"Nikaro was clearly just a small town, could I really have gotten it wrong?"
Walking down the city streets, Judith still couldn't shake her doubts. She kept looking around, trying to find places that matched her memory, but to no avail.
"This shop, I vaguely remember seeing it before..."
When we stopped in front of a building, she seemed to finally notice something, pointing at the sign and exclaiming loudly:
"The Grand Nikaro Hotel! It was clearly just a newly opened small inn back then, yet it had such a pompous grandiose name - I had a deep impression of it!"
"But this is a century-old establishment! Its reputation is supposed to be stellar - the highest-class hotel in this city."
Yulanda couldn't help but express skepticism, even waving around a promotional flyer from a local resident. Not that she needed to say much - no one was taking Judith's "nonsense" seriously. After all, the hotel's facade and decor were extremely luxurious and grand, looking nothing like a new humble inn.
"Well..."
At this point, I could no longer stay silent and spoke up to correct her.
"Actually, Judith isn't wrong. To be precise, this is likely Nikaro City over a hundred years into her perceived future."
"Huh?"
Judith's expression froze for a moment before she burst into laughter.
"How could that be possible, you're just joking!"
"No, I'm telling the complete truth!"
I shook my head, deciding to lay everything out once and for all.
"Due to constant resets, you lost your memories, but you've actually spent a hundred and twenty years in the trial space without realizing it."
"..."
Well, that did it - everyone fell silent, even Cysper realizing the gravity of the situation and stopping in his tracks.
The atmosphere became extremely quiet, no one snapping out of their daze for a while.
"So you mean Judith is actually from over a hundred years ago?"
Cyra leaned in discreetly to confirm with me. Having experienced various time travel stories herself, she was quick to accept it.
"Why didn't you tell her sooner?"
"I didn't want to either..."
I let out a wry smile. The main reason was bad timing! Regarding the fact that Judith had entered the trial space over a hundred years ago, Adrian and I hadn't revealed it immediately out of fear it would affect her ability to take on the Light God challenge.
But after leaving the cave, one thing led to another with so many happenings. Everyone's attention was drawn to Vivianne's confession to Brennan, so I simply forgot about it...
More ironically, since Judith had fallen out with the Pope and his True Church followers, she had zero interaction with them and remained completely unaware that so much time had passed in the outside world.
From her perspective, it was like she had just entered the trial space, shortly met Adrian and me to learn its true nature, then immediately teamed up to challenge Beluto on the mountain before finally clearing it to return to the real world - the entire experience likely no more than a day.
Okay, that was pretty hard to accept. It was practically no different from time traveling to the future! An ordinary person in this situation would likely question their entire life - what happened to family, friends, colleagues who were either long dead or incredibly aged, the world's landscape shifted significantly.
But Judith wasn't exactly ordinary.
"Heh heh, so does that mean I randomly gained an extra hundred years of lifespan?"
Lightly adjusting her glasses, her first reaction after the shock was shockingly this.
"Haha what a total windfall!"
"...I remember you were already married. Aren't you worried about your family?"
I couldn't help but remind her. This personal information was directly told to me by her in the trial space, just not during the final reset cycle.
"How did you know? Oh right..."
Judith seemed a bit surprised at first, but quickly realized the reason, waving her hand in explanation.
"No need to worry, my husband has already kicked the bucket anyway. Though I did leave behind a son - he probably isn't dead yet based on the timeline!"
"Okay..."
I was speechless, not sure if I should call her thick-skinned or simply carefree. But she didn't misspeak - lifespans in this world tended to be longer, and with high-tier strength, living past a hundred was easy.
I just didn't expect the thirty-something looking Judith to already have an adult son - you really couldn't judge a book by its cover.
"So what will you do next? A hundred years is no short time - by the time you return to Crescent City, hardly anyone may recognize you."
Probably recognizing her unique status, Cysper finally frowned and spoke up.
"I'll just take it one step at a time. If all else fails, I can still depend on my son!"
Maintaining her carefree attitude, Judith suddenly seemed to recall something delightful, actually cupping her face with a silly grin.
"Oh right, after all this time he must have changed a lot! He was only around ten when I left, I wonder if he's more handsome now?"
I didn't want to discourage her, but there was a thing called unnatural death. In this monster-infested world, even if her son grew up to be highly skilled, there were no guarantees he was still alive. Not to mention he would be over 120 years old by any calculation - could that really be called handsome?
There was nothing more to say after that. As evening fell, we checked into this "Grand Nikaro Hotel". Since Nikaro City was located in Cresthaven Papal Dominion's territory, Cysper magnanimously covered everyone's room fees as a hospitable gesture.
Though Judith didn't want to accept the favor, the money she had was over a hundred years outdated and unusable, so she had no choice but to reluctantly agree.
The night passed uneventfully until the next midday when I suddenly recalled an important matter.
"Feliciana, you finally contacted me! Do you know how long you've been missing? Nicola almost flew back to look for you when she heard the news!"
As I used the "Spiritual Convergence" spell to connect with Elara back in Edenmere, her hurried voice rang in my mind. I suddenly felt nostalgic - it had been so long since hearing this voice.
"Sorry, sorry, I ran into some unexpected delays in that cave which set me back about a week..."
I quickly apologized. Though I had subjectively experienced over a year, only one week had passed outside. That was still quite a long time though. Despite Cyra remaining out there, that airhead didn't think to contact Edenmere until the day before I came out.
I then briefly reported my trial space experiences to her, glossing over most of the time Adrian and I spent drifting aimlessly.
"What a pity that ancient research facility was destroyed by the volcano's lava. It seems I wasn't mistaken - you and the Water Angel are indeed connected, and the Pope Garrick's origins are highly suspicious too!"
Elara's voice sounded rather contemplative after hearing everything.
"But regardless, I'm just glad you all managed to escape safely."
"How is Nicola doing now? Was she successful in her revenge?"
After some thought, I decided to inquire about the situation over there.
"I'm not too clear on that. We can only communicate through magic now. From what I hear, she ventured deep into the Barren Lands in pursuit of her target, seeming to have wiped out an entire monster city along the way."
That powerful? Though the northern Barren Lands had basically become monster territory, even with cities they paled in scale compared to Wal City. Regardless, it seemed Nicola's strength had increased considerably.