It feels like I've been here for hours...

"Ode... how much time left-"

"You can check yourself."

"Yeah... but I don't want to."

"Thirty-two hours and eighteen minutes."

I slammed my head into the ground...

How the fuck has it only been... What, forty-five minutes?

"Ode how long have you been here?"

He looked at me with his head resting on his hand.

"Well all of us arrived before you did, and it's been going in reverse order so about... four hundred forty four years."

...

"Pardon?"

Honestly at that moment. I couldn't remotely process what Ode had just said.

"Four hundred forty four years."

"Years?"

"Yeah. I mean most of the time the others would sleep, but I was awake for... uh at least a quarter. No, maybe it was a half?"

Wait. How many of these variants are there? If they go in reverse order, then that means they get older and older. Wait, what about this body? How long has it actually been around for before I arrived?

"Uh- how many variants are there... like thirty or forty?"

"Well there should be nine hundred ninety nine including you."

"Wha-"

"I swear I already said that... maybe I didn't?"

Nine hundred ninety nine?! That's a fucking insane number... wait why's it not a thousand at that point then... I sighed.

Ode noticed my concerned face and laughed a little.

"Hey, Cynical. Relax. It's honestly not that bad here. You'll get used to it."

I kind of just sat there. I was trying to understand everything Ode was saying... Is time distorted? How long will I actually be here for? What is happening outside?

"Cynical-"

"Just Cyn is fine."

Ode smiled for a second.

"Cyn, you don't have to worry. Time here is synced with the outside world. You won't be missing much..."

It's like he just read my mind... creepy...

Huh-? Why'd he stop talking like that?

"What else?"

"...well like I was saying before about you not missing much... you might accidentally get the main body killed."

Six paused reading and turned toward us.

"What do you mean he might get the main body killed?"

"Well during Cyn's forty-five minute crisis I reviewed some footage from before the 'Rupture'."

"Footage? You mean that everything I do is recorded?!"

"Bingo~"

Ode pulled up a new screen that had the replaying footage of what happened.

"The important thing that I found was that when Cyn snuck into a small little what he thought was empty storage room-"

"Gek-"

"...was actually being cleaned by a maid at the time. It just so happens. Cyn didn't find, or kill her. So the most likely course of action she took would be telling the knight captain. Who, after analyzing his personality through a few clips I have determined, would want to hunt you down."

Six turned toward me.

"Why didn't you kill her-"

"I didn't even know she was there!"

"Listen there is no point in arguing. Our problem is that none of us are out there, and the knight captain is most likely on our asses for this incident."

Shit- I knew I heard something back then. I should have looked harder...

"Cyn."

Ode snapped at me to get my attention back.

"There's no point in crying over it now. After the timer runs out you'll be able to get out into the main body. You'll need to be our recon and get as much info as possible in a short amount of time."

"Okay... I got it."

Four groggily started waking up.

"What'd I miss?"

He looked past us and saw the screen that had recordings on it. Four quickly jumped up and grabbed the screen. A bed formed beneath him as he laid down onto it. He started scrolling through files and went to when I went out to eat with Esther.

I heard him giggling as he watched.

"Really?"

He looked toward me.

"Yeah, you thinking you're good with women is funny as fuck~"

After that, thirty-one long hours passed by.

Very. Very. Slowly... and I mean fucking slow.

Especially with Four rewatching the past two weeks of my life like it's a comedy show.

||NOTICE: 15 MINUTES REMAINING!||

⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱

Knock Knock Knock

Esther opened her door to see the knight captain.

"Can I help you?"

"Yes, we wanted to let you know that the evacuations are almost wrapped up and that you're the last person on this street."

Esther could tell that the knight captain's reasoning was only partly truthful.

"Just give me a minute to get changed and I'll be right out."

She closed the door and walked to her room. She looked at Cyn's body. The spherical slime blob sitting there peacefully on her bed.

"It's been over a day. When are you going to come back?"

Esther pouted and went to get changed into something else.

She changed relatively fast; she wore black shorts and this black loose sweater similar to Six's. She had her hair in a sideways ponytail tied with a ribbon and a green dagger of sorts, a white shirt under her sweater, and she had small gold earrings on. Afterwards, she moved Cyn over to a dark corner in her room.

"I'll be back."

Esther walked back to her front door and opened it.

"So... what was this threat again?"

"A Regulus monster. It took Percide's form and used his position."

She stepped outside and closed the door behind her.

"So how do you plan on dealing with him?"

"Well that depends, we need to see him first and assess the damage that he'll cause."

She said 'him' that means she knows who he is even though we never mentioned the Regulus monster was a male. The Mage Empress is hiding something and we need to find it.

"Do you have any leads on him at all? Anything would help... quite a lot~"

||NOTICE: 30 SECONDS REMAINING!||

"Let's go! Thirty seconds is nothing now!"

"Cyn focus up, you don't know the environment you might be in when you wake up."

I looked at Ode and smiled.

"It's fine, you've got my back right?"

He laughed a bit.

"Yeah. I guess I do huh?"

||NOTICE: 10 SECONDS REMAINING!||

"Alright then... here we go~!"

||NOTICE: 5 SECONDS REMAINING!||

||NOTICE: 4 SECONDS REMAINING!||

||NOTICE: 3 SECONDS REMAINING!||

||NOTICE: 2 SECONDS REMAINING!||

||NOTICE: 1 SECOND REMAINING!||

||NOTICE: 0 SECONDS REMAINING!||

||MIND'S EYE||

My vision went pure white before fading back into reality. I was in this cramped area... in Esther's room? I pulled myself out.

What am I right now? An actual slime?

||FORM SHIFT||

I shifted my body back to normal and cracked my neck.

"That was a little tight~..."

⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱

"So Miss Mage Empress...? Any leads?"

"Nope none at all-"

The door swung open and I was standing there.

"Yo Esther! I'm back~!"

They both turned toward me.

Esther's face held pure shock.

"Dumbass—"

"Um... was I interrupting something-"

She grabbed the collar of my coat and shook me back and forth.

"Really?! Now of all times, you decide to come back when I'm covering for you?!"

<Cyn... I don't even know how to comprehend how hard you just fucked up.>

"Hey- that's not really-"

"R-really? He just walked out..."

The knight captain slowly turned around and started walking away.

"Thank you for your help."

Esther continued yelling at me, her shaking getting more violent as he walked off.

<I feel like you deserve this...>

A knight quickly ran up to the captain.

"Sir! Everyone has been evacuated!"

"Good. Have the knights on standby outside of Noyade. We found the monster."