Checking around the building’s roof, I confirmed that the roof was completely empty.

Rin had taken off the invisibility badge after reaching the roof, rendering it useless. She looked over the side of the building. Her eyes were locked on the ground below.

Scratching my head, I groaned in annoyance.

Two versions of Rin in a single timeline made everything complicated… How should I even refer to them? What would happen if the other Rin-2 saw us… or reloads?

There were too many uncertainties about this situation.

“Stay close to me.” I said, keeping an eye on Rin. “I think the time shard is keeping us safe… but I have a feeling that it’s temporary.”

Rin kept gazing over the edge of the building, but her wolf-ears twitched slightly while listening to my speech.

Tightening my hold on the time stone in my left hand, I joined her in looking over the edge. The street below was relatively empty. While some people were walking back and forth, there weren’t enough to be interesting.

Shaking my head, I sighed and stepped closer to Rin.

Even though nothing had happened yet, a subtle feeling of danger and crisis was constantly resounding and growing stronger. It subtly decreased when I’d stepped closer to Rin, but the feeling was extremely unpleasant.

“Rin, can you return us to the previous timeline?” I asked with discomfort at the sensation. Intuition told me that if we returned, the danger and discomfort would disappear.

“Mmmhmm… Saved before using the new file.” Rin nodded, whilst still observed the street below.

“Great.” I relaxed, and waited for her to reload… but nothing happened. “Why are we still here?”

“Need to confirm something.” Rin stated without changing expression, before holding up the used badge of invisibility I’d given her. “Do you have another one of these?”

“Sure, but these invisibility badges are one-time use… and this is my last one.” I reached into my bag and handed over my spare.

These temporary artifacts were quite valuable despite being one-time use.

Although invisibility artifacts were useless to me, they sold for decent amount of materials and I could take advantage to charge for extra materials when replenishing them at zero cost to myself. Extremely useful for funding my more expensive projects.

As for what the people I sold them to used these invisibility artifacts for… I didn’t ask, but I highly doubt anyone would waste a life-saving artifact on something perverted.

Taking the badge of invisibility, Rin immediately dropped it over the edge.

“Wha-” My right hand reached for the invisibility badge, attempting to grab it before it fell out of reach. The small size of the badge meant it easily slipped through my fingers and continued its descent.

The badge landed on the street below with a barely noticeable noise.

Turning toward Rin, I demanded answers, “Why did you do that?”

“Shh…” Rin pulled me back from the edge of the building. Her wolf-ears perked upright and Rin closed her eyes, listening intently.

After several seconds of silence, Rin opened her eyes. “We need to move. I’ll be heading up here.”

“Okay?” I sighed in annoyance.

I’ll force her to explain later.

Rin quietly dragged me inside from the building’s roof.

We exited the stairwell on another floor and waited quietly in a side-room.

Footsteps slowly resounded from the staircase, slowly getting louder until they disappeared when a door opened and shut.

When the footsteps completely stopped, Rin pulled on my shirt and brought me downstairs to the basement.

The basement was dimly lit without lights.

Despite that the room could be made out. A light-red carpet lined the floor, and there was a bookshelf along the far wall. A table and fancy bed sat in the far right corner… my past-self sleeping atop the bed. A note on the table and my bag beside it.

Approaching the bed, it felt strange to see myself in the third person.

“I don’t remember my past-actions too specifically, but…” Rin stated, moving beside me and looking at my past-self. “Unless you’re about to awaken, we should be fine.”

“I’ll be asleep for at least a couple hours.” I shook my head.

While it been ten to fifteen years and I didn't remember more more than a general outline of the situation, I remember distinctly that it took more than an hour for me to awaken.

Speaking of the past…

“Did you take God-hunter?” I asked, reaching down and rummaging through my past-self’s bag.

“What?” Rin’s expression turned confusion.

Rooting through the bag. God-hunter had been placed near the top of the bag, her distinctive green and golden form was easy to find.

Twirling God-hunter around in my right-hand, I realized that Rin wouldn’t even know her name. “When I awoke last time, my dagger had disappeared.”

“I understand.” Rin nodded and stared at my past-self.

Ignoring Rin for a moment, I turned back toward the previously misplaced dagger in my hand. Focusing on my previously absent daughter, I tried to connect with her.

God-hunter, can you hear me?

Tired… Don’t bother me…

Hearing my daughter’s complaint in a sleepy voice, I breathed a sigh of relief and rolled my eyes.

She seems fine to me.

While it’s not a good idea to change the timeline, I might be able to find who took her…

“Want to explain what’s going on?” I asked, turning my attention back toward Rin.

“It’s complicated.” Rin shook her head.

“At least try to explain.” I pestered her to clarify the situation.

Rin fell into thought. “In the past, when I fought the animal in the bar… a noise from outside distracted it and provided an opportunity to kill it.”

“A noise?” I thought back to when Rin dropped the badge.

