"...So it really is the Paths."
Aeternus's murmur carried clearly across the white sea of sand.
Once the initial shock passed, the instincts of a researcher swiftly overwhelmed his unease.
They compelled him to observe this strange dimension overlapping reality with absolute calm.
The first thing he noticed was Historia.
In reality, she was bent over him, looking down at him anxiously, her fingers lightly touching his cheek.
But here, her image seemed sealed within amber, frozen in midair.
No. Not completely still.
Aeternus focused every shred of his attention.
A few golden strands of hair at her forehead were drifting in movements so minute and impossibly slow that they seemed to be passing through extraordinarily viscous honey.
His own reflection in her azure eyes had likewise become an elongated, faint trail of light, changing so slowly it made his heart tremble.
"No, the real world hasn't stopped."
Diablo's consciousness reached its conclusion at once, and a rush of terror mingled with comprehension seized him.
"It's slowed down... slowed by countless times."
The flow of time had been warped and stretched here.
An instant in reality seemed extended into dozens of seconds here—perhaps even longer.
A realm of accelerated thought.
A fissure of consciousness independent from the normal flow of time.
He wanted to see more clearly.
He wanted to understand the physical laws underlying this phenomenon—assuming physical laws even existed here.
But a powerful sensation of separation suddenly struck him.
The white sea of sand in his vision began to sway and blur.
The scene of the real pasture, like a fading oil painting, once again became dominant.
"Aeternus? Wh-what just happened to you?"
Historia's worried voice reached his ears clearly.
The flow of time had returned to normal.
Her small hand was still resting against his face, her fingertips carrying a trace of genuine coolness.
Aeternus abruptly came back to himself, his heart pounding violently from the bizarre experience.
Looking at her little face full of concern and unease, he forcibly suppressed the storm raging in his heart.
He could not frighten her.
Much less expose this anomaly connected to the Eldians' deepest secret.
"N-nothing." He forced out a somewhat twisted smile, then hissed as it pulled at the wound on the corner of his mouth. "I just... got a little dizzy and lost my footing."
He struggled to rise, only for pain throughout his body to make him draw in a sharp breath.
Historia instinctively reached out to support him, but stopped halfway. She could only watch him nervously.
Her blue eyes were filled with guilt and helplessness.
"Y-you should go home," she said quietly. Her gaze involuntarily darted toward the pasture's main house, deep fear in her eyes. "I... I can't leave this place."
Aeternus understood immediately.
That fence was not merely a physical boundary. It was a prison she could not cross.
Enduring the pain, he forced himself upright and gave her the most reassuring smile he could manage.
"I'm fine. They're just superficial injuries. Tomorrow... I'll come see you again tomorrow."
Historia stood by the fence, her small hands gripping the wooden rails tightly.
She watched his unsteady back until it vanished around the bend in the road.
Her eyes were full of worry, along with a faint warmth that even she could not understand.
His words—"A promise has to be kept"—still echoed in her heart.
The walk home felt especially long.
When Luna saw her son, bruised black and blue and covered in filth, she let out a short cry.
She practically rushed at him, frantically checking his injuries as tears welled in her eyes.
"My God! What happened? Who did you fight with? Does it hurt badly?"
A string of questions accompanied her careful touches.
Aeternus could only vaguely explain that he had gotten into a conflict with some other children and taken a fall.
Heartbroken, Luna scolded him for being careless while hurrying to find herbs and clean strips of cloth to tend to his wounds.
In this world, adults generally did not interfere much in fights between children, so long as nothing serious happened.
That spared him more troublesome questioning.
When Busch returned and learned about it, his reaction was far more intense.
The forthright man felt that he had failed the trust his friend had placed in him, and he was furious at those children who preyed on the weak.
He immediately grabbed a sturdy wooden club and stormed off to find the parents of Jack and his gang.
Aeternus did not know exactly what happened.
He only knew that, for quite some time afterward, those children went out of their way to avoid him.
For the moment, tranquility returned to the pasture.
Those peaceful days gave Aeternus the perfect opportunity for secret experiments.
Carefully, he began verifying the conditions for entering that strange space.
During the first few attempts, he needed to deliberately guide Historia into touching him directly—
using the excuse of checking a wound that was "almost healed," or "accidentally" brushing her hand when she passed him a waterskin.
Every successful entry came with a soul-shaking sensation that briefly pulled him into that region where time flowed abnormally.
His stays were exceedingly short, only around a dozen seconds within the [Accelerated World].
And every time he exited, a dull pressure throbbed at his temples and mental exhaustion washed over him, as though he had just performed an intensive mental calculation.
But he did not stop.
A researcher's curiosity and hunger for exploration, along with the urgent need to turn this ability into a practical advantage, drove him onward.
Like recording experimental data, he silently logged everything in his mind: trigger conditions, duration, mental expenditure, details of perception...
As his number of entries increased, he keenly noticed several changes.
First, the headaches were gradually easing—or rather, his brain was slowly adapting to this brief state of overclocking.
