C99: The remain Cycle

Arnold walked toward the school grounds beside the church. Today was his first day attending the church school, though his real intention was not education. He wanted to verify whether the Alan writing truly aligned with his intuition and the information recorded in the monument.

The morning air was cool, carrying the scent of incense drifting from the chapel and crushed grass beneath children’s shoes. Bells had already rung once, and groups of children were gathering in clusters across the courtyard.

“Mary, good morning.”

Arnold approached the church entrance and found Mary among the other children. As expected, only Mary returned his greeting. The others either stepped subtly away from him, uneasy with his unfamiliar face, or stared at him openly with a mix of curiosity and suspicion.

“May the Monarch be with you. Good morning, young master… um…”

“It’s Arnold.”

“Young Master Arnold.”

Mary was holding a basket of fresh flowers hooked over her elbow. Today she looked noticeably cleaner than before. Her blonde hair now flowed freely down to her chest, not braided.

Arnold’s eyes fell immediately on her cheek.

He could clearly see a faint, bluish bruise, partially obscured by the careful arrangement of her hair.

“Did your father hit you?”

“Uh?”

Mary’s eyes widened. She instinctively stepped back and tilted her head so her hair covered the mark more completely.

“Pray… do not accuse my Pa…”

“…”

Mary remained silent for a moment, her gaze fixed on the ground, before she sheepishly answered.

“It is not as you surmise, Master Arnold…” She peeked her eyes up at him. “Umm, pray sir, might you keep it a secret? I would not wish everyone to know…”

Arnold nodded lightly. He did not particularly care about the details, beyond confirming the monument's accuracy.

However, he felt a pang of curiosity as to why his previous iteration had cared about this girl so much, consistently going out of his way to interact with her.

“I still have duties to attend to! Please excuse me!”

Mary bowed awkwardly and hurried away, clutching her basket.

Well, it was not his business.

He turned on his heel and walked toward the church school.

“Excuse me, brother…”

Before he could take more than a few steps, a small voice called out behind him.

He turned around. Several children had gathered around him now, forming a loose semicircle.

‘Bennet?’

The black monument had specifically warned him about this boy.

“Brother, what is your relationship with sister?”

The speaker was a brown-haired boy who appeared to be around twelve or thirteen. He was shorter than Arnold but stood with confidence. His village attire was noticeably cleaner and thicker than most of the others.

“Just—”

“A client? Or a friend this time?” The boy cut him off, a glint in his eyes.

Arnold knitted his brows.

Why was the sudden choice?

‘Was this why the previous iteration warned me about him?’ he thought briefly.

‘…’

‘What is it, Isa?’

Feeling a sudden mental tug, Izzy looked over to the young mind within their shared consciousness.

‘Let’s choose the first option, Izzy.’

‘?’

Izzy dove into the crimson theatre of their mindscape.

Before Isa, a floating screen hovered. On it was an image of Bennet, and beneath it two dialogue options in neat boxes.

‘?’

Where did this come from?

The young mind had invented something strange again.

‘Mmm.’

Well, it wasn't a bad thing. Izzy decided not to question it for now.

Izzy returned to Arnold’s perspective.

He paused for a brief moment, weighing the situation.

“Client,” Arnold said calmly. “She was a client.”

“Client?” Bennet repeated under his breath.

Then his face lit up immediately.

“I see! A man of means!”

His tone brightened with exaggerated admiration. He puffed out his chest proudly and gave a small, theatrical bow, mimicking the posture of a miniature nobleman.

“Right then. Might I make myself known? I am Bennet.”

‘It’s him.’ Arnold nodded his head, confirming the identity noted on the black monument.

Bennet looked at him with a bright, innocent smile.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir!” he declared cheerfully.

There was something beneath the friendliness, but nothing outwardly hostile. Just a boy playing at courtesy.

Soon after, Isa quietly switched positions with Izzy inside their shared mind. The mature mind withdrew, leaving the young mind to handle the children. Social play was never Izzy’s strength; Isa navigated childish energy far more naturally.

“Hurrah!”

The children erupted into noise, dragging Arnold into games across the courtyard.

—

By the afternoon, back in the mansion, Arriet stood face to face with Erin.

Izzy had taken control of the female vessel specifically to intercept the maid, preventing her from wandering too close to the attic where their true body lay hidden.

“Where do you think you are going?”

Arriet stood on the staircase leading to the attic, looking down at the blonde girl with a gaze of cold contempt.

“P-Pardon? Who might—” Erin jolted, taking a step back. She fiddled nervously with the hem of her dress, unsure how to answer.

‘As expected, she is really curious, huh?’ Izzy rolled her eyes internally.

Erin looked frightened after realizing that the mansion did not house just her and Arnold.

Of course, Izzy realized, just using Arnold to warn the girl away from the upper floors without providing any context would inevitably create the opposite effect. It was just a simple matter of human psychology.

