Time Looped

The response was exactly what Will expected. It was a good thing they had responded at all. Originally, he had planned to send more messages pushing for a meeting. Thankfully, he wasn't going to have to.

Will sent the message, then began his trip to the respective mirror.

Long distance travelling in the mirror real was very different than moving around in the real world. There was nothing to serve as a landmark, only mirrors sandwiched in-between layers of whiteness. The fragment map was of some help displaying Will's location in real-world terms, but even then, it was necessary to glance through mirrors as the boy passed by.

On the way, Will had passed through the mall to try and claim a few more classes. As he quickly found out, class claiming was only possible from the proper side of the mirror. That limited his options, since he didn't want to appear in enemy nests for the moment.

The radio tower, in contrast, didn't have a single class mirror. Apparently, the archer hadn't moved it from its original place. Ordinary mirrors, though, remained abundant, especially in the elevator.

Normally, the chance of anyone responding to such a vague and shady request would be less than three percent. Knowing the archer's nature, Will had no doubt that she would appear. She was going to be careful about it. Thankfully, Will knew exactly what she looked like. Standing in front of the elevator mirror, he stood and waited for the archer to appear, and eventually she did.

The moment the doors closed, Will made his move.

"Hi," he said within the mirror.

There was no reaction. Despite all the skills she had obtained, the ability to see through concealment wasn't among them. That made this version weaker than Ely, and by extension, Danny.

Here goes nothing. Will walked into the mirror.

The reaction was immediate. In the blink of an eye, the archer drew her bow out of the mirror fragment and shot an arrow in his direction.

The arrow missed, smashing the mirror. It was an impressive show of force, which Will felt obliged to respond to.

Brushing against several of the mirror fragments, he used his thief skills, creating three mirror copies. Taking advantage of the tight space, each grabbed an arm of the woman, along with the bow.

"Wait," Will said in a firm tone. "Look down."

The archer did. The jaws of a wolf had emerged on both sides of her left foot.

"You're Lucia," Will began. "The reason you became the archer is to avenge your brother.' He paused. "You think Daniel Keen killed him?"

"I know he did," she said in defiance. The girl was smart enough to know not to struggle, but she hadn't loosened her grip on the bow, either. "I saw him."

"I'm here to help you with that."

A glint of curiosity flashed in her eyes. It was followed by deep disbelief, then doubt, and finally fear.

"He's dead to reality," she said. "I was there when it happened."

"He was. Now he's back." Got you. "Check if you want."

The mirror copies let go. Will was gambling that the archer had a fragment ability that allowed her to check such information. He proved correct. Still holding her bow, Lucia scrolled through her fragment. It was impossible to see what exactly she was doing, though her expression spoke volumes. After several seconds, she stopped.

"How?" she asked directly.

"He used an item to swap places with Ely the knight. She's out. He's back in."

This was the moment of truth. The archer was the type of person to focus on a specific goal, but Lucia was also seen to lash out at people when angry. Even before Will knew of her existence, the girl had tried to kill him, destroying parts of the school in the process. There was a point at which he thought it extreme for her to target him just because he was a rogue. Now he understood why. If she had seen Danny be kicked out and return again, it was logical to assume that the next rogue might also be him.

Keeping track with loops and time jumps was starting to get complicated. No wonder the guide had warned him against using the clairvoyant class.

The archer's bow spun around. With lethal precision, it hit each of the mirror copies, causing all of them to shatter. During the entire attack, Will remained perfectly calm. He could see that none of the attacks were directed at him and wanted to maintain the illusion that he was stronger that he actually was.

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"Let's talk," the archer said.

"You pick the place." Will looked at the shattered mirror. There would be hell to explain all that, and even if it was only for one loop, he didn't appreciate the idea of going to jail.

"Here."

"And your brother?"

The archer glared at him as if he had just uttered a threat.

"Your younger brother," Will quickly clarified. "Won't he be joining us?"

"Why would he?"

Definitely not the response Will was expecting. It would be understandable if she didn't want to get Luke involved. And yet, the way she said it suggested more; almost as if her brother didn't have any business in such a meeting.

"Won't he want to get involved?" Will tested the waters.

"No," the archer said sharply.

"He's not part of eternity?"

The archer pressed the top floor bottom.

"No."

That was a strange twist. In Will's future, Luke had been an enchanter for quite some time. There was always a chance that he had stumbled into eternity on his own. Will didn't believe that to be the case. He also didn't believe that the archer was lucky enough to stumble upon a weapon to kill Danny. The way he saw things, before taking on the archer class, Lucia had been the enchanter. As a result, she had the skills not only to use the bow, but enchant it as well. If he was right, it also meant that she was a lot more protected than one might think.

