Chapter 19

Cavendish’s misty eyes continually searched through the air, as if he wanted more than ever to catch a glimpse of Ode’s expression.

But after the confessional fell into a brief silence, Ode merely wore a faint smile as he looked at him and said softly, “Yes. I don’t care.”

A beast was destined never to be shackled by chains. To Ode, the marriage contract was no different from a tattoo that was hard to scrub off—a mere scar left from a brutal fight. Did anyone truly expect him to take this marriage seriously, to consider the feelings of the contract’s other party?

“And why are you getting so worked up?” Ode’s tone remained utterly even, as always when he used that flat voice to strip away the flimsy veils that both of them knew hid the truth, like the merciless blade of a scalpel. “I came to the church, so why are you getting agitated?”

“You pinned me here, asking if I’m afraid of having devoured another monster, afraid of turning into one myself. What exactly are you hoping for?”

“…” Cavendish’s hands tightened slightly on Ode’s shoulders. “The pilot asked the Little Prince if he feared the snake. Beyond hoping the Little Prince would fear death and learn to cherish his life, what other reason could there be?”

“That carving on the ship clearly proves your parents were once in this town. Don’t you care at all? Don’t you want to know why their carving ended up here, what secrets their past still holds? You…”

Cavendish truly rarely experienced intense emotional swings; even his anger felt clumsy and unpracticed. After stewing for a long moment, all he managed was a feeble curse. “You’re utterly bewitched by that snake—out of your mind!”

Ode merely smirked. “Why care so much? They’re dead anyway. When we meet again, I can just ask them directly—that’s perfect, isn’t it—mmph.”

The kiss sealed his lips once more. Cavendish wasn’t sure if he was empathizing with the pilot who couldn’t talk sense into the Little Prince no matter how he tried, or with the human lover who, unable to win the argument, could only shut down the unpleasant words with frustrated fury.

Ode slowly threaded his fingers into Cavendish’s icy, silken silver hair. When they parted again, he continued his teasing with an air of casual indifference. “Besides, if you want to pursue some kind of relationship that your revered god wouldn’t approve of, you’d do better not to compare yourself to the pilot.”

“From your perspective, the pilot didn’t get a happy ending. He was just a chance companion on the Little Prince’s long journey—temporary, unremarkable, no different from the lonely king or the busy accountant. He wasn’t the one the Little Prince loved, so when the Little Prince chose to chase after that love, the pilot could only watch him leave for someone else—mm…”

Cavendish ground his lips against Ode’s, pulverizing those unhappy words into fragmented, urgent gasps. This was the second time Ode heard the gritted-teeth edge in Cavendish’s voice, and it was far sharper than the first. “Can you talk less?”

But Ode drew pleasure from Cavendish’s unhappiness. “You didn’t listen when I told you to shut up.”

He playfully patted Cavendish’s tense cheek. “Anyway, you’re not like the pilot. At least the pilot understood the Little Prince’s love for his rose. Do you get it? No, you’re not the pilot. You’re the king on that lonely little planet, finally spotting someone nearby and desperately trying to keep them—”

Thud!

The wooden walls of the confessional suddenly shook. A flurry of thumps followed as limbs collided against the panels in a struggling tussle, only to subside into what seemed like quiet lip-locking.

Cavendish gripped Ode’s wrist tightly, as if that alone could anchor the Little Prince somewhere safe, away from his constant yearning to meet the snake.

Ode was forced to crane his neck into the kiss with Cavendish, struggling slightly for breath. He was just about to smirk and pour more fuel on the fire with a few barbed words when a commotion erupted outside the church:

“Ah!!!! A monster! A man-eating monster!”

“Where’s the police?! Hurry, call for backup!”

“The police station’s already been wiped out! You think that’s why we fled here from the port?! To the church! Quick, to the church! That monster won’t dare enter the Lord’s domain!!”

Boom!

Ode’s expression changed. He shoved Cavendish away, but just as his right foot crossed the threshold, Cavendish seized his wrist again. “—Let go.”

