Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 39: Interruption

Strange.

Yes, Cecilia knew Ruby operated under the assumption that she was dead and gone. But Ruby’s prophecy... She didn’t seem to know that Cecilia had saved Arkai. Her vision had ended at the tragedy, not the intervention.

Her prophecy that he had died... it was oddly specific. No one outside that ashen valley could have known his life hung by a thread last night, seconds from oblivion. Did that mean the gods themselves had fated the Black Wolf King to die on that mountain, and she and Oathran had performed an act of cosmic defiance? Had they snatched a soul from a pre-written script?

But the prophecy itself was strange.

Why prophesy after the fact? Why proclaim the death of the king in the wake of the disaster, instead of issuing a warning before the mountain tore itself apart?

If it was an accurate divine vision, it should have accounted for all variables. The gods, in their omniscience, should have seen Cecilia. They should have seen the dragon’s shadow, or the vials of miracles.

But then... how did Ruby know about the second eruption? How did she know Arkai had tried to deflect it? How did she describe the exact manner of a death that almost happened? Was she shown the original fate, the one where Cecilia wasn’t there, and had mistaken it for the result?

The pieces didn’t fit.

Ruby didn’t know she was alive. Ruby might not have foreseen the mountain’s fury, but she had been ’told’ by the ’gods’ Arkai would die on it.

So, did that mean the gods were also unaware of Cecilia’s continued existence? That the divine gaze had a blind spot shaped exactly like her?

No.

The conclusion might be simpler.

It meant Ruby’s so-called divine knowledge didn’t come from gods.

It came from a world where Cecilia didn’t exist. A world where last night’s tragedy had played out exactly as Ruby had described, with no one to shove a miracle down a dying wolf’s throat. A world where the second wave had indeed been a funeral shroud.

"Are you doing alright?" Oathran’s concerned voice cut through her thoughts. He settled beside her on the makeshift bed. "You told me using this miracle, whatever it is, doesn’t require your own energy... but you look exhausted."

He leaned closer, his face lowering to hers, his grey eyes searching. "Or... is rescuing the wolf boy and detecting the survivors under the rubble too much for you, Saintess?"

Cecilia turned to him, the sudden movement making him flinch slightly at her intensity. "Oathran, I’m asking you a what-if," she said, her voice low but urgent. He nodded, giving her his full, solemn attention. "What if I didn’t exist?"

The man blinked. "What?"

"If I hadn’t existed, what would have happened today?" Cecilia pressed. "No... what would have happened... generally?"

Seeing the seriousness in her eyes, Oathran set aside his confusion and decided to meet her in the depths of the hypothetical. He considered it.

"Well..." he began, his voice softening. "Then we would never have met seventeen years ago, and... I would actually have died somewhere in a different ditch. A lot of people would have died. The people you saved across the years. The Werejaguars... The miners in the collapsed shaft at Kaethra. The villagers on the coast of Ires..."

He listed them as a possibility from a world he was grateful never came to pass. Finally, he turned to her, a smile on his lips as he gave the last, most immediate example.

"And the people here today."

Including Arkai.

"Ah," Oathran’s brain finally caught up. His eyes cleared, "Are you talking about the other Saintess’s prophecy?"

Cecilia chuckled. "Yes," she sighed. "I still don’t know why, but her ’prophecy’ seemed to not include my existence at all."

That was the crux of it. It explained Ruby’s dual blind spots, not knowing Cecilia was alive, and not knowing Arkai had been saved. If Ruby’s vision had included Oathran, it would have shown him dead in a ditch, too.

"Could it be... because you should’ve been dead?" Oathran ventured.

"Perhaps," Cecilia muttered. Then she turned the problem on its head. "But would the gods who told her this divine knowledge not know that I’m still alive?"

Her gaze turned inward, to the only anomaly in her life that could possibly explain being a ghost in the divine registry. "System," she prodded in her mind, "do you make me a being without worldly presence or something? Do you have the power to change the course of destiny?"

[Processing...]

DING!

[No, Cecilia! We only exist to choose our System Player!]

[We admire the essence of your soul!]

Defensive, as always.

"Then, if I hadn’t gone through what I went through, would you still choose me?" she pressed.

DING!

[We only choose people with the soul we admire!]

"Which means... if I hadn’t proven myself, would you ever choose me? If I don’t exist at all, for example?"

The response was instant and absolute.

DING!

[We won’t!]

Bingo.

So, not even this interdimensional patron would have plucked a non-existent Cecilia from the void. Her presence, however anomalous, was still a presence. She must have been so thoroughly scrubbed from Ruby’s vision that it wasn’t a matter of being unseen, it was a matter of never having been there to see in the first place.

"So... what kind of power gave Ruby this knowledge if it didn’t come from the gods?"

A whisper escaped her. "I’m reaching here... but does time travel exist...?"

"Yes, it does."

DING!

[It does!]

Cecilia’s head swiveled between Oathran and the transparent screen only she could see. These two... they’d answered at the same time.

And... ah.

Well, if a reality-bending gacha system could exist, then of course the laws of causality could have a few loopholes.

"What are you implying, Saintess?" Oathran asked, his tone growing wary. "Are you implying that the other Saintess knew a future where you don’t exist? Then, time travelled back to the present?"

DING!

[Genius! Cecilia, we admire the essence of your soul!]

Cecilia narrowed her eyes at the empty air, then at her husband. These two... She could feel her train of thought being cheerfully derailed by a dragon and a disembodied cheerleader.

Please don’t cut off my train of thoughts...

"So... I’m just thinking..." she hummed, forcing her focus back, trying to find the root of this hypothetical temporal branch. "How far back must I never exist to not be included in this... ’future vision’ Saintess Ruby had? It can’t be when I was supposed to di—"

FLAP!

The tent flap was thrown open with excitement. "Fascinating! Please keep going," came the eager voice of the man who had been eavesdropping since the very start.

Arkai Dawnoro entered the tent, his tail wagging and his eyes alight with the thrill of a world-altering puzzle. The bright enthusiasm on his face lasted exactly until he registered the deadpan on Cecilia’s and the mild exasperation on Oathran’s. He froze. "I... uh... umm, sorry, Saintess... please don’t mind me, I just want to hear..."

This man...! These three...! The conspiring dragon, the giddy wolf king, and the hypeman system—

How are you so committed to interrupting my deduction?!

"You know what?" Cecilia said, her patience gone. She stood up. The woman of modest height now decided to evict a legend and a king. "Get out. Get out of here. I need to think."

With some shoves, she began herding the two bewildered, powerful men toward the entrance, her motions including a swat at the floating transparent screen for good measure.

Out. All of them.