Heya everyone!

I recently reread Mother of Learning by nobody1303, which seemed to be even better than what I last remembered it to be...minus the mystery element that one can only enjoy on their first read unfortunately.

Anyway, this inspired me to write this fanfiction and try to recreate this aroma of mystery by meshing the world of MoL with the introduction of Nazarick into the mix.

For those you don't remember a lot from MoL, I tried to organically include a quick summary in the first chapter, so no worries.

DISCLAIMER: English is not my first language, so please be patient with me!

Chapter 1 — "... fi nazari—k ario Ain Ol gon—"

Zorian Kazinski, fifteen-year-old. Studious, solitary, driven and above-average mage student at the Cyoria's royal academy of magical arts. Also, time looper by accident... or so he hypothesized.

His journey through the never-ending month hadn't been a joy ride so far. How many years had passed ? Fifty five loops he recalled. Four year, and 7 months, approximately... a little less since a fair number of those loops stopped abruptly by either the premature death of his time-loop partner, Zack Noveda the original time looper, or his own gruesome demise.

Since being carried by accident into this temporal mess after having his and Zach's souls mangled together while battling a millenia-old lich, Zorian had to relive the same month, over and over again. Always being brought back at the beginning of the month in his bed in Cirin, his home town, where his lovely sister would wake him up. If he was lucky enough to live through the month, the loop always ended at the end of the day of the Summer festival, where a bunch of lunatic from the cult of the dragon below tried to summon a primordial into Cyoria, while the city was under siege by a horde of invader from Ulquaan Ibasa.

While Zorian wouldn't say his predicament was enjoyable, he couldn't deny the benefits it brought him. By living through the loops, Zorian had advanced his magical skills and knowledge tremendously. While he definitely wouldn't call himself an arch-mage so far, he was getting closer and closer with each passing loop, mainly because he could take lessons from the best of the best for nearly every subject in existence. Though, it wasn't nearly as efficient as he knew it could be since he was practically living as a fugitive since the incident.

Said incident included the third, and most mysterious, time looper Zorian called Red Robe, for lack of a better name. The presumably mastermind behind the invasion of Cyoria and the release of the primordial into their world. Zorian, with the help of a colony of sentient telepathic spiders that inhabited the dungeon of Cyoria, had tried to outplay the nefarious time looper by forcing him to reveal himself out into the open so they could take care of him. The beginning of the plan had worked perfectly as he indeed personally took part in the invasion as to understand how and why his plans had been foiled so easily. But, the second part of their strategy hadn't gone as smoothly as they expected, quite the opposite even. Turns out that they had spectacularly underestimated Red Robe's resources. He had, by still unknown means, soulkilled the entire aranean settlement in rage. With the method he employed the araneas saw their death being permanent, no matter how many reset had happened since then. Zorian still couldn't exactly explain how he did this as soul were supposed to be indestructible. And worst, Red Robe now knew other time looper, outside of Zach, existed. As such, Zorian had to live as a fugitive as to not arose the suspicion of his enemy with the risk of himself being soulkilled and disappearing for good from this world.

Since then, thirty-tree loop later, a lot had happened. Training his soul magic with a priest named Alanic and discovering the existence of the mechanism that allowed the loop to occur... though this brought more questions than answer to be honest. Furthering his mastery of mind magic through numerous interactions with other aranean webs across the country. Bringing Xvim, his assigned academy mentor and arch-mage into the know about what was happening with the time loop. And finally, infiltrating a core base of operation of the invasion forces : the Iasku Mansion where a well of souls had been constructed by the master of the domain, Sudomir Kandrei.

Which brought him back to the present, his fifty-fifth month. This loop in particular had become quite hectic after he chose to alert Alanic about the mansion and its well to possibly acquire some information regarding it. After the both of them teleported there to confirm Zorian's claim, the boy learned the hard way that Alanic was not to be trifled with. In just a few day, the priest had arranged for a small scale army to be assembled with the government and the church. It was amazing really how fast the Eldemare military and the Triumvirate Church could mobilize their forces once a serious threat had been identified. Zorian did not know a lot about Alanic's past, but a priest, well versed in soul magic and necromancy, that had this kind of contact within the government was bizarre to put it lightly.

At first, Zorian cursed his luck, as such event would undoubtedly prevent him from furthering any other goal he had at the moment, such as advancing his dimensionalism magic, and would create enough wave within the time line to possibly attract Red Robe's attention. But, he committed to the task nonetheless after concluding that nothing could be done about it at this stage.

