Adam looked at the first friend he'd made in the Trials of Defiance.

She looked slightly different from back then, since her brown hair hung down freely instead of being tied up in a ponytail like the other times he'd seen her. It didn't take him long to realise she had picked the Summoner weapon type.

It's a wonder she survived the first Stage with the wand.

In front of her was a strawberry milkshake, which gave Adam a strange pang of nostalgia and sadness.

Starting over from scratch really sucks…

He already knew that he couldn't make his perfect loop happen in this universe, but that didn't mean he couldn't at least gather more knowledge about the Trials and the people who had been his friends.

Although it feels awful to build up relationships that I know won't last, and treating people like they're just study material for future loops is clearly wrong…

Adam sighed and kept an eye on Willow for a while longer. She didn't have any bonuses, and based on her hunched shoulders and pinched face, she probably hadn't fared well.

How do I talk to her without making her think I'm a stalker like last time? he wondered.

Also, what the hell was that even about?

As Willow leaned in to take a sip of her milkshake, Adam saw the Slime Ring on her hand.

She was lucky to receive that.

Adam took a deep breath.

Alright, here we go.

He focused on her and said, "Hello. Do you have a second?"

Willow jumped in her seat, her hair swishing around as she looked at him.

Before she could take charge and block him, he continued, "I saw the Slime Ring in the Market, but I wanted to see how it worked first. When I told Shitbox to show me a Player who understood how it works, you popped up."

"Oh," she said. "I don't know it that well. I haven't practised with it much."

"What's your weapon?" Adam asked. "I got an axe. It worked well for chopping up the slimes."

"I got a wand, and something called the Wraith Lantern. That item is the only reason why I survived. The wand is really difficult to use, and I haven't been able to find anything to get more Mana. I ran out twice during the Stage, and it nearly killed me both times."

"Do you have Points left?" Adam asked. "You would be better off getting a different weapon from the Market. A Common one is only 500 Points. You can sell your Slime Ring if you don't have enough to afford it."

Willow looked at the Relic on her finger.

"I don't know," she muttered uncertainly.

"A bow or something else might work better for you," he said, trying to push her in the right direction. He wasn't sure why, but she seemed to favour the bow the most out of all the weapons.

Her eyes lit up. "They have bows?"

"They do. I saw one when I went there."

"I haven't spent my Points yet," she said. "I got 375 from beating the Stage, but I didn't know you could sell items like this ring."

Only 375… I think I got 425 or something my very first time through, and that was a really rough run. Maybe she ran out of time on several waves or something. Summoner only has 50 Health and 75% Defence, but that should be enough to survive a glancing blow, although a direct hit would've killed her, so she must've at least been able to avoid taking a lot of damage.

"I will go check," Willow told him and left the Tavern.

While Adam waited for her to return, he went through his list of people to see who else had survived in this universe. A dark thought occurred to him when he discovered that Anri Tsiklauri aka Mórrígan, Alexander Nova, Arturo Molina, Ilya Sokolov, and Hiroshi Sakurai were all gone.

The only reason why Willow wasn't eliminated is because she isn't a threat in this universe.

It was a depressingly-straightforward equation that most time-loopers went through it seemed. Even though they had made it to the end and obtained the Self-devouring Eye from the Singing City in Stage Twenty-One, they were so concerned with losing access to this power that they always eliminated the other Players who made it that far. After all, they had to keep acquiring the Relic to continue looping back to the start, unlike Adam who looped on death. But as a consequence of this selfishness, beating the Trials became so much harder, at least according to what Emelia had speculated and what Arturo had told her before handing over the power to her.

The twenty-second Stage, apparently accessed through the Gate of Nihility found in the Singing City, was beyond the point that any time-looper could go, Emelia had said. And she guessed that since she'd been allowed to loop then Arturo had failed to complete the Trials.

But Adam had a different idea about that, though he hadn't told her.

It's more likely that using the Divine Relic and looping back to the start is resetting the universe to the beginning of the Trials, or creating a new 'layer' that would be unaffected by anyone beating this sick game. If Emelia looped on the same attempt that Arturo beat the Trials, it's possible that she went and created a new dimensional layer to the universe in which that event hasn't happened yet.

