There You Are

Yesterday, she had also been the one to actively invite the four of them to stay. While the reason seemed reasonable enough, the more he thought about it, the more suspicious it felt.

However, for now at least, she did not seem to be an enemy; they just needed to be mentally prepared.

Lynch kept a question mark in his mind and pointed toward the mad old man who was still preaching his doomsday prophecies.

“What about this person? Is he also from the city? When did he start going mad? Was he frightened out of his wits by the ghouls? How long has he been muttering like that?”

Unlike when they mentioned the doctor, the people all showed disgusted expressions. “No idea where that mad old man came from. He showed up two years ago.”

Hm?

Lynch raised an eyebrow. “Two years ago? Did he arrive together with Dr. Sven?”

Since not much time had passed, some among the farmers still remembered.

Not together, but relatively close. Dr. Sven had returned first, and roughly a month later, this madman had wandered into Noran.

The two had almost no interaction. Normally, the old lunatic merely wandered around the threshing floor begging, and at night he would curl up in abandoned houses to sleep. Several times, everyone thought he was going to freeze to death, yet the next day he would still appear shivering around the threshing floor.

He had been crazy since he first arrived, though he hadn't shouted at the top of his lungs like this back then. He would only occasionally spout nonsense or stare at people with a chuckle. But whenever someone was stared at and chuckled at by him, they would soon suffer terrible misfortune. Because of that, everyone was terrified of him, yet nobody dared refuse his begging, dreading that he might smile at them next.

The old man had started muttering about ghouls five days ago. Back then, rumors about ghouls appearing nearby had just begun to spread, and he seemed to have been triggered by it, incessantly rambling that everyone was going to die. That only deepened the city's panic. Even though no one took him seriously, it was utterly repulsive.

Five days ago?

Lynch sorted through the information they had gathered over and over, but could not fathom why this old man had suddenly undergone an abnormal change five days ago.

Traces had first surfaced seven days ago, and widespread panic had broken out three days ago. What kind of milestone was five days ago?

Believing in coincidences during a mysterious event was courting death. There had to be a causal link between occurrences; uncovering these connections and reacting accordingly was the greatest weapon when facing the mystery.

Yet Lynch racked his brains to no avail, until his clothes were tugged once more.

Lynch turned straight to look at Judy—she was the only one who did this.

Sure enough, her previously unfocused, large eyes were now sharp. Judy asked softly, “What date did we decide to enter?”

Hm?

Lynch blinked, replying subconsciously, “We learned about it on June 27th, confirmed our entry and began training on the 28th, and on July 2nd... hiss, that's really just a coincidence, right?”

“Heh.”

Judy let out a dry laugh, and her gaze immediately returned to its distant haze, leaving the other three dumbfounded.

How could it have anything to do with when they decided to enter? This was a memory within a mystery relic!

Yet when all irrelevant factors were eliminated, whatever remained, however improbable, had to be the truth.

Besides, thinking carefully about it, it wasn't impossible.

His neighbor had said back then that changes in the plot were related to the four of them entering. The entanglement and interference of cause and effect in the world of mystery did not merely begin with physical actions; often, the moment a thought arose, the entanglement had already begun.

So, the one causing the impact wasn't Dr. Sven, but this mad old man? Or perhaps the mad old man wasn't the cause either, but merely the concrete manifestation of the interference?

Looking at the raving mad old man, Lynch recalled the information gathered during their training.

As a landmark feature, this old man had been mentioned in the records of the previous two tests as well. Though not much was written about him, both records agreed on one point: he was one of the seven survivors, and the only survivor with an identifiable role.

That was an extraordinarily unique identity—no less significant than the core figure, Dr. Sven. It was entirely possible that he was a factor influencing the plot's trajectory.

However, why would outside events affect an ancient memory? Weren't these events already fixed in history?

Miss Diana suddenly reached out and grabbed Lynch's wrist, speaking in a low voice: “Unless our arrival ‘this time’ was itself part of the predetermined course all along. Long before this memory was even formed, the seed of ‘this time’s’ change had already been planted, and our decision merely activated it.”

“Planted a seed thousands of years ago for something thousands of years later? And then a decision thousands of years later alters the course of a memory from thousands of years ago?” Lynch gradually understood what his neighbor had really meant. It truly was a bizarre, unfathomable method beyond mortal comprehension. If he couldn't grasp it himself and relied on her to explain, he probably would have annoyed his neighbor to death. “What kind of damned ability could possibly achieve something like that?”

Even as he asked, he already knew the answer. Meanwhile, Officer Natalie swatted away the small hand clutching his wrist and said with a solemn expression, “I understand now. Time. Just like the Milt siblings we met last time—before we said anything, she already knew everything. It's the same here: before we even arrived, he had already foreseen our coming.”

“No, he saw the possibility of our arrival,” Diana said, rubbing the back of her hand with annoyance. “There's a distinction between the two.”

“So after countless times where the mystery relic's uncontrolled state followed its established trajectory, only ‘this time’ when we entered did it activate this special preset reaction.” Lynch quickly straightened out the line of reasoning, though shock still filled his expression. “Whew, I should have realized sooner. He never even tried to hide it. From the very first moment we saw him, he had been displaying his uniqueness and demonstrating his power of time right before our eyes, while I was oblivious like a fool.”

At this moment, the image of a crow capable of transforming into a human flashed through his mind. The problem was that the crow was already a demigod, whereas the figure before them was visibly just an old human man.

No, the two weren't mutually exclusive.

Lynch looked at Judy, as well as those apostles back in Rhine City.

Just because humans couldn't do it didn't mean the evil gods behind them couldn't.

He immediately realized—the endless, multicolored light he had seen on their first night, and the countless gazes concealed within the light, like tens of thousands of unblinking eyes staring at him.

Just like the insignia of myriad eyes he had encountered several times before.

Aside from those who peered into the River of Time, who else could have seen the ending so far in advance?

Aside from that Great Old One, who else could manipulate the concepts of past, present, and future within the palm of his hand—discerning the present from the past and twisting the future?

The supreme existence who perceives all timelines, knows every mystery of the world, and is hailed as the All-Knowing.

Lord of a Billion Radiance.

Yog-Sothoth.

The question was, what was his purpose in suddenly staging this play?

It didn't seem malicious, but... hiss.

Lynch felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, because right as he figured this out, the mad old man atop the grain pile suddenly glanced toward them.

A bizarre smile crept across his filthy face.

As if saying: “There you are. Found you.”