Chapter 505 - 473: The Time Loop’s "Assimilation

Chapter 505: Chapter 473: The Time Loop’s "Assimilation

Faced with the reset morning and the newsboy’s familiar cries, Roland refused to let frustration overwhelm him.

He took a deep breath and spoke decisively.

"Everyone, take out your notebooks. Check your latest entries."

Trusting Roland completely, Duraga, Galvis, and Avril immediately began to search for their notebooks.

Only Bronson remained standing where he was, perfectly still.

His gaze was somewhat vacant as he stared at the endless stream of people on the street, as if trying to make out a hazy Illusion.

"Mr. Bronson?"

Roland took a step forward, his voice softening with clear concern.

"What’s wrong?"

At the sound of his voice, Bronson’s body gave an almost imperceptible shudder as he slowly turned his head.

When his eyes met Roland’s, they first flickered with a pure, almost alien confusion, as if he were trying to identify a person who had no business being there.

But the strangeness lasted only for a moment. The scholar’s customary wisdom and composure quickly returned, reclaiming his vacant eyes.

"Ro... Roland?"

His voice was hesitant, tinged with the hoarseness of someone who had just woken up.

"It’s me."

Roland watched his expression carefully.

"How are you feeling? Are you unwell?"

Bronson didn’t answer right away. He raised a hand to gently press his temples, his brow furrowed as if he were wrestling with some internal static.

After a few seconds, he let out a long sigh and patted his forehead with his other hand. A wry smile, a mixture of confusion and self-mockery, appeared on his face.

"It’s nothing, it’s just..."

He searched for the right words.

"I think... I had a very vivid, yet exceptionally strange dream."

"In the dream, I wasn’t a traveler. I was... a scribe at Silver Radiance City’s Astronomical Record Institute. I remember having to go to the archives in the morning to verify star chart data, which shortcut to take... I even remember exactly how many stone steps led to the archive entrance..."

As he spoke, he subconsciously pulled out his notebook and expertly flipped to the latest page.

When his eyes fell upon the handwriting—his own—detailing the time loop and his observations of Silver Radiance City’s anomalies, his fingers froze.

The stark contrast between reality and his "dream" instantly turned the confusion on his face to shock, which then morphed into a dawning, chilling realization.

He quickly and carefully read a few lines of his own notes, then jerked his head up to look at the surrounding cityscape—identical to his "dream." His face grew pale.

"This... I must be more tired than I thought. My Spirit is too strained. To think I’d conjure up such... a specific delusion."

The scholar rubbed the bridge of his nose hard, trying to rationalize the experience.

"Perhaps I gathered too much information about the city yesterday. My brain must have over-processed it during sleep, creating a... false sense of belonging. I’m sorry for worrying you."

As he spoke, Bronson forced a small smile, trying to restore his usual composed expression, but the tips of his fingers still trembled uncontrollably.

Duraga gave him a hearty slap on the back.

"Hey, Scholar, your brain never stops turning. It’s perfectly normal to have a few weird dreams! I sometimes dream I’m back in Molten City, hammering away at the forge!"

Avril and Roland, however, exchanged a grave look.

Roland’s heart sank, and his brow furrowed deeply.

’Bronson’s explanation sounded reasonable, but it had a fatal flaw. According to the established pattern of the time loop, his companions—all except for me—should have lost all memories from the previous cycles. The reset point occurred before we had even properly entered Silver Radiance City or gathered any firsthand information about it. So, in the previous cycles, Bronson’s knowledge of Silver Radiance City was limited to a bird’s-eye view from above and his initial awe upon arrival. There’s no way he could possess the kind of minutely detailed, day-to-day memories of a resident, like the ones from his "dream."’

Roland immediately turned to his other companions and questioned them one by one.

"Avril, Galvis, Duraga, have you felt anything unusual? Like... having memories that aren’t your own?"

Avril closed her eyes. The Elf’s slender fingertips lightly touched her temples. After a moment of careful sensing, she opened her eyes, a flicker of alarm in their emerald depths.

"No complete ’memories’... but when the newsboy was shouting just now, I did feel a strange ’familiarity.’ Not with the event itself, but with... the overall atmosphere of ’having to start work in the morning’."

"It was as if I’d walked to some designated post countless times in this same Dawn Light, to carry out some predetermined duty. It’s very vague, but unsettling."

She shook her head slightly, trying to throw off the feeling.

"I can still suppress it with my will easily enough, but it’s there, like background noise."

Galvis plucked a string on his instrument, his voice uncharacteristically serious.

"It’s the same for me as it is for Miss Avril... Just now, when I thought about improvising something to express this bizarre feeling, the first melodies that came to mind were all these proper, dull tunes that would meet the aesthetic standards of a concert hall."

"My own inspiration, those wild notes that are uniquely ’Galvis,’ the ones that carry the grit and soul of a tavern... I have to deliberately ’dig’ for them to surface. It’s as if... an invisible sugar coating has been wrapped around my creative instincts."

Hearing their accounts, Duraga irritably scratched his thick beard.

"I didn’t have any weird dreams, and I haven’t remembered anything extra! But I just feel all out of sorts! When I saw that furnace fire over there, my first reaction wasn’t, ’How well is that heat being controlled?’ Instead, it was, ’The brightness and color temperature of this Flame conform to the standard set by Section 3, Article 7 of the Municipal Hall’s "Artisan District Safety and Aesthetics Regulations."’"