Four days after his first discussion with Alanic, the raid had began on the mansion. And, aside from a few caveats here and there —mainly an absurdly strong reinforced skeleton dragon— it had gone relatively well. The owner of the mansion, Sudomir, was captured and interrogated through Zorian's mind magic, which resulted in a lot of worthwhile informations that, in Zorian's eyes, made the all endeavor worth it in the end.

Problem arose a few days later after the attack on the mansion. The Ibasan's army had launched a premature attack on the city of Cyoria.

It was the first time that such an event happened. Observing the invasion, Zorian pondered. He was not sure what they were trying to accomplish by doing so. At least, during the Summer festival, they had a chance to do some lasting damage to the city, while this one seemed doomed to fail from the start. Then again, Iasku mansion had been a core component of their strategy, and without it, and with Eldemare investigators onto them, it was surely more of a last desperate shot in the dark than anything else.

As usual since the incident so many restarts ago, Red Robe's involvement with the invasion was absent, both directly and indirectly. Before their face off, the invasion forces knew a lot more of information that could only be obtained through the involvement of a time looper ; such as heavily defended area, hole in schedules, how to disable certain defenses at the academy, etc. But again this time around, nothing of the sort seemed to transpire from the invasion forces. Was Red Robe overly cautious as was Zorian? Possibly, especially since Red Robe didn't actually know how many other time-loopers there were aside from Zach, the original time-looper. For all he knew, he could be facing a small secret army ready to break his mind at every corner. It was a good thing that Zorian, disguised at the time of their last confrontation, had demonstrated his ability as a mind mage, one of the only two magic that could actually harm time-loopers such as themselves alongside soul magic.

The next several hours of the invasion were a blur. Surprisingly, even without the support of the undeads of Iasku mansion and the city's forces on high alert because of the ongoing investigations, the Ibasan forces were still quit successful. Possibly because Quatach-Ichl, the millennia-old lich, was a lot more involved and busier this time around —teleporting left and right to assist his army to the best of his ability. After a while, Zorian seemed to understand the objective of this premature attack. At some point, the fight near the Hole had become fiercer than ever, and the lich seemed to never leaved this place. Were they trying to rush the release of the primordial from its extra-dimensional prison? Zorian actually never got to see how destructive the primordial could be, the restart always happened before, or the cult always failed at opening the prison. But now, as the loop was only half done, the primordial had plenty of time to show its might and Zorian would greedily absorb all the information he could garner to prevent such event to occur in the future.

Another couple of hours passed, and funnily enough, Cyoria's mages actually managed to damage the lich a little bit. It was the first time Zorian actually saw the inhuman skeleton arch-mage take damage, though it didn't seem to hold him back in the slightest. Was it because the lich's body didn't have any nerve endings to convey damage? Or maybe it was because it wasn't his actual body, simply a vessel he inhabited. This definitely was a problem that Zorian needed to dive more into in the future, since a confrontation with Quatach-Ichl seemed unavoidable at some point.

Finally, the prison of the devil broke. The primordial got released into their world. Thin black threads appeared from the bottom of the abyss. Cracks, Zorian realized. Reality was breaking. Then, when enough cracks gathered, the whole center of the hole just... caved in, a pitch black hole full of nothing but darkness replacing it. From the depth of this nothingness, something shot out. Nothing resembling anything Zorian had ever seen. A conglomerate of shifting flesh tried to break free from the chasm, composed of eyes, mouths, organ of all kinds and shapes, brown and dark red liquids oozing from every pores.

Then, a booming voice, rough and unnatural, was heard. As if coming from everywhere at once. Wary at first, Zorian thought the primordial just attacked everybody's mind in his vicinity, but after checking the state of his mental defenses, he found not a single trace of tempering, nor did he feel a thing whatsoever. Then again, he was against a primordial, something even the silent gods couldn't kill, so everything was possible. Maybe it had a way to bypass absolutely every magic known to mankind. The safe decision would have been to activate the switch of his marker within his soul and prematurely end the loop, but curiosity got the better of Zorian. And since no trace of tempering of his mind was found, the boy decided to listen a few words of the monstrosity, in search of any kind of information that could help him with the time loop.

