Tesilid didn't reply. His intention was to hide any reactions that Reed could use as a clue to understand what was happening. Unfortunately, by not reacting he inadvertently gave himself away because Loop Seventeen Tesilid wouldn't have been able to hold his tongue.
Reed, who remembered Loop Seventeen better than Tesilid, immediately drew the obvious conclusion. "Ha, you've been faking it in front of Ailette Rodeline all this time."
Because her name was mentioned, Tesilid couldn't stop himself from reacting. Meanwhile, Reed absorbed every expression that crossed Tesilid's face, his red eyes glistening eagerly.
"Interesting. Which Loop are you from?"
Tesilid parted his lips and muttered, "You would be shocked if I told you."
The last time they met was in Anaxia's dungeon where Reed spared Tesilid of Loop Seventeen his ignorance and showed him mercy, however self-loathing the method was. The two were fundamentally the same person, so nothing prevented Tesilid of Loop One Hundred and Seventeen from showing Tesilid of Loop One Hundred mercy as well.
"Tell me which Loop you are from."
After a moment of consideration, Tesilid decided that he'd be honest with his younger self. His blue eyes lingered on the ground for a short moment before rising to meet Reed's. Staring directly at his past, he remarked, "You will fail again in this Loop. The only thing waiting at the end of Loop One Hundred is destruction."
A freezing silence surrounded the two as the air around them suddenly became heavier. The very room seemed to hold its breath, trembling with the quiet rage that was now seeping out of Reed.
"'Destruction?'"
The word wasn't unfamiliar because this was the second time he had heard this prophecy. This stirred up a frightening violence in Reed's heart, but his appearance remained as calm and even as a lake at night.
A long silence persisted before Reed decided to break it, the question spoken in his dry monotone having been painstakingly selected. "Did Ailette Rodeline vomit blood in front of you as well?"
He needed to test the truthfulness of what Tesilid had just told him.
"What do you mean?"
His reaction at the mention of Ailette's name was as genuine as ever, as if he really didn't understand what Reed was talking about. At this point, Reed couldn't help but fail to maintain his absolute composure as well, for his red eyes seemed to widen a little.
"Are you not aware of the price Ailette Rodeline must pay when she breaches the confidentiality rule?" Reed asked.
Tesilid frowned.
"That stupid look on your face tells me that Ailette Rodeline never breached confidentiality in front of you before."
Essentially, that meant the prophecy came from Tesilid directly, not Ailette.
"Ha..."
With his suspicions confirmed, further interrogation was unnecessary. The shock in Reed's eyes quickly settled as he murmured, "Ah... I see." He could now understand what the strange feeling was when he met Tesilid last time. "You are me from the future."
Reed was quick to accept it because he himself had ripped through dimensions to interfere with a different timeline, which meant it wasn't impossible that another version of himself would also do the same.
That was when Reed dashed toward Tesilid and stepped right up to him with a sudden gust of wind. Tesilid held his ground as Reed grabbed his shirt and brought them closer together so that there was barely a gap between them.
"Tell me everything you know," he whispered.
"I will succeed unlike you, who foolishly failed."
Reed's eyes dimmed as he stared at Tesilid, as dark as his dreadful memories from the past several millennia. Tesilid didn't have any reason to keep the truth from Reed.
"You will be named an enemy of the world and subjugated, and the fact that you're a returner will be revealed during the process."
"Why would that matter to me?"
"It matters," Tesilid explained patiently, "because they find out that a returner cannot be punished by death."
Reed's red eyes seemed to tremble, but Tesilid didn't notice, as he was now lost in his own memories. This was where the most important story began.
"You become an existence that cannot die and cannot live, trapped in an abyss called the Pit of Repentance. However, such confinement for one life was not enough to pay for the sin of destroying the world, so..." At this point, his eyes were completely sunken as he added, "They forcefully extend your life in order to lengthen the sentencing."
He had to drink the water from the Well of Immortality against his will like an animal.
"The side effects of the well water made every day a living hell."
He suffered from insomnia, nightmares, hallucinations, and dementia as he was held inside a darkness in which he could not see or hear anything. This is when darkness became his weakness.
"And when I did finally die, I would return to the abyss because of an artifact they used."
They had controlled where he was to return to using a Save Point. The body that his exhausted soul was forced to occupy was no different from a mannequin made of flesh.
"I had to endure a life of endless nothingness seventeen times before I was finally freed."
The seventeen lives he had to live from Loop One Hundred to Loop One Hundred and Sixteen were incomparably more devastating than the hundred lives he had lived before those.
It was with deep and sincere regret that Tesilid admitted, "I am you from Loop One Hundred and Seventeen."
