The idea felt strange, even absurd — but it was the only thing Vincent could come up with right now.
At the thought, he picked up the Wishing Lamp — set aside ever since Bernadette had first offered it up as a sacrifice — and the instant it touched his hand, he noticed something different.
First, the weight: it definitely felt heavier than before. Second, the color: the golden "kettle's" surface looked noticeably more radiant now, its wick wreathed in a faint golden light that seemed to seep slowly into the lamp's interior.
Looking closer, that pale gold light looked exactly like the golden mist pouring off the ancient scale.
"???"
Vincent couldn't help swearing out loud, quickly holding the Wishing Lamp further from himself: this thing had been secretly absorbing the scale's mist this whole time?
Could it be that the "Lamp Spirit" had actually been hiding inside the Wishing Lamp all along, unable to manifest for some reason — until it entered the Nation of Disorder, and quietly started absorbing the golden mist to restore itself?
At the thought, Vincent rubbed the lamp firmly a few times — but still, nothing happened.
Is it just not recovered enough yet — or is my whole theory wrong?
Vincent stared hard at the Wishing Lamp, and made up his mind: he'd take it out of here the moment he got the chance, just in case some "Child of Chaos" ended up replacing "Lord of Chaos" and taking over his own nest — even if the thing hiding inside might, theoretically, be himself.
Hm. Maybe I could try feeling out my own 'daughter' a bit, indirectly.
Vincent raised a hand, continuing to channel spirituality into the scale, establishing the connection, projecting his own image into her field of view, and asked, flat:
"What is it you want me to answer, Daughter of the Evernight?"
...
On the other side, after speaking Lord of Chaos's honorific for the fifth time, Luna suddenly found her vision flooded with pale golden mist, and within that mist, a hazy, indistinct figure seated high above her.
He lounged with an air of easy indifference, one hand toying with a golden kettle, and asked, in a flat tone:
"What is it you want me to answer, Daughter of the Evernight?"
Luna froze for a moment, then answered, polite but not the least bit servile: "Honored Lord of Chaos — the object in your hand, is that the Wishing Lamp?"
"Mm."
Vincent gave a slight nod. "Adam gave it to me."
Understanding clicked for Luna at once. It seemed that after retrieving the Wishing Lamp and discovering the Lamp Spirit gone, Amon must have handed it over to Adam, and Adam, for whatever reason of his own, had passed it along to this Lord of Chaos.
And the Nation of Disorder had, originally, belonged to the Lamp Spirit — that is, the Child of Chaos's own Source Quality.
Lord of Chaos. Child of Chaos. The Nation of Disorder. The Wishing Lamp. All of it together couldn't possibly be mere coincidence.
"What do you want me to answer?"
Vincent asked again.
Luna's body tensed slightly. "Honored Lord of Chaos — do you know where the 'Child of Chaos' inside the Wishing Lamp has gone?"
Vincent didn't know — but that didn't stop him from asking a question of his own in return: "Why? Why do you and Amon both care so much about the Child of Chaos? What is it you're actually looking for from him?"
"I'm not looking for the Child of Chaos. I'm looking for someone else."
"Oh?"
"A man named Vincent."
"..."
At this point, Vincent's theory was, essentially, confirmed: future him really had gone and pulled off a whole string of absurd feats in the past.
Still, part of him couldn't help feeling doubtful — he just didn't feel like the kind of person capable of any of that "big stuff."
He rested his chin on a hand, feigning idle curiosity. "Vincent? Oh, you mean the 'Angel of Time'?"
Luna said, "Yes. He did hold that title, the 'Angel of Time,' at one point. Do you know him?"
"I've heard of him."
Vincent smiled faintly. "Though I don't quite understand what your search for the 'Angel of Time' has to do with the 'Child of Chaos.'"
"Because..."
She pressed her lips together, then continued, "Because before he vanished, he'd been searching for the Wishing Lamp's whereabouts this whole time. But after he finally got his hands on it, he disappeared along with the Wishing Lamp itself, and hasn't been seen since."
Her words revealed two things:
One — his past self had vanished. Two — right before vanishing, he'd been actively searching for the Wishing Lamp.
