If time travel is impossible, then eliminate the possibility of time travel first before thinking further.
Could it be that future scenes were seen through some other method? No, one shouldn't obsess over whether that was "the future" or not.
A point worth noting was how Chiaki managed to kill Kevin back then... Just now, Lin had captured her with ease and nearly killed her; even if she were hiding her strength, she should have retaliated just now.
The sluggishness of his thoughts translated to his body. Lin hadn't heard a word Chiaki had been saying for a while, until he was alerted by a long silence. He slowly raised his head to see Chiaki's indignant gaze.
It seemed she had realized he wasn't listening.
"I didn't force you to listen if you didn't want to," Chiaki said with a hint of disgruntled resentment. However, she didn't show too much emotion; after all, what Lin had done just moments ago was truly unforgettable.
"...Sorry." Lin admitted his mistake straightforwardly.
His mental state was indeed poor. Just digesting that memory—which he couldn't be sure he had personally experienced—was enough to leave his heart weary. Now, he still needed to find the truth behind the massacre at headquarters.
Thus, Lin proposed a suggestion: "Can you get to the point?"
"...You asked me to tell you about my past, and now you want me to just skip to the point?"
Chiaki's face was written all over with "Are you kidding me?"
"Whew..." Realizing his state was unstable, Lin let out a long breath of turbid air and shook his head. "I'll come back tomorrow."
Chiaki watched in confusion as Lin stood up and walked outside.
...
It wasn't just a matter of Chiaki. Ultimately, the mystery of the "last time" was a fog composed of a series of events. Although he hadn't found the connection or the root cause, he would prevent them from happening this time.
There were four things to prevent in total.
The theft from the database, the murder of Erwin, the murder of Vil-V, and Pardo's disappearance.
The database theft was a major event that led to a change in Chiaki's mental state. One could say that if Chiaki truly was the killer, then the database theft was the fuse.
It was still unknown how Chiaki had managed to kill everyone at headquarters, but Lin still had to do everything he could.
Lin went to the archives without stopping. He walked inside, looked at the dazzling array of data storage equipment, and fell into thought.
Because he didn't know the exact time of the database theft from the "last time," and the entire process of Erwin's murder was a blur, and Pardo had vanished without a trace—the three events might occur consecutively within a short period, and the sequence was unknown—Lin couldn't catch the real culprit through a conventional ambush.
However, after arriving at the database, he realized he had made a miscalculation. When leaving the ball, he should have met with Pardo and Erwin first to warn them before leaving, but in his haste to catch Chiaki, he hadn't thought it through...
Relying on his memory, Lin found the equipment storing the M-I to WM-IV data. After copying it into his helmet, he destroyed the equipment directly.
As long as he acted as the "culprit" and made no attempt to hide his tracks, the Fire Moth investigators would discover it was him tomorrow and wouldn't go looking for Chiaki.
After finishing the first task, he glanced at the location of the hidden surveillance equipment, making sure to show his identity as much as possible, then left the area openly.
Finding Erwin and Pardo to prevent them from being harmed was the second task. There was still some time before 5:00 AM, giving him plenty of time to act.
"Don't believe it, Lin."
A distressed voice and a sneer rang out simultaneously. This time, having grown accustomed to it, Lin didn't turn around warily. Instead, he slowly shifted his gaze toward his back.
Whether it was the footage on the monitors or what he saw with his naked eyes, there was nothing there.
...Then assuming what he heard was also a type of "intelligence," what did this sentence, "Don't believe it, Lin," mean at this moment?
He had heard the same words before, though the tone back then seemed more urgent, and he couldn't tell if the owner of the voice was male or female.
Damn it, as soon as he thought about related matters, his thinking became clouded. This was still too much of a strain.
Thinking about the truth behind a phenomenon is the most direct way to solve an event, but right now, let alone reaching the truth, Lin hadn't even fully investigated the phenomena themselves.
Unknowingly, Lin had arrived at Vil-V's Spiral Workshop. He glanced at the tightly closed door. At this time, Vil-V should still be at the ball...
"Hmm? Lin? Why are you here?"
Vil-V's voice echoed appropriately from a corridor to the side. Lin turned back calmly and nodded to the magician who was shuffling cards.
...
"...Time travel, huh? That truly is the ultimate dream of humanity," Vil-V remarked after listening to Lin "hallucination." "The alternation of time and space is truly the ultimate goal of physics."
She originally intended to take a sip of coffee, but after a thought, she pushed the cup in front of Lin instead.
"I forgot to brew a cup for you. Drink up, drink up."
"I don't—"
"Oh, don't refuse." Vil-V's cheerful smile made it impossible to feel awe toward this doctor who possessed terrifying achievements in physics. "While coffee can't steady the mind, you probably don't need external objects to stabilize your emotions anyway. You might as well concentrate your attention and memory."
Vil-V was right. Even after encountering that ghost-story-like event, Lin emotions hadn't fluctuated much; rather, problems had arisen in his focus and execution.
Drinking a bit of coffee... perhaps it would help.
Lin picked up the coffee, lifted his helmet slightly, and downed the scalding liquid in one gulp.
"I almost forgot you can't feel temperature or taste right now." Vil-V suddenly remembered the side effects of the surgery only after seeing that he didn't care about the heat of the coffee at all.
Vil-V snapped her fingers, and the machine behind her started up at the signal, drawing the patterns she needed on a large section of blank wall.
"Curios Maker No. 3. I've made some improvements to the neural link. Now I can use minimum power to establish a neural connection with certain machines. Of course, it's not as effortless as your control, but it can quickly provide feedback on my thoughts. Curios Maker No. 3 is an invention that can draw according to my consciousness."
Actually, she could have made it a projection type, but Lin thought this was likely just Vil-V's mechanical romanticism.
"Dr. Mobius has already said that time travel is impossible. I can tell you clearly as well: she is right."
"Before I analyze your 'hallucination,' let me tell you why time travel cannot be realized, aside from those hypotheses."