Chapter 71: Waiting for You in the True Future

Muen has always been the one who could never hide her feelings and emotions, ever since she was little.
The moment she saw Leon, she didn’t suppress her emotions like her younger sister Little Light to calmly prove her identity;
Nor did she immediately punch their father like her elder sister.
Her way of expressing feelings was always simple and sincere.
Muen used almost all her strength to throw herself into that man’s arms, her tears bursting forth like a broken dam, unstoppable.
The contagion of emotion was like a bomb, and Muen was the fuse that set it off.
Watching the father and daughter embrace and cry after twenty years apart, Aurora lowered her head, removed her glasses, and quietly wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes;
Noia kept her hands in her jacket pockets, biting her lip, her pupils flickering before she turned her head away.
Leon gently stroked Muen’s hair, just like he used to when she was small.
Her cowlick was still there, and her features were as delicate as Noia’s now, but although the sisters had identical faces, Noia looked like a beautiful and cool mature woman, while Muen seemed more like the girl-next-door type.
Muen hadn’t cut her hair short like Noia either.
She kept it long, just like Rosvitha’s dazzling hair that was like the Milky Way.
After crying in her father’s arms for a while, Muen stepped back with hiccups, her cowlick bobbing up and down in rhythm with her sniffling.
Leon smiled and patted Muen’s shoulder, “You’ve become beautiful, Muen.”
“Dad, you haven’t… changed at all, you’re just like twenty years ago.”
The pink-haired troublemaker nearby composed herself, put her glasses back on, and interjected, “Dad, why did you only say that second sister became beautiful? What about me and big sister?”
“Ah well…” Leon could tell she was trying to stir things up.
“Muen and I are twins, complimenting her is the same as complimenting me,” Noia leaned against the stone wall, seriously playing the cool sister role. “So you’re the only one he didn’t compliment, Little Light.”
The scientist was taken aback – big sister had a point.
Thus, the troublemaker who tried to stir things up was the first to blush, “Oh really, you old bastard! Looks like one uppercut wasn’t enough to awaken your love for your youngest daughter, huh?”
Leon scratched his head and smiled, having to patch up his earlier words, “You’re all beautiful. I passed out when I first saw you two earlier, so I didn’t get a chance to say it then.”
Muen blinked her pretty large eyes and looked at Leon, “Dad, why did you pass out?”
“…”
Sweetheart, you’re still as inquisitive as you were back then.
“It’s nothing, I just passed out because I was tired.”
Leon made up a casual lie.
Being knocked out by his two daughters… that kind of thing was better left unsaid.
Though Leon was quite relieved that Muen hadn’t punched him like her sister and younger sister did when they first saw him.
See? This is what a true daddy’s girl is like.
Those other two are pure thorny armor.
“Alright dad, next, it’s time to see her.”
Leon’s smile faded from his face, becoming serious.
He knew who Aurora was referring to.
Leon nodded, “Okay.”
“Mom’s in the innermost room, let’s go.”
The three sisters led the way, with Leon following behind them.
The distance from the entrance to the innermost room wasn’t actually far, as it was just an underground space. The area wasn’t very large, just enough for one or two people’s daily living.
But in these few short steps, with each step Leon took, his heart grew heavier.
Even though he was so close to Rosvitha now, the feeling of unease in his heart grew stronger and stronger.
Suddenly, he recalled what Muen had said through the door when she and her sisters entered the underground space earlier:
“Mom’s still the same as always, I’ve been keeping her company and talking to her.”
What did “same as always” mean?
Why use such a strange way of saying “keeping her company and talking”?
What exactly happened to that silly dragon…?
The questions in his heart were too many, like mountains threatening to crush him.
Leon struggled to adjust his breathing, trying to calm himself down.
“We’re here.”
The three sisters stopped in front of a stone door.
This time the stone door wasn’t an illusion spell. Aurora raised her hand, pulled a hidden mechanism on the wall, and the stone door slowly opened to both sides.
