When the time to pay the bill came, I simply triggered the loop and was back at the inn. Was it theft? Maybe. It’s not like the food was gone, though. Everything I did was reverted, so I was never there in the first place.

  This, I felt, was what the God of Light meant to take it slow. I felt refreshed. It was one of those moments when you don’t think you’re really tired until you take a moment to really decompress. Due to the loops, I was never physically tired, but I could recognize how mentally exhausted I was.

  I wasn’t about to continue on the loops, no. That chapter was on the final pages, and I wasn’t going to create a sequel for it, no. But I could still use these last remaining pages to at least check some things out.

  It might be irresponsible, stupid, and dumb, but when even physical death was nothing but a minor inconvenience, you can afford to be reckless. I just wish I had thought of this during the initial loops. I could have exploited this so much… Hindsight is 20/20, as they say.

  The first irresponsible thing I did was let myself get caught by those criminals again. This time, though, I didn’t escape the prison they put me in. I let myself be captured and fitted with that metal collar around my neck. I was right when I first saw it. It was a magical dampening device. The moment it closed around my neck, I felt my magicules going haywire, but I still had enough control over my skills that I could use [Temporal Manipulation] to trigger the loop if I wanted to.

  They dragged me around in their underground base, which also served to show me it, as I only knew what it had from the secret entrance to the room Karol was being kept in. Of course, I wasn’t shown everything, only what I could see on the way to that lion person.

  From what I could see, there was a kitchen area, a training area, and a separate training with benches around the… No, it was not a training area. I could see two people fighting inside it, and there were thugs around, cheering and betting on who would win. That was a fighting ring.

  The meeting with the lion guy went as well as one would imagine. He basically told me I was lucky to be alive, not like he could actually kill me. Jack has been trying for far longer than he has. That I was now their property, and if I liked so much to fight, they would make me fight.

  Honestly, the whole situation was a bit hilarious. Sure, they could punch me, break my bones, and stuff, and it would hurt a lot, but it’s not like they were an actual threat. I barely hold myself from laughing out loud when he said that if I performed well enough, they would think of letting me go.

  After that, they threw me into the same fighting area I saw earlier with a human guy that was so muscular I wondered how his skin didn’t tear itself apart. The people all around me were laughing, betting on how long I would survive, and stuff. It took off some of the guilt I felt for killing them some loops ago. To them, I was a child, and yet they treated me with no more than a little plaything.

  I laughed. It was only now that I realized how without control everyone truly is inside the loops. I couldn’t blame myself for not realizing this sooner, because I knew what I had gone through, but I still couldn’t help but feel that I wasted these loops trying to avoid doing dangerous stuff.

  As the fight began, I just pushed with [Temporal Manipulation] enough to trigger the loop again. I spent the next one thinking. It was time to end this. Even though it felt like a waste to just finish them just as I grasped on how much I could abuse it, I felt like the loops had finished their goal.

  With a simple twist of temporal energy, the temporal strand around my soul snapped in half, and with it, a chain reaction occurred that broke down the very structure holding the loops in place. With a torrent of temporal energy that threatened to drown me, the world flashed bright for several seconds. During these seconds, I swear I saw a massive figure in the distance looking at me, grinning. I couldn’t make out what it was before the light receded, and I was back at the inn.

  I could feel the temporal flow, this wasn’t a loop anymore, but the normal flow of time, where my actions do matter. The first thing I did was, using [Mathematical Cortex] and [Spatial Manipulation], teleport myself to where Karol was being kept.

  The moment I appeared in the room, I saw the human and elf I had seen exiting the room the last time I came here. They were hitting her face over and over, but it seemed like their hands were taking more damage than Karol’s face. She did say that these people didn’t know how to torture high-level people.

  I prepared a simple spell and approached them. Both of them turned to face me and were surprised when they saw me extending both my arms to touch them on their chest, which I then cast the spell I was holding, sending an electrical shock through their system, which left them spasming on the ground.

  I cut through the shackles on Karol’s arms, legs, and neck. Then give her some space. She eyed me suspiciously as she massaged her wrists.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “What was it?” I said to myself, trying to remember the phrase she had said to me some time ago. “Oh, right. ‘The dragon king loves his cookies.’ I think.”

  The moment I said it, her suspicion vanished from her face, replaced by surprise.

  “Huh. Never thought a clairvoyant dragon would help me.” She said.

  “Not clairvoyant,” I answered. “Just looping through time. I already did this a few times before. Though this time is for real. The loop is over.”

  “I… see,” she didn’t seem convinced, but shrugged. Her wounds were healing at a visible pace.

