"It's him! It's this guy!"
"Hmph, we finally caught him!"
"Hahaha, now Earl Nicholas's bounty is ours!"
"Don't let your guard down! Several groups of rcenaries have stumbled on this guy before. He's very slippery!"
"Don't worry, boss. Didn't the informant confirm with us that the guy's injuries haven't healed yet? And we've surrounded this place. Let's see where he can run to this ti!"
Reji, who had walked out of the house, looked at the rcenaries with fierce expressions on their faces and recalled for a mont. Indeed, even their opening lines were exactly the sa as in the ga's plot.
Moreover, from his accurate prediction of their appearance, it further proved one of his previous speculations.
That is—his past self who had been reversed still walked on the trajectory of the original history.
Hmm...
No.
One thing was already different.
Seeing Reji co out and just ponder, which of course looked more like he was standing there dumbfounded in the eyes of those rcenaries, they beca even more delighted.
"Look at him. He must be scared silly! He doesn't even know how to run anymore!"
"That's right. Our Black Lion rcenaries are the most famous in Stone Sword Town. Otherwise, the Earl wouldn't have sought us out."
"You brat, stand still and don't move. If you know what's good for you, it'll be better for both of us. This way, on the way to take you to see the Earl, we can let you live a little longer!"
"Exactly! Reji! You have nowhere to run now. Surrender!"
Ignoring these clichéd minion lines, Reji's expression turned solemn as he keenly captured a very interesting point among them.
He imdiately turned his gaze to a certain rcenary who had just been shouting.
"W-what are you doing!?"
Suddenly being the focus of Reji's gaze, this young rcenary with a buzz cut and tattoos on his half-exposed shoulders instantly felt a chill, as if he had been stared at by so bottomless abyss in that mont.
He was startled, and all the hair on his body stood up. He subconsciously took half a step back.
Fortunately, this eerie feeling of being stared at by the abyss only lasted for a mont. When he regained his senses, it seed as if nothing had happened.
There was only the bounty target still looking at him.
And... The strange question from this target.
"What did you call just now?" Reji calmly asked.
"Huh!? You... you..."
The buzz-cut rcenary was really annoyed. How dare a re bounty target question him? Just as he was about to find his footing and scold Reji...
"What did you call just now?"
Reji repeated it again.
And this ti, that chill from the depths of his soul instantly enveloped the buzz-cut rcenary's entire body, making him tremble again, his lips quivering, his blood accelerating, his pupils dilating towards Reji's direction, as if he had seen sothing extrely terrifying.
Thud!
The buzz-cut rcenary was so scared that he plopped down on the ground.
He didn't know what was going on.
But his body's instinct made him quickly answer Reji's question.
"Reji!"
"You... you are Reji! Earl Nicholas's wanted target! And also our Black Lion's bounty target! Reji! I...
I called you Reji!"
The buzz-cut rcenary scread the answer to Reji's question.
Afterward, in front of everyone's eyes, he had just been shouting with montum, but now, after Reji got the answer and shifted his gaze away, the buzz-cut rcenary seed to only dare to breathe. He even used his hands and feet to crawl away in a panic.
The Black Lion rcenaries were a bit dumbfounded by this scene.
And Reji...
He raised his right hand and looked at the illusory gem that seed to have rged into the back of his palm.
The Philosopher's Stone.
The origin of all reversals and also the most powerful relic belonging to the Descenders.
Earlier in the wooden house, when Freya asked for his na, the Philosopher's Stone suddenly flashed with light. Reji had already suspected it.
Now, from these rcenaries, he had obtained his second guess about the reversal.
The previous guess was—he was experiencing a reenactnt of history.
And this new discovery was—he was modifying history.
No player would be foolish enough to use their real na as their character na in the ga.
Okay. Even if there were, Reji wasn't that kind of person, so the "hero" in the first playthrough wasn't called Reji at all.
In other words, after Freya's "You're awake, hero," what the original Reji in the ga answered the Saintess was another na.
But now... From the buzz-cut rcenary just now directly calling him Reji, it made Reji realize that history was being rewritten.
After all, it should be known that Reji should be a completely unfamiliar new na to this world, and he had only ntioned it to Freya alone.
Logically speaking, the rcenaries here should still be calling him the na set in the original ga.
So there was only one possibility left for this phenonon to occur.
The past was also being modified along with his actions.
And whenever there was a huge change in the world line, the Philosopher's Stone on his right hand would emit light to... warn him.
That's right.
To "warn" him.
Or rather, a certain kind of energy inside it was being depleted.
The Philosopher's Stone was noticeably dimr than at the beginning, becoming more illusory.
Reji had a strong premonition.
If he excessively "influenced" the past and excessively "rewrote" history, then the Philosopher's Stone in his hand would only beco more and more blurry and illusory until it completely disappeared.
And that would also an... He could no longer return to the future.
Reji would never abandon everything from a thousand years later.
So from the very beginning, when he intercepted the Emperor and used the Philosopher's Stone to perform a reversal, at that mont, Reji had created a new save point, or rather, a space-ti anchor point.
As long as the Philosopher's Stone existed, he could always return to the future a thousand years later.
Reji had never intended to abandon his Demon King self from the second playthrough, let alone Eileen, Vielsia, Leo, Shern, Eris, and the other apostles with whom he had established bonds.
His true purpose for reversing was to use the ability to modify history from guess two to overturn the tragedy that befell the Emperor.
To save the Saintess who had lost the hero in the past.
So that in the future, there would no longer be that crazy Emperor corrupted by the Evil God.
But now it seed... It wasn't as simple as he thought.
Just by modifying the hero's na, the energy in the Philosopher's Stone had been consud by nearly half, let alone what followed.
Reji could actually understand. The more drastic the changes he caused to the world line in the past, the more unrecognizable it would beco when everything converged to the future.
For example, if he directly killed Freya here... Reji believed the Philosopher's Stone would imdiately shatter and explode.
It would an that the "future" of the second playthrough could never be reached again.
He would be... Forever stuck in this world line where Freya was already dead.
To prevent this from happening, Reji had to find a way to restore the energy of the Philosopher's Stone, a way to make the gem beco more and more solid instead.
It seed like there was no clue?
In fact, it was not.
Looking back at the energy essence of the Philosopher's Stone, Reji already had the answer.
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