Do whatever I want?
Beatrice fell silent.
She had remained inside the Forbidden Library for a full four hundred years.
To wait for the arrival of "that person," she had sealed away her heart, only to eventually discover that the person she was waiting for had never existed in the first place.
Those four hundred years of waiting now felt like one enormous joke.
But now, an opportunity had appeared before her.
Perhaps from this point onward, she could finally live for herself.
Do whatever she wanted.
It did sound rather nice.
Even so, Beatrice could not make up her mind.
She did not even possess enough courage to step outside the Forbidden Library.
She had been disconnected from the outside world for far too long.
Rowan did not rush her either.
How should he put it?
The one who had to make this decision was Beatrice, not Rowan.
Naturally, he would not interfere in something as important as the direction of her future life.
This was a choice Beatrice had to make for herself.
Of course, she could also discuss it with someone else.
For example, Puck, the cat-like spirit beside the heroine Emilia.
Like Beatrice, Puck was a spirit created by Echidna, the Witch of Greed.
In Beatrice's heart, Puck was basically an older brother.
So she could discuss things with him.
Their relationship was close enough for that.
Rowan, however, was different.
He and Beatrice had only met once.
Their relationship could not even be called shallow friendship.
They were simply two strangers who had happened to meet.
Therefore, Rowan had no right to interfere with how Beatrice chose to live from now on.
Nor did he intend to.
Seeing Rowan close his mouth and remain completely silent, Beatrice understood what he was thinking.
She let out a long sigh and stopped asking him questions.
Instead, she fell into silence and began thinking about her future.
Should she remain here?
Or should she do as Rowan suggested—
leave this place and live the life she wanted, doing whatever she pleased?
For the moment, Beatrice still could not make a decision.
As for Rowan, he continued reading the magic books in the Forbidden Library.
After all, that had been his original purpose for coming here.
The reason he had told Beatrice that "that person" did not exist was partly because he pitied her—
and partly because it was payment.
Payment for what?
Naturally—
payment for reading the books.
If Rowan had not revealed the truth to Beatrice, would she really have allowed him to remain inside the Forbidden Library and freely read its magical texts?
Absolutely not.
These magic books were extremely valuable.
Any one of them could fetch an enormous price if it appeared outside.
Trying to read them without paying anything?
How was that any different from dreaming in broad daylight?
Beatrice was not the sort of person who would let Rowan freeload.
Time passed.
Roughly three days went by.
During those three days, Rowan never once left the Forbidden Library.
He buried himself in the magical texts and read continuously.
Beatrice, on the other hand, left twice.
Rowan guessed that she had gone looking for Puck.
Unfortunately, Puck apparently had not returned.
Both times, Beatrice came back visibly disappointed.
Buzz!
One day, while Rowan was reading a magic book, he suddenly sensed that something was wrong.
At that instant—
the entire world seemed to tremble faintly.
Then—
time began flowing backward before his eyes.
One second, the sky outside the window was colored by dusk.
The next—
it had become daytime.
The instant time reversed, Rowan felt as though he had been caught inside a gap in the world, unable to move.
Or rather—
he had briefly become disconnected from the world itself.
Of course, that disconnection lasted only an instant.
But in that single instant—
time had gone from evening back to daytime.
And apart from Rowan, no one seemed aware that anything had happened.
Even Beatrice showed no reaction whatsoever.
As though everything had always been this way.
Rowan could not help putting down the book in his hands and looking toward her.
Beatrice noticed his gaze and lowered her own book.
"Why are you looking at Betty?"
"You really didn't notice anything just now?"
Hearing Rowan's question, Beatrice looked at him blankly.
Notice what?
She had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.
Why had he suddenly said something so strange?
Rowan sighed.
"Just now, time reversed."
"In an instant, it went from dusk back to daytime."
The confusion on Beatrice's face vanished immediately.
Her expression became serious, and even her gaze sharpened more than ever.
"You mean… Return by Death just activated?"
Return by Death was the protagonist Subaru Natsuki's unique ability.
After Subaru was summoned to this world, every time he died, time would reset and return him to an earlier checkpoint.
He named the ability—
Return by Death.
Aside from Subaru himself, no one knew about it.
Whenever Subaru tried to tell someone about the ability, something would stop him.
But this time was different.
Rowan had already shown Beatrice the story.
Although Beatrice herself had felt nothing, the instant Rowan mentioned time reversing, she understood that the plot had officially begun.
In other words—
Subaru Natsuki had already been summoned into this world.
And he had just experienced his first death.
That was why the world's time had been reset.
To be honest, even Rowan found this somewhat incredible.
Rewinding time itself was simply absurd.
