If Theora were to hide an item for it to never be found, she’d tear a hole into the fabric of reality and throw the thing inside, then plug it all back up. It would then float around in endless nothingness, and even if someone like the Devil of Truth came around, able to create a whole new reality from scratch through its impossible Legendary Skill, it wouldn’t be able to find the item, because non-reality followed no rules and whatever floated there was lost forever.

At least, in theory.

It wouldn’t be the first time Theora would shred the boundaries of the world, but it would be the first time she’d do it on purpose. [Obliterate] was the kind of Skill that deconstructed the fundamentals of matter at its core, and thus, it was the kind of Skill that could potentially cause irreparable harm to even the laws of science.

For example, if one were to target the concept of ‘Gravity’, it would cease to function properly in a radius according to the current strength of [Obliterate]. However, the Skill was inherently destructive in nature, so using it on the concept of ‘Not Having a Gigantic Pillow’ wouldn’t magically form one into existence. Theora would know.

[Obliterate] couldn’t warp reality productively, it couldn’t create, it could only destroy things until the targeted concept was gone, if possible.

But even outside of [Obliterate], among the many Skills Theora had had before having them all swallowed up, she might have found a way to break the world and throw an item out into nothingness.

It was certainly better than hiding it in the sun.

“Is this just — conjecture?” Theora asked, with a hint of desperation in her voice. “Are you guessing? Or are you sure?”

“Well,” Ulfine said, “What I do know is that you aren’t the first person who went looking for them. And, nothing was ever found. I asked [Diviners] and [Seers] to try and locate them; to find the ‘fastest path’, like an Orb of Seven Wishes would.” She nodded to a map hanging on a wall, a map of the continent, scribbled over with long lines. “After I was able to mount sufficient proof to the guild that these items probably existed at least at some point, they provided me with a budget, and I commissioned a few expeditions, some of which I’ve accompanied myself.” She glanced back at Theora. “Expeditions to find a Fragment, that is. For example, if we assume a Fragment is a strong magical relic, then it would make sense to test if we can track the aura of such relics, and see if we can find one whose aura is unidentifiable, and fetch it.”

She sighed. “We found a lot of things, but never a Fragment. Peculiarly, they can’t be located even with very strong Skills, but if we use [Divination] magic to determine whether these Fragments actually exist, the answer turns up ‘Yes’ when using very precise wordings.”

After brushing her hair out of her face, Ulfine wetted her lips and took a moment to consider her next words. “In the end, there is sufficient proof both historically and with modern technology that the Fragments of Time do exist, but they do not exist on this continent, on this planet, in this universe or in our reality. It’s like someone tossed the things into the ocean, where the ocean is everything that’s ‘Not This Reality’, and now they drift around and you might be able to catch one if you throw out different lures at the right places.”

“Alright,” Theora said in a sad tone.

“When I came to that conclusion, I did also check out some potential paths one could take to leave this ‘Reality’, and I’m not going to lie, some sound like a lot of fun. Maybe treat it as a vacation?”

Theora blinked, and breathed deeply. A vacation.

How could she treat this as a vacation? She wanted to cry. This felt like bullying. It felt like she was being targeted. Theora was already living in two realities at once — was this just a cruel joke played on her behalf?

‘Here is a quest that you just happen to be uniquely qualified to complete, and it involves all the things that make you sad or upset.’

Oh, how frustrating.

She wanted to ruffle her own hair. She wanted to stomp on the ground softly. She wanted to harrumph.

But, if she’d learned anything from her past mistakes, it was that she desperately needed to improve at suppressing her fits of anger, so she did none of that. She simply sat there, empty gaze, wishing to be somewhere else.

“Are you holding up?” Ulfine asked, placing the coffee in front of Theora.

“Barely.”

“If you need a moment…”

“I need all the moments.”

Theora reached out to the cup, and took a sip. Slightly acidic, and rather bitter. Just how she felt right now. What a perfect drink.

A quest given to her by the Brat, as Isobel called it, one that somehow related to her Class too.

[Stargazer], Level 6

By glancing into different realities, you can reveal the hidden fates of any ‘would’ and ‘never-will-be’ implied within the fabric of the world.

[Stargazer]. With its teasing answers to her innocuous questions, its unreasonable high experience requirements, and not the least, that pesky [im//possibility] which had dared inconvenience Dema’s hair.

