Lemuel sighed. “I won’t lecture you all on your actions, I already did that a while ago. But I want you all to keep in mind that this is meant to be a small outing abroad, and not a place to prove yourselves. The fact you’re on this trip is proof enough that you belong here.”

  “Why can’t it be?” Galas questioned. “They took down a criminal Reina had trouble catching.”

  Mikoko made a motion to speak up, but her big sister stopped her.

  “But they shouldn’t have risked their lives to do so in the first place. If they were forced to, I could understand and I’d even congratulate them. But rushing into danger is foolhardy.”

  “Hypocrite! Hypocrite hypocrite hypocrite!” Galas jeered. “We got into sooo much shit. You forget how many times captain yelled at us?”

  Lemuel rubbed his forehead and sighed what seemed like the deepest sigh ever. Even Mikoko couldn’t dream to match it. Reina however was snickering just a little bit.

  “Don’t act like you’re innocent! You got into trouble too!” Lemuel yelled at her through the screen.

  Reina rolled her eyes and shrugged as if she did nothing wrong.

  Elize popped into view for the briefest moment. “Ahem! The mission briefing.”

  “Yes, yes. I’m sorry for my unprofessional behaviour, everyone. Galas has a tendency of getting under my skin. Now, for the mission briefing. Gal, stay quiet.”

  Lemuel just had to get one last jab in. Galas shrugged at the response, which meant he’d entertain the idea. For a little bit.

  “You all had a hard time in City Verdin, so we thought that we’d give you all an easier time with the next batch of missions,” Lemuel emphasised.

  “We’ll have the next few weeks act as a vacation for you all. Take the time to rest and recover. Handle the missions as you want but only as much as you all can handle.”

  “But you all are hungry for more right?” Galas suddenly asked. “And don’t you want to help your dear old captain Lem?”

  Lemuel’s squad all looked up at Galas, curious to know what he meant. Lemuel himself was just about to say something, but he held back.

  Seeing that he wasn’t going to be interrupted, he continued. “Well, there’s this other City you can go to where we detected some activity from Chimaera.”

  Machia nodded his head knowingly, which caused Machua and Plue to follow suit. The rest of the room other than Reina were a little confused though.

  “You know. The monster tamer organisation Lem’s been cracking down on?”

  The rest of the room shook their head.

  “You just watched Lem and his boys fight their monsters! It’s those guys. You’re gonna go in there and fight those guys.”

  “Hell yeah!” Carmine alone cheered.

  “They won’t,” Lemuel stated. “It’s not a simple hunting mission.”

  “You’re right, Lem. It’s a mission that takes a bit more finesse and you probably won’t be able to avoid combat but do your best.”

  Machia rose from his seat. “Are you trying to use us as bait?”

  “What, no….” Galas tried to laugh off.

  “Yeah, you’re totally right. Well, almost. You all are in a pretty unique spot cause you’re close to Lem, so chances are Chimaera’s gonna try and do something while you’re there. It’d be great if you try to learn whatever you can.”

  “This mission comes with quite some risk as you have just seen,” Lemuel interjected. “And personally, I don’t approve. None of you have gone on an actual mission with either of us, so you don’t know the proper conduct or the safest way to handle this.”

  “Psh, they took down Dalan, they’ll be fine. It’s not like Chimaera’s gonna unleash a horde of monsters in the middle of a City.”

  “That’s not the issue and you know it. I could list a dozen reasons off but you’ve already heard all of them and more from Sienna when you first joined the squad.”

  After a brief stare-down, Galas turned to a particular person.

  “Hey, Rei! Help me out like last time!”

  Reina stifled a laugh as she spoke, “I think the squad’s proven their mettle. They won’t have Koko but if they get a grip and work together they can probably handle it.”

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  Machia twitched at the pointed statement. At this point in time, he had already sat back down.

  “2 vs 1, I win.”

  “Gal, you don’t have the authority to sign off on this if I disagree with your decision. We both have to.”

  “Aw come on. You coddle your daughter too much. If we can solve this faster, you get to go home and have some time to relax. Don’t you want to spend time with your family?” Galas implored.