In essence, it would trap the time-looper in the Trials, even if someone were to beat the final Stage, whichever number it may be…

As Adam thought more deeply about it, he found that the layer theory made a depressing amount of sense.

After all, time-loopers must grow so incredibly powerful by the end that they should be able to beat whatever comes next. I don't believe the Trials would be truly unbeatable, since why even have rules and 'fairness' to begin with, unless the objective is only to harvest our despair, which I suppose can't be entirely ruled out.

But if that's the case, then I'm screwed I think.

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If my looping power operates similarly to how I believe the Divine Relic works, then every time I die I go to a new universe and advance up another layer, making the odds of finding a 'perfect' universe slimmer with every loop…

And further, if this layer theory is true, then the first loop I remember wouldn't actually have been my first at all. After all, when I arrived in the third loop, quite a lot of loops had already happened, based on how powerful and in control Mórrígan seemed to be. Similarly, many loops had already passed in the universe where Emelia was the time-looper, based on how many times I saw the same events within the Scale of Remembrance.

Adam was absentmindedly curling his hands into fists while his mind worked.

I'm dealing with universes here though, and if they're infinite, or even near-infinite, then there has to be more than one where nobody has been sacrificed to Nwetrou by some power-hungry time-looper.

The real question though is, what happens if I end up in a universe without a time-looper?

If I am in layer 100 and I enter a universe that has had a time-looper since layer 30, then what will I find?

Will I even find anything?

All this thinking was giving him a headache and making his heart pound in his chest, shaking his body with its powerful beat.

Thankfully, Charlie arrived with his croissant and milkshake, and it helped dislodge him from the spiral of pessimistic conjecture.

There I go, doing the thing I said I wouldn't do…

Adam decided to continue through his list.

He couldn't find Gladwyn and Beck by searching their nicknames, and going through the people who matched their descriptions, as well as those Players with bonuses or who had discovered secrets, turned up nothing. Likewise, James Kvarnström hadn't survived either, though his son Benjamin had, which was tragic. Even though Adam had only known James for Stage Seven and the Tavern afterwards, he considered him a friend.

I wonder if using the Abyssal Tooth on someone affects other people too somehow. I'm guessing it does, given how many fewer people were in Mórrígan's universe compared to this one.

Lenard Schulz was alive in this universe, but he looked much like in the previous one. It was clear that, unlike the first time Adam had met him, he had been quick to discover what happened to his wife and child.

That made him think about his own immediate family. He was ashamed to leave them for last in his search, but a pathetic part of him was also terrified of finding out they were fine and feeling the need to stay in this unsalvageable loop just to keep them alive for as long as possible.

When he searched for his brother-in-law, he got the same message as so many times before.

[The Player you are searching for has perished.]

But when he searched for Helena Fischer, he received a different response.

[This Player is not currently seated in the Tavern.]

Adam paused. She's alive. My sister is alive!

"Highlight her for me when she gets to the Tavern!" Adam told the Eye.

[Understood.]

While Adam waited for Willow and Helena to get to the Tavern, he watched Haoyang.

Unlike Anri, and Emelia to some extent, he seemed a lot more put together. He was maybe similar to Hiroshi, although Adam hadn't learnt much about the guy that'd killed him in the last loop, so the comparison was only surface-level.

After maybe ten minutes, wherein Haoyang hadn't spoken to anyone a single time, the time-looper suddenly lifted a marble and pointed it at someone.

Then he vanished from his seat.

He just used the Challenge Stone!

"Who was Haoyang Sun just talking to!?" Adam demanded to know.

[I cannot say.]

Fuck.

Is he going to sacrifice another Player?? Just like that?

Wait…

"If I kill another Player using the Challenge Stone, do I get their Relics?"

[I cannot say.]

"Of course…"

Maybe he's not going to sacrifice them to Nwetrou. Maybe he's just going for a specific Relic that someone obtained, without caring about having to kill another person to get it. Although I suppose Skǫll does reward Players for bringing them the Soul Drops they obtain when they sacrifice someone.

I can't remember exactly how much those Abyssal Gifts cost, but combined they were at least over 100 Soul Drops. That's a lot of sacrifices.

