"It's him! It's this guy!"
"Hmph, we finally caught him!"
"Hahaha, now Earl Nicholas's bounty is ours!"
"Don't let your guard down! Several groups of mercenaries have stumbled on this guy before. He's very slippery!"
"Don't worry, boss. Didn't the informant confirm with us that the guy's injuries haven't healed yet? And we've surrounded this place. Let's see where he can run to this time!"
Reji, who had walked out of the house, looked at the mercenaries with fierce expressions on their faces and recalled for a moment. Indeed, even their opening lines were exactly the same as in the game's plot.
Moreover, from his accurate prediction of their appearance, it further proved one of his previous speculations.
That is—his past self who had been reversed still walked on the trajectory of the original history.
Hmm...
No.
One thing was already different.
Seeing Reji come out and just ponder, which of course looked more like he was standing there dumbfounded in the eyes of those mercenaries, they became even more delighted.
"Look at him. He must be scared silly! He doesn't even know how to run anymore!"
"That's right. Our Black Lion Mercenaries are the most famous in Stone Sword Town. Otherwise, the Earl wouldn't have sought us out."
"You brat, stand still and don't move. If you know what's good for you, it'll be better for both of us. This way, on the way to take you to see the Earl, we can let you live a little longer!"
"Exactly! Reji! You have nowhere to run now. Surrender!"
Ignoring these clichéd minion lines, Reji's expression turned solemn as he keenly captured a very interesting point among them.
He immediately turned his gaze to a certain mercenary who had just been shouting.
"W-what are you doing!?"
Suddenly being the focus of Reji's gaze, this young mercenary with a buzz cut and tattoos on his half-exposed shoulders instantly felt a chill, as if he had been stared at by some bottomless abyss in that moment.
He was startled, and all the hair on his body stood up. He subconsciously took half a step back.
Fortunately, this eerie feeling of being stared at by the abyss only lasted for a moment. When he regained his senses, it seemed as if nothing had happened.
There was only the bounty target still looking at him.
And... The strange question from this target.
"What did you call me just now?" Reji calmly asked.
"Huh!? You... you..."
The buzz-cut mercenary was really annoyed. How dare a mere bounty target question him? Just as he was about to find his footing and scold Reji...
So there was only one possibility left for this phenomenon to occur.
The past was also being modified along with his actions.
And whenever there was a huge change in the world line, the Philosopher's Stone on his right hand would emit light to... warn him.
That's right.
To "warn" him.
Or rather, a certain kind of energy inside it was being depleted.
The Philosopher's Stone was noticeably dimmer than at the beginning, becoming more illusory.
Reji had a strong premonition.
If he excessively "influenced" the past and excessively "rewrote" history, then the Philosopher's Stone in his hand would only become more and more blurry and illusory until it completely disappeared.
And that would also mean... He could no longer return to the future.
Reji would never abandon everything from a thousand years later.
So from the very beginning, when he intercepted the Emperor and used the Philosopher's Stone to perform a reversal, at that moment, Reji had created a new save point, or rather, a space-time anchor point.
As long as the Philosopher's Stone existed, he could always return to the future a thousand years later.
Reji had never intended to abandon his Demon King self from the second playthrough, let alone Eileen, Vielsia, Leo, Shermen, Eris, and the other apostles with whom he had established bonds.
His true purpose for reversing was to use the ability to modify history from guess two to overturn the tragedy that befell the Emperor.
To save the Saintess who had lost the hero in the past.
So that in the future, there would no longer be that crazy Emperor corrupted by the Evil God.
But now it seemed... It wasn't as simple as he thought.
Just by modifying the hero's name, the energy in the Philosopher's Stone had been consumed by nearly half, let alone what followed.
Reji could actually understand. The more drastic the changes he caused to the world line in the past, the more unrecognizable it would become when everything converged to the future.
For example, if he directly killed Freya here... Reji believed the Philosopher's Stone would immediately shatter and explode.
It would mean that the "future" of the second playthrough could never be reached again.
He would be... Forever stuck in this world line where Freya was already dead.
To prevent this from happening, Reji had to find a way to restore the energy of the Philosopher's Stone, a way to make the gem become more and more solid instead.
It seemed like there was no clue?
In fact, it was not.
Looking back at the energy essence of the Philosopher's Stone, Reji already had the answer.