“While the customs might be different from the Myriad Palace, I can guarantee the festival will proceed without any problems,” the elf named Avorá said.

  “-What?” I blinked at her.

  “Isn’t the reason the Witch of Pride and a dragon came to us a week before the dragon festival related to the festival itself?” She asked.

  From her point of view, she had a point. Why else would someone like Amity come here with a dragon? And the dragon in question even seemed to be leading Amity around, which was kind of true, but still.

  I shook my head.

  “No, I’m here for the people you kidnapped,” I said bluntly.

  It was Avorá’s turn to blink at me. She furrowed her eyebrows before answering.

  “Pardon, but I do not know what you’re talking about,” she said. “I can assure you, as a Church from the Great Seven, we do not partake in these types of activities and even consider them abhorrent.”

  I blinked again. Was this transforming into a who blinks more contest?

  “Yet, you have kidnapped people against their will.” I coldly said.

  “Sir,” she said firmly. “While I respect the Myriad Palace, I cannot accept you accusing us of kidnapping without any reason. Do you have any proof of your claims?”

  I stared at her directly into her eyes, and she didn’t even flinch. “Maybe this will refresh your memory.” I paused for a second before continuing. “Ritual magic, Theo’s Bridge.”

  I saw Avorá’s eyes widening, as if in realization. She then looked at Jandar, who raised one eyebrow at her.

  “Could the Witch of Pride and…” She looked over at me, asking for my name.

  “Denaru,” I answered.

  “Denaru,” she repeated. “Accompany me?”

  Amity just shrugged while I nodded. As we started walking following Avorá, she paused and turned around.

  “Just the two of them,” she said to the other clergy following her and the knights following us. “I’m sorry, Jandar, but this is restricted knowledge.”

  While the clergy dispersed, Jandar and Avorá stared at each other for various seconds before I heard him sigh and walk away. Avorá kept staring for a few more moments before resuming walking.

  We moved through passages that made no sense whatsoever. My sense of direction was totally broken as we turned through a corridor that, in theory, should have returned us to the giant space where the altar was, but instead opened up to a different hall. I could feel space twisting on itself so many times that it made me dizzy just trying to understand what was happening around us.

  Avorá led us to a meeting room with a small table that could fit seven or so people. As we entered, Avorá snapped her fingers and the doors closed by themselves, and at the same time, I stopped hearing the outside, even [Magical Detection] was stopped at the door.

  “Pardon me,” she said. “But to discuss what you’ve said, we had to come to one of our sealed rooms. No one will be able to hear us as we’re temporarily in another spatial dimension.”

  Impressive. I didn’t even feel that. Sure, my spatial senses weren’t as sharp as my temporal ones, but I could still feel most of spatial manipulations. Here, though, I just entered, and apparently, we were in another dimension.

  “Would you like any tea?” She placed two cups on the table as well as a teapot from an opening in space. I was able to watch her doing it, giving me more confidence to create one of those myself. She also grabbed a bowl from the space.

  “I accept it,” Amity spoke, already sitting on one of the chairs. “Do you have any Xylomel cubes?”

  Avorá had a bid of a troubled expression.

  “I’m sorry, Lady Witch,” she said. “I do not possess anything at that high level. I do have Arumflora drops, if that suffices.”

  “Eh, will work.” Amity shrugged.

  Avorá poured a black liquid into a cup and took a small vial containing a golden liquid from her storage space. When she opened the vial, the entire room was filled with a very potent, sweet smell. She poured a few drops of the golden liquid into the cup in front of Amity, but seeing the face Amity was making, Avorá continued pouring the liquid until the whole vial went into the cup. Avorá’s face was very hard to read, but I could feel a mix of anger and fear emanating from her.

  She then turned to me and bowed.

  “I am very sorry, Denaru,” she said. “As I wasn’t expecting anyone with your physiology, I don’t have any appropriate chair available.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I shrugged and sat down on the ground, removing two of the chairs that were in front of me, but even sitting, I was just too tall for the table.

  I dragged myself backwards and lay on the ground. It wasn’t a perfect fit, but it was better. I was two and a half meters higher than the table, but it would work.

  Avorá poured the same black liquid into the bowl, filling it halfway.

  “Would you want any type of sugar?” She asked me.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Just the most basic you have will do,” I said. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I ate high level sugar, considering that I went into a food coma after eating the food Iridia had prepared for me, but I wasn’t going to take any chances.

  She nodded and placed two cubes of white sugar. After that, she sat down and took a sip of her own tea.

  “I won’t ask about how you know about the ritual. I’m sure the Myriad Palace knows a lot more of restricted knowledge than we could imagine,” she said. Amity was silently slurping her tea, making bubbling noises. “What I will ask is the reason you think we have used that ritual. It’s considered prohibited for a reason.”

  Was she really trying to tell us they didn’t use the ritual? I was the living proof they had used it, or should I consider myself the dead proof, considering I was reincarnated after being killed by it? It doesn’t matter.

  “Why are you insisting you haven’t used it? Isn’t it true that the knowledge about how to perform the ritual is stored here?” I asked. It has been a long time for me, but I still remember Farahio saying the church held more information on this ritual.

  “Because we haven’t,” she said with a bit more force in her voice. “For starters, we don’t have the items necessary to perform it, and the places that could provide them are closely monitored by us and the Church of Time.”