Clever, Will said to himself. She hadn't walked blindly into his trap, but brought her own along. Will glanced over the clothes and pieces of jewelry on her. Each of them potentially had a class inside. If the conversation hadn't gone the way she liked, Will's loop would have violently ended here and now.

As the elevator kept ascending, Lucia took a quarter from her pocket and placed it in the corner of the mirror.

The missing pieces of glass were instantly filled in, making the mirror seem whole again. It was a temporary measure, of course. In an hour, reality would return to the cabin. By then, Will and Lucia would be far away.

"What's your plan?" she asked.

"Same as yours," he replied. "Enchant an arrow, get Danny in a tight spot, and shoot him."

The woman crossed her arms.

"It worked before." Will had seen it happen firsthand. "Besides, he doesn't have Ely to protect him anymore."

"Precisely."

Reaching the top floor, the elevator doors opened. The archer patiently waited for it to close again, then passed the second-floor button. The doors closed again.

"The bastard's arrogant, not stupid," she continued. "He won't go back there until he's found someone new to guard him."

"Then we go to him."

"Are you with the necromancer?"

This was the second time Will had been asked whether he worked for someone else. Part of him felt flattered by the attention. He also felt slightly insulted at being viewed as a mid-tier henchman.

"No." He did his best to smile. "I'm solo."

The girl's lips tightened.

Is that so hard to believe? Will wondered.

"While he's at the school, he's protected," the archer said. "If he triggers another tutorial phase, I can't touch him."

That wasn't the impression Will had about her. His own tutorial phase hadn't stopped the archer from destroying the skills multiple times in attempts to kill him. If Alex and Helen were to be believed, she had done the same thing multiple times before.

A message appeared on the mirror. The notion sent shockwaves through Will's mind. If reflections were exempt, did that mean that he was the one shooting at himself? In a boring ordinary life, people would call this a time paradox and discuss the impossibility of the occurrence. When he was younger, the topic was particularly popular when discussing sci-fi shows and school-level science. It was no longer theoretical now.

Shit! Will clenched his fists in an effort not to faint. Had he just been turned into a paradox? Helen was adamant that the archer was male, and it was clear that wasn't the case. Everything suggested that it had been him.

"I can't fail…" Will whispered.

The archer gave him a strange look.

The message appeared on the mirror.

"You're too confident," Lucia said.

"I'm not," Will replied, trying to chase the thoughts out of his mind. This was the worst time for his mind to get bogged down with paradoxes. Ironically, a voice in the back of his mind kept on whispering that all that was part of the paradox. "I'm exempt. I can attack him. I just need a permakill weapon."

Lucia pressed the stop button. The elevator cabin shook as the inertia of their descent was interrupted.

Will reached for his mirror fragment, while the shadow beneath the archer's foot thickened, as the shadow wolf was ready to spring into an attack.

"You don't have a permakill?" she asked.

Will remained silent. He didn't want to get into the details. It was embarrassing admitting that he had lost the weapon he had been given. The entire reason he had gone to Lucia was in the hope that she could provide him a replacement.

"We're fucked," Lucia said. "I can't give you a permakil weapon."

"Why?"

"Rule breaking skills are only found in the reward phase. And there can't be a reward phase without the full set of participants. Until all the slots are filled up, and there aren't any others missing, we'll never get one."

"I've never heard that before." Will took out his mirror fragment.

Nothing of the sort was mentioned in any of the gathered hints. According to eternity's own explanations, the reward phase was reserved for the top ten survivors of the contest phase, including participants from other realities. Then, it suddenly hit him. What if all the slots had been filled when the message was sent?

"It wouldn't be the first time. When the mage got killed, we had to skip a few cycles. The only reason I became the new archer was to get my chance to kill that bastard off."

"Shit!" Will slammed the cabin wall with both hands. Things had gotten a lot messier. He knew from his past-future experience that Danny would have Alex and Helen join eternity. That still left the crafter.

"We can rely on luck. Hidden challenges drop useful skills, but finding their requirements is worse and still relies on luck."

In the end, it always came down to luck, luck and skills. From everything that had been said so far, it was clear that Will wasn't in condition to take Danny on, let alone remove him from eternity again.

"Other than that, can you back me up?" he asked.

"Out of his zone, yes."

Will nodded. Over ninety loops remained until the contest phase. It wasn't much, but he had a lot more skills than before. More importantly, he knew that it was possible. Even if the guide had told him he could fail, his own experience had shown that there was a way to success. He only had to find it. If not, he had no idea what would happen.

"Who's the enchanter?" he asked.

"There's no enchanter." Lucia looked him in the eyes. "I sacrificed him to get my permakill."

That opened one more slot, but it also gave Will a new option.

"Where's the mirror?"