“Beam failed, blast failed, that swirly thing failed, bombarding didn’t show results before the anti-magic thing was almost up, the giant tornado missed… you miss every time… no you can’t try again, you will miss, even if you adjust the power, no aiming it to the left doesn’t work cause it goes to the right for some reason, and the ‘Ultra-Mega-Flare of Hell Fire’ bounces off the shield.”

Mia took a deep breath, as it turned out, saving during battle had a lot of technicalities that lead back to the original plan. Firstly, if they did not continue combat with each other Maria would not keep any memories of events after. She would only remember the initial load and punch. Second, if they tried to extend this combat without doing any real damage to each other they were considered not in combat, thus, Mia couldn’t just slap Maria’s legs while she fired off magic towards a target that wasn’t her. This lead them to going back to the original plan, Mia making a new save after explaining this.

“I really wish you didn’t focus so much on me missing with tornado…” Maria sighed.

“If I don’t, you just want to fire it another way.”

“Hmm, regardless, if Hell Fire doesn’t work than I am out of options… Whatever they have has some impressive shields.” Maria picked up Mia and jumped down from the shrine’s roof “We need to change our approach.”

Mia was placed down on the floor, looking towards the direction of the camp she could no longer see because of the tall trees “I… could go and see?” She considered scouting it out, maybe learning more about what ever it was they had.

“No, too dangerous.” Maria shook her head “I fully believe you can somehow turn back time with that skill, but if you are found and captured, and they put a collar on you… from what you told me that stops your skill use…” She knelt besides her, pulling her into a hug ‘I don’t want you to spend that long caged… this time painfully aware of the time passing.” She gently pushed her niece away from her, locking eyes with her “Promise me you will do everything you can to avoid that…please…”

Mia nodded, not looking forward to something like that herself “I promise… but what do we do?”

Maria stood up “What I will do is start evacuating the village, head north towards the returning hunting pack…if we don’t all just cease to exist when you load, we can at least try and get away.”

Mia blinked “hm? Why would I load, why not come with?” Surely, she isn’t suggesting what she thinks she was suggesting…loading back to the start of the day?

“That is an option, heck you could have already been through that trip once and will tell me right now how that went.” She paused for a moment, then continued “Or, we apply that to something bigger.”

“Bigger?” Mia crooked her head to the side, all she wanted was for everyone to be safe… With Maria convinced and already planning to pack up and leave, wasn’t this result fine?

Maria smiled “One moment.” She turned and ran into her house, the same sounds of crashing furniture quickly followed before she rushed out and sat on the ground in front of Mia, spreading a large parchment that Mia recognized as a map, showing a large continent.

Why was she showing me a map?

“We are here.” Maria pointed to a large forest to the west of the continents center, she then moved her finger to the east “Eldaha’s territory extends from just outside the forest, the south coast, and cuts off before it reaches the east coast, the entirety of which is the territory of the nation Ophalio.” She then traced the northern part of Eldaha’s territory, along a large river “Above Eldaha is Gaia, the holy nation, the ones currently attacking us.” Maria crossed her arms “To be honest, I am confused why they are doing this in the first place, Gaia worshipers believe in world peace, I’ve been to the Crown and it’s a nice city.”

“Why are you…”

Ignoring her, Maria continued “Regardless, their territory is sandwiched on all sides, Eldaha to the south separated by the grand river, the beast territory on the west separated by our forests and mountains, Ophalio on the east, and lastly…” Maria traced her finger on the map, outlining the entire northern half of the continent above Gaia, the area dominated by mountains “Kion, the kingdom of half-giants own it.” She then shrugged, pointing to the empty southern ocean “Not on this map but Lexon, the cursed kingdom, is here.”

She continued, giving Mia a brief “Listen till the end, please” before pointing to the huge forest stretching from the western end of the continent to the borders of the eastern nations, it wasn’t all forest, some changes in terrain here and there, the most notable being a desert cut into the land at the forest’s southern center, bordering the southern ocean “All of this is the beast territory, where all of the beast tribes mainly live, separate from each other by race and dotted around, outside of here.” She pointed to a large mountain at the forest’s center “This is the dragon capitol, the official ruler of the tribes.”

Finally, she pointed to a tiny peninsula on the south-western butt of the continent “Aaaand this is the demon territory, any questions?”

“Several!?!” Mia shouted “Why are you showing me all this?! Why are you… why are you explaining all this? Why…” Mia couldn’t understand, what did she expect her to do? She was just dumped a lot of information on her without any explanation as to why.

“Because” Maria looked down “Running away is a temporary fix, or what if it doesn’t even work? With your power you can do so much, and then there is the bigger issue of that explosion that happens in three years. Go to these places Mia, find out what you can, train and get skills that you keep when you go back in time to get stronger so you can stop this.”

