After that, Luma’s writing didn’t directly mention Inon again. However, even through simple, subjectless [N O V E L I G H T] references, Yuder could vaguely piece together how the Archmage had created, raised, and lived with his guardian.

“A task begun in pursuit of my goal. Merely transplanting a small fruit to new soil. If it succeeded, it would become a tool to help the friend I’d reunite with after achieving that goal. I thought it nothing more, nothing less. But soon, I came to understand the true meaning of the trick the spirit had played on me.”

“It was completely different from watching over and teaching children bound by soul. More difficult than magic, more incomprehensible than disaster, and something that could never be measured by success or failure.”

“And yet, despite that, I found the task strangely enjoyable. The first time I burst into laughter without realizing was after my friend had passed.”

“Then, for the first time, a thought I’d never had before crossed my mind.”

‘If I succeed in achieving my goal... what will become of this small apple in front of me?’

‘Could I truly be certain that the fruit I regain will yield the same outcome as this one?’

Reading that part, Yuder tried assuming a single “what if.”

What if I could go back to the past again? Could I retrace everything I’d gone through and end up here once more? Could I feel the same emotions from those I met again, as I did the first time?

Thinking of it that way, the answer came easily.

No.

No. I couldn’t.

It seemed the Archmage had arrived at the same conclusion.

“If I had such thoughts over a mere small fruit... what must my friend have felt?”

“His request wasn’t for me to come find him again. He feared not the vanished past, but only the future. Yet somewhere along the way, I forgot his request and began chasing only my own desire. While he, on the other hand, devoted his entire life to keeping the promise ‘I’ had made.”

“Only then did I realize the path I was walking did not honor my friend. In overwhelming shame, I decided to find the true answer again—the reason he had no choice but to ask that of me. Not to meet him again, but to understand what he went through.”

Yes. That was likely the reason Luma had left the Hill of Ghilandre.

“And... maybe this was also the pivotal cause of his break with Oblik van Ta-in, his disciple and the son of the Founding Emperor.”

Oblik van Ta-in had always wished to turn back time and restore his revered father. From beginning to end, he had never once wavered in his desire to place the fallen king’s piece back on the board.

Meanwhile, Luma, too, had initially wanted to find and reuse the magic his past self had performed, to meet his friend once again—but his path changed. Once he began acting to understand what the Founding Emperor had gone through and to uphold his actual final words, there was no longer any way the two could stay aligned.

Anyway... so it was true? That there really was someone else besides the Founding Emperor and me who returned to the past?

Yuder kept turning the pages.

“I kept searching for someone who had gone through the same as my friend. Everything had already turned to ash, and I believed I needed to discard and move forward—so I don’t want to detail just how difficult that was.”

Kishiar had once speculated that those who survived the Great Cataclysm had intentionally erased that history. From this passage, it seemed that was indeed the case.

“To keep searching, I had to be prepared to abandon my former self. I turned my back on everything and left alone. With the scripture containing traces of the old world in hand like a map, I began tracing the remnants of the powerful who fled south and survived. From what I learned, their ancestors were the most likely origin of the country mentioned by the spirit.”

Traces of powerful people who had survived by fleeing south... It reminded Yuder of the current Southern tribes, mostly descended from those who’d migrated from the North.

Luma said he headed south, scripture in hand. The chieftain of the Wolf’s Eye tribe in the South had also mentioned a book passed down through generations, containing stories of an empire that had existed before the Orr Empire.

Scripture, and an empire predating the current one.

Both were remnants of a world that had existed before the Great Cataclysm.

So the southern part makes sense... but he carried scripture like a map, huh... That must mean it wasn’t from religious belief that he brought it.

Nowhere in Luma’s writing could Yuder sense any faith in a deity. Even now, a thousand years later, calling scripture a “map” was rare.

It didn’t seem metaphorical. He must’ve genuinely believed the place names and contents of the scripture held reliable historical value and followed them.

“—Disappointingly, what I uncovered in the South wasn’t much different from the old founding myths many still remembered. The tale of a murdered hero who returned from the afterlife with future knowledge and a divine weapon, and under the blessing of the wolf, rose again to defeat enemies with his comrades—that age-old legend.”

As Yuder read that, he naturally recalled the Southern myth Nathan Zuckerman had told him before, Aton from the Wolf’s Eye tribe, and the faint voice he’d heard during the final battle with Naham—whose mother was from the South.

The wolf who returned by devouring death, the Wolf’s Eye tribe, the prophet who leads the stars.

Could it be that these weren’t merely Southern myths, but actually ancient founding legends passed down since the Archmage Luma’s era, before the Great Cataclysm?

Considering that the Southern people were, in fact, descendants of a nation that existed before the Great Cataclysm, it didn’t seem far-fetched.

Not every phrase he’d heard was identical, of course—some parts likely changed over time.

But if the nation the spirit mentioned was truly that one, then even those outlandish tales might’ve actually happened. While pursuing that belief, I encountered an old priest in the South who told me something else.

“There was once a sect that believed the Scripture of the Sun and the Scripture of the Moon were originally a single book. Their reasoning was that the words and deeds of the first priest described in both texts were strikingly similar.”

The Scripture of the Sun and the Scripture of the Moon.

Was that referring to the scripture of the Sun God and the black moon worship still found in the South?

There were still priests of the black moon religion in the South, with some kind of established system—so it made sense their scripture would resemble what was found here. Somehow it felt oddly awkward and surprising, even though it was perfectly logical.

If even someone like me, who’s barely interested in this, is feeling this much, then... this is probably something Kishiar would enjoy even more.

Glancing to the side, Yuder saw the profile of the man deeply absorbed in managing the household ledger like some elderly grandfather. He didn’t seem like he should be disturbed, so Yuder turned the next page of Luma’s journal instead.

“A great hero and first priest. He took many disciples to spread his experience and foresight to future generations. But unlike their great teacher, the disciples couldn’t trust each other. They split into two factions and fought, and in the end, it became as if they worshipped entirely different gods.”

“At first, I couldn’t believe such a tale. But after painstakingly collecting surviving versions of the scripture and comparing them, I started to think maybe it wasn’t entirely false. When I examined them using magic, I was shocked at how closely the two scriptures matched. Aside from different place names and terminology, many parts were practically identical, just described from slightly different viewpoints.”

“How much persecution have the Moon believers inflicted on those who worshipped the Sun all this time? The history of that cruelty is so long and vicious, my friend—who was raised under the Sun God’s teachings—had to face death multiple times just for that reason.”

“Perhaps the priests knew the truth, but unable to overcome the hatred of that ancient history, they lived pretending the other side didn’t even exist.”

“Even I... didn’t want to speak of this truth out loud.”

“......”

Yuder, reading that now, felt exactly the same.