Reborn To Master Time

“I… haah… don’t know what... Haah... you’re… haah… talking about.” She managed to say, but I ignored her words, taking another step closer and kicking her across her face as she recoiled to the floor, blood splattering on the ground.

“W-w-why?” she stuttered, her eyes shaking in fear as tears started to roll down her face, mixing with her blood as she pleaded with bloodshot eyes. Seeing this, I lifted my leg before plunging it forward again, smashing the sole of my shoe into her face and slamming her head to the floor.

"Gah~!" The sound of her skull hitting the ground let out a low thud, sending vibrations through my foot.

“Kuh!? P-please... L-liste—” she muttered under the sole of my shoe, and I removed my foot.

As she tried to get back up, I kicked her across the face again, her head snapping back as more blood sprayed across the floor, a few teeth mixed into it. She tried to stand again, touching her face as a mouthful of blood dripped onto her hand, causing her whole body to start shaking involuntarily. She looked up and pleaded once more,

“P-pleathe. Ith… ith wasn’t me, I thwear!” she said out loud, her voice muffled by her nonstop crying. Seeing this, I smiled, causing her face to twist in horror as she looked around the cave, spotting the students on the sidelines.

“L-Leven, h-help me! Tell him to stop, i-it wasn’t me!” she pleaded, but Leven could only watch her in pity as he looked at me for a second and asked,

“Do you really have to do this?” he said, but I ignored his words and kicked the girl's face again, her body recoiling a few steps back. As she was about to raise her head again, I aimed my gun, shooting through her arm before she could crawl away.

Bang~!

I walked up to her with slow steps, but this time, as if getting her senses back, she started crying loudly while pleading,

“I’m thhoryyy, th-they made me do it... I-I thdi—” I kicked her again, her body launching back, and I slowly walked toward her once more.

“Ian. She said she did it. I think that’s enough,” Rin said from my side. I turned to look at her, and unsurprisingly, her expression didn’t show much emotion. Ruby on the other hand, was hiding behind her, watching the scene with a sad expression. I let out a sigh as I turned to look at the bloodied girl, walking up to her while talking,

“I already said you’re the traitor. What exactly made you think I would stop hitting you when I heard it from you? What I said was a statement, not a question,” I said, causing the girl to shrink back in fear, trying to crawl away.

Making stupid decisions in life is torture enough. This? This isn't torture

This is for her own good.

“If you move, I’ll kill you,” I said in a calm tone, and she immediately froze, her whole body shaking as if she were feeling cold. Seeing this, I stepped forward, crouching down to meet her eyes as I spoke up,

“I believe I may have found the traitor, but she might die before we come up there,” I muttered, the girl’s eyes filling with more tears as she heard this.

“You’ll be expelled immediately if you continue what you’re doing.” Professor Pierce’s heavy voice reached my ears, his tone sounding more threatening. I simply let out a chuckle, aiming my gun at the girl's other hand as I spoke,

“Don’t scream,” I said, pulling the trigger as the gunshot echoed across the cave.

Bang~!

“Mmmh!!?” The girl cried out loud, her voice muffled by her hand covering her mouth as more tears streamed down her face. At this point, because of how bloodied her face looked, I couldn't really tell the difference between the blood streaming down her face and the tears.

“The next one is going to the head,” I said while looking at her, and she looked up at me with terrified eyes.

At that moment, I couldn't help but pity her. Out of all the races that exist in the world, humans were truly the strangest. After all, only humans could unilaterally classify all non-human races as demons and paint themselves as the superior race, and yet, despite that, we were still the most divided compared to any other race.

Eternal peace can only exist with an occasional reset through war; without it, the concept of peace loses all meaning.

The leader of [False Peace] had once said to me, but even to this day, most of his ideals seemed completely childish to me.

“What do you want?” Professor Pierce’s voice snapped me from my thoughts as he asked on the other side, his voice sounding more serious. I let out a chuckle as I spoke,

“The Global Summit this year. Put me on the Emperor's security detail,” I said in calm tone. The professor went silent. It was probably far from what he imagined, but after contemplating for some time, he finally asked,

“Is there a reason?”

“There is. But I can’t say it,” I said without thinking too deeply.

It may come as a surprise, but I had only met the Emperor less than three times in my past timeline. Even after I joined the [Strategic Table], we hardly ever knew where exactly he was or what the hell he was doing. That’s how secretive and secure he was.

As such, they wouldn’t let just anyone on his security detail, especially one that involved traveling outside the Empire, and since this year's summit would be held at the Military State of Godlana, they had to make sure their security detail could wipe out an entire city if need be.

“I can’t make any promises, but I’ll talk to the Commander,” he said, and I immediately stood up, satisfied with his response.

“That’s good enough. I trust your judgment, so I’ll take your word for it,” I said, and the bloodied girl seemed to relax as a glimmer of hope shone in her eyes.

“Right, is there anything else?” he asked back on the other side, and after thinking for a few seconds, something else came to mind.

It's a bit risky, but...

“Yeah, can you put Anthem on?” I said, and he agreed, telling me to wait for a moment. The earpiece went silent for a few minutes before another voice reached out,

“I didn’t think you would willingly try to talk to me,” Anthem said, his voice sounding amused.

Seems like Professor Pierce is wary of Anthem. That's interesting.

The fact that he had to move for that long to pass over the earpiece meant that they were in separate places. As such thoughts crossed my mind, I spoke up.

“Keep your eyes on the Southern armories. I’m sure you’ll understand when the time comes,” I said, keeping my statement as vague as possible, but Anthem didn’t seem bothered as he spoke back,

“I’m guessing you won’t tell me any more than that. Thank you for the advice; I will be sure to pay it back. Is there anything else?” he said, his voice calm, though the subtext was ominous. ‘Payback’ in this case applied both ways—if my tip was good, he would repay it in turn, and the opposite would also apply.

