After being pulled to a hole in the crystal that was in the middle of the room, I felt my body hitting something immediately followed by the sound of wood creaking and breaking and I was once more in the air, this time much less than just now as I felt myself hitting the ground.

I got up but almost regretted it immediately as everything was spinning around me, I almost fell twice just standing still. That emerald energy that was swirling around the crystal was now swirling around me and I could feel it burrowing itself in me as I stayed there.

I tried looking around but my dizziness prevented me from properly understanding where I was, but I could somewhat see a dirt road ahead of me. The dizziness added to the fact that I didn't want to stay near the person I killed in cold blood, even if he wanted it, made me start walking along the road.

As I walked down the road the energy kept burrowing itself inside me and the dizziness somewhat subdued because of it, I don't know how but I felt that was the case. Eventually the dizziness stopped altogether and I could now understand my surroundings. I was on a dirt road in the middle of an open field, near me was a crashed wagon that I immediately recognized as being the same wagon I had found a week ago, and no, it wasn't a wagon identical to the one I've found, it was the exact same one. It's in the same position, the same parts are broken and even the surroundings are the same… Wait.

"That's what happens when you get thrown into your own timeline. Hahaha" I heard a deep voice and laughter coming from behind me before I had the chance to turn around and confirm my location.

I almost jumped when I heard the unexpected voice and turned towards it. There I saw a black lion with a lush emerald green mane around 2 meters in height and was easily 3 meters long. Its figure was completely towering over me and it had such a presence I could feel in my very soul that if he blinked too hard I would be erased from existence, and yet I felt that I somehow already saw him somewhere, even though I know for sure I've never encountered someone like the one standing in front of me.

"I see you're afraid of me. Don't worry if I had something against you we wouldn't be having this conversation, in fact I wanted to thank you" The lion spoke.

"Thank… me?" I mustered the courage to speak.

"Yes, thank you. When you killed that dungeon you inadvertently created a temporal singularity which you fell through. This place simultaneously exists in your past and outside of the normal time flow" He explained.

I looked behind the lion and could see the first village I've found in this world and looking closely I could even see a small figure in the middle of the road. I was too far to properly see, but I was sure the small figure was actually me from a week ago.

"I don't understand-..." I spoke but was interrupted.

"Why I am thanking you? Because in this place time has no meaning, here everything is truly free. Even I am somewhat bound by the rules of time, having to guarantee everything is moving exactly as they should be. But here? Here I don't need to do anything" The lion said.

“I… erm… You’re welcome?” I said without really knowing what to say to this mysterious lion.

The lion laughed one more time before looking directly into my eyes, as if he was looking directly at my soul.

“You can’t run away from your feelings again” He suddenly said.

“What?” I asked in confusion.

“You are just fooling yourself. You accepted to kill Nyahala and convinced yourself you’ve thrown away your humanity to do it, and you’re using this to push all your feelings deep inside your mind. It won’t last…” He said.

“I… I…” My words got stuck in my mouth as I couldn’t find what to say.

“I am sorry, little one, the time’s up. Hehe, time’s up in a place where time doesn’t exist, that’s funny. One more thing, remember to close the cycle.” He said and before I could say anything back at him I felt the energy that was swirling around me and making its way inside me had dissipated and I felt my body being pulled towards myself and I simply imploded.

I suddenly felt my face hitting rock as I’ve got thrown out of wherever I was after I imploded. My body slowly slided to the floor and before I could open my eyes to see where I was I heard a voice, the last voice I wanted to hear.

“It’s yo-...No, it’s not you. You’re the one after him, aren’t you?” The voice of the man I killed a few minutes ago echoed in the room.

I froze in place. Now I understood what the lion meant by saying that my time was up and that I couldn't run away from my emotions.

“Hey, are you alright?” He asked again.

“Why?” i said.

“Because you’re just standing there like-...” I cut him mid sentence.

“I had just accepted to kill you and accepted I wasn't human anymore, so why should I cling to a humanity I don't have anymore? just like that lion said…” I said.

“What? Lion?” The man asked, confused, but I continued.

“I used the fact that once you were gone I didn't need to look back at you to bury every feeling I felt… but now here I am, literally minutes after I did it” I spoke as my eyes started to become blurry with tears.

He just stood there looking at me, thinking of what to say to me.

“I had accepted I was a monster the moment I took your life and now here you are, again… I can’t do this, not again. I won’t be able to” My legs gave away and I fell on the floor.

“You’re not a monster” He said.

“Huh?” I looked up at the beastman who was looking at me.

“Monsters don’t care about feelings and don’t try to bury them. Monsters just do whatever they want and consequences be damned. You say you’re a monster for killing me? I say the real monster is the one who put me in this hellish place in the first place” He spoke.

I just looked at him, mouth agape.

“Don’t try to bury your feelings, accept them. Killing someone because it’s the only way to free them is not cruel, it’s merciful. You didn’t take my life, I gave it to you… and you freed me, as you will free me again and the cycle will be complete. You’re not a monster, you’re a hero. You’re my hero” He said.

Tears were flowing out of my eyes as I listened to him. I guess I needed to hear the person I killed saying this to me for me to finally accept this new reality I was in.

[ Conditions satisfied. Individual, Denaru Theris, has acquired the title [ Merciful Hero ] ]

[ As a result of the title [ Merciful Hero], the skill [Small Hero] evolved to the skill [Hero] ]

Even the System seemed to agree with me as it gave me a title and my skill has evolved to what appears to be a superior version of it.

