3: How Wolfe reacted

Wolfe wasn’t an idiot. Sure, he wasn’t the smartest man in the world, but he was still smart enough to realize that having a plan work once, then fail the next time after a time rewind meant something wasn’t being rewound properly. Eventually, he realized that the one thing which kept changing was Alicia. She seemed to remember the previous attempts, but after he did some testing, he could tell it was flawed. Small subtle things would be forgotten. Big things especially things that personally upset her, would be remembered, and she seemed to care a lot about random civilian casualties. Making her forget about a spy was as simple as making an inn explode nearby. She’d remember the explosion and try to stop it next time, and forget about who the spy was.

Truly, this should’ve given Wolfe an unbeatable advantage, and made Alicia little more than a speed bump. It was clear from the way other champions were being positioned in the world, that other gods were working on a trap for Wolfe, with Alicia being used to merely slow him down and buy time.

This is when the god of orgies made a deal with the god of time. Normally a god cannot influence or guide another god’s champion. However, Wolfe suddenly began to fall in love with Alicia (or whatever passes for love in that corrupt mind of his). His entire path then changed. He didn’t stop trying to conquer the world, but he did change his overall strategy. Instead of thoroughly conquering and controlling towns and slaughtering any innocents in his way, he began to make deals with Alicia. If she did a little thing for him, he’d not do all the killing and domination she knew he’d done before. It would all be undone. 

Alicia at this point had already lost all hope of actually winning. So, seeing an opportunity to save thousands of lives, she accepted. A kiss? Sure. Help him steal a book? Alright. It was clear that something had changed though, even to Alicia. She no longer knew what exactly Wolfe was after. He’d clearly been bent on world domination before. Now he was doing something else. So, in her spare time, Alicia would try to out plot him, unaware that all her work was being spied upon.

Meanwhile, the hero party thought they were doing great. They were stopping every evil plot Wolfe threw up (as far as they knew) and he was in constant retreat. The gods though: They realized their speed bump of Alicia wasn’t working anymore. Wolfe had rewritten the timeline such that instead of spending a lot of time on complex plans to take over each town and prevent Alicia from winning, he was now traveling fast, only staying in each town long enough to obtain an item or two, before moving on. The traps that had been planned would no longer work. Wolfe wasn’t spending enough time in any one location anymore. 

Wolfe might not be conquering the world anymore, but he’s still evading the attempts to catch him. Everyone knows if they ignore him, he could go right back to conquering. It’s clear the god behind him has been providing guidance as he is not relying upon his time magic to thwart the plots of the other gods. It wouldn’t work after all. The first big step to catching a time mage, is to make them no longer able to cast. That’s not something which can be evaded by rewinding time after the fact. Evading such a trap, requires knowing about it in advance, and Wolfe hasn’t displayed that level of foresight.