THE CURSED GAMER

Chapter 472: The Truth?

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How long did they continue for? At their power level, they could have continued for years. Thankfully, Neji had the sense to stop after a few days. Now he lay by her side near the tree roots, both stark naked and staring at the cosmos above. 

The hut was destroyed at one point, so they had no choice but to rest outside. While they did that, with Lady Life’s head on his chest, as she relaxed into his embrace, Neji decided to check his Status for the first time in a while.

===

[        —Status Page—            ]

Name: Neji Hado

Age: 17

Level: 17676

-

Class: Voidmancer

Sub-Class: Lumomancer

Title: Harem  Lord

Race: [Draconic High Human]

-

HP: 598120

SP: 553520

MP: 7565200

-

STR: 58352

END: 59812

DEX: 55352

INT: 75652

WIS: 55852

CHA: 55897

LUC: ##### (Temporarily Overloaded)

-

HP REG: 239248

SP REG: 221408

MP REG: 2234080

Stat Points: 0

===

His Luck Stat was overloaded from the stunt that Lady Luck pulled, and he was sure that had improved his encounters a lot. Who knows, maybe he’d have been enslaved by Fotia for a longer time if he didn’t have it?

Also, he felt complicated about his Level. [Level 17676] was an insane number, but it wasn’t helping him against these Abstract Entities and those beyond. He had to farm other kinds of powers, though that left few options since he was Nigh Omnipotence.

“So, what was that power?” as if to imply what power he should pursue, Lady Life laid on his side and asked, pointing at the sky with a finger. She meant the Eros Icon.

Icons, indeed. He should be pursuing those starting from now on. But her question made him tilt his head. [You don't know what an Icon is?]

“An Icon? No?” she asked in a more confused tone than him.

Neji blinked. He suddenly remembered what the Director said during the most recent war when she came to stop the Godmother from killing him. She had said, “Even if he did choose the Demon Path, it'd have been impossible to get a synchronization of 100% since my husband didn't have access to Icons.”

The Lady Life from the future then mentioned that the Icons didn't even exist when the First Gamer was alive, and that it was introduced ages after his death. But here, Neji clearly had access to the Icons. 

In that case… how?

‘Hey, Sisty?’

[Yes, Master. Unfortunately, I'm just as clueless as you are. Sorry…]

Neji smiled in his head, ‘It's alright, you have done nothing to apologize.’ Rather, he focused on thinking on his own.

A minute later, Neji had a realization. 

Since the Icons came from the two Beyond Omnipotence, who were beyond this Omniversal temporal line too, from their perspective they have already introduced the Icons to this Omniverse. Since they did that on a greater wave of time, the Icons have been introduced in this Omniverse anyway, even if a lower wave of time –this Omniverse’s time– has been rolled back.

Whatever action the Beyond Omnipotence was to take, there shouldn’t be a need to repeat it.

One easier way to explain this would be, if Neji connected an external harddrive to his Windows 11 PC, it would have all the harddrive’s contents as long as the cable remained connected. Even if he were to downgrade the Windows 11 to Windows 7, it's not as if the harddrive contents would be deleted. As long as the harddrive remained connected to the wire, the contents would always be accessible.

That was a disgusting oversimplification of this entire situation, but it gave him a clearer idea. Though as far as he could see, the Icons only applied to him. Why was that…? Was it because he was a glitch from the future? A powerful ‘virus’ in the Windows, if he may.

‘This exclusive benefit must be the reason behind the small changes. The existence of the Icons is why things are happening in a slightly different way than what must have happened before… But hold on, doesn't that confirm that this situation has happened before? Was there… another Neji before me?’

He felt himself stiffen up, ‘What am I?’

At that, he remembered what She Beyond Omnipotence had said so arrogantly. She claimed to exist beyond time, space, and fate and thereafter had lived through their ‘interaction’ already. She was more right than what he thought she was; she had dealt with him another time before she had introduced the Icons…

“Excellent,”

Only then did Neji realize that the world around him had paused, it was all gray and colorless. He had entered a trance while thinking, and the voice of SBOP rang in his head like a bell.

He couldn't see her, but she agreed with his thought process.

* * *

 Beyond the concept of Time, in the realm of She Beyond Omnipotence, she sat on her throne and watched the scene unfold on a hologram screen. She had Kurai in her arms as she patted her back.

