Epilogue: The Land Reached at Journey’s End

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“—Hey—! —What in the world—!”

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“—What—place—is this—?!”

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“Are you—okay—come on, wake up!”

Shake, shake. Shake, shake.

Amidst the mire of a swirling vortex of darkness where his consciousness wandered, a faintly familiar voice tickled the edges of Glenn’s awareness.

His body was being shaken.

These sensations slowly peeled Glenn’s consciousness away from the darkness it had merged with, gradually sharpening the outline of his identity.

Like small bubbles merging, growing larger, and rising toward the ocean’s surface.

“…Ugh…ah…?”

Glenn’s consciousness began surfacing toward awakening.

“Hey, are you okay!? Ugh, you’re such a handful…! What is going on today!? First, Celica suddenly comes back, and now these weird people…!”

Slowly… he opened his eyes.

The darkness split horizontally, parting upward and downward.

At the center of his blurry, unfocused vision, someone was there.

A face he recognized.

Eventually, Glenn’s pupils slowly, steadily found their focus… and fully resolved the image of the girl peering down at his face as he lay on his back.

That girl, who looked exactly like Rumia—

“…Nameless…?”

Yes, it was the girl Glenn knew well—Nameless.

But…

“…W-What…?”

Something was off about the Nameless before Glenn’s eyes.

What exactly was wrong?

As he pondered with a sluggish mind, he suddenly realized.

“Nameless… you…?”

The Nameless Glenn knew had no physical form. She was always a translucent, ghostly figure, able to speak but untouchable.

But—this Nameless was not translucent. She had a solid, tangible presence.

As proof, Nameless was touching Glenn’s cheek with her hand, actually making contact.

What did this mean? As Glenn grappled with confusion,

“…Who are you calling Nameless? That’s rude.”

Nameless puffed out her cheeks indignantly and glared at Glenn.

“I have a perfectly fine name—La’tirika. Don’t call me by weird names.”

“…”

“More importantly, who are you? Pretty rude for someone I’m meeting for the first time, don’t you think?”

Glenn sat up.

Beside him was Sistine.

She seemed to have lost consciousness, lying limply on the ground.

He glanced around with a foggy mind.

This place appeared to be outside the ruins—likely the plaza in front of the Taum Celestial Temple.

The ruins Glenn and the others had been exploring until just moments ago stood right there.

But—something was off.

This temple was supposed to be quietly situated in a remote, desolate frontier.

Yet now, surrounding the temple were countless buildings in an unfamiliar, peculiar architectural style. Trapezoidal, stone-built structures with an oddly antiquated design stretched endlessly.

And between those buildings, at key points, stood numerous strange stone pillars.

It seemed this was the heart of some foreign city.

But there was no sign of human presence.

And the sky—it was so red it looked as though it might burn and collapse at any moment.

It was an apocalyptic twilight sky, one that could make you believe the world was ending at that very moment.

And in the distant sky loomed Melgalius’s Sky Castle—

(…What is this place…? Where are we…?!)

If that sky castle was visible, this must be within the Alzano Empire… and relatively close to Fejite, no less.

But Glenn had no recollection of this city’s scenery.

For a moment, panic threatened to overtake him, but then he noticed something.

This ancient-looking city he now found himself in—

it wasn’t entirely unfamiliar.

(…For example, the ancient ruined city of Mares, where I fought Albert… If that decayed city were fully restored, it’d probably look something like this… right?)

No matter how he thought about it,

this city’s landscape didn’t exist anywhere in the modern empire.

It was clearly a scene from a different era.

“…”

Glenn recalled the thesis written by Sistine’s grandfather, Redolf Fibel, about the temple’s supposed ability to facilitate spatiotemporal travel.

That could only mean one thing—

“I see… so we’ve been thrown back to ancient times… to the era of the Super Magic Civilization, huh?”

There was no other explanation.

“Huh? Ancient? Super Magic Civilization? What are you even talking about!?”

Nameless—or rather, La’tirika—shook him again, clearly baffled.

Glenn looked at her and gave a wry smile.

The situation was so absurd that his mind couldn’t keep up, leaving him with nothing but a bitter chuckle.

In other words, this Nameless wasn’t the Nameless he and the others knew—it was a Nameless from an unimaginably distant past.

“Ha… haha… In a situation like this… what should I even say…?”

As La’tirika continued to shake him, Glenn thought hazily.

“Yo, Nameless. Long time no see… nah, that’d be weird to say.”

Yes, in this case,

there was a far more fitting greeting.

And that was—

“Yeah… in this case, I should say… Nice to meet you.”

“Huh!? What are you even—!?”

La’tirika’s expression screamed confusion.

Seeing her reaction, Glenn recalled the first time he met Nameless at the First Ritual Chamber of the Taum Celestial Temple… and gave another wry smile.

Then, all at once, an overwhelming wave of exhaustion hit him.

Perhaps due to the effects of time travel, his mana was completely depleted.

He could barely move a finger.

His newly surfaced consciousness began sinking rapidly again.

The violent, unrelenting drowsiness made it impossible to stay awake.

“Sorry… Nameless… I’m gonna… sleep for a bit…”

“Hey!? Hold on, you, come on!”

La’tirika, flustered, grabbed Glenn’s collar and shook him again.

But to Glenn, in his current state, her shaking felt no different from the gentle rocking of a cradle.

What would happen to him now?

Could he return to his own time?

Despite the many uncertainties—for now, to soothe his exhausted mind and body, he indulged in a moment of rest—