Behind the door was a small room, with torches burning on the walls on both sides.
In the center of the room sat a chair.
In front of the chair lay a crystal about two meters long…?
The light at the doorway was dim, and Leon couldn’t make out more specific details.
However, when his daughters led him into the room and he clearly saw the crystal, he froze in place as if struck by lightning.
Within the crystal, the silver-haired beauty had her eyes gently closed, her hands folded over her abdomen, pressing down on a photograph.
She was very quiet, as quiet as if she were sleeping.
But who would normally sleep in such a strange crystal?!
The unease in his heart finally exploded, instantly invading Leon’s entire body.
Leon felt his whole body grow cold, his spine seeming as if it could no longer support his weight, ready to collapse at any moment.
He stared wide-eyed at his wife in the crystal, his mouth opening and closing, but countless words were stuck in his throat like stones.
He couldn’t swallow them down, couldn’t speak them out.
Nearly suffocating.
Leon reached out his hand, which wouldn’t stop trembling.
Just placing his palm on the crystal took all of his strength.
The crystal was cold, like his gradually cooling heart.
“Rosvitha… Rosvitha…”
His voice was trembling too.
Noia stepped forward, looking at her ‘sleeping’ mother, and slowly said,
“You disappeared without a trace into the spatial rift to stop that disaster, and no one knew if you were still alive.”
“After that, Mom became listless, gradually sinking into depression, numbing herself with alcohol every day.”
“Seeing Mom like that reminded me of when she had just given birth to me and Muen, when she was also that dispirited, often staring blankly at you while you were unconscious.”
“But this time, it was different.”
“She no longer had anyone to stare at, and didn’t know if this long wait would ever end.”
“No one could understand Mom’s sadness and grief at losing you. Isabella said that without you, she became the loneliest ruler on the throne.”
Noia calmly revealed all the truth. For this moment, every day of these twenty years, she had been silently rehearsing these words in her heart.
Just waiting for Leon’s appearance, to tell him every word without missing any.
“Later, Mom stopped drinking and threw herself back into work.”
“We thought she had walked out of her grief, but that wasn’t the case.”
“She worked frantically, sleeping less than six hours a week, not wearing makeup, not engaging in diplomacy, not confiding in Aunt Isabella, rejecting all outside influences.”
“That’s when we realized she hadn’t adjusted at all, but was sinking deeper. Alcohol no longer worked for her, she could only use frantic work to distract herself.”
At this point, Noia paused. She turned to look at Leon.
This man’s face was already full of remorse and self-blame.
He was about to break down, so Noia quickly slowed her narrative pace and brought up another matter:
“Do you know why I tried so hard to become stronger when I was little?”
Leon looked at her and shook his head.
“For you both.”
Noia said, “I thought if I became strong enough, you wouldn’t leave us, and Mom wouldn’t show that sad expression anymore. But in the end, I couldn’t fulfill either wish.”
“You disappeared into the spatial rift; and Mom spent her days crying.”
“Since I was little, what I feared most was this family falling apart, even if it was once built on falsehood.”
“But like you said, while the appearance of family might be a lie, the love between family members is absolutely real.”
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled, as if adjusting her emotions.
“In the sixth month after you disappeared, the Silver Dragon clan was attacked again.”
“Two Dragon Kings, plus a human called Nacho Salamander, attacked us day and night.”
“Aunt Isabella’s side was also under siege and couldn’t send support.”
“In the end, Mom killed one of the Dragon Kings, but by then she was completely exhausted and no match for the other Dragon King.”
“But miraculously, she burst out with incredibly overwhelming power at the last moment, destroying that careless Dragon King in one strike.”
“However, that move wasn’t the self-destruction of the Heart Dragon Scale’s energy. Mom didn’t sacrifice herself, but she became too weak to even leave her bed.”
“She realized this wouldn’t be the last time the Empire and Dragon Alliance would try to exterminate the Silver Dragons, but as Dragon King, she was already too weak to fight, and there was no suitable successor for the throne within the clan.”
