Vittor was someone she knew, a stove of warmth in winter. Was it right to sell him out like that?

She was torn, a thread knotted tight.

In the end, Lucimia left herself a path back. In a voice only two could hear, a leaf rustling, she whispered, “Let’s first see if we can stop the citywide replacements…”

“…Mm.” The answer fell like a small stone into water.

She didn’t just worry about that. She worried if Kaeli would be replaced again, a shadow passing over the sun.

Yesterday, when Kaeli guarded her in secret, she knew Lucimia hadn’t struck a deal with Vittor. Today, Lucimia said she had, and Vittor reacted oddly. When Miss Kaeli saw that, suspicion would bloom like frost.

Originally, if Vittor had teased her—were you dreaming?—she could’ve giggled and slid by. With that kind of banter, Miss Kaeli wouldn’t doubt Lucimia.

But now it’s different. Kaeli would wonder why Lucimia said it like that, then didn’t explain it as a joke, just accepted it. The fog thickened.

As if the promise were stamped real, ink pressed deep.

Unease pooled in her chest like cold water.

If Kaeli got replaced again, wasn’t it the last loop’s wheel finding the same rut?

That meant she’d changed nothing, a sandcastle washed away by the same wave.

How did it come to this… The sky inside her dulled.

The blow rang her like a bell under a hammer.

She felt sullen, anxious, unsafe, standing on thin ice that sang.

She pulled Yuna into a narrow alley, a throat of brick, and shouted, “Sister Kaeli, are you there?”

No answer. The well stayed empty.

She called again, “Father said if anything happens, I can shout for you and you’ll appear. Can you come out now?”

No one stepped out. Doors were shut eyelids.

Lucimia already knew. The stone settled in her gut.

Kaeli must have gone to test Vittor. Should she turn and help, at this crossroads where wind pulls both ways?

Time to choose again, the hourglass flipping in her hands.

No… forget it. First confirm if breaking the ritual really stops the city from being replaced. If it does, then loop. Try to save Vittor after. Probe the ground before stepping.

Decision made, Lucimia sighed, bellows pushing out a tired breath.

Shouldn’t have tested him… Spilled ink can’t be gathered back.

Regret budded, a thorn sprout in her chest.

She’d sworn to avoid extra branches, tread light, and still she let the porcelain slip and crack.

…

She and Yuna returned to the family estate, the gate a silent jaw swallowing them.

Lucimia set Yuna in her bedroom, then sought her father, Alvis, through corridors that flowed like quiet rivers.

She borrowed a few magic books, bricks of knowledge under her arm. She also asked that their own chef prepare the banquet. Father frowned, puzzled. She said it would show goodwill to the Church, steam and spice offered like an olive branch.

He thought it over, then nodded, a small hammer tapping yes.

Truth was, she didn’t want the fake Vittor’s food on the feast table, honey with poison underneath.

She didn’t mention Vittor and Kaeli’s anomalies. She feared rustling the grass and spooking the snake.

After that, Lucimia dove into magic study, a cold lake of runes closing over her head.

She chose first a composite high-tier spell of water and wind, a climate shaper, a storm in a bottle.

This is why magic is called a miracle, hands tugging the sky’s threads.

It can call rain over drought. Parched earth drinks. People lift their faces and smile.

The spell was called Whirlwind Dance.

A pure area-of-effect attack, a scythe of wind and rain.

With it, if she faced a horde again, she wouldn’t fear. Wolves break before wildfire.

She also picked it to leverage her magic’s quirk. When her spell wounds someone, they seem to vanish outright, like chalk wiped from a slate.

Whirlwind Dance can sweep a whole town with storm. The fine rain cuts like blades. Any enemy it touches turns to ash in an instant.

After settling on that, she searched for Instant Movement and space-jump magic, pages strewn like constellations.

They were too abstruse. Even gifted Lucimia found only fog-shrouded cliffs.

No handhold at all, a sheer ice wall.

To learn them, you need a keen sense of space. That alone devours time, ears tuned to the pulse of air.

Like the Flight Spell, it’s a special art most mages never reach, a star beyond grasp.

Lucimia figured she couldn’t master it soon. She changed tack, the tiller swinging.

As said, most mages inscribe a Magic Array in their mana circuits for chantless instant cast, sigils like rivers under skin.

If they can’t, they settle for less. They use Magic Arrays or a staff to cast, circles chalked on stone, wood drinking power.

That method needs chanting, words clicking like beads.

Since she couldn’t learn Instant Movement quickly, she’d settle for building a Teleportation Array. Bridges of light still cross distance.

So Lucimia began her research, a single lamp pooling like a small moon.

She picked the cores of Instant Movement and space-jump and fused them, gears interlocking. Instant Movement would land at the space-jump node, and the jump would leap to the instant-move node.

It sounded knotty, a tongue tied in a bow.

In short, both had a starting point. Since she couldn’t aim freely, she’d tie the Instant Movement start to the space-jump start, two pins bound by a red thread.

Then the landing of Instant Movement would be the space-jump start, and the jump’s start would be the instant-move landing, mirror doors facing each other.

The idea made her happy, a small sun lighting her chest.

It needed two Arrays to hold up, two pillars propping a bridge, but it beat nothing.

She set a teleport node in her bedroom. The other would sit outside the town, anchors hammered into the world.

To trigger it, chanting was a must, a key turned by breath.

No help for it. She couldn’t master free movement soon. She’d lay rails between two stations, fixed-start, fixed-landing Teleportation Arrays.