The black monument had mentioned Erin. The girl was the one who would eventually discover the secret space in the dining room and inform Arriet.

‘That means Erin inevitably knows about Arriet.’

And apparently, she was also still alive until that point in time. Izzy, in the previous loop, had not found it necessary to kill her, it seemed.

‘Does that mean she is really harmless?’

Did Erin even discover their main body, the painting, in their previous iteration?

Izzy had some doubts. ‘How did the girl learn about Arriet in the previous iteration?’ she questioned herself. If she herself, in the previous iteration, thought exactly like the current Izzy, then she would have kept the female vessel hidden away indefinitely.

But she did not dwell on it too much. Izzy could guess what the previous ‘her’ had gone through, but she couldn’t be entirely sure, and couldn’t know every detail.

There was just one point that she knew for certain.

‘Establishing a relationship between Arriet and Erin sooner might benefit me.’

This Erin girl seemed unusually lucky, judging by the monument's tone.

The girl had been saved by them, garnered the concern of that mysterious traveler Gentle, and somehow stumbled upon a secret room that Izzy had no idea about.

Izzy shook her head and fully immersed herself in Arriet’s body.

“My name is Arriet Marion,” she said coldly, her voice echoing slightly in the stairwell.

“Err? Ah! Miss Marion! My name is—”

“I know who you are,” Arriet cut Erin off mid-sentence, her tone dismissive.

She walked down the remaining stairs, brushing past Erin. She paused, casting a sideways glance that clearly urged the maid to follow.

“This is my room. If you have any questions, knock on the door. Understood?” At one point, as Arriet guided Erin down the hall toward her chosen bedroom, she looked over her shoulder and instructed Erin with the air of a demanding mistress.

“...Y-Yes! Miss Marion!” Erin squeaked, bowing her head.

Arriet nodded.

“Now that you know, get lost.”

She stepped inside and closed the door.

Izzy needed to establish Arriet as the grumpy, reclusive owner of the house. To Izzy, Arriet’s body looked very much like a child. That was exactly why Arriet couldn’t afford to be overly friendly with Erin, or else she might easily be looked down upon. Fear and respect were far more useful tools.

Izzy guided Arriet toward the large four-poster bed, settling the vessel down onto the plush mattress while extending her Field Vision to monitor Erin's retreating, confused steps down the hallway.

Satisfied that the immediate perimeter was secure, she turned her attention to Isa, who was currently controlling Arnold in the village to learn the Alan language.

—

Throughout the school session, Izzy learned something interesting.

Their minds could share information. If Isa learned and memorized a character, Izzy could access it instantly without needing repetition. It was as if their minds were two processors sharing the same database.

Izzy still couldn’t help but admire her young mind’s ability to memorize them.

‘Truly a genius.’

There was one more thing.

She somehow, for some reason, could understand the Alan language intuitively, even before Isa learned the characters.

‘So it’s not a fluke.’

Back in the attic of the mansion, Izzy retrieved the copied notes from Benjamin’s diary. She examined the fourth line carefully and cross-checked the symbols with what Isa had absorbed during school.

‘I did indeed understand it.’

That meant the comprehension wasn’t imagined.

Did the information at the subconscious level retain itself in each loop, even if the memory was wiped?

‘Somewhat makes sense?’ I zzy tilted her head as her gray bangs fell beneath her eyes.

She glanced toward the mindscape again, toward the black monument rising in the crimson theatre.

If that were true, then this entire mindscape existed at the subconscious layer. That would explain why the monument persisted across iterations even when conscious memories were wiped.

‘Honestly, how did my previous iteration know about this?’

She wasn’t sure if it was really her previous self who had built the monument, or how many loops she had gone through. But to build something here, consciously use the subconscious space as a storage vault…

Izzy knew her own habits. If it were her, she would have written notes in the physical world and destroyed them afterward to avoid risk.

Using the mindscape as a repository wasn’t her usual method. It was too fantastical.

‘Was it the young mind’s influence?’

She shook her head, dismissing the thought for now.

Her gaze returned to the diary copy.

Now, unlike before, she felt she could decode it.

Izzy had a grasp of how the Alan language functioned. With Isa’s memory as reference material, she could dissect it slowly.

She focused on the first symbol cluster.

“Destroy…?”

Her lips pressed together.

‘Wow, the first word already felt ominous.’ Izzy suddenly felt a reluctance to read further.

She continued.

“The moon?”

Izzy furrowed her brows. She slowly pieced the sentence together.

“Destroy… the fake moon?”

She paused. ‘What?’

Izzy contemplated the phrase.

‘What does this mean?’

The fake moon?

Was there anything like that? Was the moon she saw in the sky not real?

She looked over the note again. There was another sentence beside it.

“The remaining circle: 1?”

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