Nihility [ Isekai • Dragon Evolution ]

Two days passed like a blur, filled with exams and other medical things that I didn't know enough to understand happening around me with the same intensity as that of a beehive. I wasn't sure I liked the attention I was currently receiving. I even heard some of the medical staff saying I was going to be their next thesis.

Before I could decide if it was worth being here or not, I felt my muscles tense up, and sweat started forming on my back. My heart started to beat faster and faster until I felt it would leap from my own chest. I hadn't noticed before, I was completely wrapped in Jack's magicule pulse. It was so thick I could almost drown in it.

The door to my room exploded open, revealing Jack pulling back his leg after he used it to kick de door open. We locked eyes, and my mind went blank. All I could do was stare at him wide-eyed, directly into his own eyes, eyes that were filled with barely contained hatred, fury, and disgust.

I didn't even notice when the loop restarted, but the moment I was back at the inn's room, I ran to the bathroom, my body screaming in protest, and threw up in the sink. My body had transformed back into my true form when the loop triggered, and if it wasn't for that and my four members on the ground, I would be falling right now. Everything was spinning around me, and it took everything I had to not fall.

It was with great effort that I managed to place my head beneath the shower and open it to let the cold water rush down and hit me. It took me several minutes to recompose myself.

"This is awful," I said to myself. "This whole situation is awful. I can't fucking do anything without being frozen by Jack's mere presence, what the fuck is happening?"

I would love to ask [Knowledge Library] about this, but whenever I thought about using it, I could feel a sharp pain in my soul. It seemed that the area around that skill took the brunt of the damage. Effectively, I was locked out of it, meaning I couldn't just ask whatever it is connected to for answers.

I sighed heavily. As the loop took the weight of actually dying from my shoulders, it put everything else on there. What if I never entered this loop? Would I be able to escape Jack like I did before?

I knew asking these questions would amount to nothing, I was already inside of the time loop, my soul was already damaged. But still, I couldn't help but think about these questions.

I turned the water off. I wouldn't get better than this by just lying down on the bathroom floor with water running down my head, no matter how much I wished for.

I returned to the best with slow steps, already dreading what was about to come. I picked up a pillow and placed it on my mouth before triggering [Genetic Dysphoria]. Immediately, I felt like I was being injected with molten metal, and my soul was being put in a blender.

My screams were muffled by the pillow, but it didn't last long as my sharp teeth tore through the fragile fabric of the pillow, and my body melted and reformed into the black cat person I needed to be able to walk through the city.

If it wasn't for the fact that I needed to do this to walk through the city, I wouldn't put myself in this hell. I kept checking my HP during the transformation to see if it was furthering the damage I already had, but thankfully, my HP didn't decrease a single point.

After the transformation was completed, I collapsed on the bed, drooling as I recovered mentally from the amount of pain. I spat the remains of the pillow that was still inside my mouth.

After several minutes I got up, my legs still weak, and walked to the outside of the inn. This time, though, when people asked if I needed help or offered to help me to go the hospital, I refused.

I had already gone there in the last loop, and it didn't help. They simply didn't have enough time to actually start helping me before Jack arrived and killed me. I didn't even receive the results of the multitude of exams I had taken before Jack arrived. The only information I had on my actual condition was that it was bad, and only that.

I walked painfully slowly through the streets, taking heavy breaths between each step, and before I knew it, I was in a more secluded alley. When I noticed where I was, I groaned in frustration.

It seemed like those guys were back for revenge, probably. I didn't know if– I felt something hitting the back of my head, and everything went dark.

I woke up coughing, and some blood dripped out of my mouth. It took me a moment to regain my breath and take a look at my surroundings.

I was in what looked like a prison cell, you'd imagine from the medieval ages. With it, I could feel a weak field disrupting my magicules. It was very weak, but currently, I was weaker. I couldn't even activate [Time Manipulation] for me to manually trigger the loop reset. I was stuck wherever I was.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

I could feel my heart pounding from whatever hit me from behind. Putting my hand on the area made me flinch from the pain, thankfully, there wasn't blood on my hand, but I couldn't ignore the possibility of it being infected.