Second, and most importantly, he no longer required direct physical contact.
One day, Historia merely came near him and sat down to rest atop a haystack not far away—
And that familiar sensation of separation, of the reality around him beginning to "slow down," surfaced again.
It was not as intense or stable as when they touched directly, and the sea of sand at the edges of his vision was even more blurred.
But without making contact, he had truly caught another glimpse of that white sea of sand.
Though he was forced out again after only a few brief seconds.
"My connection to the Paths is deepening. Or rather, my control over this state of connection is growing stronger."
Aeternus analyzed the matter calmly.
Historia seemed to be that special beacon, a living "key."
Her mere existence was constantly drawing him closer to that mysterious dimension.
And his consciousness was learning how to actively "lock onto" that signal.
The significance of this discovery was immense.
But Aeternus also knew that relying on this unreliable "acceleration" ability, with its accompanying side effects, could not solve the practical problems before him—
For example, how to protect himself effectively and fulfill his promise to Historia.
He thought of Busch.
This neighbor, skilled at hunting, powerfully built, and proficient in practical fighting techniques, was undoubtedly the best possible teacher to introduce him to combat.
A few days later, when his wounds had mostly healed, Aeternus found Busch sharpening a hunting knife in the yard.
"Busch." He raised his head, trying to make his gaze look resolute and eager. "Can you teach me to fight? Or... teach me how to really protect myself, so I won't get bullied?"
Busch froze for a moment as he looked at the little boy before him, whose bruises had not yet fully faded but whose face was utterly serious.
Then he burst into laughter and gave Aeternus a hearty pat on the shoulder, nearly knocking him off balance.
"Good lad! That's the spirit of a man! You know that after taking a beating, you've got to learn the skills to make up for it! No problem. I'll teach you a few practical moves! I'll make sure those little bastards' legs turn to jelly the next time they see you!"
And so, in the gaps between work at the pasture, Busch began teaching Aeternus the most basic techniques of self-defense—
How to plant his stance firmly, how to throw a punch with enough force to hurt the other person without injuring himself, and how to evade common attacks.
Aeternus learned with great seriousness.
But his physical coordination and strength were still those of an eight-year-old. His progress was slow, and he often looked clumsy.
Until one day.
Busch was demonstrating a simple technique for breaking free from a frontal grab, and Aeternus happened to be standing not far from Historia.
When Busch's thick arm came grabbing at him with a whistle of wind, Aeternus instinctively focused his mind, recalling the helplessness he had felt when Jack and the others surrounded him.
A fierce desire to protect himself drove him—
Bzzzz!
The world abruptly slowed in his eyes!
Busch's swift movement transformed into a clear slow-motion scene—
The contraction of his muscles, the shift in his center of gravity, the path of his reaching arm, even the subtle changes in his encouraging, smiling expression all became plainly visible.
He had enough time to repeatedly simulate several possible responses in his mind—
Lower his center of gravity? Step aside and block? Or...
Only a brief instant passed in reality.
He still failed to completely evade Busch's inevitable large hand.
But when he emerged from that state, Busch gave a surprised "Huh?" withdrew his hand, and studied him closely.
"Kid, your reactions aren't bad! Just then, it was like you knew beforehand where I was going to grab you. Even your eyes changed!"
Aeternus's heart shuddered, but he put on an innocent expression and rubbed the arm Busch had lightly touched.
"I... I just guessed. You moved too fast, Busch."
He had found the first—and crucial—practical use of this [Accelerated World] ability:
Accelerated learning and insight.
In that state, where his thoughts were hyperactive and the outside world was relatively still, the efficiency of observing, comprehending, memorizing, and simulating techniques increased geometrically.
He could enter the accelerated state while Busch demonstrated a move and meticulously analyze every detail of force generation and every shift in footwork.
When practicing on his own, he could use those brief dozen seconds to focus to an extreme degree on how his muscles worked, correct improper posture, and carve the correct sensation into his body's memory.
Over the days that followed, the speed of Aeternus's "progress" left Busch clicking his tongue in amazement.
He could often imitate simple moves convincingly after watching them only once or twice.
His coordination and reaction speed also seemed to improve every day, as though something inside him had suddenly clicked.
"Hey! You're a real genius, kid! With instincts like yours, it'd be a crying shame if you didn't become a soldier!" Busch often praised him with a pat on the back, his eyes filled with appreciation.
Only Aeternus himself knew—
Within that seemingly ordinary child's body, a soul from the future was using its tenuous connection to the mysterious Paths to frantically, greedily absorb the first foundation necessary to survive in this cruel era, within an [Accelerated World] no ordinary person could perceive.
Strength.
He stood upon the pasture grass.
He looked toward the towering, silent walls in the distance.
Then he looked at Historia, silently passing by him with a bundle of hay in her arms.
The gears of the world seemed, because of him—an unforeseen variable—to have quietly turned one notch toward an unknown direction.
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