After bowing and introducing himself to me, past-Tobias began constantly asking various questions. Whilst trying to assess my reactions to discover useful information. ‘How did I got here? Why I am injured? Why have I traveled this deep into the forest?’

That was only a few examples of the various, equally irrelevant, questions asked.

“Out of curiosity, how old are you?” Past-Tobias inquired, despite my refusal to answer any of his questions.

…My god, how did Rin deal with me? She actually spent three years with this idiot? I don’t think I’ll even make it a single day.

Sighing, I pinched my temples and tried to stop myself from facepalming. “Shut up, please.”

If asking politely worked, though, he would’ve shut up when I asked him the first time.

“Judging by your appearance between 20-25?” Past-Tobias ignored any pleads and instead continued his inquiry, “Is that about right?”

Do I seriously look that old? I’m only…

Doing some mental calculation, I quickly found myself stumped.

…actually I’m probably around 19 to 20 at this point.

I hadn’t exactly been celebrating birthdays since arriving here. Although it’s been two years, my age has always been the furthest thing from my mind. There’s no reason to admit that to him, though.

Electing to ignore him to the best of my ability, I walked past him toward the boulder in the center of the clearing. My spear had stuck into the boulder a decent margin. Putting away God-hunter, I grabbed the spear stuck into the boulder and pulled it out.

I had been attempting to think of way of reacquiring it without looking suspicious, but I cannot be bothered anymore. My past-self is too annoying, and I cannot stand being around him any longer.

“So that spear was yours? When did you meet Leonardo before?” Past-Tobias continued his inquiry. “I’m betting it wasn’t long ago, or maybe he left a bad impression on you.”

Past-Tobias was leaning against a nearby tree, randomly swinging a stick around. His mouth curved into a small smile, clearly pleased with himself for an unknown reason.

My mouth opened, before I snapped it closed… I probably looked similar to a stunned goldfish. Tightening my face, I tried to channel Rin’s cold and unemotional ambience before proceeding to coldly reply, “Shut up.”

Past-Tobias pointed toward me with his wooden stick, “How about we fight? If I win, you start properly talking to me.”

God-hunter, does he ever shut up? Or is he this annoying all the time?

I wouldn’t call it all the time, but when Dad’s interested in something…

Rolling my eyes, I began walking away. There was no reason for me to humor him further now that I’d acquired my weapon of power.

“You scared?” Past-Tobias taunted, he slashed through the air with the stick in a rather pathetic fashion (clearly trying to get me to underestimate him).

Turning back toward him as I walked backward in the opposite direction, I taunted him back, “A crying baby could articulate a more impressive insult, your faculties must seriously impaired if that’s the best you could come up with.”

Past-Tobias’ mouth turned into a massive grin and he pushed the stick into the ground, “Sounds like fear to me.”

I clamped my mouth shut and turned back around.

There wasn’t much I could say to oppose that. I was barely in a condition to be moving around heavily, nevermind getting involved in a proper fight.

Injuries weren’t an acceptable reason to avoid fighting. After all, unless you’re talking about some mythical knight with a strict code of honor, enemies aren’t going to wait until you’re in perfect condition.

“How about I fight only using this stick?” Past-Tobias offered, attempting to convince me by sweetening the deal.

“Screw off.” I ignore him and continued walking away.

I knew exactly how skilled I was at using random sticks to beat armed opponents from training my disciples. Even if I assume he’d learned nothing after Rin reloaded those three years, I still wouldn’t be a condition to fight him… and I highly doubt that I completely wasted that period of time.

Past-Tobias stated, “A shame, I wanted to do this the nice way.”

The nice way?

Furrowing my brow, I glanced back toward him.

Past-Tobias had stopped leaned on the tree and teleported a short distance, appearing directly behind me. His hands creepily grasped around my waist, and I found myself being lifted into the air before past-Tobias tossed me atop his shoulder.

Dangling uncomfortably over his shoulder, I blinked and tried to wrap my mind around what just happened.

Am… Am I being kidnapped? Seriously?

Staring at the floor and his back, I calmed asked. “What are you doing?”

“Quiet. Obviously, I’m abducting you.” Past-Tobias commanded whilst slapping my butt with the wooden stick. Wrapped one hand around my waist keeping me in place.

Jumping in surprise from the sudden smack on the bum, I accidentally dropped the spear in my hand.

…Is this karma for kidnapping Sidney in a similar manner?

“Put me down.” I demanded, whilst trying to force his hand off my waist.

He leaned over and, for a moment, I thought he was actually going to put me down. An unrealistically naïve thought, past-Tobias simply reached down grab the spear I’d dropped (whilst utilizing a cloth to prevent direct contact). Before he continued onward ignoring my protests.

“This is sexual harassment.” I emotionlessly pointed out, as I struggled in his arms and he steadily marched forward. “Fine, I'll fight you.”

“Nice try… but that offer’s expired. ” Past-Tobias stated tightening his grip around my waist.

God-hunter, please tell him to let me go.

Since when would that work? On most topics, you never listen to my advice.

Can you at least try it?