"Akio tunbi fu a ya dorita manitera kro eloni fi nazari—"

Weirdly enough, Zorian felt the switch inside his soul trying to activate automatically. But for whatever reason, something seemed to prevent the switch from fully activating the marker. Something didn't want the termination of the loop. That's not good, he though, as he watched the primordial slowly creeping out the abyss. Only a few second had pass since he first glanced at it. Cautiousness overcoming his curiosity, Zorian decided to manually activate the switch as the system still failed its attempts at automatically shutting itself down. Whatever the marker was trying to protect him from, it was probably well founded.

"—k ario Ain Ol gon—"

*Click*

Finally, everything faded instantly to black.

[ . . . ]

Zorian's eyes abruptly shot open as a sharp pain erupted from his stomach. His whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on him, and suddenly he was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in his mind.

"Good morning, brother!" an annoyingly cheerful voice sounded right on top of him. "Morning, morning, MORNING!"

Zorian sighed. Freeing himself from the clutches of his little sister. He caught a glimpse of her as she just smiled back at him cheekily, still sprawled across his bed. She was humming to herself in obvious satisfaction. It had been quite awhile since he hadn't got back at her for her antics. Maybe he should think of a new, innovative way to— No, focus Zorian, focus. Now is not the time to think about that.

While going through the motion of his usual first morning of the month, he reminisced about his last loop and organized the information obtained. A ritual of sort for the young teenager that helped him calm his mind and plan what to do in the new loop.

All the knowledge he got from Sudomir had truly been invaluable. The biggest piece of information that the necromancer gave them was the reason behind the children abduction across the city of Cyoria. Apparently, shifter-children were necessary to free the primordial, as they each carried tiny bit of essence of the monstrosity within their souls. They acted as the key to his extra-dimensional prison. Knowing that, Zorian had yet another means to stop their plans. If he could secure those children and prevent their kidnapping, all of their preparations would amount to nothing in the end. Though, like anything with this conspiracy, Zorian was certain that it wouldn't be so easy. If they couldn't get their children from Cyoria, they would target other places, and Zorian couldn't be everywhere nor could he protect every shifter-child in the country. No, his best bet would actually be to let them capture those children first, and then rescue them before the ritual, so the cult wouldn't have the time to find replacement.

Zorian mulled over this a bit more. This raised another possible problem. They might have foresaw such flaw within their plan, and had a bunch of replacements ready. He knew too little about this part of their scheme to make an educated guess about it. He would have to investigate the abduction case more thoroughly at some point to figure out the best plan of attack. But this was dangerous. The more the operation was critical for their overall goal, the more he would expose himself to Red Robe. Hell, the weird silence from him might just be a calculated trap for Zorian to loosen his guard and venture a little too far where Red Robe could take him on with little risk involved. Zorian cursed a little, deciding to move subject and wait a bit more before choosing what to do about it. He could still investigate the abduction on a surface level. That would be a start at least, before he decides if he should dig deeper or not.

Another piece of the puzzle that Zorian was happy to obtain was Sudomir's motivation in this entire endeavor. As the mayor of Knyazov Dveri, well liked by his constituency and quite wealthy, Zorian never understood what moved this man to betray his own country and commit such heinous deeds. In past loops, Sudomir had simply stated that this was all 'politics' to him, which Zorian couldn't figure the meaning of at the time. Now, he did. According to his interrogation, Sudomir had lost his wife to the Weeping years ago, but had trapped her soul within the mansion. Explaining why he was so attached to the edifice. He had agreed to help the Ibasans invasion on the condition that Quatach-Ichl taught him the ritual that would turn his late wife into a lich so he could reunite with her. Then, he wanted to increase his political power within the disrupted Eldemare to try and make necromancy legal, or at least not as hunted as much as today. By achieving that goal, he and his wife wouldn't have to live in fear of being disposed off their entire life. Much like Ulquaan Ibasa where necromancy was actually legal.

Zorian felt no sympathy for the necromancer's life story and ambitions. All he heard was self-justification for his selfishness and cruelty from beginning to end. Zorian wasn't oblivious to Sudomir's attempt at manipulation. The guy was as well versed in diplomacy then at necromancy, and he was a damn good necromancer by Zorian's estimation. The only better person at soul-magic that Zorian could think of was the millennial lich himself, Quatach-Ichl, but any comparison to this monster was unfair to begin with. One didn't become a master necromancer like Sudomir without years of practice and untold number of atrocities. This wasn't a moment of madness bring about by despair. Even before the passing of his wife, the man had probably used his influence to murder, torture and practiced on a number of innocent people. Sudomir, for all his excuses, was irredeemable in the boy's eyes.

