Chapter 18: “Those Who Cross Time”
Chapter 18: “Those Who Cross Time”
—As my own record.
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That day, in the year 2025, the sun was sinking, dyeing the gate facility in shades of gold.
Beside Rafaella, who stood at the water’s edge, I exhaled quietly.
The robot dog, Hachikō, pressed close at my feet, waiting for my signal at any moment.
“…It’s time.”
Rafaella’s voice melted into the sound of the waves.
I turned back once.
Beyond the crystal gate, a figure in a lab coat came running down the gangway—that was Vermilion Jones.
“Oliver! I forgot to say! I’ll take care of all the financial processing!”
“You were planning on it from the start!”
“Pretty much!”
He grinned, waved, and turned on his heel.
Even with the weight of bringing order to a chaotic world on his back, he made it seem like nothing more than an amusing job.
That’s probably just who Vermilion is.
His face shines brightest when he has something heavy to carry.
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At the gate, I stroked Hachikō’s head.
Rafaella’s profile was painted orange by the setting sun.
At our feet lay the plaques inscribed as proof of those who had returned to the future.
The last name engraved there was Saint-Germain Magnus.
The gate activated.
Space warped, and light shifted the color of the sky—we were setting out on another “journey.”
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Meanwhile, elsewhere, another gate had begun to stir.
The Zero Gate.
Sealed deep beneath the future city, its very existence nearly forgotten.
And there stood—Zeus. And Burns Dan.
My father, and my teacher.
They too were about to set out.
“It’s time. Let’s go, Burns Dan.”
“Understood. …All recording media loaded.”
Around them, guardians. Far above, eight hundred crew members of the 14-Trillion-Yen ship stirred from cryosleep.
Everyone knew this was not a journey of escape into the future.
It was a journey to sow seeds—seeds called truth—into the past.
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The instant the gate opened, the entire facility was engulfed in light—
and then five figures vanished.
The 14-Trillion-Yen and its eight hundred crew disappeared with them.
Only silence remained.
As if the future itself had already “fulfilled its role.”
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Where they arrived was a desert without stars, without moon.
Only a black wind blew.
“…So this is the origin,” the professor murmured—at least, that’s what Zeus told me later.
The era people would later call the “Old Testament.”
From this empty place, a myth to change the future would begin.
The gangway opened, and people began descending one by one from the 14-Trillion-Yen.
They had no idea this land would one day be called both “paradise” and “hell.”
But perhaps that was how it needed to be.
Adventure begins because you do not yet know.
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At that same time, we too had started walking again.
Rafaella, Hachikō, and I.
In the world to which we had returned through the gate,
we set out once more—seeking the next reunion.
A reunion with our comrades.
(End of Chapter 18)