“Why?! Why can’t we run, we could go get help! Run to the capitol and explain!”

“For what and with what proof? The words of one hero and a child?” Maria stood up “And what if that doesn’t work out Mia? Say we got captured on the way, hurt, or worse. You will just be back to this moment, trying to convince our entire tribe to follow random directions because they, with out any explanations, will all die if we take a right instead of a left. No, it will be an easier for you to work alone.”

“T-this is insane!” Mia protested “You want me to just… abandon everyone, run away from home, and find a way to save everyone in a day? I am just a child!”

“Are you?” Maria lifted Mia up, despite her struggling “Because, while I may not have been present for your life, the Mia I have heard about is a mommy’s girl who doesn’t even speak in complete sentences. Yet here you are, completely fine being away from your mom and doing just that.”

Mia paused her struggling, looking away from Maria “…11 still child, unsafe…”

Maria twitched “Don’t go back to that when I point it out!” She groaned, setting Mia back onto the ground “Look I don’t like it either but… remembering the feeling of when you punched me and going back in time…Mia, I don’t think we exist after you load.”

Mia shot up, her eyes wide “How, why do you think that? And knowing that… why do you want me to go back?!”

Maria gripped her sides “The feeling I got when you did it… the first time… It felt wrong, sickening.” She shook her head, as if trying to forget “It was like… my entire body was stuck in something sticky, and then forcefully ripped out of it and shoved right back in the empty mold my body left behind, with all that stickiness slowly creeping back and sticking me in place again.” She shivered “I don’t know for certain, but that mold, that gap that I filled…it felt so empty, like I filled a bigger hole than I left.”

Mia didn’t understand any of that, when ever she went back in time, she just…did, she blinked and it was done, sometimes not even that, she would just be back to where she saved… minus the first time, but since then nothing like that had happened. “So why…?”

“Because, for that reason alone I think it would be best to aim for when you will never want to use that power again…” Maria ruffled Mia’s hair “Don’t you agree?”

“… You won’t remember any of this… I’ll be alone… Don’t even know if I can do it.” She said, feeling Maria hug her once more.

“Then your first priority is to get stronger, skill can be stronger than raw stats anyways… but its up to you and you have all the time in the world.”

Feeling Maria pat her head she let out a small sigh “…fine… I’ll try.”

“Good girl.” Maria pulled Mia so that they were face to face “Even if I don’t remember, know that I am very proud of you.”

Mia gave a light smile “Is there… anyway for me to easily convince you… if I want to talk.”

Maria chuckled “Y’know, besides the maiden title, could tell me the good bottle is under the fridge.” She said, motioning to the empty bottle of unknown alcohol sitting by the entrance “If I still don’t believe you or think you are someone else… saying you know who I am, and you forgive me might do the trick… or I might attack out of blind rage… actually don’t say that till it naturally comes up.”

Mia crooked her head to the side “Who would you mistake me as?” she asked, not remembering anyone in the village that looked like her.

“Ah, well… I would say I am wasting your time with this but…” she laughed to herself “I have a dangerous... friend… who likes to play pranks, maybe you can find them? Though…hrm…no, you better get going kiddo.”

Mia frowned “Can’t we… talk a bit longer?”

Maria shook her head “The more you delay the harder it will get, but I can’t really stop you.” She smiled knowingly. “This me does have to evacuate a village if they are wrong though.”

“…no, you are right.” Mia nodded “I guess… this is goodbye…”

“For now, hey, if you ever find some good alcohol be sure to tell me where to get it, your aunt will be very happy.” She winked.

“Where will an eight-year-old get alcohol?” Mia chuckled, then sighed “Goodbye.” She then rushed forward, giving Maria a hug, then swiftly loaded save 2, finding herself back on the roof with an expecting Maria.

“Well? How did it go? Or is this the first time again…” Maria said after Mia didn’t say anything after a few moments.

“Maria… are you… proud of me?” Mia asked.

“Huh? Yes, of course I am?” Maria answered back, confused at the sudden question “What prompted that?”

Mia smiled, carefully navigating to her on the roof and giving her a hug “…Thank you, I’ll do my best.”

“Eh? Wait? What happened? What did I do? Mia? Wha-“

Mia loaded save 1, waking up in bed. She kicked her covers off and got dressed, ignoring the cold while she brushed her hair. She then rushed to her mother’s room, sneaking in and kissing her on the cheek after carefully climbing on top of her bed “I’ll be back…” She whispered, she didn’t know when that would be, or how long it will take, but she knew she would be back to this moment.

But first, she had a lot to do.