Chapter 197: Why I Was Returned to the Past
We have reached the capital so quickly. It"s all because we"re flying. I seriously need to learn Air Steps. It"s just a name I made for the technique to run on air. So far, I can only take four steps. But that"s not enough. I want to do it infinitely. Or at least until my mana run out.
There are several guards who see us entering, but none of them make commotion. They are all our allies who knows about the stampede and now that we"re Albert"s important friends. Maybe Albert has gained more allies since then. The stampede at Melk has unite the people. If the news has spread, there should be more people fighting with us.
Since we have permission, we directly go to the palace and enter through the king"s chamber"s window. Albert is waiting for us. And Marie is also there waiting for Lana, while Alan is sleeping on the bed.
I jumped off Ian"s back and enter the window, and Marie quickly grabs Lana from my arms.
"Did you really take a baby with you to fly in the middle of the night?" Marie looked at me angrily.
"Umm… I make sure that she"s well protected from the wind."
"Marie, it"s okay. Lana seems to be happy." Albert said.
"Of course, she"s happy! She"s meeting her mother and brother again. The bed now is full with me and the children, so you will sleep on the floor." Marie said.
"Wait, Marie!"
"Don"t shout! Look! Alan is waking up!"
Albert no longer dared to speak a word. Marie is the boss at home after all, so it"s as expected.
Then Albert took us to an empty room since we can"t have serious talk near sleeping babies.
It"s just five of us in the room. Not including Javier. Albert, Ian, Mustache, Sonia, and me.
"Hola amigos!"
And like usual, Javier greets the new faces.
"Can"t you just greet them normally?" I asked.
"Speaking another language makes me feel superior to you who only speak one language." Javier said.
"Tch! Let"s talk."
"Okay. I"m a black slime, and I"m over two thousand years old. But that doesn"t matter. All the things about me, I have talked about it with Victoria. I"ll just tell you what"s important. One of them is the future you come from, Roy." Javier said.
Now it"s time for the serious talk. But are we really doing it with Javier turned into a human head? Just the head?
"Umm… Javier was it? Can you transform your whole body into human form instead of just the head? It will be better if you do that rather than just the head talking."
"Okay."
Then from the black bald human head, grows a body under it. Scary. This is like that horror story I read in my previous life. Don"t tell me that was written from true story?
Now Javier has the form of a tall bald man wearing robe. He said that he"s a black slime and not a human. Which mean this form is of someone familiar to Javier.
"Is he your first master?" I asked.
"Yes. He was the strongest mage at the time. He"s the man I admire."
"More importantly, you just said that you"re going to tell us about the future, right? Does that mean after Roy died, you continued living and that"s what you"re going to tell us?" Albert asked.
"Yes. I will tell you why I returned Roy back to the past, and what happened in the future. Roy has told you everything he remembered until the day he died, now I will tell you about what happened after he died."
The atmosphere changed. If someone come from the future saying that he sent someone to the past after a while since that someone died, that means there"s something wrong in that future and they tried to prevent it from happening. It must be related to the cult.
"I"m a rare type of monsters who can use several types of ability. And if I become someone"s summon, I need that someone to level up before I can use other abilities. As you may know, my shapeshifting ability, weight-changing, and hardening, are all things I can use when my summoner is just a beginner level. As my summoner leveled up, the ability I can use will increase. And this is the first time ever my summoner leveled up, but I always know about this ever since I first made a contract with my first master. But there is one ability that I can only use when I"m not contracted to anyone. It"s to return back to the past. And that"s what I used to make Roy returns to the past."
"I see… why me?"
"Because of your Aura ability. Back then, I never talked to you because although I"m interested in human world, I have no expectation from all the time my summoners tried to kill me. And you tried to kill me too!"
"Sorry."
I remembered how I was so disappointed to only have one element and only summoned a black slime. I"m very sorry about that, Javier.
"Then when you went crazy and trained your body instead, and you gained Aura, when you first used me as weapon to kill monster, that"s the first time in two thousand years that I felt happy thinking that maybe this time will be different. But you died too soon of overconfident. How stupid of someone who invented Shameless Survival Arts."
I"m really embarra.s.sed by that comment. Even Albert is smirking at me. But it"s not the time to make fun of me so he held back his laughter.
I want to ask about Victoria, but I"ll do that later.
"In the future, you all lost. I don"t know how or why because at the time, I"m just a wild monster without summoner living in the Monsters World. The cult went on rampage and destroy everything. Then they also entered Monsters World and destroy everything as well. At the time, Victoria is already in our consciousness and suggested to return to the past. With my ability, I can transfer the memory of someone to the past. Victoria suggested to return you to the past because not only you are an Aura user, you are also living in the time when everything started to change."
"I see… but why is Victoria"s memory of the future is gone? And how come you don"t know that she"s from another world? And how is her consciousness entered you after she died?"
"It"s another one of my ability which can only be activated when I have no master. I can grab another people"s consciousness after they die, and collect them in me. This is something that activated on random. Even I don"t know how and why it was activated. I had many other consciousness other than me and Victoria. I don"t know about her home world because she"s mostly just sleeping and we never talk about it. As for her memory, it was because of my ability to return someone to the past. Other than my target and my own consciousness, I can"t really turn other people"s memories to the past as well. That"s why Victoria not only doesn"t remember about the future, she also doesn"t remember about me and the other consciousnesses. But she still remembers the time when she was alive, and the life she lived as black slime."
Then Javier continued.
"Then as I have returned to the past, which is one day before you summoned Blobby, we decided to let Victoria took control of our body even though it means that our other consciousness will disappear. Even though she lost her memories when she"s with us, she still has the memories of the time she was alive. She could be a good teacher for Roy to learn Aura. I will only appear when you reached intermediate level. Then I will disappear after Victoria takes control. That"s why this is the only time I can speak with you. And Victoria is now someone irreplaceable to you. I can"t just take control of this body again. It"s better if she continues living than us."
"I think that"s enough information for now. Let"s take a break. Ian, make me something sweet." I asked for a break.
"Understood."
Ian then leaves the room, while I was sitting on the sofa summarizing what Javier told me.
Future, bad. Victoria was there. She returns to the past, but lose memories. I was chosen thanks to Victoria"s suggestion. It"s because the time is close to when everything went worse, and also because of my Aura ability. What else is there?
I think that"s about everything that we learned just now.
"Do you understand everything?" Albert asked.
"I thought you are the smart one."
"But you always make things simpler." Albert said.
"Well, to make it simpler, future is bad. Return to the past to change it. No difference with what we"re doing."
"…what about Victoria?"
"She will return and Javier will go. Like he said, Victoria is irreplaceable."
"…you really did make it simpler." Albert said.
"But it"s not everything. Javier hasn"t told us about the past. He"s at least two thousand years old, so he should know about something. And his first master is the strongest mage at the time. We need to learn everything from him. That"s why I said to have a break before we continue so we can clear our minds."
"…is that all?"
"Well… I"m also hungry and craving for something sweet."
"As I thought."
Then Ian returned with a cake and we eat it. We continue our talks after we finished the cake.
When did he have the time to bake a cake?