Passing through the forest, I couldn’t keep my eyes away from the woman. What exactly was she? Could she morph into other animals as well? And where was she taking me? It can’t be another dungeon or cellar, right? All these thoughts prevented me from looking around at the beautiful scenery. No place on Earth would have such a clean and green forest. And I didn’t even pay attention to it.

By the time we got to our destination–a large clearing with a cottage at the center–I was already drowned in sweat. The cool shade of the forest did nothing to prevent my heart from pumping heat through my body. When we went out of the shade into the clearing, my eyes were blinded by the sunlight, making me stop and blink a few times.

I shivered as I let the sweat evaporate from my skin, but that wasn’t the only reason. The cottage resembled Arthur’s home way too much, sending me flashbacks from the night before. I clenched my teeth but followed the lady into the cottage anyway.

Inside, it was cool like the shade under the trees of the forest, but the smell of dirt and wood was replaced with a sweet, unrecognizable aroma. There was a smooth, polished wooden table with a set of chairs in the center, which the woman motioned me to sit at. As I sat down, she walked over to a tea kettle rested on top of a burning stove. The kettle rattled and a loud whistle rang through the room just as she got to the stove and turned the fire down.

“So, what question do you have for me?” She asked in a soothing voice.

I looked down, hesitating. The woman came over and planted a teacup in front of me and in front of the other chair, where she sat down.

“Don’t worry. Take your time. We have all the time in the world.”

I opened my mouth and paused.

“Um… who are you?” I asked quickly after thinking about my question.

She leaned into the table. “You’re telling me you came here without even knowing who I am?”

I nodded.

She leaned back, took off her hat, and sighed. “My, you’re impossible.”

I looked up expectantly.

“Okay, okay. You actually don’t know,” she said, then looked at me, “You sure you don’t know who I am?”

I shook my head.

“Okay, well, this could take months to explain, but I’m basically the last chronogon, and yes, those do exist.”

I looked at her, confused.

“Oh, come on, seriously? You’ve never read about chronogons before? The cool mythical creatures??”

Silence.

“My, you’re seriously impossible! So you know how you can shift between timelines to change your appearance, right? I’m basically a creature that can cover a much wider range and shift between a bunch of different organisms. Is any of that ringing a bell?”

Nothing. I guess she somewhat answered how she was morphing between deer and rabbit, but I was still getting even more confused by her explanation now. I shook my head.

Suddenly, the woman stood up and banged her fist into the table, almost tipping our still full cups of tea over.

“My!! You’re seriously, remarkably, severely—” she cut herself off, straightened up, and put her hands on her hips. “Okay how about this: Just treat me like an omnipotent being who knows everything, okay?”

She stopped, but I continued to gaze at her expectantly. Finally, she sighed and sat back down.

“I don’t have a particular name… and even if I did have a name long ago, it’s been nullified in this small human brain. But others have called me many names: God of Wisdom, Goddess of Knowledge, Chitragupta, Fukurokuju, Durimal, Seshat, Shinsulth, Athena, Ongthala, Orunmila, Providentia, Frigg. If you really need something to call me by then you can use…”

She paused, pondering about which one to let me call her by.

“Irnoma,” I muttered.

She looked at me, surprised. “Irnoma… what does that mean? How did you get to that?”

“‘Ir,’ Latin root for ‘none,’ ‘without’. ‘Noma,’ origin of the word ‘name.’”

“Without… a name…?” She crossed her arms. “Don’t you think you’re being a bit too harsh?”

“It’s fitting. Always letting others give you names, never actually creating one yourself. That’s you.”

Irnoma smiled. “Yes… very fitting indeed.”

I lifted my teacup and took the first sip, then immediately put it back down and looked to the side in embarrassment when I realized a bit too late how bad that name was.

“So, ah, Miss…Irnoma…” I said her name awkwardly, which only magnified the embarrassment I felt from it.

Still, Irnoma sat up straight, her face full of curiosity. “Yes?”

“I– I think you need to know a bit about me.”

She nodded. “Please continue.”

I sighed. “So umm… all this time travel stuff… they’re all new to me.”

“Oh–”

Silence.

“And…?” Irnoma urged me to continue.

“So then— c–could you teach me a bit of what it is?” I had already failed Angel because of my own weakness. If there is anything I could get from this “omnipotent being,” then it would be a chance to go back and redeem myself.

“Okay, okay– hold on. So you’re saying you can’t even walk–” she started, then corrected herself, “I mean, uh… time travel?”

I nodded.

“And you can’t precognize?”

I took another sip of tea to hide my shame. It felt like my disability I never even knew I had was being called out to an entire crowd.

Irnoma leaned back into her chair. “Then, how did you get here? And what timeline are you even from? To not even know these basic things and still be human?”

I put my now empty teacup back down on the table, pushed it to the center, and looked down, fidgeting. Where should I start? I didn’t even know how to answer her. Plus, why was she the one asking the questions now?

Irnoma sighed. “Fine, I’ll teach you.” She stood back up. “But I still can’t believe I’m teaching a teenager how to walk.”

I stood up excitedly and looked at her, my eyes shining. Would she really teach me? Would I finally learn how all this time-traveling works? Finally, after all that’s happened, I can learn something and start my story. In all those books I’d read, it only takes one chapter to get some ability. Seriously, it didn’t need to take this long to give me the hero powers. Maybe I could get on Angel’s level. Maybe I could go save her once I’ve learned everything from this “goddess.”

“Hey kiddo, if you really want to learn something, then pay some attention, please.”

I snapped out of myself. Irnoma had stood up and was holding her teacup, which she still hadn’t drunk from.

“First, a small demonstration.”

She held the cup closer to me to look. Although the room was cool, the tea was still steaming hot. I could smell the leafy fragrance clearly. Then she waved her hand over the cup, and on the third wave, the cup became empty. The tea was gone, the cup dried completely, and the steam and smell disappeared.

I stood there amazed. She had just pulled a magic trick right in front of my eyes. But was this really a magic trick? Or was it something else?

Irnoma laughed hysterically. “You look just like a kid now! This prank only works on toddlers, yet you have this shocked expression on your face! Ahahaha– This is way too funny!”

While I stood there confused, she continued to her almost musical laughter and even did the trick a few more times, making the tea appear and disappear to get that expression from me again. That only made me embarrassed and even more confused. This woman wouldn’t be a very good teacher for sure.

“Okay, okay…” she continued after a few minutes, still gripping her stomach, trying to hold back laughter, “I think I’ve calmed down now. Human emotions are really something else. Anyway, let’s move on.”

Irnoma set her teacup down on the table and led me outside back into the summer heat.

“That little trick with the tea, kid, was only a minuscule fraction of what I, and you, could do,” she explained.

I looked up at her, expecting her to do another amazing magic trick like making the cottage disappear. She just smiled and turned back to face the cottage. I did the same, except there was no cottage anymore. It was just an empty field, with no sign that any building had once stood there.

I jumped back in shock, even though I was already anticipating this exact thing to happen.

Irnoma started laughing again. “Ahahaha… This never gets old! But I’m gonna feel pretty bad once you’ve gotten used to all this.”

I looked away in humiliation. God, this lady was so annoying.

“Well, let us continue, then,” Irnoma said, not paying attention to any one of my feelings, “I’m just a bit curious about what your story is.”

In just a split second, a huge mansion appeared in front of us, making the old cottage seem like a small seed compared to a large watermelon. I gazed upon the pure white painted walls, the window sills decorated with strange flowers, and the large marble pillars as we walked inside…