Silence permeated the air. Reed was frozen where he stood for a long time after the story had ended, but his mind was no doubt racing. Tesilid stared into Reed's red eyes as if he understood exactly what was going on inside his head when Reed released a startling sound.
"Ha."
Reed finally reacted by mocking his future self with a subtle sneer.
"What an utter failure. So... Did you repent?"
"Well..." Tesilid wasn't able to answer that because he couldn't exactly remember what he was thinking before Ailette rescued him from the abyss.
"Those are the eyes of a loser," muttered Reed as he looked into the emptiness of Tesilid's ocean-colored eyes and released his grip on his shirt. "Ailette Rodeline thinks you're from Loop Seventeen, but I don't understand how she could believe that considering how tattered and wretched your soul is."
"It seems that the Loop I entered by crossing timelines when I was you was Loop Seventeen," Tesilid explained, "because she knows everything about my past from Loop One to Loop One Hundred."
"That means..." Reed seemed to have realized something very important. "Ailette Rodeline wasn't around in Loop One Hundred."
"That's right."
Of all the timelines he had experienced, this was the only one she existed in.
Sounding as if he was losing himself in his memories again, he continued, "I know I killed Loop Seventeen when I was in Loop One Hundred, but I have somehow assumed his body. I think this may have happened because the artifact that controls where I return to was abruptly canceled, especially since it was meant to be used thirty times, not sixteen times."
"How very strange," murmured Reed with a genuine sigh, but he wasn't referring to the unwanted interloper before him. "To think that both you and I are in Loop Seventeen..."
Reed was focused on the fact that this was Loop Seventeen.
"Could it be a coincidence that we both arrived here? Or maybe it's just because the version of me I wanted to kill most was from Loop Seventeen? Ha."
What started as a short chuckle grew into a dry laugh that cracked in the air. Tesilid didn't laugh, but he was more or less in the same headspace as Reed because both of them shared the same experiences and memories up to Loop Ninety-Nine.
Loop Seventeen... As far as Ailette knew, the main lead of Loop Seventeen was brutally murdered by the main antagonist, who happens to be the main lead from Loop One Hundred. That meant that the Loop Seventeen described in Infinite Returns to Save the World was actually a teaser for Loop One Hundred, as Loop Seventeen was rewritten to be Loop One Hundred upon the birth of Reed. The current Loop Seventeen was a second version of the Loop, which begs the question: What happened to the original Loop Seventeen from before Reed was born?
What had happened in that Loop? In the original version of Infinite Returns to Save the World, Loop Seventeen wasn't an important Loop because it was simply there to connect Loop Sixteen and Loop Eighteen. However, this place was very different from the world mentioned in the novel because Transmigrator Ailette Rodeline had gotten involved during the tutorial period and ignited a butterfly effect of changes that impacted the main leads of all the Loops. That was why the original Loop Seventeen had become a timeline that was memorable for both leads from Loop One Hundred and Loop One Hundred and Seventeen
This is the Loop in which I looked for Ailette Rodeline. Tesilid from Loop Seventeen was severely jaded after the sixteen deaths he experienced, which convinced him that the world hated him and wanted him to die, even without Reed's involvement. He needed something to rely on to hold his crumbling mind together when he came across someone who had once told him that they were on his side. That was why he deviated from his job and dropped all of his responsibilities, leaving the religious order to look for Ailette Rodeline.
He knew that her existence had been erased the moment he returned, but he still hoped that at least one person in this world would remember her, that at least one place in this world still held onto her presence. As expected, his efforts were rendered useless because it was as if Ailette Rodeline never existed despite searching the entire continent. Every second that Tesilid spent during that timeline was wasted and full of despair.
"But she never existed in the real Loop Seventeen..."
A smirk painted with resentment marred the handsome face of the man with black hair, which made Tesilid feel like he was staring into a mirror. When Reed finally had his emotions under control, he asked with a snicker, "So... Are you pretending to be from Loop Seventeen so that Ailette Rodeline can freely play the role of a savior? You're hoping that her pity for you could one day turn into love?"
"That's true, I was."
All Tesilid from Loop One Hundred and Seventeen did was wear a light, bitter smile, regardless of the type of mockery Reed used against him, which was why Reed realized that he'd been too careless.
"You were, huh? That's past tense. So things are different now?"
Tesilid nodded and explained, "Apparently she already loves me."
It was clear from Reed's expression that he hadn't expected such a devastating blow. The shock was immense, and he realized that again he'd been careless. The words Loop One Hundred and Seventeen uttered provoked the deepest part of Reed, and just as a cold shimmer sparked in Reed's red eyes, a thunderous sound followed.
Boom!
A dozen aura blades wedged into the location where Tesilid had just been standing.
Having swiftly dodged the attack, Tesilid was regaining a stable stance when Reed said, "I just thought of something very interesting. What if I replace you?"