There really was a response.

Pally had mentioned before that they could try asking this person.

Aehkator.

"Hello?" Kumironi greeted politely.

"One of our friends entered this place, and then became trapped in an endlessly repeating cycle of time."

"We’ve been really worried about him, so we decided to come take a look."

Kumironi explained their purpose in a friendly tone.

She did not immediately assume the other party was an enemy. She still intended to communicate peacefully first and understand the situation.

"You already knew that coming here would curse your time, trapping you in endlessly repeating resets and reincarnations... so why did you still come?"

Coming here had been Izparut’s decision.

He believed he had a way to resolve the problem of the time loop, and he was also extremely interested in this place.

So he wanted to see it for himself.

Because if Kanzaki Rei’s words were true, then this world was indeed already in danger.

"Because... we’re worried about our companion."

That was Kumironi’s response.

The voice inside disappeared again, leaving behind only those wandering, indistinct noises.

It was impossible to tell whether the other party no longer wished to respond—

or was still considering how to answer.

Iz quietly observed the patterns engraved upon the door, contemplating the nature of temporal magic.

Kanzaki Rei had come to this door more than once already.

And each time, he had gained slightly different insights.

For example, when he brought other people into this ruin, at least from his perspective, they were still able to leave the ruin normally.

Kanzaki Rei could successfully bring them back out.

He never saw them suddenly disappear into thin air and fall into time loops of their own.

At first, he had considered another possibility.

Could it be that they had already entered the temporal loop?

And when he brought them back out, they were actually versions of themselves that had already experienced countless cycles.

But if that were the case, then their experiences should have been extensive.

Yet after bringing them out, their reactions remained confusion and ignorance.

They had no idea what had happened, nor did they show any signs of truly having experienced temporal resets.

Afterward, he obtained Izparut’s theory.

Izparut’s theory explained that even the time experienced within a reset still caused real-world time to pass.

And from the perspective of reality, the person who entered the ruin would effectively never come back out.

As though they had simply vanished into thin air.

If such a thing could happen to himself, then logically, when observing others, the same principle should apply.

Therefore, Kanzaki Rei speculated...

Temporal resets did not happen to every person who entered this ruin.

The greatest variable was that during his first visit to the ruin, he had encountered the future Izparut.

According to Izparut’s own deductions—

even Iz himself felt that it was likely his future self manipulating everything.

As though he had deliberately triggered the ruin and caused Kanzaki Rei to become trapped within the reset.

"Worried?"

"Isn’t his condition excellent?"

"In one time loop after another, he’s gained a nearly immortal lifespan."

"An opportunity like that is something ordinary people could never hope to obtain, wouldn’t you say?"

The voice from inside sounded calm and frivolous.

There was almost no emotional fluctuation within it.

But at the very least, she finally seemed willing to converse.

"Mhm..."

"I suppose that really is pretty amazing," Kumironi replied.

"But this still isn’t the spacetime that truly belongs to him."

"And the people from the spacetime he came from would surely be worried about him too."

Hearing Kumironi’s answer, Aehkator paused briefly.

Then, with faint confusion in her voice, she asked in return:

"Have you ever considered that perhaps you only exist within a simulation?"

"That he is the only truly real person in this entire world?"

"And if he really leaves... if he truly returns..."

"Then all of you will disappear along with this world."

The moment those words were spoken—

everyone fell silent.

That statement practically denied the existence of everyone present.

Leaving only Kanzaki Rei alone as "real."

To Iz and the others, it was as though she were saying:

Everything you experienced.

Everything you accomplished.

All of it was fake.

Everything revolved solely around him.

And once he returned to his original world—

your world would vanish as well.

"Is that really true?"

"If I’m not mistaken, this doesn’t seem like some simulated spacetime at all," Iz answered seriously.

"You trust your own judgment that much?" the voice inside asked.

Iz burst into laughter.

"Hahaha! If a person can’t trust themselves, then who can they trust?"

"And besides—even if we really disappear, so what?"

"Whether real or virtual, I am still myself. The me existing in this very moment is unquestionably real."

Every word Iz spoke was firm and unwavering.

The voice inside paused once more.

Then, carrying a hint of confusion, it asked again:

"So what?"

"Nonexistence means disappearance."

"If you aren’t truly real, doesn’t that terrify you?"

"One day, someone suddenly tells you that you aren’t real—that you were merely simulated by someone else, a byproduct of their world. And once the time comes—or with a single thought—you’ll completely disappear forever."

Akase scratched his head before answering as well.

"That does sound pretty terrifying."

"But honestly... it doesn’t really matter that much, does it?"

"I’m an adventurer. Whenever I face danger, I’m already somewhat prepared to die anyway."

"For most adventurers, even knowing there’s a chance they’ll lose their lives, they still choose to act, don’t they?"

"Rather than thinking about such profound questions, I’d rather think about what to eat tomorrow... or whether I could’ve used a better move during my last fight against a monster."

"You keep telling us all this stuff... don’t tell me you’re struggling with these thoughts yourself?" Akase asked curiously.

But the moment he asked that—

the other party fell silent again.

For a full five minutes, no response came from the other side of the door.

"Uh... did I accidentally hit a sore spot?" Akase quietly asked the group through telepathy.

"Sounds like it," Kanzaki Rei replied.

"Usually, people who bring up questions like these have experienced something similar themselves..."

"I heard Aehkator once went through an extremely tragic event she deeply regretted. You might’ve struck right at her emotional weak point."

Uh...

Akase suddenly felt awkward.

Accidentally stabbing straight into someone’s trauma the moment they met definitely didn’t seem like a good thing.

For all he knew, the other party might become furious out of embarrassment.

"Should I just tell her I was talking nonsense?"

Akase muttered quietly.

"Wouldn’t that just make her even angrier?"

"...Yeah, probably."

Just as Akase was still trying to figure out how to smooth over what he had said—

the voice spoke once more.

"You want to come in, don’t you?" 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Kanzaki Rei asked, "Can we?"

He had come to this door many times before, yet it had never opened.

Ansu had once forcibly opened it, but suffered a backlash in the end.

Instead, he had been thrown into an even more ancient stretch of spacetime.

And now, unexpectedly, the other party was suddenly inviting them inside.

The voice from within answered uncertainly:

"Mhm."

"Perhaps... perhaps you can."