The idea that it could have been another Rebirther messing with the timeline came to mind, but it was dismissed instantly.
For one, a Rebirther could move things external to Zarek around, but they couldn't change a timeline Zarek already had his fingerprints on. There was a reason the disappearance of the bow from the Temp Duplicate Godsfall Tear hadn't stopped Zarek from getting his hands on the Talent he had been after.
This situation wouldn't be any different.
Second, a Rebirther, even if they could do that, certainly wouldn't have helped Zarek out this much.
This was all to say that the only possible explanation was related to the Tear itself… could Zarek have accidentally triggered something unknown?
In the end… it seems that I still fell into the trap? Just how much of my luck is gone now?
Zarek didn't know what to think anymore. It was too confusing.
He shifted slightly and Priya jolted, her hands moving on their own and cupping Zarek's cheeks. Her face looked completely tear-stained as though she had been crying for days, even. It was hard to see her like this, truly.
If not for the fact her face had been hidden in his chest all the while, there was no way he would have been distracted enough to do all of that thinking.
"Zarek? Zarek! You're awake? Are you awake?!"
Zarek almost laughed. "Yes, yes, I'm awake, woman. Are you trying to ruin my handsome face with all that squeezing?"
Priya pinched even harder for good measure, as though to make sure she wasn't dreaming. Well, either that or to get revenge on her boyfriend for saying something so ridiculous when she had just spent the last several days agonizing over him.
Finally realizing the problem, Zarek frowned, catching Priya's wrists as he sat up.
"What happened?" Zarek asked.
"We were going to ask you that," Zade said, standing up from a corner he had sat in. "You've been out for two days. We were supposed to enter the Godsfall Tear on the third day, but now it's been five. Are we still going to make it?"
Zarek blinked. "You're saying that I've been… sleeping on this floor for two whole days? What's the last thing that happened?"
"We were in the middle of a fight in the square, but then you got hit by the lizard-human monster and collapsed. We had to rush you back here. We tried to help, but Priya ended up in a great amount of pain when she tried to clean up her chest and told us to stay away. She was the only one able to expel the toxin—if it had been any one of us, it would have been trouble."
"What the hell," Zarek cursed.
"What's wrong? Are you okay?" Priya quickly asked, hoping that nothing was more wrong than it already seemed.
"This is bullshit," Zarek cursed again. "This damned Godsfall Tear actually made it look like I went down to a little poison?"
Priya froze, as did the others. They looked at each other, and then Priya put a palm on Zarek's forehead.
Zarek almost rolled his eyes. "You're very lucky you're so pretty. Otherwise, I'd have some words for you. Do you think I'm so pathetic too?"
"Zarek Ashborn, what are you saying right now? We were all worried about you!" Priya scolded.
"Alright, alright," Zarek shook his head, laughing.
Truthfully, he really was a little pissed. He always found the Ashborn Demon title some people with too much time on their hands gave him to be a little amusing. This was real life, not some anime.
But that didn't mean he didn't like all the external things related and tied to it.
He had endured that poison for quite a while, even fighting a battle with a powerhouse like Crux for upwards of half an entire day without falling.
But this Godsfall Tear decided to rewrite history and then make it look like he lost consciousness for that long because of it instead.
Worse yet, it made him look incompetent, because back then he could have dodged—he just chose not to for the sake of ending the battle as quickly as possible. If he was too worried about getting hit, the battle would have taken forever.
Zarek took a breath and sighed. This sucks.
He looked out toward the Godsfall Tear in the distance.
Crux better still be dead.
Though Zarek thought this, he knew that the man certainly was. He had an understanding of time that was far deeper than others, which was also why he knew that a Godsfall Tear that did this hadn't done it to save him, nor had it done it naturally…
There was something external at play here—something that was trying to pull the wool over someone's eyes.
Those eyes couldn't have been him because he experienced it. It couldn't have been Priya or the others either, because that made no sense.
That said, if not for his Rebirth status, would Zarek even be able to recall this incident at all? Or was it a coincidence that he was a Rebirther and thus capable of remembering it all?
In that case, whose eyes was the Godsfall Tear trying to cover? Who was it trying to hide from?
--
Notes:
[—]
--
Nothing there. No, not nothing—but a dash. That wasn't normal.
If the system had nothing to say, there would usually be nothing at all there—not even the brackets would be present.
But this time, there was a line through it as though… it had been cut off.
Zarek's eyes grew sharper and sharper as he thought about the Godsfall Tear.
Could the Tear be a Trojan Horse?
But there was something that Zarek was simply unwilling to accept. This was the second time in barely a month that he had run into something that seemed to exist outside the scope of the system. Just what were the odds of that? Who was plucking the strings of his fate?
What did it mean for his future plans that some SSS+ Talent he knew nothing about had suddenly fallen into his lap?
And beyond all of that…
What was this Godsfall Tear trying to hide from the system?