### 71 Waiting for You in the True Future
(Three-in-One)
Moon was the worst at hiding her feelings and emotions; she had always been like this, from childhood to now.
The moment she saw Leon, she didn’t suppress her emotions like her little sister, Little Light, who calmly proved her identity.
Nor did she go straight for a punch like her big sister.
Moon’s way of expressing her feelings was always simple and sincere.
With all her might, she flung herself into that man’s arms. Tears flowed like a burst dam, uncontrollable and overwhelming.
Her emotions were like a bomb, and Moon was the fuse ready to blow!
Watching the father and daughter embrace and cry after twenty years, Aurora lowered her head, took off her glasses, and quietly dabbed at her eyes.
Noia stuffed her hands into her pockets, biting her lip as her pupils flickered, before finally turning her head away.
Leon gently stroked Moon’s hair, just like he used to do when she was little.
Her cowlick was still there, her features as delicate as Noia’s were now. Yet, despite the identical faces, Noia appeared as a stunningly mature woman, while Moon leaned more toward the cute little sister vibe.
Moon didn’t cut her hair short like Noia.
She kept her long hair, just like Roswiser’s, shining like a galaxy.
After crying in her father’s embrace for a bit, Moon pulled back, her cowlick bobbing along to the rhythm of her sniffles.
Leon smiled at her and said, “You’ve grown pretty, Moon.”
“Dad, you… haven’t changed at all, you’re just like you were twenty years ago.”
The pink-haired jokester, having regained her composure and adjusted her glasses, chimed in, “Hey Dad, why is it that you only complimented my second sister? What about me and big sis?”
“Uh…,” Leon realized she was stirring the pot.
“Moon and I are twins; complimenting her is just complimenting me.” Noia leaned against the stone wall, trying to look cool. “So the only one he hasn’t complimented is you, Little Light.”
The scientist paused—Big Sis had a point.
Consequently, the instigator became the first to blush, “Oh, you old j*rk! It looks like a simple jab doesn’t make you love your little daughter, huh?”
Leon scratched his head and chuckled, having to patch up what he’d just said. “You all look beautiful; it’s just that when I saw both of you, I fainted right away and didn’t get a chance to compliment you!”
Moon blinked her adorable big eyes, looking at Leon, “Dad, why did you faint?”
“…”
Sweetheart, you’re still as curious as ever!
“Nothing, I just got a bit tired and fainted.”
Leon pulled a lame excuse out of thin air.
Him getting knocked out by his daughters… better not let that story get out.
Yet, he couldn’t help but feel relieved that Moon didn’t punch him like her sisters did right away.
See? This is the true little cotton-padded jacket!
Those two? Pure spiky thorns.
“Alright, Dad, it’s time to see her.”
Leon straightened his expression, becoming serious.
He knew Aurora was referring to whom.
Leon nodded, “Okay.”
“Mom’s in the room at the back; let’s go.”
The three sisters led the way while Leon followed behind.
The distance from the entrance to the innermost room wasn’t far, after all, it was just an underground space, not very large—enough for one or two people’s daily living.
But with each step Leon took, his heart grew heavier.
Even though he was getting closer to Roswiser, the sense of unease only intensified.
Suddenly, he recalled what Moon had said earlier when they entered the underground space, “Mom’s still the same; I’ve been keeping her company and chatting.”
The same as before, what does that mean?
Why use such a strange phrase as “keeping her company”?
That silly dragon… what on earth happened?
His mind was clouded with questions, like an oppressive mountain about to crush him.
Leon forced himself to breathe and tried to relax.
“We’re here.”
The sisters stopped in front of a stone door.
This stone door wasn’t an illusion spell; Aurora raised her hand, flicked a hidden switch on the wall, and the door slowly opened.
Inside was a small room, with torches lit on either side.
In the center of the room sat a chair.
In front of the chair lay a two-meter long… crystal?
The light from the door was dim, and Leon couldn’t make out more details.
However, when the girls led him into the room, and he saw the crystal, he felt as if he had been struck by lightning, frozen in place.
Inside the crystal, a silver-haired beauty lay with her eyes gently closed, hands folded over her abdomen, a photograph pressed underneath.
She looked peaceful, as if she were merely asleep.
But who in their right mind would fall asleep in such a mysterious crystal?!
The unease in his heart exploded, instantly flooding Leon’s entire being.
He felt cold all over, his spine weak as if it couldn’t support his weight, ready to collapse.
He stared wide-eyed at his wife in the crystal, opening his mouth, but countless words stuck in his throat like stones.
He couldn’t swallow, couldn’t speak.
It was suffocating.
Leon reached out, his hand trembling uncontrollably.
Just placing his palm on the crystal took every ounce of strength he had.
The crystal was icy, like his heart growing progressively colder.
“Roswiser… Roswiser…”
His voice trembled.
Noia stepped forward, looking at her ‘sleeping’ mother and said softly, “You entered the spatial rift to prevent that disaster and vanished without a trace. Nobody knows if you’re still alive.”