  “Couldn’t someone have smuggled them and performed the ritual?” I asked. I was now starting to doubt if they really had used the ritual or not. I mean, there was no other explanation, was there?

  “It’s impossible. The items are accounted for, if they were to vanish, we would know. Even the person doing the counting changes every month.” Avorá explained.

  “So you have a window of a month where it could have been stolen and used,” I pointed out, but Avorá shook her head.

  “Even if it took a month for us to notice something missing, the ritual itself isn’t something that can be accomplished under a month,” she explained.

  My heart was sinking. I had a small suspicion of where this conversation was going, and I didn’t like it.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Avorá took a deep breath before explaining.

  “Hypothetically,” she started. “If the church itself started to gather the necessary resources to perform the ritual, it would take fifteen years to finish the preparations and actually use it.”

  My vision blurred. Everything was spinning around me. My breath quickened, and my heart felt like it would jump out of my mouth. I heard Amity and Avorá saying something, but I couldn’t hear them.

  W-what did she mean by fifteen years? No, that couldn’t be right. I was there. They had already performed the ritual. Leo and Alex were supposed to be here. I’ve been living in this world for just over a month of the normal flow of time, the ritual would already be over. They must mean to make another one, it was the only explanation.

  “W-what about a month ago? What was the church doing?” I asked. I tried to use [Mathematical Cortex] to diminish my anxiety, but all it did was amplify it, because that was all I could think about.

  “A month ago?” Avorá said. “We were performing the Star Gazing ceremony during the first half of the month, and the second half we held the bimonthly Astral Flower gathering in the gardens outside of the cathedral.”

  [The Church of Space, during the penultimate month of the year has both the Star Gazing ceremony, which involves using light magic to amplify the night sky, watching the constellations and trying to discover new starts, and the Astral Flower Gathering, which is the ceremony where the astral flowers bloom and are collected to create space attuned artifacts]

  I had asked the question to Avorá and to [Knowledge Library]. I was desperate trying to find any lies in her words. It didn’t make any sense. How could I be here if they hadn’t used the ritual yet? No, there had to be another explanation.

  [The Spatial Tier Ritual Magic, Theo’s Bridge, has not been used in the last month]

  No, no. It’s not possible, I was here, I was the living proof the ritual had been used.

  [The Spatial Tier Ritual Magic, Theo’s Bridge, has not been used in the last year]

  N-no. I-I was still an egg for a while before I awoke in that forest, surely I’ve been there for a while.

  [The Spatial Tier Ritual Magic, Theo’s Bridge, has not been used in the last decade]

  Dragon eggs take a very long time to hatch, right? That must be the reason.

  [The Spatial Tier Ritual Magic, Theo’s Bridge, has not been used in the last century]

  [The Spatial Tier Ritual Magic, Theo’s Bridge, has not been used in the last millennium]

  “I-I…” I got up and stumbled on my own legs as I walked backwards. Amity looked at me curiously, and Avorá was showing concern. “I need air, open the door.”

  I tried to open the doors, but they were locked. I didn’t even wait for Avorá to open it, I kept pulling it until it opened with a snap of her fingers. As I left the room, I tried to teleport away, but a part of my mind stopped me before I could do it, telling me that trying to teleport from inside a warped space would be a very bad idea.

  I walked away from the hall, trying to return to the sanctuary. I wasn’t sure how long I walked, everything was a blur. Eventually, I found myself out of the cathedral. I ran to one of the more open places with grass and collapsed on it with my belly turned to the sky. I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths.

  “Was she that boring? You practically ran away from there.” I heard Amity’s voice coming from my side.

  It took me a moment to answer her, I didn’t even open my eyes.

  “I just needed air,” I said. “The only reason I managed to keep myself sane after so much time spent on those temporal loops turned out to be a lie I created.

  “I just– I just don’t know where to go from here.” I felt tears falling down my face. Everything I did up until this point was built on that single goal I placed on myself since I reincarnated, but now I discover that it was pointless? Why did I even pass through so many problems? I could’ve lived in that dammed forest I woke up and nothing would change. I don’t know, maybe I could even have created a kobold village and built a civilization around them or something.

  I– I–

  “Well, you could come with me to visit Athor, that was our contract, after all,” Amity told me. I couldn’t see her, but I was sure she had just shrugged.

  “...Amity,” I called, trying to keep my voice neutral.

  “Yes?” She innocently said.

  “Could I ask you to leave me near a dungeon for a while? I need somewhere to think,” and to vent some of my frustration I was feeling. I didn’t have my computer here, so I couldn’t use games to blow off steam. I never felt the need to punch a hole in a wall this badly.

  “Hmmmmmm,” she made a sound to express that she was considering. I still hadn’t opened my eyes, so I couldn’t be certain, but I could picture her placing her hand over her chin to make those sounds. “Will you let me bring you to Athor after that?”

  “...Yeah, why not?” I said. I didn’t have anything else going on. I had no true reason to put it off anymore.

  “Okay! I know the perfect place, then!” Amity said. I felt a magical circle appearing beneath me and space warping before I was inside Amity’s teleport spell.

  I wasn’t sure how long Amity would let me be, but I was sure I would use every single second to vent my frustration and start thinking about my future now that the only reason I had to live in this world was gone, broken into a thousand pieces like broken glass.

  Whatever I decided, I just hoped it wasn’t as hopeless as I was feeling at the moment.