I stopped crying and the leftover water was almost immediately evaporated by my body heat as I got back on my feet.

“Ok.. i suppose i can’t kill you again, i need to make myself do it, or rather, my past version do it” I looked at the man who simply nodded.

“The cycle must be closed or else we risk breaking a hole in the timeline. You need to bring your past self here while avoiding the traps I had begun to set up hundreds of years ago” He said.

“Traps? I didn't encounter any trap besides a collapsing ceiling that trapped me down here when I first came here” I explained.

“...Then you must have broken all of them before coming here, and you must do it again. It’ll be rather simple as I only had time to set up three traps, and the monster who put me here made me undo one and change it for the Time Crystal mine that is the room just before here” He explained.

I nodded and exited the room, remaking my steps to exit the dungeon. The third room was exactly the same, nothing really different from before, so I kept moving. The second room was the one with the broken pedestals, but now they were fully restored, or rather, they were intact. I crossed the stone bridge towards them and after I fully crossed the bridge the scenery behind me changed to that of a desert. I was impressed by the sudden change of ambient, but that was probably the trap in this room, so I moved to the first pedestal and looked at it.

The pedestal was a simple stone pedestal, with what looked like a stone button on top of it. I pressed the button carefully and observed the scenery of the desert changing to that of a river made out of lava with volcanoes erupting in the background. Considering there are those green crystals inside of each pedestal, and the crystals seem to be “Time Crystals”, the scenery probably represents the various historical ages of the planet formation, and this lava river and volcanoes in the background must be the very beginning of it. I decided to smash all of them, except for the one I had found intact initially. pressing it after smashing the others revealed the stone bridge I just crossed.

“I want to know how the scene is one way only as I crossed the bridge to here and only after I crossed to this side did I see the desert appearing” I spoke out loud, but no one answered. No one except, of course, my skill.

[Using a complex configuration of Time Crystals and portals a one way portal can be made in which a person from “behind” the portal won’t notice it, but a person “in front” of it will]

“Makes sense… I guess?” I spoke before continuing.

The next room was the first one, the one where I found the Taunt Stones. It was a really pretty common room before I broke everything. I began walking but stopped just in time as a stone arrow flew from a hole in the wall and hit the other wall before falling onto the floor. I looked below me and I saw a Taunt Stone just below me on top of a pressure plate that triggered the stone.

“... Ok, I need to be more careful with these now” I said to myself before picking the stone up and throwing it on the floor with a little bit of strength.

The moment the stone hit the floor it shattered into a million pieces and released a small wave of Taunt that I managed to brush it off. 

“Okay, I need to be more careful with my strength too” I said to myself, again.

I moved around the room carefully and broke every Taunt Stone i could find together with the pressure plates on the floor, eventually the room looked exactly like i had first found it.

I was about to leave to go to the surface when I stopped and began to think.

“Wait, that first person I’ve met, the one who threw a Taunt Stone at me to attract me here, where is he?” I was about to go back to the final room when a thought crossed my mind.

“No, it can’t be…” I opened my status screen and looked directly at my [True Mimic] skill registry, and sure enough, it was there. a new transformation choice for the skill, the species of the beastman i killed. I guess it makes sense in a way.

I sighed and began the transformation process, and immediately a cold sensation spread through my body and I felt the same pain as I always feel when transforming. My body lost its length and gained height as I became bipedal once more. I stayed on two feet for a few seconds before falling onto the floor face first.

“Ouch, I guess a week of not walking on two feet really made me forget about how to walk properly, huh? Besides, there’s something wrong with this body. I don’t know why, but I feel weaker in a humanoid body than in my dragon body” I said.

I got up and made a few movements to relearn how to use a humanoid body, even though this one had one tail more than a human because I have a tail in my dragon form I already know how to use it in some way. Looking at myself standing I noticed I was rather short, considering the scales between words are the same, shorter than my old self it seems.

I grabbed a few Taunt Stones and left the first room. As I walked towards the stairs I found a spot on the wall I could use to hide from myself when I run away after attracting me. I went up the stairs with the stones on my hands and waited for a few minutes before I saw myself and Jane walking towards the house.

I waited until Jane started talking to the person inside the house to aim the Taunt Stone, I controlled my strength to avoid hurting myself and threw the stone. My aim was just a little off, as I aimed for my body, but I hit my head with more force than I wished I had used as I watched myself being thrown on the ground with enough force to make me spin.

“Ah… that’s where that came from” I said as I watched my poor self being hit by me. He, or I, stood up and looked at me. I froze for a few seconds as i saw myself, but remembered i needed to run, as i already had ran in his perspective.

I went down the stairs running and hid myself in that opening I’ve found, waiting for me to pass through, which didn’t take long. After I saw myself running a little away from me I left my hiding spot and began to walk up the stairs, but stopped.

The collapsing ceiling, how do I cause that? Maybe a [Fireball] will work?

i casted a [Fireball] and shot it at the ceiling a little below me. The magic hit the ceiling and exploded with enough force to send me flying a couple of meters in the air and breaking the stone that made the ceiling, causing a collapse.

“I guess that solves it, huh?” I spoke before transforming back into a White Dragon. After all, Jana would be asking a lot of questions if I suddenly wasn’t a little White Dragon anymore.