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Stop Calling Me "Mate"! I Only Defeated You Once, Not Married You! (Web Novel) - Volume 9, Chapter 1: You Didn't Ask Me Either!
Volume 9, Chapter 1: You Didn't Ask Me Either!
This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl
*Valhalla*Leon’s pupils quivered slightly as he stared, surprised, at that familiar figure.
“Safina?”
He opened his mouth to say more, but Safina lifted a hand to stop him.
Under everyone’s startled, puzzled, uncomprehending gazes, Safina stepped forward and walked slowly toward Constantine.
“In the Time-Web, tens or hundreds of thousands of branches of possibility are recorded.”
She kept her eyes ahead. Her low heels pressed into the scorched earth, leaving the ground slightly sunken. Two long arms hung loose at her sides; her stride was steady. In this oppressive, heavy mood, she moved as if out for a leisurely stroll.
Safina went on:
“Even a very small decision—an anxious breath, a mistimed heartbeat, a sudden spark of thought—will spin off another timeline entirely, even the opposite of this one. All of those timelines are recorded in the Time-Web. They don’t affect the real world you live in.”
She stopped beside Hefei and looked down at Constantine with his eyes shut, her voice stepping down softly:
“Leon. Rosvisser. You cannot expect to find the one path to total victory every single time. Out of ten million timelines, only one or two end in unclouded happiness. And clearly, what’s happening now is not the perfect ending you hoped for, is it?”
The husband and wife were silent. Everyone else was, too.
Only Hefei, who carefully pinched the hem of Safina’s clothes and pleaded through tears:
“Teacher Safina... please save my father. Please...”
Safina glanced aside at the little one, face washed with tears. She lifted a hand and gently wiped the wet from the child’s lashes, then drew her gaze back and continued:
“The fortunate thing is... I can rewrite this.”
With that, Safina set her palm lightly on Constantine’s chest.
In the next instant, a golden magic array bloomed beneath her and Constantine. Complex, whirling patterns rimmed the circle; at its center, an hourglass. Around Safina herself, countless mesh-like strands surfaced.
Aurora arched a brow, recognizing it at a glance.
“The Time-Web... so many Time-Webs.”
...
Noa looked at Aurora.
“What’s Teacher Safina going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Aurora said, shaking her head. “But to control that many Time-Webs at once... I, as I am now, can’t do it.”
Different scenes flickered within the Time-Webs, circling Safina and flashing past her eyes. At last, as if she had found the right one, she fixed it in place. The other Time-Webs vanished at once.
“Then, Constantine of the Red Flame, you will once more pass beyond life and death and walk the edge of hell. And this time... when you wake, you will step into a new realm.”
As her words fell, golden radiance surged up. The frozen Time-Web dissolved into motes of light that settled one by one onto Constantine.
When the glow faded, Safina rose. Seeing that Constantine showed no sign of waking yet, she studied him a moment and murmured to herself, “Oh, right—you have to make a round through that place as well. Then while we’re waiting, I’ll catch up with some old friends.”
She straightened and turned to face Leon and the others, who were still stuck in collective stupefaction.
They stared at one another in silence. After a dozen seconds of awkward quiet:
“Teacher Safina!”
Noa and Aurora cried out in unison and ran to her at once.
Before she became the goddess of time, at Leon’s request Safina had taught Noa and Aurora at Saint Heath Academy. It was then the two truly grew into themselves; and as for Aurora, there’s no need to say it—if not for Safina, she would be the one trapped on the Throne of Time now.
Safina smiled in relief as the two little dragons ran to her. She knelt with gentle ease and hugged Noa and Aurora in close, one on each side.
“Miss me? Hm?”
She pressed her cheek to Aurora’s soft face and teased:
“Oh~ you’ve filled out~”
Moist-eyed, Aurora sniffled.
“I have not. I didn’t get even a little bit fat.”
Even as a child, a girl cares very much about her figure.
Safina pinched her cheeks, then turned to Noa. Her gaze swept quickly up from toes to crown, finally landing on Noa’s injured right leg.
“Hurt yourself again?”
Noa gave an abashed smile, scratched at her temple, and didn’t answer about the injury—she only answered Safina’s first question:
“I missed you, Teacher Safina.”
Safina smiled, gratified, then reached out and tapped Noa’s knee.
The same golden light flared—and Noa’s injury healed in an instant.
Noa’s eyes lit up. “Teacher Safina...”
“A trifle.”
Safina ruffled Noa’s hair.
“I missed you too, little one.”