But now at least he could leverage this information to his advantage. Surely, if Zorian threatened Sudomir to destroy the mansion, the dear resting ground of his wife he loved so much, the man might be more willing to negotiate. Zorian promptly added this to the list of scenarios he wanted to try out in a next loop, whether he would try it in this one or not, he still hadn't come to a decision. Such action, while worth a lot information wise, heavily disrupted the time line and would yet again expose him and prevent him from pursuing other endeavors that might also bore fruit.

A few minutes later, while still reminiscing his last loop, Zorian finally got to the last part.

He remembered his brief interaction with the primordial. The boy had committed every second of this encounter to his memory in clear detail. First of all, it seemed the marker in his soul had tried to activate the reset the moment the monster got out of his dimensional prison. Surely, Zorian deduced, this was some kind of safe-guard by the system for the continuity of the time-loop mechanism. Maybe primordials very existence could break reality in a way that would disrupt the loops. If this was indeed the case, Zorian had truly been foolish to not end this iteration the moment he saw the first crack appear. Or maybe, the system concluded that this was not an enemy that could be dealt with by humans, even through the unfair advantage of the time-loop. In any way, he wouldn't try that again, the stakes were to high and the reward to little.

"Akio tunbi fua ya dorita manitera kro eloni fi nazari—k ario Ain Ol gon—" Zorian mumbled under his breath while writing the sentence down phonetically on a piece of paper.

What was that, the boy thought, studying the paper in his hand. What was it trying to do ? Was the primordial communicating with someone ? Talking to himself ? Was it an incantation ? The intensity of mana at the hole was so dense, and Zorian was so far that he couldn't figure out if this sentence was meant to cast some sort of spell or otherwise.

The sample wasn't much. And, from Zorian's own experience, working with such small bits and pieces rendered the linguistic task infinitely more complex if you couldn't find the right person for it. And Zorian, for all his wide panel of skills and knowledge, was definitely not the right person for the job. Hell, he might even say that linguistic was one of his least studied field. Not because he hated the subject, but it never was high on his priority list.

He tried nonetheless to grasp at anything that might be of some significance. Re-reading the passage over and over both in his mind and out loud. Turning and adjusting the paper left and right in his hands with each attempt as if this would somehow show him some kind of revelation.

At first glance, it didn't sound like any language he knew of. Or so he thought. After some more pondering, and an agonizing slow read of each term used, he figured that the flow of word reminisced him very slightly of old Majara, the same dead language that Quatach-Ichl used for his soul magic. Zorian continued on this train of thought. Old Majara was already so distant in the past that you'd be hard pressed to find anyone even aware of its existence. On the other hand, Primordials, according to the church, existed even before the silent gods created mankind. Was Old Majara based of the Primordials language that existed even before it ? The probability was actually pretty low, Zorian thought. Primordial never interacted with mankind in anyway that such exchange of culture could occur. Maybe both were just derivatives of some divine language ?

Zorian cursed in his non-existent beard. He simply didn't know enough about the origin of language to answer this conundrum. He would need to contact Zenomir Olgai again, his history and linguistic teacher. Old as he might be, the guy had a sharp mind and always seemed enthusiast to help him when asked.

As Zorian stood up from his position, he took one last look at the paper before crumpling it and burning it with a tiny burst of flame. He repeated again the last part of the sentence.

"... fi nazari—k ario Ain Ol gon—" the boy did not really know why, but the more he dwelled on those unknown words, the more he felt... something he couldn't really describe right away. Was he feeling uncomfortable ? Anxious ? He could slightly feel his pulse heighten and even find it hard to swallow at one time, almost akin to the feeling of facing the Grey Hunter many loops ago, on a way smaller scale. But this was completely irrational, Zorian thought. The Grey Hunter was a terrifying spider monster that had every right to strike fear in anyone who would face it, even an arch-mage specialized in combat would be hard-pressed to escape unscathed if he encountered one without preparation. Why did some random words made him experience the same feeling ?

