My Fiancé Fell in Love with My Older Sister. After Locking Myself in My Room for Five Days, 500 Years Had Passed. - Chapter 38

“……… Um, please wait a second.”

Without thinking, I held out my right hand. With the other hand, I pressed my forehead.

(Prince Lian contacted me in the past…?)

Was it also Prince Lian who cast some kind of magic on me, and put a barrier on that room…?

I closed my eyes and slowly sank into thought.

“…………”

In my head, I felt like I heard a light pok pok ching sound.

“No, no, that doesn’t make sense at all! I mean, let’s start from the beginning, shall we? I don’t even know why I time-traveled in the first place!”

Without realizing it, I stood up. My chair made a loud noise as it scraped the floor.

As I panicked, Prince Lian began to speak calmly.

“The ability to cross time… It’s a bit long, so let’s call it Time Leap. If we consider Time Leap as your own ability, then it’s not such a strange idea.”

“But─Prince Lian, you live in the Lumos Empire. I’m someone from five hundred years ago. In the past, there’s no way you and I could’ve met.”

“If I cross time with you now and meet your past self… wouldn’t that clear up your doubt?”

“─”

I gasped at Prince Lian’s clear statement.
It was something I never expected to hear.

(Prince Lian… will cross time with me?)

To the land of Tsobellar, five hundred years ago─

As I stood there stunned, he gave a slightly troubled smile.

“I apologize. That was a bit too sudden. That’s one of my bad habits. When I form a theory, I want to know immediately if it’s the right answer. But I’m not trying to rush you.”

Prince Lian paused and placed a finger on his chin thoughtfully.
Then, he tilted his head and looked at me.

“For now, let’s set aside the Time Leap talk. First, we need to understand why you leaped through time, the mechanism behind it, and also investigate the room you were in. We’ll talk after that.”

He probably said that out of concern because I was so confused. And yes, I was indeed extremely confused. That kindness helped me a lot.

I was probably dizzy right now, and if things went on, I might even get a fever from thinking too much.

The past and the future. Parallel worlds. Timelines. Time paradoxes. The Möbius loop… even the “kill your own parent” paradox—I was thinking about all of it, so his concern really… really saved me.

My head was spinning like there was a confusion clearance sale going on.

I let out a slow breath and decided to switch gears.

(…………Okay!! I’ll think about it later.)

For now, I’ll set the complicated stuff aside.

What I need to think about now─
I recalled the inside of the Tower of Lamentation, my room. Then something caught my attention, and I asked Prince Lian,

“Prince Lian, your magic trace disappears in thirty minutes, right?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, and I pressed my finger against my lips.

“Then, isn’t the magic trace in the room already gone?”

It hasn’t even been a full day since I woke up, but still, thirty minutes have definitely passed.

Definitely, and then some. The magic trace should’ve completely vanished by now.

When I asked that very late question, Prince Lian nodded with an “Ah” as if he just realized it too.
Then he said in a calm voice,

“If that’s the case─it probably won’t be a problem. From what you’ve told me, it seems that the flow of time in that room and the outside world is very different. You stayed in the room for five days, but outside, five hundred years had passed, right?”

I nodded in response to Prince Lian’s words. He continued speaking.

“That would mean, roughly, for every one hour inside the room, about 4.17 years pass outside. Since my magic trace lasts thirty minutes─”

He held up two fingers.

“In outside time, that equals about two years. So, the trace of my magic should remain inside the room for at least two years.”

“I… see?”

If the flow of time is different, then thirty minutes inside the room equals two years outside… I guess that’s what he means.

But being able to calculate that so quickly—he must be good with numbers.

(He was interested in magical studies since he was a child and studied a lot… so maybe he’s good at math too…)

Thinking that, I asked one more question.

“So then, in the Tower of Lament, your magic trace should still be there, right?”

“If I used magic on your past self and you left the room without the Time Leap spell being canceled, then yes. …That’s why your help is essential.”

At that point, Prince Lian paused.
He raised his face and looked straight at me.

“If the magic hasn’t been canceled─then one minute in that room equals twenty-five days and ten days more outside… so about a month.”

He gave a troubled smile.Shrugging his shoulders, he said in a helpless tone,

“If that’s the case, there’s no way we could investigate anything properly. If we stay in the room, time outside would fly by. Even if we stayed just five minutes, five months would pass outside. That’s way too risky. …So, Lady Felicia. We need your power.”