Domain of time
Michael’s eyes flew wide open. He gasped for air, his hands clutching his own chest. His heart was beating so violently it hurt.
He looked around in panic. The same cave corridor. The same moss. The same view of Ellian’s back.
He was back again.
Red text floated at the edge of his vision.
[Death Confirmed.]
[Activating Rewind.]
[Cost: 10 Years of Future.]
[Remaining Lifespan: 13 Hours 55 Minutes.]
Michael read the text while holding his breath. Ten years? He had just lost ten years of his life just to return to a single minute earlier?
"Hey! Are you deaf?"
Ellian turned around again. The scene replayed exactly as before.
Michael knew he couldn’t kill Ellian. The gap in their power was far too great. He also knew he couldn’t enter that room.
So there was only one choice. Run.
Without answering Ellian’s shout, Michael dropped the heavy pack from his back and turned around. He ran as fast as he could toward the Dungeon exit, roughly two kilometers behind them.
"Huh? He ran?" Ellian’s voice sounded shocked behind him. "Catch him! We need bait!"
Michael forced his weak legs to move. Run. Run. Run.
However, a sharp whistling sound cut through the air behind him.
It was the sound of an arrow.
One of Ellian’s party members was a Ranger.
Thud!
A burning sensation pierced Michael’s back. He stumbled and fell face-first into the muddy ground. He tried to get up, but his legs wouldn’t move. The arrow had severed his spinal nerves.
He heard footsteps approaching. The Ranger stood over him, drawing a dagger.
"Sorry, kid. Leader’s orders," the Ranger said coldly.
The dagger came down. Darkness arrived again.
Tick.
Tock.
"Hey, Porter. Pick up the pace. We’re almost at the Boss room."
Michael vomited.
The contents of his stomach, nothing but acidic liquid, spilled across the cave floor. The dizziness caused by repeated temporal displacement began to gnaw at his sanity.
[Death Confirmed.]
[Activating Rewind.]
[Cost: 10 Years of Future.]
[Remaining Lifespan: 3 Hours 55 Minutes.]
Only three hours left. Or maybe less, since this system seemed to take a “large cut” every time he died.
He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t run.
"What are you doing? That’s disgusting," Ellian said, staring at Michael’s vomit with a sour expression.
Michael looked up. Tears and mucus mixed on his filthy face. He looked at Michel, the Healer. She was his last remaining hope.
"Miss Michel," Michael’s voice was hoarse and desperate. "Please. Don’t go in there. There’s a Rank A monster inside. We’ll all die. I’m begging you, believe me."
Michel looked at him. Doubt flickered in her eyes for a moment. "Rank A? How would you know? We haven’t even opened the door yet."
"I saw it! I’ve already seen it twice!" Michael screamed hysterically. "A Chimera! A lion’s head and a goat’s head! Please listen to me!"
"He’s crazy," Ellian cut in. He walked over and kicked Michael in the ribs. "He’s just scared and making things up so we’ll cancel this raid. What a coward."
"No! I’m serious! Just check the energy! Miss Michel, you have a detection skill, right?"
Michel hesitated. She raised her staff. "Maybe we should check it briefly, Sir Ellian. Just to be safe..."
Ellian shot Michel a sharp glare. "Are you questioning my instincts? We’re already here. If we retreat now, other guilds will laugh at us."
Ellian grabbed Michael by the throat and lifted him high into the air. Michael’s feet dangled helplessly.
"Since you already know there’s a monster inside, you must be happy to be the first one to greet it," Ellian snarled.
Ellian threw Michael toward the stone door. This time, he didn’t even bother opening it carefully. He slammed Michael’s body into the door’s opening mechanism.
The door opened. Michael fell inside.
The Chimera immediately spewed flames.
Michael burned alive. His scream echoed briefly before his lungs were reduced to ash.
Tick.
Tock.
"Hey, Porter. Pick up the pa—"
Ellian’s voice sounded distant. Like it was coming from underwater.
Michael stood still. He didn’t vomit. He didn’t run. He didn’t attack.
His eyes were empty.
He looked at the red text before him.
[Death Confirmed.]
[Warning: Remaining Lifespan Insufficient for Full Rewind.]
[Remaining Lifespan: -6 Years (Time Debt).]
[User Soul Sustaining Structural Damage.]
He had died three times in less than five minutes of real time, but to him it felt like hours of torment.
He lowered his gaze to the pocket watch in his hand. The object vibrated with heat, as if it were angry. The cracks in its glass spread wider. Michael’s blood clinging to it seemed to boil.
What was the point of returning if it only meant dying again?
This fate felt absolute. He was an E-Rank Porter. He was bait. He was a corpse.
The system was broken. He was broken.
"Hey! Are you deaf?"
That line again. The sentence that would haunt him all the way to hell.
Suddenly, the world around Michael flickered. Like a television screen losing signal. Colors distorted. Ellian’s voice turned into a painful digital glitch.
"Hey! Are you d-d-d-dea-ea-eaf..."
Time stopped. Not completely, but it stuttered. Dust floating in the air froze. Ellian’s half-open mouth froze mid-motion.
A new dialog box appeared. This time it wasn’t red, but pitch black with golden letters pulsing like a heartbeat.
[Chronos System Detects Paradox.]
[User Trapped in Absolute Death Loop.]
[Conventional Solutions: Unavailable.]
[Searching for Alternative Solution...]
Michael stared at the text with dull curiosity. Had he gone insane?
[Solution Found: Overclocking.]