  “There are a few things you’ll need to know, though,” I said. She eyed me suspiciously.

  “Which are?”

  “The first is that I am not a mimic. I have a [Unique] skill that allows me to change species, but I am a dragon.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “You’re telling me this because…?” She asked, there was a hint of her bloodlust in her voice, but I was able to easily deflect it.

  “Because your colleague, Jack, will arrive in about a day or so from now,” I answered. “He has a skill that allows him to see through time, and he will be watching us talking and… well, you can guess what he will think.”

  In fact, I could sense him spying on us at that moment. He was still stronger than me, but these loops and the constant temporal strand wrapped around my soul made me extra sensitive to temporal energy. I took control of some of it and blocked his skill with the help of my [Living Paradox] title.

  I watched as Karol’s face went from thoughtful to somber, then looked at me.

  “He will think I’m allied with a mimic, or a mimic myself,” she said. I suddenly felt her bloodlust increasing rapidly. “Or I could kill you and then nothing would come out of it.”

  “You could,” I said, agreeing with it. “But then you would have to deal with another person.”

  “Who?” She asked.

  “Amity,” I answered.

  “...who?” She looked genuinely surprised, and so was I.

  “The Witch of Pride?” I said. Did they not know Amity’s name? She always told me her name when we talked. Was I forgetting something? I couldn’t remember.

  That made her laugh, her bloodlust vanishing with it.

  “Now that is a bold claim,” she started. “To claim that the Witch of Pride herself will come to help you is like saying the sun won’t rise again.”

  “I mean, if you don’t believe me. Meet me at the…” I stopped. I had no idea which gate she appeared at. Sure, I could go there, but how would I explain to Karol how to get there? “Uhmm. Just ask around about the dragon near the gate, I’m sure people will be talking.”

  “Wait, wha-” I cut her off by teleporting directly next to the gate.

  There was a momentary pause of sound as I arrived and sat down before people screamed and ran. The guards at the gates hurried towards me, swords in hand. I looked at them and waited.

  Just like last time, the few guards here didn’t approach me until the ones coming from further in the city came. I could see them preparing spells and the net they used on me on the various times I appeared in my true form inside the city.

  “If you’re hoping to capture a wyvern with that net, you will be very disappointed,” I said casually. The break of expectative was so sudden that the mages lost concentration and their spells fizzled out.

  The guards didn’t know how to react to this information and looked towards their superior, a tiger person, who approached me cautiously.

  “Uhm.” The poor guy didn’t know what to say. It was funny, to be honest. “Sir, dragon sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “Uhmm. What gives us the honour of your presence(?)” It felt more of an anxious question than a serious one. He probably isn’t sure about what the protocols are for when a dragon visits a city… Are there protocols for that even?

  “Just waiting for a person,” I answer.

  “A… person?” He asks.

  “Yes, a person. She will arrive shortly,” I respond. It was true, Amity was a few minutes from showing up, and I would be waiting.

  The guards didn’t know what to do, exactly. It took five minutes before the same old human from the various other times appeared and tried to talk with me, but at the same time, the clouds parted in the sky.

  Amity's casual hand movement caused winds strong enough that tore through the clouds, dispersing them before she landed on the other side of the wall. Before the guards could open the gate, I felt spatial fluctuations, and in the next second, Amity appeared from thin air in front of me.

  “Oh, it’s you!” Was the first thing she said, like she always does. “Did you know I was coming here, and suddenly I had a new contract? I have no idea where that came from, but judging from the terms, it’s something made in a parallel timeline?”

  “Try temporal loop,” I said.

  “Huh. Loops? I never took part of one. How is it?” She asked.

  “Ehmm,” I was caught a little off guard by that question. I was expecting her to ask me about the contract itself and how I was what she was looking for. “Everything repeats constantly until you do something different?”

  “Oh, I see.” She nodded vigorously.

  “Eghmm,” I wasn’t sure what to say anymore. I had all this mental plan that she would ask me about the contract, then about how she would follow me to the church of space, and then I would ask a help getting there, but now I wasn’t sure how to ask her that. I decided to try to be direct.

  “Would you mind teleporting us to the church of space? The headquarters, or something.”

  “Huh?” She looked at me, then after five seconds of silence, she smiled. “ Of course! That will mean I can finish this favor for Athor more quickly! LET’S DO THIS!”

  She then jumped, landing right on top of me at the base of my neck. Before I could say or do anything, I saw the magical circle appearing beneath us and space warping. The next thing I knew was that I was inside a massive room filled with little crystals protruding from the walls.