Zorian just decided to drop the matter. The stress of the last loop and its events might have affected him more than he wanted to admit. Moreso, this particular restart was also critical, which added to the pressure he was currently feeling. He needed to get access to the memory packet that Spear of Resolve, the matriarch of the Cyoria aranean web, had implemented into his mind so long ago. If he couldn't decipher it before the end of this month, he would lose all of its critical informations, which couldn't be allowed to happen. They, Zorian and especially the now permanently dead araneas, had sacrificed too much to acquire this knowledge to simply let it be lost to Zorian's own incompetence.

It was at that time that the fifteen years old heard the bells. Ilsa Zileti was here to hand him his school notice and discuss with him his year's electives and his mentor choice, or rather lack thereof, like in any other restart.

Wrapping up his mind, Zorian quickly formulated a plan of action for this very crucial loop in the few seconds it took him to go open the door. Grabbing the door handle, the boy readied himself. This restart had to be flawless and free from any disruption. He finally opened the door.

[. . .]

But it wasn't to be.

Aaah, me and my lofty goals and big mouth... Zorian quickly thought as Zach's fist collided with his face, probably undoing most of his plans for this loop before he could even begin.

Zorian was sent sprawling on the concrete floor of the Cyoria central train station. His little sister screaming and attacking the unknown attacker to defend her older brother, even though she was but a nine-years-old hyperactive girl against a rather well-built fifteen-years-old.

Also, unknowingly to her, the boy, Zach Noveda, was arguably the very best combat mage Zorian had ever encountered, with the exception of the millennial lich. As the center piece, and maybe even the reason behind the entire time loop, Zach had been a time traveler way before even Zorian himself. He was actually decades older than what his body presented... and maybe bit a wiser, but just a bit.

Seeing this mighty time traveler at a total loss as to how he should handle the little demoness's incessant shrill was a sight to behold. The girl scratched her heart out at Zach's very skin with the ferocity of a small lion. All in all, a fair trade for the punch Zorian suffered from. After he enjoyed the scene for a few more seconds, Zorian decided to put a stop to it. It was bad enough to have been forcefully put in Zach's presence with Red Robe snooping around, so better not make the situation worse by causing a ruckus in front of so many people. While still a bit dazed by the sudden attack, Zorian stood up and shouted at Kirielle to stop. To his surprise, the little imp immediately listened and retreated behind him. It was rare of her to actually listen to him in general, so he didn't expect it would've been so easy with her emotions running high. A pleasant surprise.

[. . .]

Convincing Kirielle that it was simply a mean spirited prank by Zach to get back at Zorian had been a chore and a half, but mostly succeeded. It wasn't even really a lie, if you excluded the prank part. Still, Zorian wasn't completely sure how he got under Zach's skin so much that the guy would come punching him without a second thought.

Sure he had deceived and manipulated him through the proxies of the araneas during the incident by feigning ignorance about the time loop. Sure he hadn't tried to get in contact with him since then, which was a little over thirty loops ago. Oh, and Zorian just remembered that he indeed recall hearing Zach telling him he was gonna smash his head off after Zorian had left him alone, bloodied and injured after their last battle with the lich. Okay, maybe he deserved it a little, but it was so long ago ! And he hadn't done it for the fun of it, it was necessary for their plan to get the third time looper to reveal himself out into the open! Anyway, Zorian pushed those thoughts aside. The two of them would inevitably have a long discussion about it later in the day.

The trio departed the station and headed directly to Imaya's place, the temporary residence of Zorian and Kirielle.

On the way there, Zorian did not bother to meet Nochka, the shifter-girl he had encountered in the past. He had originally planned to try and fish for information about the abductions, but with Zach around the probability of Red Robe barging in was already significant. Better not raise the risk even higher by snooping around in one of his most critical plan.

The first part of their journey had been uncomfortably tense. Of course it would be so, Kirielle wouldn't trust the guy who just blindly assaulted her brother without warning, even after Zorian's explanation. Fortunately, as time flew by and the rain started pouring, the two extroverted talkative-type people slowly broke the ice with their small talk. Though, the distance between them never fully disappeared.

After an hour or so of walking, they finally arrived at their destination.

"Let me arrange for everything with our landlord and unpack, then we'll talk. Do you have a place in mind ?" Zorian asked.

"No... I didn't think that far," Zach admitted.

"Then let's opt for the aranean settlement bellow. The warding scheme protecting the place is pretty good and intact to my knowledge."

"Fine by me. Did any of the spiders survive?"

"None," Zorian answered gravely. Zach visibly deflated, he might not have known them for long, but it was probably the first time the boy ever encountered permanent death since he was stuck in this time loop.

