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Chapter 38. Time Stop And Eyes of Clairvoyance

"Acceleration."

"Acceleration?"

It seems that my explanation wasn't sufficient. I guess saying just one word doesn't really help. I decided to explain everything to them slowly.

"Think about it in a different way. While someone's perspective of time moves at a second at a time, your perspective of time moves infinitely. To others, it would be like time was stopped by you. An ability that accelerates your perspective of time infinitely. I think that's what Time Stop really is."

"Well… It's cool and all, but nothing changes, does it? It's still stopping time."

The saint shook her head at that.

"If we think about Mr. Murderer's theory for a second, there are essentially two ways time can be stopped. Stopping the world around you, and accelerating your perspective of time. These are two very different things. What do you think would happen if you pushed someone when time is stopped?"

The saint understood exactly what I was trying to say, and even knew where I was trying to go from here. What do we call a person like this? An intelligent hominid? Necro thought for a second before answering.

"Wouldn't the person… Just fall down? Probably?"

"Correct. But why? Time's stopped."

"Eh…?"

I continued.

"If the world is stopped, the person won't fall down despite having time stopped. Air's is stopped in the first place, so you wouldn't even be able to move. If the perspective of time is accelerated, time is not truly stopped in the first place, so it's possible to interfere with objects in the world."

"Eh… Ah! I see, I get it! So time really isn't stopped in the first place? But this doesn't really change the fact that you can't deal with it, right?"

"No. You can deal with it. If you have a high defense stat, the Thief won't be able to do much to you despite having time stopped."

Just like Romeo Smith.

"I could buy an ability related to defense using Heart of Gold, but since I don't have mana, it's impossible to use it 24/7. That's why I was thinking of utilizing [Salvation]."

If I had the effects of Salvation on me, all the damage I sustained would be transferred to the saint. The saint would be able to tank all the damage with her high health and health regeneration.

"So it's finally my time to shine huh?"

The saint put on airs when I mentioned that I would need her powers. Why is she like this? She's involved in a plan to kill a comrade of hers…

Ah…!

How stupid of me. I only realized why now. Because the memories about the Warrior were modified, it was obvious that the memories of the Thief, the Fighter, the Summoner, and the Hero would be modified as well. Otherwise, there would be a huge contradiction in her memories. She might be smiling and laughing like this now, but her brain had several screws loose already. Well… I guess it doesn't matter.

"The plan is simple. I'm protecting myself with Hirganrel, and under Salvation, I will try and kill the Thief. If you two end up meeting the Thief, the plan is called off. Disguise yourself, make yourself go invisible, do anything to hide yourselves. I'll separate from you guys once we enter the Arachne."

This was the reason I asked the rest of the task force to not take part in this mission. We needed to have the least amount of variables involved here. Necro crossed his arms with a thoughtful face.

"So you want us to hide and watch from afar?"

"What, you don't like it?"

"I love it. It means we'd be able to get credit for the mission without doing anything."

The saint brightened as well.

"So does that mean we can play in the casino?"

What useless human beings… I sent off a healthy amount of disappointment to the two with my eyes, and asked the saint a question.

"Arachne has a casino?"

"Yes, the world's biggest casino! The upper floors are all hotels, but the view's absolutely breathtaking!"

"As long as you keep salvation turned on, I have no problems with what you do. It doesn't have a set range, does it?"

"It works even if you're tens of thousands of lightyears away."

"If you lose consciousness?"

"It gets cancelled."

This doesn't make me feel safe.

"Don't fall asleep."

"I won't!"

"That's good. The only thing left now is the eyes of clairvoyance…"

Eyes of Clairvoyance.

The ability to see into the future. If the Thief could see the future, all my plans would be read by him. He wouldn't fall for traps or tricks, meaning no plans would work on him. How do I deal with this…

"The other side knows that we will attack, and we know that the other side is prepared. The problem here lies with the fact that we don't know how accurate the eyes are…"

I organized my thoughts. If the Thief could see the future, why didn't he ask for his comrades' assistance? If he knew about Romeo's impending death, why didn't he alert the man about it?

If I try theorizing why this was the case.