“Mom has become more and more despondent since then, drowning herself in alcohol every day.”
“Seeing Mom like that reminds me of when she just had me and Moon; she was just as lost, often staring blankly at you while you were unconscious.”
“But this time, it’s different.”
“She has no one left to gaze at in a daze and doesn’t know if this long wait will ever end.”
“No one can understand her sadness and grief from losing you. Anna says that without you, she’s the loneliest queen on the throne.”
Noia calmly laid out the truth, having practiced these words silently in her heart for twenty years for this moment, just to relay them to Leon verbatim upon his arrival.
“Eventually, Mom stopped drinking and threw herself back into work.”
“We thought she had moved on from her grief, but it was anything but.”
“She worked herself to the bone, sleeping less than six hours a week, avoiding makeup, socializing, and chats with Aunt Isar, refusing any outside influence on her.”
“That’s when we realized she hadn’t adjusted at all; she was sinking deeper and deeper. Alcohol was useless to her; she could only distract herself with relentless work.”
At this point, Noia paused and looked at Leon.
This man’s face was already filled with regret and self-blame.
He was about to break down, and Noia quickly slowed her narrative and switched topics.
“Do you know why I pushed myself so hard to get stronger as a child?”
Leon looked at her, shaking his head.
“For you three.”
Noia continued. “I thought if I became strong, you wouldn’t leave us, and Mom wouldn’t look so sad. But in the end, I didn’t achieve either of those wishes.”
“You disappeared into the spatial rift; Mom spent her days in tears.”
“Growing up, my biggest fear was this family falling apart, even if it was once a façade.”
“But as you said, the appearance of home might be a lie, yet the love between family members is undeniably real.”
She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and then exhaling slowly, as if trying to adjust her emotions.
“Six months after you vanished, the Silver Dragon Race was attacked again.”
“Two dragon kings and a human named Nacho Salaman launched a relentless onslaught against us.”
“Aunt Isar also faced a siege and couldn’t lend support.”
“In the end, Mom killed one of the dragon kings, but at that point, she was too weak to withstand the other king.”
“They say miracles happen, and in a crazy moment, she unleashed an enormous power, annihilating the careless dragon king.”
“However, that attack was not an explosion of the Heartguard Dragon Scale; Mom didn’t sacrifice herself, but she was too weak to even get out of bed.”
“She realized that this wouldn’t be the last time the Empire and the Dragon Race would attack the Silver Dragons. But as a dragon queen, she was too exhausted to fight again, and there wasn’t anyone in the tribe to inherit the throne.”
“So, Mom disbanded the tribe and let her people scatter to survive, believing that was the only way to save most of them. But Anna and Sherry didn’t leave; they said they’d stay with Mom until the very end.”
“During the days Mom lay in bed, she shared the story of you and her with us sisters, from how you met and got to know each other, until the very end… loving each other.”
“She said she didn’t quite understand love between a man and a woman, but she felt she must be in love with you.”
“She said she would wait for you until you returned home, until you told her you loved her in person.”
“She wanted to hear your confession face to face, not a passionate confession during a life-and-d*ath moment.”
“But well…”
Noia reached out, gently touching the crystal.
“She didn’t wait. The sun and moon took turns at her window, but the you she longed for never returned. That last strike against the enemy wasn’t from the Heartguard Dragon Scale; it was merely a miracle created by a mother on the brink of d*ath.”
“And the cost of that miracle was her falling into a deep slumber.”
“Mom’s final request from us was to survive at all costs until you return.”
“Because she believes that as long as you are here, everything will change.”
“Later, our great-grandmother returned and created this crystal for Mom, a crystal that could ensure her bodily functions. Once Mom awakens and uses a bit of strength, the crystal can be broken from within.”
“Of course, it can also be done by using specific magic commands externally.”
“Our great-grandmother said that while Mom has fallen into slumber, she should still be able to hear our voices.”
“So Moon has been talking to Mom, not wanting her to be lonely in her dreams of longing for you.”
“For these past twenty years, our great-grandmother and Aunt Isar have been tirelessly searching for ways to help Mom recover, and we have been waiting for you, attempting to change everything through another means.”
Moon moved the only chair in the room behind Leon, then tugged at his sleeve, signaling him to sit down.
He collapsed onto the chair like a hollowed-out puppet, lost and dazed.
Noia sniffed, waited quietly for a moment, then asked, “Are you feeling better? If so, Little Light will explain our thoughts to you. We’re short on time; we can’t let you wallow in sadness any longer.”
Leon blinked hard, pinching the skin between his thumb and index finger to ease back into reality.
“Okay, I’m listening.”
Aurora approached Leon, slowly starting to speak.
“First of all, let’s correct a misunderstanding—Dad, you didn’t ‘sleep’ in the spatial rift for twenty years and just woke up.”
“Any spatial magic can’t last that long.”
“In that battle, Rave used his Heartguard Dragon Scale to forcibly change the nature of the spatial magic, causing it to become uncontrollable.”
“It was this change that ‘transported’ you to twenty years later… here.”