"So... Is it just the two of us now, or... ?" he asked.

Zach's mental defenses were both constant and very sturdy. As such that Zorian's empathy couldn't pick any of his surface emotions. Nevertheless, Zach wasn't a very hard person to read. To anyone understanding a modicum of his situation, his loneliness was apparent. Who could blame him ? An immature teenager, last scion of a broken noble house, stuck for decades inside a time loop without anyone to talk to that could remember him past the end of the month. Of course the boy longed for a talk with a fellow time traveler.

"Just... let me drop off Kirielle and then we'll talk" Zorian said.

[. . .]

As arranged, Zach and Zorian headed on toward their destination once everything was settled at Imaya's place. The depth of Cyoria's underbelly was humid thanks to the pouring rain outside, but this didn't deter the two time loopers in the slightest.

Along the way, Zorian decided to finally explain the truth of his situation to his companion that was silently following behind him. After all, much like Zorian and the araneas had fooled Red Robe into thinking a secret army of time travelers existed, the same had necessarily been done to Zach.

Zorian started from where it all began for him. The first loop he ever remembered, where he had been dragged into the fight between Zach and Quatach-Ichl. How the lich had tried to somehow, somewhat, fuse their souls together to assure proper destruction of each of them, only to be saved by the system of the time loop that automatically activated the reset, but only a little too late. The consequence being that Zorian now had assimilated a part of Zach's soul, and was now a time traveler. Though, he could feel that his 'marker' was at best dysfunctional.

"Wait... so that mean I also absorbed part of your soul then ? Isn't that really bad ? I'm pretty sure that's how familiar contract are made to begin with," commented Zach for the first time since the start of the explanation, a little aggression involuntarily seeping through his words. The subtext of his question was clear to Zorian since that was also the first concern he had when he learned that a foreign soul had been integrated into his own.

"A valid concern, but no. At first, I was also afraid that the owner of this foreign piece of soul, namely you, would try to get control of me once you got wind of this." Zach tried to interject but didn't after Zorian held his palm up. "I know that probably wouldn't have crossed your mind, but try to understand my position at the time, Zach. I just learned that time travel was real, that one of my incompetent classmate was actually an arch-mage fighting an entire army on his own and a lich and was embroiled in an international conspiracy. I had every right to be a little paranoid."

Zach's silence was understanding enough in Zorian's eyes, so he continued.

"Anyway, after further study of my soul, it had become clear that your soul had completely been absorbed by my own. The same should have applied on your end. To begin with, the parts we exchanged were too small. Also, I questioned familiar's users, and they nearly all describe being able to feel the link with their familiar," Zorian responded. "And I couldn't. I suppose you can't either."

He then went on to describe his meeting with the Cyoria's giant telepathic spiders, the araneas, and their matriarch, Spear of Resolve. He described the deal they had agreed to, how he would transport memory packets from one loop to the next for them in exchange for their teaching in mind magic and their assistance in the resolution of the invasion. How their partnership had shed light in the discrepancies that could only be explained by the existence of a third time traveler. How this discovery had led to the creation of their plan to force this shadow enemy to step out into the open and take care of him.

As they reached this part of the story, the duo finally arrived at the settlement of the araneas. Giant spider corpses littered the ground. As they entered, Zorian let his hand gently caress one of the curled up leg of one of the spider, a sorrowful expression he tried to repress to no avail.

"But, the matriarch became more and more distant the more we approached the confrontation. She went with her own plan, and I was largely kept in the dark about it. She probably had found something in the last restarts of her life that completely changed the game we were playing against Red Robe, I still don't know what though."

As he spoke, Zorian continued to the next room. Zach, still silently listening, decided not to ask the degree of closeness the boy had with the giant spiders.

"We underestimated Red Robe immensely. We thought that without Quatach-Ichl by his side, we could easily deal with him. The araneas had prepared an ambush, but it didn't work. As retaliation, he soul-killed them all. Even the hatchery," Zorian continued, standing near a giant spherical ball coated with spider web. He gazed at it for an uncomfortably long time, an eerie silence gracing the duo amongst a sea of dead spiders and cobwebs.

"Is it your first time coming back here ?" Zach asked hesitantly.