A mechanical voice echoed directly inside Michael’s skull. It didn’t sound like a machine, but like thousands of clocks ticking at once.
"User," the voice spoke. "You do not have the power to change this fate. You are too weak. You are too slow. You are poor."
Michael wanted to laugh, but his lips were stiff. "I know," he thought.
"But you possess one thing of value. You possess despair. And you possess access to the Domain of Time."
The golden screen shifted shape, displaying a contract.
[Special Offer]
[System will lend the power 'Chrono-Stasis' (Absolute Time Suspension).]
[Power Duration: 5 Seconds.]
[Cost: 50 Years of Future.]
[Note: This cost will be taken from your maximum lifespan potential. If accepted, you will age instantly and your remaining life will be drastically reduced.]
Michael read it.
Fifty years.
That was the rest of a normal life. He could marry, have children, grow old, and die peacefully within those fifty years.
But what was the point of fifty years if he was going to die one minute from now?
What was the point of a future when his present was hell?
He looked at Ellian’s frozen face. That arrogant face that had killed him three times. The face of someone who considered Michael’s life worth less than trash.
Cold hatred crawled up from Michael’s stomach. It wasn’t a raging fire, but sharp, lethal ice.
"Five seconds," Michael murmured softly in the frozen world.
Just five seconds.
Enough to run? No.
Enough to hide? No.
Enough to kill.
Michael didn’t need a future where he lived as a traumatized loser. He needed a present where he won.
"Hey, system," Michael said. His voice was calm, terrifying. "Take it. Take everything."
[Transaction Accepted.]
[Processing Payment...]
Pain far greater than death slammed into Michael’s body.
It felt as if every cell in his body were being drained dry. His skin felt like it was shriveling. His bones ached as if consumed by age. Sections of his messy black hair turned silver-white.
His strength was drained, but at the same time, a new and unfamiliar energy flooded his veins. An energy that felt cold and heavy.
Time Energy.
[Unique Skill Unlocked: Chrono-Stasis.]
[Time has been stopped for the entire universe except the User.]
[Countdown Initiated: 5...]
The world regained its color, but everything was still. Ellian was still. Michel was still. Droplets of water in the cave hung frozen in midair.
Michael moved.
He no longer felt pain in his legs. Adrenaline and the power of time pushed his body beyond ordinary human limits.
He didn’t run away.
He stepped forward toward Ellian.
Michael stared into Ellian’s frozen eyes. He could see his own reflection there. A young man with partially whitened hair and eyes glowing with a terrifying pale blue light.
[4...]
Michael reached into Ellian’s pocket. He didn’t take money or jewelry.
He took the military dagger hanging at Ellian’s waist. A dagger made of Mythril, a metal capable of piercing monster hide.
[3...]
Michael forcibly twisted Ellian’s body. He positioned the guild leader to face the stone door.
[2...]
Michael walked to the stone door. He didn’t open it. He knew the mechanism.
He looked at the small gap between the stone door’s hinges. A gap where poisonous gas from inside seeped out.
Michael held his breath.
[1...]
He aimed the dagger. Not at Ellian.
But at the Chimera’s eye, which he knew was peering through the gap behind the darkness. He remembered the eye’s position from his second death. That was where he had been eaten.
He knew the monster was there, waiting for prey to enter.
Michael hurled the dagger with all his newfound strength through the hinge gap.
At the same time, he kicked the back of Ellian’s knee as hard as he could, forcing him to drop to his knees directly in front of the door.
[0.]
[Time Resumed.]
Wuuusssh!
The world exploded back into motion.
"Hey, Porter. Pick up—"
Ellian’s sentence was cut short, not because he stopped speaking, but because he pitched forward as Michael’s kick, delivered in the frozen moment, finally took effect.
Thud!
The sound of flesh being pierced came from behind the stone door. It was followed by a roar so loud it shook the entire cave.
"GRAAAAAH!"
The dagger had hit its mark.
The Chimera inside went berserk, one of its eyes blinded by an unseen attack.
"What?! What happened?!" Ellian screamed in panic, trying to rise from his kneeling position.
Michael stood behind them all. His breathing was heavy, white vapor pouring from his mouth as if he were standing in the middle of a snowstorm. His body felt brittle, like that of a frail old man, yet he stood upright.
The stone door cracked.
The wounded, raging Chimera didn’t wait for its prey to enter.
The monster smashed through the door from the inside.
BLAAAM!
Stone fragments flew. Dust billowed thickly.
And from within the dust, a massive claw shot out, lashing blindly at everything in front of it.
The nearest target was the man kneeling before the door.
Ellian.
"Sir Ellian! Watch out!" Michel screamed.
But it was too late.
The Chimera’s claw slammed into Ellian’s body, hurling him into the cave wall with a deeply satisfying crunch. His silver armor was horribly dented.
Chaos erupted instantly.
"Enemy attack! Defensive formation!" one of the party members shouted.
But Michael didn’t care. He slowly retreated into the shadows of the stalagmites. He stared at his hands, now wrinkled and trembling.
"Congratulations, you have sold 50 years of your future for 5 seconds of absolute power," Michael whispered to himself, mimicking the system’s words.
He watched the chaos unfold before him. Ellian vomited blood, trying to stand. The Chimera crawled out of its lair, its left eye impaled by the Mythril dagger, black blood pouring out.
The monster didn’t look at Michael. The monster only saw the Hunters, glowing brightly with mana.
Michael smiled faintly. The smile of
an old man on a young face.