Fine...

Despite utilizing various complains and struggling, he completely ignored me and continued to march forward toward some unknown goal.

Eventually, I just gave up struggling. There was no purpose to struggling and complaining when the target wasn’t listening.

Apparently, God-hunter also failed to persuade him, but I’m not exactly convinced that she put in much effort into the persuasion attempt. Judging by her reluctance to help, she probably only mentioned it in passing and without much insistence.

Gradually time passed, and through occasional glances backward, I saw exit the forest and head toward the city in the distance.

“Do you want to tell me where exactly we’re going?” I asked, hoping he actually responded this time.

Past-Tobias kept silent for a moment, before replying, “Before anything else, we are taking you to the hospital.”

Speechless at his reply, I couldn’t help but doubt his words.

I glanced at the dirt below and asked, “Did you have to abduct me to accomplish that?”

“Would you have agreed to go without being abducted?” The past version of myself pointedly asked.

...

I kept silent… I definitely wouldn’t have.

My current thought was only on getting as far away from civilization and my past-self as quickly as possible. Leaving civilization was for obvious reasons. I simply not powerful enough at the moment to taking the risk of exposing myself to the public.

Leaving behind my past-self is even more self-explanatory.

Changing the established timeline by interacting with myself is a disaster waiting to happen. I have no idea how these interactions could affect Rin, or if I might accidentally erase myself from existence.

The only possibility of this not ended up in complete disaster is if this universe works on a stable time-loop or relatively stable time-loop. Imply that everything that I have done, and will do, has already happened to the past-Tobias before Rin reloaded.

However, with the way Rin’s power and her sister’s powers work, I already know that we’re not in a completely stable time-loop. If we were living in a completely deterministic universe, Kara’s fated death would’ve been impossible to change.

A completely stable time-loop basically implies a type of determinism. Basically meaning, that nothing you do matters or will change the future. Anything that has happened and will happen was always going to happen. Determinism ideology is depressing enough that I don’t even want to think about it.

Even if determinism is the objective truth, so what? Giving up and choosing to not do anything because of an ideology is putting the cart before the horse. The whole ‘why do anything because nothing matters’ philosophy is plain idiotic.

A book is already written down won’t change, nor will a TV show suddenly change when you watch it.

Then, do you not read any books or watch your favorite shows simply because they won’t change? That’s idiotic. You wouldn’t call a math textbook’s existence meaningless just because the math problems inside don’t change after you’ve read it.

If you’re going to stop trying in life simply because of some stupid philosophy, you’ve missed that philosophy’s entire point.

I sighed to myself as I realized that I’d gotten distracted and gone on a random lecture again. In summary, interacting with myself is a terrible idea and I need to escape somehow.

Refocusing on the environment, we’d entered the city already and I realized people were gazing at us. To be fair, it’s not everyday that someone carries an abducted person into the middle of a city in broad daylight.

Actually… Isn’t this my change to escape?

I called out to the people nearby, “Don’t just stare! Call the police, he’s kidnapping me.”

Several people looked onward and glanced at each other, and muttered to each other. They were clearly confused as what to do.

“Ignore my daughter. She’s merely trying to escape her punishment for running away.” Past-Tobias spoke up and explained to the crowd.

The surrounding people nodded in understanding. Some people sent disappointed gaze toward me.

Wha… How and why could that possibly work?

I interrupted him, reaffirming the statement once again. “No, I’m… I am serious. I don’t know him. Someone call the police, he is literally kidnapping me.”

Instead of anyone helping, I only received more disappointed looked from the surrounding crowd.

What the fuck is wrong with this world? There is literally a kidnapping in-progress in front of their eyes and they’re doing absolutely nothing.

“I told you to stay quiet.” Past-Tobias said without letting the conversation devolve further, and a long object slammed into my butt.

“Ow!” I cried out slightly in pain, feeling the stinging sensation on my butt. “That… now, that was definitely sexual harassment.”

The object slammed into my butt again, and past-Tobias spoke up, “Do you not understand what quiet means?”

Being taken advantage of by their past-self, even if unintentionally, I don’t have the words to describe the situation. It’s too embarrassing and humiliating.

“Oh, the irony.” I muttered under my breath, whilst rubbing my sore butt with my working hand.

Past-Tobias seemingly heard my quiet muttering, the object moved again and whacked my exposed hand comforting my sore butt.

For someone that had been unable to comprehend what shut up meant earlier, my past-self is extremely strict in enforcing silence.

Despite my increasing nonverbal complains, I merely shut my mouth and stared at the crowd in anger. Unhelpful and useless leeches, all of them. They should all die in fire.

What kind of people stand around watching a kidnapper walk through the city with the victim on their back? Even if you didn’t believe it, why wouldn’t you call the police just in case?

…I suppose that’s to be expected.

A single person is a hero, a crowd of people is completely useless.

Plus, this is also an illusionary universe, they probably aren’t even real people. While I haven’t interacted enough with people here to completely assert their illusionary nature, but if they aren’t, my first impression of the culture and people here couldn’t get much worse.