"No. After the failure of our plan, I thought Red Robe would try to kill them all again in the next loop. So I teleported here as soon as I could to warn them... and discovered this sad state of affaire. I wandered a bit, and then Red Robe also appeared. I guess he wanted to check that he got them all. We fought for a bit... well, rather I fled for a bit before throwing myself into the maw of a monster at the bottom of the abyss to ensure that Red Robe couldn't get his hand on neither my corpse, my mind or my soul."

"I see. I also met him not far from here in the start of that particular restart you're speaking off." Zach commented, to the bewilderment of Zorian.

"He attacked you ?"

"Attacked me and lost," Zach grinned proudly. "He's not that hard to beat without Quatach-Ichl to support him, at least for me."

Zorian was yet again reminded with whom he was speaking. A foe that he and the entire aranean web had conspired against for weeks to ambush and kill to no avail had been dealt with easily by his fellow time traveler. Truly, being in his presence had a way to humble Zorian in a way few could these days.

"Did he try anything against you since then ?"

"Only once," Zach said. "At the start of the very next loop. He teleported straight through the protection wards of my home directly to me."

"And he once again failed and fled once you defeated him I guess."

"Actually, I was the one who fled," Zach admitted uncomfortably. "I was half-asleep and nearly naked, okay? I didn't expect such a brazen attack so early. Anyway, from this point on I left Cyoria at the start of every loop. I never saw him again since then."

Weird Zorian thought.

"Did you notice anything weird since then with the restarts ? With how the invasion is going ?" inquired Zorian, smelling that something was very off.

"Only that he seemed to have disappeared completely, but I think you know that already," Zach answered nonchalantly.

"Yeah, I noticed that too. At first I thought he had gone into hiding because he was scared at the idea of facing an army of time travelers, but didn't think our deception would last this long." Zorian commented, his hand supporting his chin "Actually, it's impossible that he doesn't have at least some suspicions of our fraud. Why haven't he at least tested the waters? Is he waiting for us to move, or is he preparing something..."

And why did he never soul-killed Zach before? Given that the boy had been oblivious to the existence of other time travelers until recently, Red Robe had every opportunity to ambush and take care of Zach in any way he wanted. Was Zach necessary for him in some ways? Was he, like Zorian, tied to the time loop through Zach's power? If so, permanently killing Zach was not an option for Red Robe. Zorian mentally cursed a little, so many critically unanswered questions.

Zorian shook his heads a little. Better not linger on impossible conundrums for now.

"Anyway Zach, why did you came and meet me now of all time ? And why the punch ? My jaw still aches, you know," Zorian casually asked, caressing his chin to press his point.

Zach suddenly looked at him with reinvigorated anger.

Great job Zorian, you and your tactfulness. The boy thought. Please, don't let this blunder earn me another knuckle sandwich.

Though Zach hadn't resorted to violence again, he was very happy to let his fury out on Zorian again. For the next ten or so minutes, Zach listed everything that Zorian had done to inquire his rage, which was mostly deserved. Zorian knew which fight to take, so he simply stood there, and took it.

[. . .]

Zach was left panting a little after his little rent. The both of them had apologized, well mostly Zorian, and acknowledged that neither of them were exempt of blames.

Zach had been naively trying to stop the invasion without ever thinking about studying how and why this invasion was getting better and better every time, and neither did he try to investigate the origins of the time loop mechanism in the multiple decades he had.

Zorian on his part had been stubbornly trying to achieve everything by himself, mostly due to his rampant paranoiac tendencies. If he had joined hands with Zach faster instead of waiting thirty or so loop, he wouldn't be on such a tight time schedule to decipher the matriarch's memory packet.

"What do we do now?" asked Zach.

"The number one priority right now is the memory packet. We need to raise my understanding of aranean senses if we want to understand what's inside of it once I open it." Zorian answered, tapping his foot on the floor as he was thinking. "So far, I was attacking isolated aranean patrols and practiced memory reading of them, but given how limited I am in term of combat ability, I couldn't get a lot and the process was slow. With you around..."

"Yeah, you were really being an idiot if you thought I couldn't help you on that front, Zorian. With me around, we won't have to waste time on simple patrols anymore. We could just walk up to their main settlements and attack them head on. They pose absolutely no threat to me, after all." Zach smugly grinned at Zorian " I'll give you so much work that you'll be unable to keep up."

Zorian decided to not give him satisfaction by reacting to his little insult. He continued.

"Next, I want to meet with Zenomir about what I heard from the primordial. It might be a shot in the dark, but something is truly bugging me off about it."