'B-by necromancer, you don't mean—' Konrad thought, while on the way to Haiten.
'Why, yes, it was Sister Stella,' Brigida confirmed, and he could almost feel her smile via telepathy. 'Or rather, she will be, somewhere down the line. In a hundred years or so?'
Ugh. Dimensional and time travel were so messy.
So she and her family disappeared sometime two or three weeks ago. In fact, her parents even died somewhere in the future, in another world. But Stella will resurrect them?
And yet, he had already met them this week.
They were the same age as he remembered them, while their daughter—
"And now you know. This is why I hate time travelers even more than necromancers," Gabrielle scoffed. Which also confirmed something else for Konrad.
With Paula so preoccupied organising the messy memory-fragments from the girl—
His mind became wide open again.
'They're your allies, aren't they?!' the parallel brain moaned. 'Give me some slack. I'm dealing with a time traveler's memories here. And you can shield your own mind, too, if you want.'
Well, he could've if he practiced it in the last few days.
But having Paula to always rely on, and a lot on his plate as usual—
No. If he let his mind wander now, he'd lose the tangled threads of Brigida's memories, too.
'So where and how did you meet up with Stella, and—was her head okay?' Konrad asked in a telepathic message. Like, if she was still alive that far into the future, that was good news, but—
Knowing her, um, mental issues and insane powers?
'Oh, I'm sorry, I can't give you all the details,' Brigida messaged back. 'Kaede warned me not to reveal too much of your future once I returned. It could mess up the timeline even more.'
Hah. Yeah. As if it wasn't already a mess, considering her story so far.
'Then is it even safe for you to show me those events?' he thought.
But now that he had focused more on those fragments—
Had she shown him anything of importance yet?
'Well, you receive those images scrambled for a reason,' the girl pointed out. 'I remove everything that could spoil your own path, Konrad.'
Uh, so this was simple torture.
But he still caught a glimpse of future Strella, or at least he assumed it was her, because—
"So she won't age a wink, either?" he grumbled, this time out loud, as the blonde girl showed up.
Why was he even surprised anymore?
Everyone around him was weird like that. No. He himself was closer to seventy than eighteen, if he counted his soul's age, not his vessel's. But Lily, Gabby, Maou Midori, and now Stella—
Did he even have friends who looked their actual age?!
"Strong magic does that to people," the demoness pointed out. Yeah, she was reading his mind, too. "Especially if you're a crazy strong necromancer like our Blondie."
True. The only old-looking old Mage he knew was Silver.
Now that he thought about it, he was the weird outlier here.
Although this Benedictus guy looked rather frail, too, but—
He still couldn't figure out what he actually was.
'Oh, considering his real age, my master doesn't look that bad,' Brigida offered with a chuckle. They were about to reach the village, but he could still hear her thoughts as if she sat right there.
"Wait. How old is Mister Cat Ears?" Konrad scowled at his wives.
"About the same age as Maou and the Silver Mage," Gabrielle offered. "Combined."
Ugh. So he was about five hundred years old, too?!
"I told you he's the oldest serving bishop in Kasserlane," the angel added with a smirk.
"Yeah, I hope we can be friends," Lily agreed. "If he were to turn against us, it would be a pain to fight him and the Saints that stand behind the guy. His army isn't half-bad, either."
Hold on. If even the greater demoness worried about the bishop—
How strong was he, actually?!
And the better question: how did Brigida end up serving him?
And for how long?
Did she only return to Kasserlane's current timeline, or was she here for a while?
Why travel back in time in the first place? Those fragments had shown him some hints, but—
They were still a hot mess, even with Paula filtering them into something watchable.
So yes, she met Stella, who created brand new vessels for her parents. Konrad could assume she remembered them as the same age they were now, and—
They won't get any older, either.
'Yes. She made them from my memories, so I wanted to bring them back right here, right now. As much as it pains me to say, they're not real human anymore, but Homunculi.'
Konrad's eyes went wide.
"Like, zombies?!" he yelped, right as their carriage screeched to a halt.
"Rude," Lily scoffed, crossing her arms. "Do I look like a zombie to you?!"
Wait, what?
"Well, in a sense, the vessels we use here in Kasserlane are Homunculi, too," Gabrielle pointed out. "Except we transform them with our magic to create the illusion of aging."
No freaking way they did that.
But right. Now that he thought about it—
Whenever Lily visited the higher planes, her body went slack. During those times, she must have taken over another vessel. And Gabby already told him this wasn't her real one, either.
He never thought about what they actually were, though.
"Does that mean that Eyna—" Konrad asked, his voice trailing off.
"I guess you could classify her as an advanced form of Homunculi," the angel pondered. "But since I created her as a proper embryo and gave her an actual birth—"
"Wait. Hold on," he muttered, his head spinning.
Konrad didn't even notice that someone opened the door for them.
"You? Gave birth? To Eyna?!"
The silence was heavy, and his wives looked at him as if he had asked the dumbest thing.
"I mean, when you put it like that," Gabby said after a long moment. "It's pretty common with us, angels. If we need long-term servants, we give them a fragment of our essence, and—"
"You are Eyna's mother?" Konrad scowled, dismounting on autopilot.
"I'm pretty sure she means she created the embryo as hers. And then, she found her some donor parents in Kasserlane," Lily pointed out. "That's what I did, too, but with an exact copy."
So Lily was—her own daughter in a sense?!
No good. His head was spinning.
And he still knew nothing about how Brigida and her parents returned.
Or why she ended up serving the Church again, even as a spirit user.
'I was about to explain,' the girl answered, reading his mind even from afar. 'But as it seems, you'll be a bit busy now, so—let's continue at another time?'
Busy? Konrad was always busy.
But the way she said that, and he looked around his home village—
Something was amiss, and it gave him the chills again.
"Don't tell me," he muttered, seeing the bishop hold a specter—aimed at the abbey.
"Yep," Lily sighed, cracking her neck. "Looks like Mister Cat Ears had already found out about our Blondie here. And if we don't do something, her future self won't actually exist."