Kurai growled while observing Neji in real-time while the Icons in the sky sang [Insane]. She was used to the lap of the entity she sat on right now since it’s been a while since her Papa had left this place, that's why she didn't look as mad as she was the first couple of hours.

“Excellent,” The Entity playfully nipped at the cat's neck, watching the floating hologram screen in front of them. “It's all your maid's fault, mind you. Due to there being presence of a Time Traveller, things got messy. When we introduced the Icons in your Omniverse, there were two possible futures. It’s similar to Schrödinger's cat, if I may.”

She added, “In both possibilities, you go back in time to save yourself and your loved ones. But in one, you return back in time without access to the Icons. In that one, you fail and die. While in the other, you return with the Icons. That’s the current one. I admit that my Brother and I hadn't decided from the get-go how the Icons would work with time travel, that's part of why this Schrödinger's situation is happening. But you should be grateful that we made this blunder, otherwise, as you know, you would have died in your first possibility without the Icons, and your own maid would try to kill you and sacrifice you for another, possible version of yourself. Before ultimately dying herself.”

“...” Kurai glared at the entity in her father’s stead, for saying he was only alive because he was lucky.

“Anyhow, the first possibility, where you returned without Icons, you failed and died. The reason why you told Lady Life in that turn, that you ‘don't want to come back’ is because you wanted your other possibility to succeed. Keep in mind, that these are not different timelines, just possibilities. You two are not different versions of each other, you two are the same. So it didn't hurt him to want you to succeed. But the Director, your sweet, crazy, Kimi didn’t want to understand that. She grew too addicted to that possible version of you, and became insane. What a stupid bitch, isn’t she? I love her, she’s so cute.” 

That last part confused Kurai, as it confused Neji too from the hologram. Both of them had thought she hated Kimi, not ‘love’ her. 

She shrugged, “What? She wanted to revive her ‘husband’ through you, even though both of them are you. She was being a weirdo, but it reminded me of how me and my brother used to be back in the day. How nostalgic…” A weird light flashed by her eyes before she shook her head. “Anyhow, moving on.”

“In the 2nd possibility, which is the current one, you have returned with the Icons. Hopefully this time you won't fail as hard. And don't worry, no progress will be lost in either of these possibilities. Since this little incident was particularly our fault for not managing the Icons well, we'll look around it and overlay the timelines if they remain similar enough. So good luck on that.” She added, “Oh, and, again, all of this is your maid’s fault. I love her, but make sure she doesn’t bother me again.”

Kurai glared at the entity one last time for blaming her mama, but the entity just yawned and canceled the voice broadcast.

* * *

“I love her, but make sure she doesn’t bother me again.” As the voice died out in my head, I frowned.

So that's why. It made sense, even if quite confusing still. Then again, as the entity had said in the past, it was natural that these things would be confusing to him.

‘So the goal is to keep things similar to a certain degree…’ Neji grumbled. It's not like he knew the First Gamer’s life story in detail to keep it similar.

Besides, wasn't going on different paths a big change already?

In the end, he decided it didn’t matter, he would play the Game with the rules as they were. He’ll try to keep things similar, based on his knowledge and guesses. 

If it was to keep the timeline similar, and not just her stronger, he must go ahead and do some other things. First of all, there was Fotia. But he was confident that he didn't have to pursue her, she would come to him by herself.

But there were others, too. The big name there was… Contessa Fate. He wondered how to drag her out. But that's for later. First of all, he had to grow powerful. Since he had made love with Lady Life, he was certain she'd help him out more. 

Time returned to normal, and Lady Life continued looking at him curiously. 

“So?”

[It's my special power, sorry I should have explained earlier, but I don't know myself. It's similar to the ‘Tale’ power you guys have.] Neji lied to Life who smiled, leaning into his embrace. [Speaking of, can you teach it to me…? I actually don’t know how to use Tale.]

Icons were one thing, but Tale should be useful too. Lady Luck had mentioned that he had a particularly powerful Tale thanks to all his achievements.

Neji lay there with Life by his right side, with his hand holding her curvy waist and squeezing it now and then. Life rested her head on his chest, kissing it while taking in his scent now and then.

“We can start anytime, honey,” she said as Neji raised her chin and kissed her deeply.

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