1. The eyes of clairvoyance can't really see into the future.

This can be refuted easily just by looking at the Thief's past actions. The Hero's party always managed to avoid traps at a critical moment.

2. He has bad relations with his comrades.

Would that really be the case for comrades he spent several years with? The reason why they're apart is because they took down the demon king. Because their adventure was over, they'd go back to their normal lives. They can't stick together forever.

3. He doesn't know about the Warrior's death.

Because information is controlled, the death of the Warrior was not known to the public. Even so, this was something that people would discover with time… Does he have a limit on how far he can see into the future?

4. He saw himself dying if he helped the Warrior.

Probably not true, considering the amount of power we had. If two braves get together, the difficulty of killing them would multiply by ten.

All wrong. I asked the saint a question out of slight desperation.

"How far do you think he can see into the future?"

"Who knows…"

The report didn't show a clear limit on how far he could see. After thinking a little bit, the saint asked for a newspaper.

"Can I have an old newspaper?"

I've never bought something like that… Would it work? I asked her to wait, and searched for a newspaper with my ability. I got a result immediately. Unlike the other products, it appeared instantly when I bought it.

"8/23/1783. You wanted this, right?"

"Yes."

The saint nodded and pointed at one of the articles.

"'Landslide erases mountain town in one night.' According to my memory, the Hero's party was just 15km away from this town at the time. If Chrono could see the future of the village, he would've prevented this from happening."

"Are there situations similar to this happening?"

"I know of eight similar cases. Of course, it might be that 'he never knew about this from the start' or that 'he didn't want to take risks', but…"

I continued her theory.

"Romeo… No, if you think about the Warrior, this would fit. 'The Thief cannot predict everything'."

The Warrior did not foresee his death. It didn't seem like 'he knew it was coming' from the start. In other words, the Thief didn't know of the Warrior's death, and failed to warn the Warrior about it.

This was the answer.

If he knew all about the future, his ability wasn't clairvoyance, it was omniscience. Would a person really be able to see through all possibilities of the future at once like a god? Would he have enough time for that? Clairvoyance was, in the end, an ability to foresee a 'recording of the future'. Looking into it requires one to invest that much time into it.

But that would be impossible.

Life was a video that was a million hours long. Because time for a human is finite, it's impossible to watch all the movies in the world. Even at two times the speed. Such a feat is impossible. With this, I could organize the Thief's 'weakness' in one line.

[The Thief cannot see all of the future, and the only future he can see is the future he saw with his very eyes.]

This was all but a theory. I needed to test if I was right or not. Necro took a look at the words that I wrote, and gave me his own opinion.

"How the hell is that a weakness? You can't catch the Thief with that."

"It's simple. I don't know if it would actually work, but if it does, the whole process won't even take a day."

Did I say something strange? The two became a little strange when they heard me. Almost like they just heard a joke.

"What? It's not like he's unkillable."

This was different from Romeo. I had finished my inspection of this world, and I had enough cash. The saint carefully opened her mouth.

"Isn't that… A little too much, even in your standards?"

"What about it? There are a bunch of things that can't be won even if you turn back time. I just have to work it out like that."

"Hm? A game that can't be won even by modifying time? What's that?"

"Go. Never played it?"

The saint and Necro both shook their heads.

*

The land spider should arrive soon. I put the house back in the Vault, and looked over the horizon. I wonder if it'll work well this time?

"This is a little concerning."

"What is it?! What are you concerned about now?!"

I pushed away the saint, and thought of the biggest problem in this plan. A theory of a theory. It was pretty much like building a tower of cards on top of empty air. In the case that the castle in the air didn't have any support under it, I needed to come up with other alternatives. If the method employed for time stop was different than I thought, the plan would fail completely.

Of course, if the future is set, all attempts to fight are useless.

As I thought about the direction of my plans, I was able to see a giant object appearing over the horizon.

Land spider.

A giant machine that was first made to transport supplies in war. To think it'd be able to move with a city on its back… It really made me realize how amazing magic was. The land spider appeared with its six legs, and began to pass the cliff under us.

"Let's go."

I jumped down the cliff after motioning for the others to follow.

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