And lastly — her broken and glitched-out self, robust enough in its nonsensicality that it would withstand a journey beyond whatever little space called ‘reality’ she was currently confined in.

It was like they were all teaming up against her.

Theora sighed.

She didn’t want to do this quest. This screamed to be a trap of some kind. What even were the stakes? Why was she expected to complete it? It’s not like the planet would explode if she didn’t gather those little things in time. In fact, it sounded much more as if the planet would explode if she did.

And yet, she didn’t want Ulfine’s efforts to be in vain either, so she decided to at least ask some more questions out of courtesy.

“You mentioned paths?” she asked, resigned. “Paths leading out of reality?”

“Yes,” Ulfine responded, sipping her coffee. “I did research one path in particular. It’s probably the easiest non-reality to visit, it’s a bit of a tourist-attraction. I’ve gone there myself, to check out if it would suit your situation. Have you ever heard of the Grand Observatory of Fiction?”

Theora considered for a moment, searching through her memories until it eventually turned up. “It’s up north. I’ve heard the name, but I don’t know what it is.”

“Alright. So, imagine you had a story that you found very interesting. One that you particularly liked.”

Theora stared. She’d probably never read a single work of fiction in her entire life.

“I’m doing my best to imagine it,” she said.

“Could be any work of fiction, really, but one that had been written down in some way, on paper. But well, let’s try this differently. Flora the Seamstress. You heard of that?”

“It’s a children’s story,” Theora replied, nodding. “I am aware that it exists.”

Ulfine tried her best but failed at containing an amused grin. “You really should do some reading, it can be fun. Anyway, Flora the Seamstress, a little story about a girl that learns to weave, and is granted a magical ability so that she can weave fabric out of thoughts, yielding letters on paper. It’s the legend on the origin of books, and one of the most common children’s stories you will find on most shelves.”

Theora thought that sounded like a really amazing Skill. If she were to be able to weave books out of thoughts, she’d not have to talk out loud any more. What an enviable child Flora was.

“So,” Ulfine continued, “If you take that book to the Grand Observatory of Fiction, which is one of the largest libraries in the world, you can place it at the centre of the very old, gigantic magical lens built into it. And then it will consume a lot of mana and essentially create its own little world with its own laws of science and magic as specified or implied by the story. And then, you’ll be able to experience Flora’s story right alongside her.”

“And there will be a Fragment inside?”

Ulfine shrugged. “Mostly, I think it’s as good a starting point as any. Relatively low-risk too, because it has some safety mechanisms. If you don’t end up finding a Fragment, you’ll at least gather some experience with not being here.”

“But, if there was a Fragment there, wouldn’t someone else have found it by now?”

Ulfine scrunched up her face. “I’m not sure anyone has ever tried entering it with the specific intent of finding a Fragment of Time. I suppose you’d need to have some way to locate or attract it, or it would never work.”

Theora stared at the ground.

That was as good a place to stop as any, right?

She had no good way of locating the Fragments. Well, she did have some ways of locating them, potentially, but they all sounded awful. Using [im//possibility] until it randomly almost made finding a Fragment possible? Maybe. Unlikely, but maybe. Using an Orb of Seven Wishes to find a path to a Fragment? It may or may not work; Theora had more paths accessible to herself than most other people did, so there was a chance at it yielding a result for her when it didn’t for others.

And, her training grounds, but that was out of the question.

Yes, if the world wanted her to complete an absurd quest like this, it should give her a better, more convenient means to find these silly Fragments of Time. No way she’d waste an Orb of Seven Wishes on this, or grind through millions of uses of [im//possibility] to hit the specific outcome she needed. Dema’s hair would end up a total mess.

She fell back in her chair, feeling the pressure fall off from her body. Yes, she would abandon this quest. It was just unreasonable. She closed her eyes, and imagined what she could be doing instead. She could be travelling with her new family. Maybe help them complete their side quests too. Maybe she could learn how to communicate properly.

Maybe she could hug Dema for a hundred years.

That’s right, that all sounded much better. She couldn’t be expected to complete this quest if she hadn’t even been given the proper tools for it.

At that precise moment, a System notification lit up in front of Theora, and her heart sank.

Please, no. Anything but that.

Congratulations!

You have received a [Stargazer] Special Skill.