“Yeah, that’s all,” I said, taking out the earpiece and tossing it toward Leven, who frantically caught it in his hand. I couldn’t directly influence most of the upcoming incidents, but that didn’t mean I couldn't reap the benefits.

I’ll have to drag Lily with me.

My next course of action would not only be dangerous but very illegal, so I had to be cautious about whom to involve. My current team seemed like a great pick, but I didn't think they would willingly agree to commit felonies just because I asked them to.

Maybe I should also try bringing Tim?

As I thought this, I realized I had been spacing out, and the bloodied girl was staring at me with anticipation.

She looks awful.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“S-Silfie,” she muttered under her breath. I tried activating [Recall] to associate the name with anything from the past timeline, but my memory drew a complete blank.

Just as I thought—I’ve never seen or heard of this girl.

“Are you with Ten Tedious?” I asked, and she reluctantly nodded. It wasn’t strange that I didn’t know her since many spies roamed the academy. However, I was hoping to find out who could’ve influenced the Giant Killer to take the job, but it seemed there wasn’t anything useful I could learn from her. But…

I’ll find out very soon.

Catching this girl as the traitor wasn't as easy as one would've imagined. There a lot of things that had to be considered: Firstly, the Giant Killer wasn’t teleported here; he was summoned.

And the only way to summon him would be through one of the students already present on this floor.

‘Time’s up,’ he had said multiple times before fading, but in reality, there was no time limit.

It was a misdirect to make us think he was teleported here with limited time and conditions similar to Professor Pierce, whose magic would automatically teleport us back to the surface after a certain amount of time — six hours in our case. For the Giant Killer, ‘Time’s up’ was said as a signal for a particular student to reverse the summon.

After realizing that, I suspected one of the students in the cave had summoned the two intruders. Since they were already inside, they didn’t have to worry about the barrier outside—the intruders would simply be treated as ‘summons,’ similar to the professor’s raven, which he summoned within the barrier. Another clue about this was right in front of our eyes, but it was something easily missed by most of the students because of the intensity of the situation.

[Challenger #??]

If the two had actually tackled the cave and arrived at the boss-level floor, those words would’ve been floating above their heads. But just like the professor's bird, which was with me through all the floors, there was nothing above their heads, indicating that they were being treated as ‘summons’ rather than actual people.

Unfortunately for them, pulling something like that would require a lot of mana from the summoner. It went without saying that the summoner would need to be consciously providing mana to the summons at all times. This meant whoever summoned the intruders was actually conscious the whole time, acting like they were knocked out with the rest of the students.

But among the dozens of students, I couldn’t go through each of them one by one to test my theory. Doing so risked waking all of them without finding the actual traitor. So, I trimmed down the numbers first.

Since it would require a lot of mana to continuously maintain the summon, the Giant Killer would’ve aimed to ‘knock out’ that particular student as quickly as possible without tiring them out or causing too much harm. After that, the student would just act unconscious while the Giant Killer continued to mow through the others. That was why I chose the first few students he had knocked out to check if they were really unconscious.

Since they could’ve been using some kind of skill to fake being unconscious, I figured using Rin’s authority was better than going around and punching them. And that was how I was able to unveil Silfie, who was the second student to be knocked down. It was a lucky break for the rest of the students that I was right about Rin's Authority; otherwise, a lot of bones would have been broken...

And with that, the combat exercise at [Golem’s Nest] came to an end, leaving only three casualties, which would never be disclosed to the public.

But even as the students tried to catch their breath, time continued to move forward, undeterred by anyone’s circumstances. Those who cause chaos, and those who benefit from it—for them, the scheming didn’t come to a pause. At the same time the students exited the dungeon, a meeting that would indirectly spark an international incident was about to begin.

[Location: Kingdom of Elondale]

[The strongest economic power in the world, despite being relatively small in size compared to the Empire. A potential investment opportunity for businesses around the world and unsuspecting individuals, but for criminals, it was the largest money-laundering scheme in history.]

An economic paradise, courtesy of [False Peace].

To be continued.

***

[Post–Golem’s Nest stats]

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Name: Ian

Title: Regressor

Strength: 22 ⇒ 24

Stamina: 24 ⇒ 25

Speed: 21 ⇒ 24

Agility: 25 ⇒ 27

Intelligence: 39 ⇒ 42

Magic: 34 ⇒ 37

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Authority:

[Time Perception Lv. 9 (Evolved)] — Allows manipulation of how the user or targeted individuals can perceive time.

[Time Lv. 1] — Allows the user mastery over all time-related magic.

Special Skills:

[Status Lv. 5] — Allows the user to view the status of everything in universal numeric metrics.

[Blink Lv. 2] —Allows the user to teleport up to 2 seconds into the future or past. [Restriction] – Maximum of 5 uses per day.(24 hour cooldown)(new)

[Combat Sense Lv. 1] – Allows the user to enter a state of complete combat awareness, where their body moves on its own for a duration of 5 minutes. [Restriction] – Maximum of 1 use per week.(168 hour cooldown)(new)

Unique Skills:

[Object Perception Lv. 9] — Allows the user to directly manipulate how objects perceive time through acceleration or deceleration.

[Regress Lv. 1] — Allows the user to revive after death. [Restriction] — memories of the past life are completely erased.

[Recall Lv. 1] — Allows the user to perfectly recall everything they have seen, heard, or experienced at least once in the past.

[Future Sight Lv. 1] — Allows the user to see 0.5 seconds into the future.

[??? Lv. ??] - ???

[??? Lv.??] - ???

[??? Lv. ??] - ???

[??? Lv. ??] - ???

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