"I'm back," said a voice opposite him and Adam nearly jumped out of his seat.

He turned around to look at Willow.

"Did I surprise you?" she asked, a grin on her face. It was the first smile she'd shown him this loop.

"A little bit, yeah," he admitted. "How did it go? Did you get the bow?"

Willow shook her head. "He didn't have it in the selection, and after selling the Slime Ring I couldn't afford to reroll the options. I ended up getting this instead."

Willow hefted a sword and a shield.

Adam nodded. "That's a safe choice. If you can get the Points for it, you should try and get the bow after the next Stage. Try to focus on only picking the upgrades that aren't tied to the weapon, since those will persist even if you swap."

Willow gave Adam a strange look. "You know a lot."

"I've been talking to people while you were gone, and someone lost all their weapon upgrades when he swapped," Adam lied.

"How did you know I prefer the bow?" she continued.

"You told me," he replied a little too quickly. He hoped he didn't sound like he'd been caught in a lie.

"Oh, right…" Willow replied, a guilty look on her face. Then she sighed. "Sorry. You've just been trying to help and I'm acting all suspicious."

Your bullshit radar is quite on point though, he thought but didn't say.

"Are you okay?" he asked, hoping she wouldn't think he was prying, though he most definitely was. He really wanted to find out what the hell was going on with her, and why she'd called him a stalker last time.

"It's really embarrassing," she started.

"I won't judge," Adam said.

She smiled a little at that.

"I have practised archery for a really long time. I won a lot of competitions when I was a teen, and just kept training and training, even during my high school years when everyone else was busy partying and being kids. Australia has a really strong presence in archery during the Olympics, and after I finally went professional and got sponsors and everything, I managed to join and win bronze in the last Summer Olympic Games. But then I started to get these weird messages online. And my apartment was broken into once… I stopped going to competitions, because I'd always feel like someone was following me. I ended up moving back in with my parents after my sponsorships stopped. But it just didn't help at all. Day after day I would get new disturbing messages. I threw away my smartphone and instead they started calling the landline to my house every night. After we unplugged it, they kept shoving letters under the door…"

"Holy shit," Adam muttered.

"It was really bad. I thought that maybe this whole thing with the cubes and weird monsters would at least make it stop. I honestly felt kind of relieved. But then when I got to this Tavern, not even five minutes passed and then he was there, talking to me like he'd known me forever, and saying all these things like we belonged together and that he knew I loved him because I always looked at him during my competitions."

Adam swallowed down the disgust he felt.

"He'd been following me ever since I was fourteen… I never even knew. But a lot of the fan letters I responded to back then… They were from him."

She looked like she might throw up, or have a panic attack, or both.

"Did you block him here? You can do that," Adam told her.

Willow nodded. "I did."

"What's his name?" he asked.

"Felix Kelly."

When I find the perfect universe, I'll make sure this guy isn't in it.

"Thank you for telling me about it," he said. "I'm really sorry all that happened to you."

Willow smiled weakly. "I haven't ever told anyone before. Only my parents and brothers knew about this. None of them are here now though…"

"If you want, I can tell you my deepest darkest secret in return," Adam offered.

Willow laughed. "That's okay. I don't really enjoy those kinds of conversations to be honest. But it does feel good to finally talk about this with someone."

"Well, the offer stands if you change your mind," he replied.

"Thank you," she said. "How did your first Stage go? Was the axe any good?"

"It went well," he replied honestly. "I didn't take any damage, so I got extra Points."

Adam didn't tell her about the other bonuses, since he'd learnt from Emelia that it was best to not expose people to more risk than they could manage, even if she'd been incredibly tight with some information because of this way of thinking.

"I hope my new weapons will be good in the next Stage," Willow remarked.

"They should be," he replied. "We'll be going up against goblins."

"Really? How did you find that out?"

"Someone told me. Apparently they have a way to see future Stages," he lied.

"What's a goblin like?" she asked.

"Like a short human with a big head."

"Are they hairy?"

"Imagine a 50-year-old Italian plumber and you're on the right track."

Willow laughed.

"If you want, I can tell you what happens in Stage Two," Adam offered.

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