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The wise diviner who unraveled mysteries for guests within the fortune-telling parlor blinked blankly.
Black Swan's elegant neck rolled smoothly as she swallowed nonexistent saliva.
Did I… mishear just now?
Or has this body formed of Memoria been damaged by excessive emotional fluctuation, causing a distortion in my comprehension of language?
No, no, perhaps all of this is merely Aventurine's delusion?
Perhaps his longing for his family drove him into paranoia, and the IPC invited me here to erase these fantasies that interfere with his work and life.
Mm… compared to an Aeon acting as a nanny, this explanation is clearly far more convincing.
Black Swan nodded at this "reasonable" conjecture—then immediately shook her head with a bitter smile.
Who was delusional? At this rate, she would be the one developing paranoia.
After a brief moment of contemplation, she came to a decision.
She raised her hand and rewound Aventurine's memory by ten minutes, comparing the two instances she had witnessed.
It was necessary to confirm whether her ability to receive information had been compromised.
Ten minutes later, Black Swan fell silent.
It was identical—there was not the slightest difference from what she had heard before.
That meant… it wasn't her problem?
"No, how could an Aeon possibly fall to such a state? I'll watch it again."
Her pale hand flicked lightly, and the memory rewound once more.
Yet again, there was not the faintest alteration from what she had seen previously.
"Could it be my memory that's malfunctioning? I'll watch it again."
Black Swan stubbornly replayed it over and over.
Unlike Aventurine—who had at least encountered Curio Trash Cans before—she was a devout follower of Fuli, Aeon of Remembrance, and held absolute faith in the supremacy of the Aeons.
She understood perfectly well that rewinding it endlessly was futile, yet aside from this, she had no other means to alleviate the overwhelming shock before her.
However, while Black Swan believed her actions entirely reasonable, it was a different matter to another "being."
Beyond her notice, a point of black and white abruptly expanded into a vortex, stretching straight toward her back.
Too much!
The moment HooH sensed that THEIR unspeakable past had been discovered by another, THEY cast THEIR gaze over.
Upon realizing it was someone from the Garden of Recollection, THEY initially had no intention of intervening.
After all, such matters had surely long been observed by Fuli; intervening would be pointless.
But what was this constant rewinding supposed to mean?
Enjoying it? Fascinated? Not seen enough yet?
Aeons were not devoid of emotion; it was merely that, under normal circumstances, such emotions rarely aligned with humanity's.
Their modes of survival and rivalry were fundamentally different from mortals.
Fortunately, most Aeons possessed a sense of dignity.
Aside from one lunatic and another who slumbered in self-imposed isolation, Aeons were never stingy when it came to preserving THEIR majesty.
And at this moment, HooH had reached the threshold of that sentiment.
The black-and-white vortex expanded behind Black Swan, instantly filling the entire memory space.
Caught off guard, the Lady of Recollection managed only to glance back once.
In the next instant, black-and-white threads bound her tightly, and the massive vortex swallowed her whole.
Aside from an expression of terror, she left no trace behind.
This memory space became a domain manipulated at HooH's whim.
Within another narrow void stripped of gravity, Black Swan awoke to find herself entangled and bound by a dense web of black-and-white threads, while soothing music drifted past her ears like elusive fish.
"Where… is this?"
A majestic voice resounded directly within her mind, offering no answer to her question.
"Are you addressing me? Devotee of Fuli. What follows is a small lesson."
"You should understand that memories belong in the past."
Black Swan failed to grasp the situation at once. "What?"
But in the next second, a sharp scream tore from her throat. "Ah!!!"
After a heavy sighing note, invisible yet animate musical tones surged toward her from every direction.
The threads upon her body danced in rhythm with the music, making her soul tremble, scattering her Memoria, agony surging through her being.
The gentle melody shifted into fervent crescendos, manifesting before her eyes the savage brutality of a predator chasing prey—and the delight of crushing its quarry's neck in a single bite.
But regrettably, she was no predator.
She was the prey swallowed whole by this world.
Terror spread through her heart, seeping from every pore like a carpet violently unrolled.
She was manipulated, spread open at will, displayed with elegance, then crudely smeared with ugliness.
Her body of Memoria disintegrated again and again beneath the highly artistic assault, only for a strange white energy to restore her each time.
With each cycle of dissolution and restoration, her consciousness gradually blurred.
What little awareness remained made her realize this was no attack.
It was an interrogation.
As the music neared its finale, the threads wound around her once more—then constricted into a single point.
"Ah!!!"
Black Swan screamed in anguish as her eyes snapped open.
She surveyed her surroundings.
She was still within Aventurine's memory space. Everything was normal—aside from her own utterly disheveled state.
She lay suspended in midair, supported only by her divination crystal ball pressed against her lower back, facing upward, limbs hanging weakly.
An unnatural flush colored her face, and her small lips drew in ragged breaths.
Though physically intact, excess Memoria condensed into sweat, making her resemble someone freshly expelled from the maw of a colossal beast.
Yet she did not appear as though she had endured some horrific torture.
Rather, she looked like someone who had been forced through an extraordinarily intense exertion and left collapsed upon a bed.
Black Swan struggled to steady her emotions.
She sat up and wiped away the sweat clinging to her body.
But the astonishment on her face remained unabated.
It was all real.
Changing the past was real.
The Aeon's assistance was real.
Even Shopkeeper Sylvester instructing an Aeon was undeniably real.
And the one who had just warned her was, without question, the Aeon of Equilibrium.
THEIR action had in turn proven everything beyond doubt.
"Ah~"
Having barely sat upright, her body swayed for a moment before collapsing back down again.
She covered her eyes with her sleeve, uncertain whether she wished to laugh or cry, and muttered to herself, What in the world are these absurd affairs?
Yet soon after, she genuinely laughed.
Though she had suffered misfortune without cause, it also meant that as long as she refrained from unnecessary actions, HooH would not pursue her further.
Good. Good.
And besides…
The owner of that trash can shop possessed power on such a scale.
Compared to this time-traveling IPC executive, his memories were far more worthy of observation.
Black Swan casually resumed the memory process but no longer watched it, allowing blank memory bubbles to record it automatically.
The climax had already passed.
The ending of this symphony was no longer particularly compelling.
It was time to seek the next melody.
But before that…
Black Swan shifted into a more comfortable posture, exhaustion filling her eyes.
"Before that… I need to rest for a while."
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