“So, Mom disbanded the tribe, letting clan members flee in all directions – only this way could most of them survive. But Anna and Sister Shelly didn’t leave. They said they would stay with Mom until the very end.”
“During the days Mom was bedridden, she told us sisters about the story between you and her, from your first meeting, getting to know each other, to finally… falling in love.”
“Mom said she didn’t really understand what love between a man and woman was, but she felt she must have loved you.”
“She said she would wait for you, until you returned to this family, until you told her in person that you loved her.”
“She wanted to hear your confession, face to face, not just some outpouring of true feelings in a life-or-death moment.”
“But…”
Noia reached out, gently stroking the crystal,
“She didn’t get to wait. The sun and moon alternated at her window countless times, but you, whom she longed for, never returned. That move that killed the enemy wasn’t powered by the Heart Dragon Scale – it was just a miracle created by a mother at the brink of death.”
“And the price of that miracle was falling into a deep sleep.”
“Mom’s last words to us were that no matter what, we had to survive until our father returned.”
“Because she believed that as long as you were here, everything would change.”
“Later, great-grandmother returned. She created this crystal for Mom – the crystal maintains Mom’s bodily functions. As long as Mom wakes up and uses even a little bit of power, the crystal can be broken from the inside.”
“Of course, it can also be broken from the outside using specific magical commands.”
“Great-grandmother said that although Mom had fallen into sleep, she should still be able to hear our voices.”
“That’s why Muen has always been talking to Mom – she doesn’t want Mom to be lonely, trapped in dreams of missing you.”
“These twenty years, great-grandmother and Aunt Isabella have been constantly searching for ways to restore Mom; while we’ve been waiting for you, trying to change everything through another method.”
Muen moved the room’s only chair behind Leon, then tugged at his sleeve, gesturing for him to sit down.
He collapsed into the chair like an empty puppet, lost and devastated.
Noia sniffled, waited quietly for a moment, then asked, “Have you recovered? If you have, Little Light will explain the method we’ve thought of. We’re pressed for time and can’t afford to give you more time to grieve.”
Leon blinked hard, pinching the tiger’s mouth of his left hand. The pain helped clear his mind somewhat.
“Alright, I’m listening.”
Aurora walked to Leon’s side and began speaking slowly,
“First, let me correct a misconception, Dad. You weren’t actually ‘asleep’ in the spatial rift for twenty years before awakening.”
“No spatial magic can maintain itself for twenty years.”
“In that battle, Ravi used his heart dragon scales to forcibly alter the nature of the spatial magic, causing it to undergo uncontrollable changes.”
“It was these changes that ‘transported’ you to this place… twenty years later.”
Leon listened intently, “Transported to… here?”
Aurora nodded, “Yes. ‘Here’ is just a simplified way of putting it. You can also understand it as a ‘time point’, ‘spacetime’, or most accurately—”
“A world twenty years later where Leon Casmode doesn’t exist.”
“For you, it’s genuinely only been a few hours;”
“But for us who live in this ‘Leon-less’ world, it’s been a solid twenty years.”
“Let me give you a simple example:”
“The world is like a steadily running assembly line, and everyone plays the role of a component.”
“But one day, you – this component – jumped off the assembly line.”
“While this wouldn’t fatally impact the assembly line’s operation, everything connected to you has been changed.”
“Take me, Big Sis, and Second Sis for example – without your companionship, we’ve become what we are today;”
“But if you had been here, I’m certain we wouldn’t be like this.”
After a pause, Aurora wanted to lighten the rather heavy atmosphere, so she looked toward Noia,
“At the very least, Big Sis would be a long-haired beauty.”
Leon quickly absorbed and processed Aurora’s explanation.
He understood this principle and grasped the meaning behind her joke.
The transformation from a cool short-haired sister to a long-haired beauty was just a metaphor – the impact of a father’s absence during his children’s growth goes far beyond just hair length.
His initial agreement with Rosvitha was to ensure their children grew up healthy with both maternal and paternal love intact.