Previously, Rowan had suspected that Subaru's Return by Death might not actually rewind time.
Perhaps Subaru merely received memories of a possible future after dying—
something similar to precognition.
But now, it seemed Rowan had underestimated Satella, the Witch of Envy.
That woman was genuinely terrifying.
She could actually reset time.
Rowan also possessed Time Magic, but with his current abilities, he could not casually rewind the entire world from evening all the way back to daytime in one breath.
In Fairy Tail, Ultear had once rewound the entire world by merely one second.
That alone exhausted virtually all of her magical power.
She even transformed from a young woman in the prime of her life into a white-haired old woman.
From an immensely powerful mage—
into an ordinary person.
That alone showed just how enormous the price of reversing time could be.
Yet the Witch of Envy had accomplished it.
More importantly—
she had not done it only once.
She repeatedly rewound time to save Subaru.
Rowan remembered that during Subaru's very first day in this world, he died more than once while trying to save Emilia.
And afterward, nearly every new arc involved him dying several times.
Every death caused time to rewind again.
Rowan simply could not understand it.
He turned toward Beatrice.
"How exactly does the Witch of Envy accomplish something like this?"
Reversing time on such a massive scale, over and over again—
it was unbelievable.
Beatrice calmly replied,
"The Witch of Envy once swallowed half of this world."
"She may possess some authority over the world that no one else knows about."
"Perhaps resetting time isn't actually that difficult for her."
Rowan nodded thoughtfully.
Perhaps that really was the most likely explanation.
At that moment, Beatrice suddenly said,
"Betty plans to leave and go find Brother."
"Do you want to come?"
Rowan shook his head.
"No."
"Compared with watching the excitement, I'm more interested in these magic books."
Beatrice could not help laughing.
"You really are a magic fanatic, I suppose."
Rowan smiled faintly and did not bother arguing.
In truth, he had never considered himself a magic fanatic.
He merely found magic interesting.
During his long journey, aside from traveling and enjoying good food, Rowan felt that he ought to develop a few additional hobbies.
Collecting magic, for example.
After Beatrice left, Rowan continued reading.
During this period—
time reversed once again.
That meant Subaru had died another time.
Rowan did not particularly care.
What surprised him was what happened afterward.
After Subaru's second death, the phenomenon of time reversal never occurred again.
In the original story, Subaru did not die only twice during this incident.
He died four or five times.
Yet here, time had only reversed twice before stopping completely.
What did that mean?
It meant Beatrice had intervened in the story.
Only Beatrice interfering could have preserved Subaru's tiny little life.
Rowan was somewhat surprised.
He had not expected Beatrice to act so quickly.
Apparently, with Beatrice now aware of the plot, Subaru might suffer considerably less in the future.
At the very least—
he probably would not be repeatedly beaten to death by Rem like in the original story.
Thinking back on Subaru's experiences, Rowan had to admit—
the man really was miserable.
There were very few anime protagonists who died again and again as frequently as he did.
And every death was different.
He somehow managed to die creatively.
Die with variety.
Die at an entirely new level.
Of course, Subaru was miserable—
but he also had a terrible habit of not learning from his mistakes.
Every time he died, it was almost as though he restarted with a fresh brain and barely remembered the lessons from the previous loop.
Well—
perhaps he learned.
Just not very much.
That was why he made himself suffer so badly.
If someone else possessed the same ability, the entire story might have changed completely.
After all, Return by Death was an absurdly powerful skill.
It gave someone effectively unlimited opportunities for trial and error.
For a proper example of how to use a death loop, one could simply look at Shinpei Ajiro from Summer Time Rendering.
Now that was how a time-loop protagonist should operate.
Interestingly enough, Subaru, who often struggled terribly in the main storyline, became extraordinarily impressive in several of the IF routes.
There was even one timeline in which he drove Reinhard—the knight among knights—to complete psychological collapse.
Clearly, Subaru did possess considerable ability.
Rowan simply could not understand why he performed so poorly in the main route.
Whatever.
Subaru had nothing to do with him anyway.
No point thinking about it.
Back to reading.
Not long afterward, Beatrice returned.
And accompanying her were the male and female protagonists—
Subaru Natsuki and Emilia—
along with Puck.
Puck even specifically came to the Forbidden Library looking for Rowan.
Unfortunately, by the time he arrived—
Rowan was already gone.
Because Rowan had already copied every book inside the Forbidden Library.
There was nothing else here that interested him.
More importantly—
not long after Beatrice left, the Golden Gate within Rowan had connected to an entirely new world.
Driven by curiosity toward that new world, Rowan decisively departed.
He headed toward his next destination.