Leon listened intently. “Transported… here?”
Aurora nodded. “Yep. ‘Here’ is just a simple way to put it; you could also understand it as a ‘time point’ or ‘space-time,’ or more aptly —“
“The world twenty years later where Leon Casmod does not exist.”
“For you, it genuinely only passed a few hours;”
“But for us in this ‘world without Leon,’ it’s been a solid twenty years.”
“To use a simple analogy:”
“The world is a stable assembly line, and everyone plays the role of a part.”
“But one day, you, that part, jumped out of the assembly line.”
“Though it may not have fatal effects on the line’s operation, everything related to you has changed.”
“For example, me, Big Sis, and Little Sis; without your presence, we have become who we are today;”
“But if you had been around, I believe we wouldn’t be this way.”
After a pause, Aurora looked to lighten the heavy atmosphere, glancing at Noia.
“At the very least, Big Sis would be a long-haired beauty.”
Leon quickly absorbed Aurora’s explanation.
He understood the principle and the deeper meaning behind her joke.
The transformation from a short-haired cool girl to a long-haired beauty was just a metaphor because a father’s absence during a child’s growth has an impact far beyond just hair length.
The agreement he and Roswiser initially reached was to allow their children to grow up healthy with the love of both parents.
A childhood without paternal love is definitely incomplete.
Aurora was absolutely correct. If Leon had been present, they wouldn’t have turned out as they did today.
Although they had grown stronger, there was no doubt that a childhood and adolescence guided by Leon would have made them even better.
That was certain.
And it also explained Leon’s “sense of belonging” ever since he regained consciousness.
He had always felt he didn’t belong in this ‘here’—in this world where ‘Leon Casmod does not exist.’
“Well then, with that misconception corrected, here comes the key point.”
Aurora continued, “For the past more than ten years, I’ve been researching the reversal magic for Rave’s spatial magic.”
“Reversal magic?”
Leon’s mind perked up, “You mean… time travel? Traveling back to the past?”
“No, no, no, Dad! Time doesn’t work that way,” Aurora immediately corrected him.
“Through various coincidences, you arrived at twenty years into the future via the spatial rift, which we see as ‘moving forward’;”
“But following the rules of ‘time’, you can’t ‘move backward.’”
“Every event must continue to ‘move forward’ as time flows; no matter how powerful the magic, it can’t defy this principle. Even involving Rave’s unstable spatial magic, it can only send you to the future, never to the past.”
Upon hearing this, Leon furrowed his brow, “Then that means it won’t change anything?”
“Don’t panic! While the rules of time are set, I found a loophole in these rules.”
Aurora beamed with the confidence unique to researchers.
“That’s the reversal magic I just mentioned.”
“We may not be able to return to the past, but that doesn’t mean we can’t reverse known magic.”
“For over ten years, I’ve been researching Rave’s original spatial magic and have successfully created a prototype of reversal magic.”
“If the final research is successful, you’ll be able to go back to the past, correct everything, and change everything.”
Leon lowered his brow, his mind racing.
After a moment, he asked, “I think I understand, but didn’t you mention before that… six months of time is all that’s left? What does that mean?”
“The battle that put Mom into her slumber happened six months after you entered the rift,” Noia replied.
“But that shouldn’t affect Little Light’s research progress, right? As long as the reversal magic works, wouldn’t I just be sent back to the moment I left?”
“No, Dad,” Aurora said.
“For instance, since you awoke until now, about eighteen hours have passed.”
“So that means time has already passed for you by eighteen hours, and even if I finish the reversal magic now, I can only send you back to the eighteenth hour after you entered the rift.”
“Time flows in a single direction; it acts upon the world and upon you.”
“If you were to return to the ‘eighteen hours ago’ world in a state of ‘eighteen hours later,’ nobody knows what could happen; you might tear your body apart.”
“Do you understand, Dad?”
Leon shook his head, puzzled. “Not really.”
Aurora anticipated this and turned to Moon, “Second Sister, simplify it for Dad with your method.”
“Oh, sure.”
Moon stepped forward, looking at her father.
“For example, Dad, if you had a steak for lunch at twelve o’clock and stuffed yourself until twelve-thirty.”
“Then if you were to use reversal magic to go back to twelve o’clock still full and ate that steak again, you’d surely burst your stomach.”
“That’s roughly the principle.”
Leon exclaimed, “Got it now!”
“Last point, Dad.”
Aurora stepped in front of Leon.
Noia and Moon positioned themselves on either side of her.
The three sisters looked solemnly at their father.
“Only you can go back to the past through reversal magic.”
“This world is a chessboard, and you are the only piece capable of stepping out of the board.”
“You are the variable, Dad, and the key to saving everything.”
“We have six months, and Little Light needs to complete the reversal magic.”
“And you, Dad, must become powerful once again, just like at the start.”
“Only that version of you possesses the strength to turn the tide and reverse the future.”
Moon stepped closer, half-squatting in front of Leon, wrapping her arms around him.
“Mom and we are waiting for you in the true future, Dad.”