A childhood without paternal love is inevitably incomplete.
Aurora was absolutely right – if Leon had been present, they definitely wouldn’t be the way they are today.
Although they’ve grown strong now, there’s no doubt that having Leon’s guidance during their early and adolescent years would have made them even more exceptional.
This was certain.
This also explained that sense of “not belonging” Leon had felt since regaining consciousness.
He had always felt he didn’t belong ‘here’.
Didn’t belong to… this world where ‘Leon Casmode doesn’t exist’.
“Now that we’ve corrected this understanding, here comes the crucial part.”
Aurora said, “For the past decade or so, I’ve been researching the reversal magic for Ravi’s spatial magic.”
“Reversal magic?”
Leon’s mind stirred, “You mean… time travel? Going back to the past?”
“No, no, no, Dad, time doesn’t work that way.”
Aurora quickly corrected him,
“Through various coincidences, you came to the future twenty years later through the spatial rift – we can consider this as ‘moving forward’;”
“But under the rules of ‘time’, you can’t ‘move backward’.”
“All events can only continue to move ‘forward’ with the passage of time. No magic, no matter how powerful, can defy this principle. Even the uncontrolled spatial magic enhanced by Ravi’s heart dragon scales could only transport you to the future, not the past.”
Hearing this, Leon frowned slightly, “Then wouldn’t it be impossible to change any of this?”
“Don’t rush, Dad. Although time’s rules are fixed, I’ve still found a loophole in this system.”
Aurora displayed the confident smile unique to researchers,
“That’s what I just mentioned – reversal magic.”
“While we can’t return to past times, it doesn’t mean we can’t reverse known magic.”
“During these past dozen years or so, I’ve been studying Ravi’s original spatial magic, and successfully created a prototype of reversal magic.”
“Once the research is complete, you’ll be able to return to the past, correct everything, and change it all.”
Leon lowered his brows, his mind racing.
After a moment, he asked, “I think I understand roughly, but I remember you mentioned something earlier about… only having six months left? What does that mean?”
“The battle that put Mom into suspended animation happened six months after you entered the rift,” Noia said.
“But shouldn’t that be unrelated to Little Light’s research progress? Once the reversal magic succeeds, won’t you be able to send me back to the time when I left?”
“No, Dad, that’s not how it works.”
Aurora explained,
“For example, about eighteen hours have passed since you woke up.”
“This means time has already flowed through you for eighteen hours, so even if I complete the reversal magic now, I could only send you back to the eighteenth hour after you entered the rift.”
“Time flows in a single line – it affects both the world and you.”
“If you were to return to the world of ‘eighteen hours ago’ in your ‘eighteen hours later’ state, no one knows what would happen – your body might even be torn apart.”
“Do you understand, Dad?”
Leon shook his head blankly, “No, I don’t.”
Aurora had anticipated this and looked back at Muen, “Second Sis, explain it to Dad in your way.”
“Oh, alright.”
Muen stepped forward and looked at their father,
“For example, Dad, let’s say you ate a steak at twelve noon and got really full, finishing at twelve-thirty.”
“Then, if you use reversal magic to go back to twelve o’clock while still being full, and try to eat that steak again, you’d definitely burst your stomach.”
“That’s roughly the principle.”
Leon: “Now I understand.”
“One last thing, Dad.”
Aurora stood before Leon.
The sisters Noia and Muen stood on either side of her.
The three sisters looked at their father with serious expressions.
“Only you can return to the past through the reversal magic.”
“This world is like a chess game, and you’re the only piece that can jump outside the board.”
“You are the variable, Dad, and also the key to saving everything.”
“In six months’ time, Little Light must complete the reversal magic.”
“And you, Dad, you must become as strong as you were in the beginning.”
“Only such a version of you will have the power to turn the tide and reverse the future.”
Muen stepped forward, half-crouching in front of Leon, stretching out her arms to embrace her father,
“Mom and us will be waiting for you in the true future, Dad.”