Vanishing, to Vincent, actually sounded like good news, and made a certain sense too: if future-him really had used time magic from the Harry Potter world to travel back into the past, he'd probably also have to follow that world's rules around time travel — events that had already happened couldn't be changed, or it would trigger some unknown catastrophe.
Vanishing, then, would be the safest way to minimize any changes.
Except — why would he go looking for the Wishing Lamp right before vanishing?
Er...
Vincent suddenly froze, feeling a bit ridiculous. Don't tell me — was it purely because I heard about myself searching for the Wishing Lamp in the past, right here, today, and now I'm just going to go recreate that exact thing, to close the loop?
That would be a bit... too on the nose, wouldn't it?
Seeing no response from Vincent, Luna continued, "And the reason he went looking for the Wishing Lamp was to strong-jump into whatever pathway the Child of Chaos belonged to."
She paused, then, holding her breath, fixed her gaze on the illusory figure before her, and asked, pointedly, "Honored Lord of Chaos — what's your take on all this?"
"..."
My future self is really that hardcore, huh? My earlier guess wasn't even bold enough.
Wait — wasn't the Wishing Lamp supposed to be indestructible even to a true god? And he was planning to actually kill the "Lamp Spirit," to use its Beyonder Characteristic in a potion?
Which meant: his "big daughter" had worked out that Lord of Chaos was probably the identity "Vincent" had taken on, after successfully strong-jumping pathways — the very father she'd spent all these years searching for.
Well, in a manner of speaking, he really was currently on the "Broker" Pathway, and he really had become Lord of Chaos — which, in a roundabout way, did make him her father.
The conclusion wasn't wrong!
But it was also completely, entirely wrong.
No — wait, not necessarily.
Maybe the very fact that he'd gained access to the Nation of Disorder and become Lord of Chaos in the first place had been engineered, from the start, by his own future self.
That would actually answer a lot of open questions at once.
Vincent said, flat, "I couldn't tell you."
So... should I just go ahead and claim her, then?
Yes. I'm your father!
Vincent immediately started weighing the consequences of acknowledging this "daughter."
First, there was the sheer windfall of it — instantly gaining an Angel-level daughter without lifting a finger. Given how relentlessly she'd searched for her own father, their bond was probably genuinely strong — which, on the whole, didn't seem like a bad thing for him.
And then — acknowledging this daughter also meant, effectively, acknowledging the Goddess of the Evernight as his wife. That was the real main event here.
Tch. My wife is the Goddess of the Evernight.
That alone could carry an entire novel of its own!
But the real question was how the Goddess of the Evernight actually felt about her "much-younger" husband — and he'd already run through that analysis just a moment ago.
Vincent figured that whatever had brought "past him" and the Goddess of the Evernight together, close enough to have a child, must have involved either genuine, hard-earned shared experience and real feelings, or some deep, mutually beneficial exchange of interests.
And obviously, present-him possessed neither of those things.
Just as he felt nothing real toward this "daughter," the Goddess of the Evernight's feelings toward him were bound to be even worse — not to mention he was currently sharing a body with Bernadette on top of everything else!
At the thought, something clicked for Vincent — an old, long-forgotten question resurfacing in his mind: a while back, he'd already suspected the Goddess of the Evernight might have known about his existence for some time.
And yet she'd never once tried to reach out to him, never even told her own daughter about it. Didn't that, in itself, say something about her attitude toward him?
Or... did she really not know anything at all?
Maybe there was still some deeper mystery buried in all of this.
At the thought, Vincent asked, "Do you know why he strong-jumped pathways?"
"No."
Luna shook her head, then added, "Maybe I did know, once. But I've forgotten."
"Oh?"
"The reason I've been searching for him is that he took part of my memories with him, before he vanished. I want to get them back — to become whole again."
Took part of her memories with him, before vanishing?
What kind of father does that to his own daughter?
What exactly is future-me up to?
"Have you tried getting the Visionary Pathway to help you recover them?"
"I have. It didn't work. That portion of my memory was severed away together with a piece of my soul — not even Adam could do anything about it."
"???"
Why does this all sound so familiar...
Severing your own daughter's soul apart like that — isn't that the kind of thing only some particular, deliberately-unnamed webnovel god surnamed Tang would pull?
What an absolute monster.
To be continued…
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