So this was the secret behind how he'd managed to live for more than five hundred years?
After listening to Void Archives' explanation, Otto understood why he'd been able to survive that long.
Science could actually do something like this. Otto, who had always liked inventing things, couldn't help but marvel and grow excited.
The only problem was—how was he supposed to make the Otto memories inside the server overwrite the memories of his current self?
That was something he needed to think about. Otherwise, if he died and revived again, the one who woke up might be the Otto from more than five hundred years later.
He wanted to keep living in this era!
Otto adjusted the collar he'd tugged loose himself and looked at Void Archives. Her words couldn't be fully trusted either, because she was still after his body.
"If the memories from more than five hundred years are poured back into a body, can that still count as revival?"
Otto thought it over. The first thing that came to mind was whether he and the Otto from more than five hundred years later could coexist.
But Void Archives sat in the chair with her long legs crossed, not caring that her nun's habit was showing too much. She and Otto went way back, after all.
She shook her head and explained. "Something like that would only be a toy carrying Otto's memories. Nothing more."
Void Archives raised her right hand and tapped her temple with her index finger. "A thing like the soul does exist. I'm the one you trapped inside your soul. And if something wants to call itself human, it needs a soul. Otherwise it's just a walking corpse."
That was why Otto could still use Void Archives even after reviving. If it had only been a matter of uploading memories into a body, he shouldn't have been able to use Void Archives at all.
Otto listened, and a question came to him.
"I was able to come to five hundred years in the future. So would the me from more than five hundred years later have gone back five hundred years into the past?"
Void Archives only shrugged. "Who knows? History hasn't changed, anyway. But if it were Otto—if he went back to the past, he would definitely go save that woman."
"What a pathetic man."
As she said it, Void Archives lifted her chest slightly and leaned her shoulders forward, putting the curves on full display.
"Want to touch? This is the woman you couldn't get over even after five hundred years." She said it with a teasing smile, but Otto didn't reach out. He just looked away.
"You really don't leave any openings, do you. So even as a kid you were this kind of man—no sense for this sort of thing at all." Void Archives stretched lazily, then pointed at the computer sitting on the desk. "This thing is called a computer. If there's anything you want to know, you can use it to look up whatever you want."
A computer? Otto looked at the thing on the desk—a screen like a flat board—then looked back at Void Archives. "Why are you telling me this?"
Why was Void Archives helping him? If there really was a tool for looking up information, something like a library, he could quickly get a grasp on the state of this era.
"Heh. Because—" Wearing Kallen's face, Void Archives let a strange, bewitching smile spread across it. "I don't want other people noticing something's off about you, either."
"Helping you blend into this era is for my own sake too. After all, stealing your body is a lot easier than dealing with that obsessive lunatic."
"So don't go getting found out, little Otto."
Void Archives gave a low, snickering laugh. Then her body broke apart into flecks of golden light and scattered, returning to Otto's body.
Watching that too-alluring woman disappear, Otto let out a breath. Facing Void Archives, he still felt the pressure.
If it were the him from more than five hundred years later—would he have been able to face her calmly?
Otto walked to the desk and sat down in the seat Void Archives had just been sitting in, leaning back against the chair. He didn't bother changing out of the Overseer's robes, even though they'd been stabbed clean through, because in Otto's understanding, clothes with only one hole in them could still be worn.
Looking down at his own hands—from what Void Archives had told him, he now knew his current body wasn't flesh and blood.
It had been made from a rare metal called Soulium. On the outside it looked no different from a human body, which was why he hadn't bled after being stabbed.
He let out a breath. Otto couldn't quite put into words how he felt about his body being like this. But if it hadn't been, he probably would have died a long time ago.
He looked at the desktop. The arrangement was simple.
The first thing he noticed was a figure placed on the right side of the desk—exactly the same as the form Void Archives had taken.
It was a Kallen figure. But Otto didn't feel much of anything, because he didn't know this person.
Besides the figure, there was also a photograph. In it, a white-haired little girl was smiling brightly, looking even younger than he was.
She wore a gorgeous dress, like a holy maiden.
It was a photo of Theresa in her Celestial Hymn battlesuit. Unfortunately, Otto didn't recognize her either. He was only a little puzzled—why was it that aside from the maid called Rita, every girl he'd seen so far had white hair?
Then again, Otto wasn't from the kind of fandom that obsessed over white-haired girls. He wasn't that sensitive to the type.
But he committed the face in the photograph to memory, because if a photo could be placed on his own desk, then this girl had to be very important to him.
He turned the frame over and saw three short lines written on the back.
May you be happy all your life.
My lovely granddaughter, Theresa Apocalypse.
— Otto Apocalypse
It was a blessing written by his future self. Otto looked at the neat handwriting, then softly read out the name of the white-haired little girl.
"Theresa Apocalypse."
My granddaughter? I actually have a granddaughter? Otto set his right hand on the desk, his index finger slowly tapping against it, while his left hand held the photo as he carefully examined the cute girl in the picture.
She really was very cute.
Otto put the photograph back where it had been. The stand was a little unstable, though, so after thinking about it, he picked up the Kallen figure and set it behind the frame.
Kallen's figure was used as a prop to hold the frame in place.
After finishing all that, Otto finally turned his attention to the strange device Void Archives had called a computer.
There was also an uneven black board sitting on the desk with letters and symbols printed on it, and beside it was a half-oval-shaped thing.
Otto spent a full hour and then some before he only barely started to understand how to use them.
He wasn't stupid. A boy who liked tinkering with inventions picked up new things fast. He'd even figured out how to use the browser to search for what he wanted.
Otto was looking through information from after 1465. He came from 1465 and knew nothing about the history that followed.
And as he looked through those materials, his eyes narrowed.
Because he saw that in a certain year, his elder brother, his elder brother's children, and other members of the family had—within a single short year—met with assassination, death by illness, disappearance, and other such fates.
And his father, Bishop Nicolaus, had killed himself at home.
In the span of a single short year, the Apocalypse family was left with only him.
And very soon after, he took over the position of Overseer and became the Overseer of Schicksal.
Something was very wrong. Otto looked through those materials and searched for what else had happened that year. Before long, he found the answer.
Kallen's death.
It happened in the same year. Once Otto linked those two things together, he understood why the family had been left with only him.
He really was ruthless.
Otto covered his face with both hands.
So in the final stretch of the memories he still had—only a few years from now—his father and elder brother would die because of him.
He became an orphan very early on.
And then began those five hundred-odd years that no one else in the world could match.
Tears fell onto the desk. Otto stared at the computer screen.
He was not crying for the deaths of his father and elder brother.
The corners of his mouth lifted.
These were tears of joy.
So, Father… you were something that could die this easily too.
Bishop Nicolaus… I'm not afraid of you anymore.
The shadow that had hung over him since childhood scattered from his heart.