  Lemuel was holding his head again. After a brief sigh, he relented. “… I’ll discuss it with my team.”

  Lemuel muted his audio and left the screen to do as he said. With him gone, the screen now only showed distant fighting.

  “So, since he can’t hear us, do we wanna have ourselves a vote?” Galas raised a finger as he asked. “It’s a bit unfair if we decide without you all right?”

  Plue nodded emphatically at the idea. It was clear that she had agreed with Galas more than her father, but now that her opinion mattered, it was all the more obvious to everyone.

  “Everyone, I really think we should go investigate Chimaera. If we can help papa and the rest it’ll make Erelier a safer place. And I know we can do it, we beat up Dalan before, so what’s stopping us now?” Plue rallied.

  “Good, good!” Galas cheered. “Alright, raise of hands everyone! Who wants to go hunt down some monsters and some other guys too!”

  Plue stretched her hand up as high as she could. When she looked around though, only Carmine raised her hand as well.

  Rasa spoke before anyone else did. “Ah, I do not have a preference. I’ll go with what everyone wants.”

  “Machu, you don’t want to go?” Plue asked.

  Machua didn’t expect her voice to get that tiny bit trembly, so she felt worse than she expected.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to go, it’s that I don’t… really know what to expect. I don’t even know which City we’d be going to.”

  Machia nodded along with her answer.

  “Ah, that’s an easy fix! That City’s name is…” Galas paused for effect. “Aramaya City.”

  Machua took a deep breath reflexively when she heard its name.

  ‘Now that brings back a lot of memories.’

  Aramaya City was a Mobile City, built on tracks that could move from area to area. Mobile Cities were originally devised as a way to avoid monsters and disasters but this City was built for the purpose of excavation and extraction of ancient technologies, materials and even artefacts. It would travel and settle beside historical ruins, ancient battlefields or even monster nests, all to allow its Hunters to scavenge whatever they could find. As a result, it was a bustling City that dealt with a lot of imports and exports.

  Aramaya also happened to be one of the first Cities Machua had visited during her trip abroad. It was a City that held very important memories for her, both good and bad. It had totally broken her down, only to raise her back up.

  Machua looked at Machia thoughtfully. It was when she felt a squeeze on her hand that she realised he had been holding her hand the entire time she was lost in thought. She squeezed back.

  And then she raised their hands up high!

  “We’d like to go too!”

  “H-hey!” Machia, being suddenly caught off-guard, almost fell out of his chair.

  “Whoo, that’s almost all of you!” Galas exclaimed. “Mikoko, you’re last!”

  Mikoko made a bewildered face and pointed to herself. “Me?“

  “Yes, you!

  “I’m not a member of this squad.”

  “You’re close enough. Just say yes or no.”

  “It’s an almost unanimous vote, it doesn’t matter what my deci-“

  “Yes or no!”

  “…Yes.”

  “And that’s a unanimous vote, now let’s plan out a way to present our decision to Lem. I’ll start with yelling at him, and then you all can jump in when I’m done,” Galas suggested like it was normal.

  Sound returned to Lemuel’s video feed, almost as if he heard what was going to happen. “I’ve decided that it’s up to you all. If you choose to refrain, then I wish you all a good vacation. If you choose to take this mission, then I wish you all to stay safe.”

  “Aw, not even an ‘I wish you all a good hunt?’”

  “Shut it.”

  ———————————————————————

  “It was really good to meet you, Miko! I hope we see each other again,” Machua looked back at her.

  The rest of us had already boarded the airship and said our goodbyes. I was watching the two from the flight deck while I checked my phone from time to time.

  “It was nice to meet you as well, Machua. I live in Erelier with Reina, though I often join her abroad, so we might not see each other often. But I’m sure we can make time.”

  “That sounds great! I’d love to get to know you better so let’s meet soon. See ya, Miko!”

  Mikoko waved goodbye to Machu as she dashed into the airship. She looked up to see me and her small smile turned into a tired frown. She begrudgingly waved goodbye at me too.

  I wasn’t worried about her not liking me, I understood why she didn’t. And anyway that wasn’t much of an issue, I’d just leave her to Machua. I was going to leave her well alone since she could handle herself, though I did have one thought in my mind.