Then she stood, took a little dragon girl’s hand in each of hers, and walked toward Leon, who had finally come back to himself. Facing him, Safina lifted her eyes a fraction to meet his.
They simply looked at each other.
What Safina saw in Leon’s eyes wasn’t just surprise. There was a tangle of other feelings, complicated and crossed.
She understood. Since the battle with Atos, they had never met again—hadn’t even had time for a parting word. She had saved Samael, had saved Leon’s whole family; Leon’s apology and guilt toward her were beyond words. So that, now that they stood face to face again, he didn’t know how to begin—was normal enough.
Pak—
Safina raised her arm and gave Leon’s chest a light punch.
“Say something. Never seen the goddess of time descend to earth? What are you spacing out for?”
Leon finally came back to himself. Though still a little dazed, seeing Safina as breezy and unrestrained as in his memory washed away most of his worry.
Only then did he really look her over. The left eye she had lost copying the power of time was now covered by a monocle-like patch shaped like a golden leaf. Her long purple hair was still tied into the familiar ponytail; her style of dress hadn’t changed much either.
Of course, what mattered most wasn’t the outside, but... the core and the aura.
Her presence was completely different.
Though she still wore the easy, neighborly big-sister smile, Leon couldn’t feel a trace of energy fluctuation from her. No matter how lightly she bantered, nothing could hide the pressure that belonged only to a deity. She felt like someone who, this second, could joke and chat with you—then the next, use the power of time to erase everything.
Leon knew this state well. Back then, when he unlocked the Five-Spirit Saint Shadow, he had been exactly like Safina was now.
He shook his head clear and smiled.
“Long time no see, Safina.”
Seeing an old friend hadn’t become stiffly unfamiliar, Safina finally let out a small breath.
“Hmph. At least you’ve a conscience—you remember my name.”
“Ah, I...”
“Drop the act. I can see it in the Time-Web. These years you haven’t mentioned my name at all. Not once!”
Now commencing—Time Goddess’s reckoning!
Safina let go, then lifted a finger to jab Leon in the chest.
“Either you had that girl step in for me, or you borrowed Kaiser’s sister to carry the line forward. What? Do I not have a name? Or is my name ugly?”
With every sentence she took a step forward; Leon was forced to give ground step after step.
“Say it, say it—what is my name, some taboo? Can’t even speak it? Mm? Mm?”
Safina pressed closer and closer.
Until Leon backed up to Rosvisser’s side. The queen raised a hand to steady him before he got poked again, then looked to Safina and said gently:
“Don’t press him any further, Safina.”
Safina looked to Rosvisser too and greeted her warmly:
“Long time no see, Rosvisser—you’re getting more and more beautiful.”
Time Goddess’s behavior log:
Meet Old Con: Don’t panic, I’m here to save you.
See Noa: You’re hurt? Teacher’s heart aches~
Spot Aurora: Little treasure, little treasure~
See the Queen: You’re even more beautiful~
See General Leon: Did you forget my name?!
Rosvisser’s cheeks colored; she shook her head. “Leon hasn’t forgotten your name. None of our family has. It’s just... every time he brings you up, he feels guilty. He—”
Safina waved it off:
“What is there to feel guilty about? I don’t mind in the least. Besides...”
Her voice dipped; she lowered her eyes. Smoke-colored pupils flickered with old memories.
“Besides—only this way can I remember Anita forever.”
Forgetting—and being forgotten—is a fate no one escapes. Unless time freezes everything in memory.
Safina didn’t want to forget her dearest friend, and she also wanted to complete her own redemption. So she chose to become this world’s goddess of time.
The general’s reason returned quickly. Leon looked to Kaiser, who had maintained a model silence:
“You actually knew your sister was coming to help, didn’t you?”
Honest Kaiser nodded.
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you say so earlier! You had all of us here on edge for nothing!”
Isha caught on.
“Right! I always thought only you could leave the Palace of Time—I didn’t expect your sister could, too. I didn’t know, fine—but you did! Why didn’t you say anything?”
Valendna:
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but the purple-haired pretty boy is clearly the one we’re all supposed to shell—so I’m in!”
Rosvisser smiled helplessly, massaging her brow. She had no intention of joining the “shell Kaiser” battle—she would spectate from the sidelines. Safina, for her part, made sure to stand far enough away not to get caught in the crossfire.
As for throwing her little brother under the cart, the time-goddess sister had that down cold.
And the tongue-tied, already-defeated Void boy’s brain crashed even harder. He had no idea how to answer.
Under the heat of everyone’s stare, at the very last, Kaiser scratched his hand like a flustered cub and said with utter seriousness:
“You didn’t ask me either!”