“Don’t go.” Cavendish didn’t release his hold. “You’re too weak right now. You can’t win. Why risk your life for people who mean nothing to you?”

Dong—

The noon bell tolled through the church, grand and resonant.

Dong—

In that instant, Ode plunged once more into a lucid dream—or perhaps it was a fragment of his lost memories:

“Run! Run, Ode! I dare you to look back, you bastard—get out! Go!!” Bullets trailed iridescent sparks at Ode’s heels, driving him forward in blind flight, not daring to glance behind.

“Damn… The instructor always said I’d end up dying because of lust, and the bastard nailed it… That half-assed fortune-teller. What are you staring at? First time seeing an Egyptian? Grab Eva and go! Shit, you stupid British guy—get lost! Go, now!”

“Ode, listen to me… Don’t trust anyone. You can’t… Urgh… Promise me, if you see my husband… give him a quick end. He hates pain… I should have done it myself, but I… Ode, Ode… If you… if you win, bury me with him… you…”

The chaotic scenes sharpened, freezing abruptly in pitch blackness where he couldn’t see five feet ahead.

The only thing visible in that darkness was the face of a Russian woman, while his hand held a gold-patterned pistol pressed to the forehead of the golden-haired Eva.

He couldn’t see Eva’s body; it was lost in the shadows. He could only see her cold eyes glowing red as she said, in a voice calm yet strained against surging emotions, “Shoot. Before I completely lose my reason.”

Bang!

The first gunshot rang out. In the muzzle flash, Eva collapsed, a black hole in her forehead.

Bang!

The second shot. In the flash, the Egyptian fell, gray slurry oozing from half his face.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The shots came faster and faster. The figures crumpling before him flickered—some he recognized, some he didn’t; grotesque monsters, soldiers who closed their eyes and bared their necks for the blade.

Corpses piled at his knees like a mountain, hoisting him high. Among the mangled remains, he even spotted pieces of Lola—Lola still in her school uniform, Lola grown and clad in a white coat…

In one sudden moment, the bodies that had burned his imagination like a scald vanished, as if he’d flung away the gun.

He now stood in the church atop GORCC, though it lay razed to the ground, thick black smoke billowing skyward. Faust sat amid the ruins, gazing up at the dawn light piercing the distant clouds.

“You know I’ve poured all my energy and money into researching time. I’ve tried to achieve one effect—using alchemy combined with willing sacrifice, perhaps in a single instant, humanity could wrest control of time from the gods, even if just for that moment.”

“But it looks like I’ll never get to test it in this lifetime. Here, take it.”

Faust tossed a scroll casually toward Ode and murmured at the brightening dawn. “God knows how perfect this moment would be for a cigar… you kid.”

Faust turned his head and gave Ode a lazy nod. “Win this for me, got it? Then pile a mountain of cigars on my grave—one I couldn’t smoke through in a lifetime. Montecristos only. I only smoke Montecristos…”

Sunlight fell upon Faust. He dissolved into a handful of flying ash, scattering across the ruins.

Ode trembled along with his dream-self, the pain, rage, hatred, and resentment from that dream surging across barriers of time and memory to scorch his heart.

His hands shook just like his dream-self’s as he roughly yet tenderly untied the scroll’s ribbon, glaring at the paper with an intensity as if to sear the runes into his soul.

Dong…

The final bell toll rang out, yanking Ode back to reality.

Reality was no less a maelstrom of chaos. Screams and lives slipped away before his eyes; blood spread across the church floor. Cavendish still refused to yield, clutching his wrist firmly and blocking his path.

But Ode was no longer so impatient. He knew exactly what he needed to do next—climb the church bell tower and use the Time-Reversal Clock that the Little Tooth Fairy had mentioned to rewind time.

No one here would die. The mountain of corpses at his knees wouldn’t grow. Lingering a moment longer wouldn’t matter:

“What does that make you and me, then? Mr. Cavendish, who tried to kill me the first time we met? If you can’t figure it out, then call it my hatred of watching people die right in front of me.”

“…” Cavendish’s lips twitched. He wanted to say, You talk like that, yet you always claim your morals are limited? But he paused and swallowed the pointless jab, which carried only emotion and no value. “Don’t you count yourself among those ‘people’?”