“When I checked outside, a badge of invisibility was resting on the floor. I thought it might’ve been dropped from the roof. So I wanted to checked to see if anyone was up there.” Rin shrugged and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“A time-loop?” I said, realizing what she meant.

We were the cause of the badge falling and distracting the animal allowing her to easily kill it. Rin had undertaken actions, originating in the result she had noticed in the past? That… that shouldn’t be the way time travel worked in this universe? Cause and effect are completely reversed… Ugh, whatever.

I swiftly gave up and decided against thinking about time travel.

Simply put, there’s not enough information to make a reliable inference as to what’s going on. Nor am I in a position that understanding the situation would have an effect on anything, so I cannot be bothered to try and explain it.

Based on my description in the novel, this should be a free-will based universe and not a deterministic universe. This outcome might simply be coincidence.

Looking back toward my previously missing daughter, I thought back to what happened to God-hunter in the past…

In the past, when I was teleported from underneath the draconian volcano by Gromrit, my bag was left behind and God-hunter had been lost. If everything is left the way it was… when the timeline reset, she’ll be completely erased.

While I could create a new version of her by using the prototype dagger from the Second Zone… it wouldn’t be my God-hunter.

Not to mention the potential soul injury that could be caused by attempting to recreate her. Although I’ve been healing with canteen of spiritual recovery, my soul injuries haven’t fully healed.

Changing this timeline a tiny bit to save her... probably wouldn’t hurt.

Although I don’t know how God-hunter ended up underground, it shouldn’t be interfering too much if I took God-hunter with me.

She did end up going missing last time.

It would prevent someone else from taking her and placing her underground. Although that would change the timeline… why should I care about the problems it would cause in this timeline?

Plus, if she didn’t go to that underground area, I wouldn’t be teleported to the draconian volcano. That would indirectly save this timeline’s Tobias from getting captured by Gromrit.

In turn, I would basically be saving myself and God-hunter.

“I’ll keep her with me.” I tightened my grip on God-hunter. Although I would be wronging this timeline’s Tobias by taking her, I quickly managed to convince myself to be selfish.

Rin sat upon the bed, looking down toward this timeline Tobias.

I quietly asked, “Have you confirmed everything you wanted to?”

“Do you think we can simply stay here?” Rin turned her gaze back toward me.

Frowning momentarily, I realized Rin was on a completely different wavelength than me. I never thought about staying in this timeline. The constant feeling of danger, approaching at a steady rate dissuaded any such idea from developing in my brain.

As I absentmindedly thought about that possibility, my gaze turned to time-shard in my left-hand.

Wha…

“Uh, is it me… or is the time shard getting smaller?” I stared at the green stone that had previously been the size of three fingers, now barely the width of my thumb.

Hearing my words, Rin’s attention was also drawn to the time shard. Rin sighed and quickly realized what I meant. “We cannot stay can we?”

“No. I don’t think we can.” I shivered at the thought of what would happen if the shard completely disappeared.

“Alright.” Rin sighed, stood up and looked around the basement a final time.

Rin grabbed my left-hand and the surroundings changed.

An unnatural dizziness gripped my stomach.

Looking around, we had returned to hotel-type room in the Decima game.

Stilling holding my left-hand, Rin sat across from me and was leaning toward me.

Rin leaned back and released her grip.

Fortunately, God-hunter had remaining in my right-hand and I had successfully saved her from the fate of getting erased from existence.

Happy to see my daughter again, I relaxed my grip on her and placed the time shard back in my pocket. “What do you plan to do now?”

Falling silent, Rin spent time thinking before replying. “I still need to study the laws of time.”

“Huh?” I blinked looked at her with a strange expression, “Didn’t you already learn? The whole wave your hand and fruit rots?”

“Time withers all things…” Rin stated with a nod, before replying. “That specific law of time is unable to save Kara and is not enough to upgrade my bloodline. I have barely gotten started on understanding the laws of time.”

“What?” My eyes opened wide and I stared at Rin in shock. “How can you consider upgrading your bloodline? No! Too dangerous.”

Upgrading a superpowered bloodline comes with near impossible trial and is extremely dangerous.

Her bloodline already decently high level. Improving it further is basically impossible.

More important, the trial specifically targets the soul. There would be no chance of reloading or changing the outcome if she failed.

With a high failure rate and trial invalidates her ability, attempting the trial is suicide. I thought she just wanted to improve her understand of the laws of time.

Rin should know the danger involved more than anyone.

“It’s the easiest way to save Kara.” Rin calmly stated.

I scoffed in disbelief, “By killing yourself?”

Heavenly tribulations might be jokes that the protagonist always survive in Xianxia novels, but who dares to bet in real-life? There’s at least a sixty to seventy percent chance of death, which is already taking into account that she’s a protagonist and a genius at combat.

For a normal person, there’s higher than a ninety nine percent chance of death.

“I can survive it.” Rin’s eyes were filled with determination.

“Absolutely not, find another way.” I said, intending to end the conversation.