Just as Miyoko's mom tried to stand up, she staggered and nearly fell. I caught her in time.
"Auntie, please don't panic! In your condition, how can you go looking for Miyoko?" I urged.
"If we go to find Miyoko now, that's basically the same as going to fight the Demon King head-on."
"After all, I tricked Demon King Demaon with a lie earlier. He'll catch on."
I told them how I'd escaped from Demaon's hands afterward.
Right now, Miyoko being there alone might still be okay. But if we all show up on the Demon Planet, Demaon will put it together immediately.
Don't think that smashing his crystal ball solved everything—that only blinded him temporarily.
As a powerful Demon King, Demaon definitely has more effective magic to locate us.
Maybe the only reason he hasn't touched Miyoko yet is because, like before, he's using her as bait to lure us back.
So unless we're ready to defeat Demaon, I don't want to rush back.
"Auntie, you don't want to recover only to be separated from Miyoko forever, right?"
"If we defeat the Demon King, you can be together forever."
I pleaded as sincerely as I could.
"But Miyoko is there alone—will she really be okay?" Miyoko's mom still looked worried.
Doraemon came over and explained how the Time Machine works. Time flows differently: even if a lot passes here, we can return to one second before we left the Demon Planet. From Miyoko's perspective, we'd only be gone a second.
That calmed her.
She finally let out a small sigh of relief.
"Have you figured out a way to defeat Demaon?" she suddenly asked.
Doraemon and I looked at each other, troubled.
"No," we said in unison.
She smiled faintly. "You probably don't know where Demaon's true heart is, do you? It's actually…"
I cut her off.
"Auntie, you're about to say it's the red moon orbiting the Demon Planet, right?"
"How do you know that?" She was surprised. She remembered taking away the other half of the Demon Realm chronicle back then.
I didn't answer how I knew. I just said, "The red moon over the Demon Planet is gone."
"Gone?"
"Are you sure it's gone? Not that you just didn't see it?"
She turned pale. She knew exactly what it meant if the red moon had vanished.
It would mean the only method targeting Demaon's weak point was gone.
Without Demaon's heart, against his immortal body, defeating him is almost impossible.
"I didn't mistake it. Before entering the Demon Planet, I watched from the outskirts. There was no red moon."
My certainty dragged her into despair.
"Come to think of it, when I went in, I didn't see a red moon either!" Doraemon recalled, realizing he'd missed it too.
His words completely confirmed mine. She knew it was true.
"This means Demaon has hidden his heart again," I said with a helpless sigh.
"How could this be?" She hadn't expected to wake up to such bad news right after regaining herself.
Did it mean the future she'd just dared to imagine—a happy life together with her daughter—was already gone?
Right now, the only thing stopping Demaon's advance was the Magic Moon Nirnaeth left by Earth as a protective barrier.
But how long could a magic moon hold back Demaon?
From what she knew, the demons had previously avoided a full-scale invasion only because the Magic Moon weakened them. But now Demaon himself was employing magic, steering the entire Demon Planet toward Earth. Using such a massive celestial body could directly offset the Magic Moon's weakening and protection.
Once the Demon Planet actually reached Earth, an overwhelming demonic army would descend.
The fall of the magic world would be imminent.
What would happen to Earth's fate then?
And what about her and Miyoko's future? Would they perish together, become slaves and playthings, or be transformed into new monsters like before?
She couldn't bear to imagine it.
Her fear of the future showed on her ashen face, and tears slipped down her cheeks.
I sighed too. I felt helpless. Demaon's power level is insanely high—I really can't beat him. And he's clever. I can't even find an opening.
"In that case, the What-if-telephone-booth solves everything, right?" Dorami didn't get why Doraemon and I were so troubled.
Since all this was caused by the What-if-telephone-booth, why not fix it at the source?
If so, just use the What-if-telephone-booth to restore the world to how it was.
"That's a great idea, Dorami," said Doraemon. He paused, as if something occurred to him, then still pulled out the What-if-telephone-booth from his pocket. But he didn't look happy; it felt forced.
That was the What-if-telephone-booth that had gone missing—actually taken by a future Doraemon. In the original, mom sent it to the dump and it got broken.
A time loop after all.
Doraemon looked all excited to open the What-if-telephone-booth and restore the world, but I sensed something was off.
"Wait!"
I stopped him before he stepped inside.
"What is it?" Doraemon asked, puzzled. Dorami also looked confused at my intervention.
"I suddenly thought of something. If we cancel it, we can return to the original world, right?" I asked them with a serious look.
"That's right," Doraemon said.
"But what about the magic world? What happens to the people here?" I shot back.
"Well… um…" Doraemon realized I'd figured it out.
He and Dorami lowered their heads. They both knew.
Doraemon kept his head down, as if thinking, not answering me for a long while.
"It would become a parallel world," Dorami finally answered when Doraemon stayed silent.
"In other words, the real world and the magic world would have no connection anymore. They'd just continue separately."
"We would return to the peaceful world we came from and keep living there," Doraemon added after a long pause.
"Isn't that a shameful escape?" I said heavily.