I Reincarnated as the Villain in an Eroge, But Before I Realized, I Became a Capture Target
Translator: Reo
Editor: PalenMisha
Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!
Luca POV 8 – Part 1
Ah, again? I sighed. I could see the “tsuki” again. It was only half of a circle, but that half looked like a piece of tsuki so there was no mistaking it.
This time again, immediately after defeating the Evil God, I was overcome by dizziness, and when it passed, I found myself standing here. In a moment, this world would disappear too, and I’d probably find myself back in that corridor one year in the past.
Did that mean that this phantom world was the reason for my regression? And if it was, why was I looking at this world where the tsuki floated in the sky?
I really had no idea.
Who was it who kept showing me this world and for what reason?
As these questions ran through my head I looked around me. This time I was standing in a lively area. A lot of magic lamps and spells were being used, so even though it was night, it was incredibly bright. On top of that, the walls of the building were so gaudy, it almost made my eyes hurt.
There were a lot of people walking around. A number of them had already passed through me, but I wasn’t surprised, as I had already established last time that this was all an illusion.
And, again, most of these people had black hair.
I glanced up at the building’s walls. They were a treasure trove of information, though covered in symbols I couldn’t quite understand. Could this be this world’s writing system?
There were also a number of large, illustrated posters on display. I’d seen things like that back in Soleil too, on the covers of manga and popular novels. There was something that looked like a title on those large posters, so I thought my comparison was probably correct.
And no matter where I looked, there were illustrations of cute girls. I didn’t really know what these illustrations were about, but I felt relieved to see their various different hair colours, perhaps because everyone else I’d seen so far had black hair.
It was especially true of the illustration right in front of me. Didn’t it look almost exactly like Noel? And there was Miranda, Nina, Camilla, Bennett, and Cindy too. The hairstyle and of course the hair colour, the eye colour, the general shape of the face and even the clothes… they were the spitting image of my friends.
No, wait, weren’t they way too similar?
If it had just been one of them, it could have been a coincidence, but all six?
To be able to recreate Camilla’s unusual, two-toned hair to a T, that couldn’t have been a coincidence.
“What… is this?”
Was the girls’ story being passed down to future generations? They were heroes who defeated the Evil God, so that wouldn’t be hard to understand. But that would mean that this place was Soleil in the future… There was no tsuki in Soleil though. Also, the written characters were way too different.
When it came to architecture it was possible for buildings to change to this point in a hundred years, but it was a bit too much for the alphabet to change so drastically.
But, if this wasn’t the future, then why were those illustrations here? Why were they the spitting image of my friends?
I kept looking at the drawings trying to find an answer, and gradually my eyes started to get tired from the flashiness of everything around me, so I closed them to rest a bit. And, when I opened them again, I was back in that corridor on my way to the audience chamber.
Just what was that world? Those illustrations?
The number of questions I had, including why I kept going back to the past, just kept increasing.
I started going to the library whenever I had the time, to try and find some sort of clue about my situation. And while talking to the girls, I tried asking about it as if I was just making small talk.
“Lately, I read a novel that featured a time loop. Do you think something like that – going to the past again and again, could happen in real life? And if it did happen, how would you explain it?”
“Hm. You like that kind of thing? Let’s see… take the magic bag for example, if you add alchemy to a magic material that was created from this world’s emotions, stopping time becomes possible. And, as you can tell from looking at me, it is also possible to reverse the age of the physical body. So going back to the past is entirely feasible. However, isn’t the world the only one that would be capable of doing that?” (Camilla)
“The world? I see… the world, huh?”
The world was an existence that perceived and looked after all life on this earth. It held a power that humans weren’t capable of comprehending, so I was easily convinced by the theory that if it was the world, turning back time was possible.
“Then, what would you do if you suddenly found yourself dreaming of a phantom world? Like something from a well-known fairytale.”
“Ufufu. Isn’t that the kind of story where you fall into a mysterious world and have to decide whether it’s real or all just a dream?” (Cindy)
“Exactly. That. Would you think that that phantom world was real?”
“I guess that whether it’s real or not would depend on the place. If it’s somewhere in this world, I’d say it’s real, but if it’s a completely other-worldly setting, the likelihood of it being a dream would be high. The concept of a parallel universe also exists.”
“I see…”
A parallel universe. A world that branches off from one time-space and exists concurrently to it. A so-called parallel.
In ancient times, back when this world still didn’t exist, many planetesimals used to float around the sun. These planetesimals crashed and merged with each other, growing bigger and bigger until the world was formed.
Then, as the collisions subsided, slowly but surely the earth and the sea were formed. After some time, small lifeforms began to form in the ocean, and, together with the birth of life, the world too grew an ego.
Then at one point, though the collision of stars was thought to have ended, a planetesimal once again drew near. It was too big to actually be called a planetesimal, and were it not avoided, not only would the world be destroyed and separated from the sun, but the tiny organisms that had managed to find life on it would have disappeared as well.
Because of that, the world manipulated time to delay the collision, changing space and time and moving the incoming planet into an alternate dimension. It was said that due to that fluctuation of time and space, a parallel world was born.
Though the world emerged again in a different time and space, it still only had one ego. As the parallel world did not have its own will, the magical particles that exist in our world, created by its emotions, did not occur on the parallel one. So magic beings did not exist there, nor could living creatures use magic.
Whether such a parallel world existed or not was impossible to tell, as there was no way to confirm it. However, that place was more likely to be a parallel world than a completely different one.
Whatever was making me travel through time was probably the world. And that phantom world I was being shown before going back to the past might be a parallel world.
Though I could make that assumption, what I should do to end this time loop remained unclear. I wanted to find an answer but was hesitant to share with my friends any more than this. Asking them to save me from this time loop was too much of a burden to put on these girls who had nothing to do with it.
Thus, not having reached a solution, I once again made my way alone to Zagan’s remains. I didn’t know when this loop would end, but until it did, collecting his body was something I had to do.
I kneeled beside his body and gently touched his cheek, confirming that there was no longer life in him.
“I am still saddened by your death.”
This was the fourth time. Just how many more times would I come here to collect Zagan’s body?
The answer was unclear and it made me uneasy.