I got up from the ground and looked through the cell bars. I saw more cells like mine in a corridor that seemed to extend beyond my ability to see through the very dim light of the corridor. [Genetic Dysphoria]'s DNA list tells me that my current species should have a racial skill called [Heightened Senses], but it wasn't active at the moment, and I doubted I could activate it, even if I wanted to.

"Hello?" I shouted, but no one answered me.

"So I'm alone," I said more to myself than anything.

I looked around my cell, finding a stone bench and what looked like a primitive toilet that was just a hole in the ground. I was already missing the inn's room.

I went to the bench and lay there. I didn't know where I was, nor when someone would appear, so I would do the only thing that I could, wait until someone showed up while I stared at my status screen.

It was at least several hours before someone showed up. The only reason I didn't fall asleep was because of the pain in my head from whatever hit me. At least it was slowly fading, and my HP was ticking up to where it was before I was kidnapped.

I heard the steps a few seconds before a lion person appeared in front of my cell and stopped, looking at me.

"Look at who's awake," his voice was deep and rough, which was explained a moment later when he pulled what looked like a cigar and lit it up by snapping his finger and producing a small flame between his fingers. "You caused some serious damage to some of my boys, you know?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," I lied. Of course, I knew. He was talking about the group that tried to kidnap me before, the same ones I used as guinea pigs and cut their legs off.

"Oh no, I think we mistook you for another person. I am sorry," he said, but after a breath, he started laughing. "Was that what you were expecting me to say? We already confirmed it was your aura signature, although they said yours was a little erratic."

"What do you mean?" Aura signature? Is this the name of the magicule pulse everyone has? Farahio said he had recognized me in my true form through my aura.

He took a breath from the cigar before puffing out a smoke ring from his mouth. The smoke had an electric spark running through it before it dissipated.

"It cost a lot to have their legs fixed, you know?" He said, ignoring my question. "I hope you understand that you will have to pay for that."

"And how would I pay for that?" I asked.

"I can think of a few ways," he said, eyeing me from head to toes. "Some are less lawful than others."

"What if I refuse?"

He laughed and then started walking back to where he came from. "You don't have a choice."

He left, and I was left alone in the cell again.

I tried to pull [Magical Programming Language], but the editor was basically unreadable from the interference. I was stuck here until I could trigger the loop reset manually or…

I placed my hand on my neck, and the sensation of the cold metal from Jack's sword still hadn't faded completely. I could feel my fur along my back, and my arms stood on end from just the memory of him.

I looked at the cell door. If he thinks I'll be doing anything for him, he is wrong, I thought to myself. The moment I was able to, I would trigger the loop and restart everything. I just needed to wait. This is the perfect place for me to say that I have all the time in the world, because I did. It wasn't pleasant, far from it, but at the end of the day, nothing I did during the loops mattered.

…

…

..

Okay, I want to get out of this place. It's been almost a day already, I think. I don't have a way to keep track of time properly. There were no windows here, and I couldn't use [Mathematical Cortex] to count the seconds I've stayed here.

Thankfully, I heard steps coming my way after a few more minutes. A group of thug looking people appeared, a mix between humans, elves, dog people, and one smaller one that I would say was a dwarf.

"The boss wants to see you," the leader of the group said, unlocking the cell. If I could I would have jumped at them right there, but my muscles still screamed at me from every movement. I was dragged out of the cell and I saw the dwarf going to place what looked like a metal collar around my neck, and I had read too many DC comics to know that collar was a type of dampening for magic powers.

I began struggling against the people holding me, but I was too weak to do anything, but my true focus wasn't on physical struggle. I was trying hard to activate [Time Manipulation].

I could feel the resistance from the field keeping me from accessing my skills and magic, but I kept pushing, even hurting my soul a bit more in the process, but I successfully activated it, for a single second, but that was all I needed.

As the skill activated, I pulled on the temporal thread around me, vibrating it and triggering the loop. Everything froze around me for a few seconds before everything started to go backwards as if someone had hit the rewind button.

It rewound for a lot longer than the others times, meaning Jack was already looking for me, probably.

When the reset finished and I was back on the inn's bed, I gave out a long sigh and closed my eyes, the pain on the back of my head that kept me awake in that prison cell never actually happened, just the memory of it.

I eventually fell asleep in bed.