“You know, you’re not like the Little Prince. He had just one rose. You’ve got thousands of roses worth fighting for—even the ones you bump into by chance on the roadside, total strangers. You’re willing to do all this for so many roses, but not a single thing for yourself?”

“…” Ode curved his lips into a smile and stepped forward, closing in on Cavendish in return.

This man really knew how to rile him up—just perfect for venting all the venom stirred by his recollections. “You know, if you’re trying to disguise possessiveness as concern to stop me, you’re dead wrong.”

His lips nearly brushed Cavendish’s cheek as he whispered word by word, “I don’t want a love that holds me back. What I want is… even if my bones shatter, even if I’m choking on blood mixed in every breath; even if I’ve gone weak myself, but that person knows what the clear-headed me desires and still puts me on the path I choose.”

Ode pulled back slightly, gazing into Cavendish’s unfocused eyes that seemed merely to reflect everything quietly. “I don’t want the pilot. I want the snake. So no matter how you dress it up, don’t stand in my way.”

“…” Cavendish lowered his gaze to the cold gun barrel pressing against his abdomen. “That’s my gun.”

“Then you can make your choice right now,” Ode said softly. “Will you be my enemy? Or my venomous snake?”

“…”

Cavendish’s hand, gripping Ode’s, twitched almost imperceptibly, followed by several seconds of silence. Then, at one point, he suddenly tightened his grip just a little. “Then will you protect your venomous snake?”

Ignoring the gun barrel pressed against his abdomen, Cavendish closed the gap between them once more of his own accord. He whispered, “This is hardly what the gods want to see. Perhaps other gods will try to drive me away from your side. If someone wants to chase off the snake coiled around the Little Prince the way the pilot did, will you protect it?”

Ode stared at Cavendish for a moment. “Yes. I will.”

Half a minute later, at the church bell tower.

Ode confirmed the time and place he needed to reach as quickly as possible, then rushed straight to the top of the bell tower. “There are two monsters total. The battle endangering civilians started over at the Port Fish Drying Field. Did you see that accountant’s watch on the beach? It stopped right at nine o’clock. We should’ve still been underwater then—”

“—right as we emerged from Dagon’s Lair. Good news—you won’t have to fight Dagon all over again.”

Cavendish followed steadily behind Ode as they climbed the final flight of stairs. He then tilted his head and listened for a moment—no one knew what he heard, but he nodded slightly in satisfaction before slapping Ode’s fumbling hand away from the clock with a crisp snap. “This isn’t a can of cat food. You’ll snap the crystal inside.”

“…” Ode pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek, his patience straining as he said, “Can you hurry up?”

“I could. But…” Cavendish cut short his dramatic pause just before the Little Prince could erupt and thrash the snake. “I thought you rushed to the church in the first place to check this clock’s usage records?”

Cavendish lightly tapped the base of the clock twice. A line of blood-red characters immediately materialized along the top: “I—”

Cavendish’s voice suddenly faltered. His face drained of color, turning as pale as if he were playing the role of the green snake.

By contrast, Ode merely glanced up at his own name, scrawled from the three-meter-high top of the clock all the way down to the bottom. He kept prodding. “Hurry it up. Nothing worth seeing here. It’s reversed tons of times—I could’ve guessed.”

Lately, he hadn’t been short on nightmares. Gazing at those corpses in all their varied states of demise, he was certain this clock had forged some profound, inescapable bond with him in the past.

Cavendish started to speak, stopped, then nearly spoke again. Fortunately, his hands kept moving; otherwise, Ode would’ve kicked him right off the tower. “Can I ask… why this Little Prince is so damn good at dying? He doesn’t even seem to need the snake’s help—” to come up with all those creative ways to go.

“Maybe you should be asking why this universe’s biodiversity is so damn vast.” Ode wandered over to the newly painted stone wall beside the clock. He frowned, running his fingers over the pristine layer of fresh paint. “Isn’t there a carvin—?”

Time raced forward.