  ‘She’s okay with Miko already? It took me months to get her to let me call her that…’

  I… was a little, tiny bit miffed. Just a bit.

  “Hey, Machi. You’ve got to head inside and take a seat, we’re taking off soon,” a masculine voice came from beside me.

  My face instinctively turned to a smile. It was Ernest. He was wearing a flight attendant’s uniform, so he wasn’t quite there yet, but he was slated to go to flight school in a few months. In the meantime, he was working as a flight attendant to get a feel for working on an airship.

  “I’ll be there, don’t worry. You know how fast I can be.”

  “Just doing my job, man. Oh, and I already gave the extra snacks to Plue, so make sure you grab them from her. See ya later,” Ernest informed as he left my side to go tell the other passengers.

  My smile didn’t last long. The reason for that being that my phone popped up with a message. It was Elize. It was one simple sentence.

  She had said, ‘Do remember our conversation.’

  I sighed a bit at that. The night after the end of that fateful mission, after we had all written our reports and sent it to her, she had given me a phone call. She didn’t say much, but she made it very clear that she expected me to do better. I should have shut down the idea of chasing Dalan. She didn’t expect me to defeat Dalan, as she said that it would be unreasonable for her to. Still, the fact I had let the squad even encounter him in the first place was a mistake. She warned me that our collaboration could have ended right then and there if someone on the squad had died. Her final words were a simple encouragement to do better.

  I knew this was coming, so I wasn’t too hurt by it. Still, it brought to mind the series of decisions I made that led up to that disaster. It made me wonder if my carefully laid out plans were all flawed. If I couldn’t even handle a threat like Dalan by myself what hope did I have that all my other plans would go smoothly?

  I sighed deeply. Maybe my plans all needed a massive rework. Was a year not long enough to plan everything? Did I need more time?

  ‘Aaaarghhh! I wish I could go out there and do all those missions. Save all those people, change all these events. Clear everything out in one go.’

  But I couldn’t even consider myself strong. I didn’t have the strength or the resources to change everything into a happy ending. I couldn’t change events too drastically, otherwise I would lack the power to correct them if they went wrong. That was what got me injured however. So, a part of me thought that maybe I should be trying to do the opposite. Gain as much advantage as I could while I could. If I changed an event, I’d just have to face it head-on and turn it into a good ending.

  ‘I just wish I had someone else to look over these plans… So that I know I’m doing a good job.’

  There was… one person. One person I wanted to tell this to the most, who could evaluate my plans the best. If Kalina, the world’s only Time Aspected, knew, she would be able to tell me what was wrong and what was right. She would know what the best path forward was.

  ‘… Still, it’s not like it’ll be easy to convince her. Kalina’s probably the hardest person to convince about this. I guess her granny might be harder to convince.’

  I clasped her pocket watch that I always carried. This was my ace in the hole to convince her. My absolute trump card. The irrefutable fact that proved that I was a regressor.

  I knew for a fact that she had her own Durante separate from mine. There was no way to replicate Durante. Inside it was a piece of Shial Park’s Time Halo, and thus, you would need to somehow replicate the body part of the Time Angel. It was perhaps the most impossible thing in the world. I did wonder if Kalina would deny that my Durante was real. The Second Hand in it was inert after all, it didn’t have much power in it. But it had enough to the point anyone could tell it was special.

  I didn’t take it out, there were people on the flight deck. But whenever it ticked, I could feel a ripple through my body. The half of the Second Hand functioned as Durante’s hour hand, so it only moved every hour. But each and every hour reminded me that this thing was an artefact. Every hour, every ripple made me feel as if I was being watched. Judged. Was it, maybe he, repulsed by me? By the fact that I was somehow a second regressor?

  ‘Well, it’s not like it can do anything. The Time Halo doesn’t have a will, otherwise it wouldn’t have let Kalina turn back time. And it wouldn’t let itself fall into the hands of Qliphoth.’

  I decided to stop thinking about it. I had thought about it almost every day at this point. After all, it did define my life now. As for City Aramaya… it was a City we absolutely had to go to. I would have tried to persuade everyone as hard as I could. After all…

  Kalina was there.