The second half of Ode’s unfinished word stretched into a thin line until he abruptly slammed into his body from three hours earlier—the one that had just swum out of the ocean trench: “…g?”

“What?” Cavendish untied the seaweed bound around his wrist and groped blindly ahead. “Where are you?”

Ode silently cursed Mr. Venomous Snake a hundred times over for dragging his feet when speed was needed and rushing when it wasn’t. He seized Cavendish with far from gentle hands. “To the Fish Drying Field. Now!”

·

9:00 a.m., at the entrance to the Wanderers’ Shelter next to the Fish Drying Field.

“Enough already! You family of three… it’s bad enough the kid’s hanging around and won’t leave, but you call the adults over and they start lingering too? What’s the deal? This shelter’s for wanderers, not you people.”

Fresh from a shower and dressed in clean clothes, the sheriff yawned nonstop as he shoved Lola’s family toward the exit. “Head on home! We’re swamped as it is—the cause of that dense forest fire’s still a mystery, and then the school had a landslide right after. Lucky it wasn’t bad; all the students are fine. Hey, one more thing—steer clear of the church lately. That place… you listening?!”

Lola and her parents supported one another, their eyes red and their expressions vacant.

As they crossed the threshold, Lola—who had stayed dead silent inside the shelter for the past ten hours or so—finally broke. She let out a hoarse shout and threw her arms around her parents, sobbing uncontrollably. “I want to grow up!! Why am I so weak?! I want power… I want to study medicine. I want to save that madman! But I can’t do even one thing I set my mind to!! I—”

Her mother clutched Lola tightly, muffling the girl’s gut-wrenching wails of helplessness against her chest. “You will study medicine. I’ll find a way… solutions are always more plentiful than problems. I promise.”

“Listen,” Lola’s mother said, turning to her husband. “I remember you’re on good terms with Dr. Reid. Why not ask him to tutor at our farm in his spare time? I’m sure we can offer a salary that satisfies him.”

Lola’s father opened his mouth, but in the end, he couldn’t voice the words, “Aren’t we waiting for that Mr. Ode anymore?” The key difference between adults and children was knowing when to separate fruitless dreams from cold reality. “…You’re right. We’ll head home, and I’ll reach out to him right away—”

Boom!

A massive crash echoed from the ocean, like a heavy object slamming into the water.

Lola’s family lit up in unison, boundless hope flooding their hearts. They spun around sharply. But as they made out the shape on the sea, that fragile spark of expectation drained away alongside the blood from their faces. “M-monster! Quick! Back to the shelter!!”

Boom—

A colossal black mud monster, mountainous in size, plunged into the sea. Its bloated body whipped up enormous waves, and the surging seawater snapped the drying racks across half the Fish Drying Field in an instant.

Pursued by the Black Mud Monster was a scrawny shadow. It looked like a withered infant, its branch-like foreclaws forever rigidly outstretched ahead as if desperate to seize something. Its hind legs dragged tightly clenched behind it, as if bound by some force—yet its speed was surprisingly brisk.

The Black Mud Monster bellowed, thrusting out a pudgy hand to snatch the darting treat before it. But the withered infant was far too quick. In a flash, it scrambled onto the shore. It paused for the briefest instant before lunging straight at Lola’s family, who had no chance to evade!

“No…” Acting on pure instinct, the sheriff leaped forward to shield the townsfolk. Terror hit his face a half-second too late. “Help—”

That was when Ode and Cavendish arrived on the beach.

His feet barely planted, Ode’s keen dynamic vision swept the battlefield in an instant. He drew his gun decisively, firing a shot that drove back the withered infant barreling toward Lola’s family.

Allowing himself no moment to catch his breath, he tensed every muscle and barreled into the Black Mud Monster’s pursuit path. He thrust forward his right hand—the one on which he’d sketched a newly learned alchemy array while waiting for Cavendish to dawdle atop the bell tower—straight at the oncoming behemoth, crushing down like a mountain!

“?” Cavendish stood at the beach’s edge, sensing something. He turned to look.

The mountain halted. In that instant, time hung frozen amid the sea breeze.