Seris turned on her heel, clearly fed up. With long strides, she returned to the wooden table she'd claimed as her throne, muttering darkly under her breath.
"I should've just killed you when I touched your heart with my magic," she sighed, more annoyed than remorseful.
Ren blinked. "Wait—killed me? Seriously? All I did was ask a question!"
He paused, his expression twisting in confusion as he tapped his chest. "Hold on, that was you? That weird feeling… You really played with my heart? That's kind of messed up. I mean, in most situations that's a metaphor. In this one, it's... disturbingly literal."
He looked up, eyes wide with mock curiosity. "Do I get magic too? Okay, system—"
"Be quiet."Seris's voice cut clean through the air like a blade.
Ren's mouth snapped shut, mid-joke.
"For someone who was crying minutes ago," she hissed, "you're far too alive."
With that, she plucked a book from a tall stack beside her and opened it with deliberate grace, flipping past pages like he was no longer worth the room's oxygen. To her, he was nothing more than a pest—an insect crawling through her carefully curated nightmare.
"Awww, that's it, Seri-chan? So mean," Ren said with exaggerated hurt. "And here I thought we were friends."
That got her attention.
Her eyes flicked toward him, slow and dangerous, her face tightening with a twitch of visible frustration.
"Friends?" she repeated, like the word itself tasted rotten. "Who gave you permission to call me that?"
Her eye twitched.
"Be grateful I didn't rip your soul to pieces. And close your mouth. I'm trying to read."
Ren sighed, tossing his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, no need to thunderstorm me. I'm just saying—if we're both stuck here, maybe sharing a little info wouldn't kill you. Could be a real bonding moment."
Her eye twitched again. Visibly.
Finally, she snapped the book shut.
"There is no escape," she said flatly. "So cut it off. I don't know how you got here, but someone clearly despises you enough to seal you in this place. With me. Probably hoping I'd torture your soul into oblivion."
A pause.
"…Be grateful I changed my mind."
Ren blinked. "Okay, first of all—ouch. Second, I keep telling you, I'm not 'human.' I'm Ren Kisaragi. Just Ren is fine. And it's Japan, not Runteria, or Runmania, or whatever fantasy continent you're ranting about."
He stepped forward slightly, arms crossed but not confrontational.
"I'm seriously grateful you didn't turn me into soul-dust, but if I'm going to be here, I'd really appreciate some help figuring out what the hell this place even is."
After a long, heavy silence, Seris finally exhaled and closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, the usual coldness in her expression had shifted into something more serious—older, distant.
"Fine," she said. "As I told you earlier, this place… is the Prison of Time."
Her voice echoed faintly, as if the library itself acknowledged the name.
"It was created by a legendary sage—a madman some called a hero—who halted a great calamity over a thousand years ago. This prison was made specifically for me. Its sole design is to keep me here until the end of time."
She paused.
"And now, for some reason, it's added you to the guest list."
Her tone twisted in bitter amusement, then quickly faded again into weariness.
"There is no escape," she said softly. "If there were… I wouldn't still be here."
Seris placed a hand over her chest—proud, regal. Yet her gaze drifted beyond the bookshelves, into the eternal black. She wasn't looking at Ren. She was looking for something. Something long lost.
For the first time, Ren felt genuinely sorry for her.
"A thousand years, huh?" he muttered. "Guess you must've messed up real bad."
No reply.
He crossed his arms, chin lifting like a shounen protagonist about to say something profoundly dumb. "Well, I can't just stand by when a beauty like you looks that sad."
Still no reply.
"I'll find a way out of here," he said. "Even if it's selfish, even if I'm powerless—I'll figure it out. I'll get us out. Maybe then, I can go home to Japan. But until then…"
He bowed his head to her.
"I'll do everything I can—for both of us."
There was a pause.
Then a single word, dropped from Seris's lips like a blade:
"Fool."
Her voice trembled faintly. Not from weakness—but from something more complicated.
"Just saying that makes you enemy number one against the entire world of Runteria," she whispered, biting her lower lip. "If escape were so simple… do you think I'd still be here?"
Her eyes didn't meet his. Not this time. But for the briefest moment, he caught it—the faintest shimmer of despair on her face.
And something stirred in Ren's memory.
His grandma's voice—gentle and warm, half-faded with time."Ren, if you ever see a woman cry, no matter how scary she seems… help her. No matter what."
The memory steadied him.
He stood straight again and grinned, not cocky—warm.
"I don't care," he said. "If you were really as bad as everyone says, I'd be dead already. But here I am. Still breathing."
Seris turned toward him slowly. Her red eyes glowed brighter, her face unreadable.
"You know," she said, low and flat, "I can still kill you."
The air shifted instantly.
A crushing pressure swept through the library like a wave of darkness rising from every shadowed corner. It twisted around Ren's ankles and wrists, tendrils of void reaching for him.
But he didn't move.
Like all sense of danger had evaporated.
For a long moment, her glowing eyes stayed fixed on his throat—on the place her magic could crush like paper.
Then—The darkness vanished. Her glow dimmed. And her voice, when it returned, was colder.
"…Do whatever you want. I don't care."
Ren smiled.
"So we are friends now," he said cheerfully. "Seri-chan, I promise—we'll escape this place together. I might not have a guarantee, but I'll give it everything I've got."
He bowed once more.
"I hope you'll take good care of me until then."
Seris sat quietly, her crimson eyes half-lidded behind an old tome.
But she wasn't reading anymore.
She was watching Ren.
He'd been pacing the perimeter of the library for what felt like an hour—circling the room clockwise, muttering to himself, occasionally stopping to strike strange poses or swipe the air as if expecting something invisible to respond.
Time didn't pass here the way it did in the outside world. It didn't move forward. It didn't move at all.
Still, she could feel it—something subtly different.A weight that hadn't existed before him.
"...Friends," she whispered to herself.
Her grip on the book tightened. The word tasted bitter.
The last person who called me that… betrayed me. Betrayed my sisters. For his own gain.Her jaw clenched. Sage Arlan…
The name echoed in her mind like a wound that never healed.
But then—
"Seri-chan!"
Ren's voice broke through her thoughts like a slap.
"This place is straight-up horror RPG material. How did you not go insane being stuck here all this time?"
He looked over at her, trying to gauge her mood.
She didn't respond. Just raised the book higher, shielding her face behind its pages, as if trying to bury the flare of rage that memory had brought back.
Ren didn't back off.
"You know, my grandma always said it's bad to keep things bottled up. You can share, you know. I promise I'll listen."
Still no response.
So he kept pacing, circling, occasionally flailing his arms in frustration like he was trying to cast an invisible spell.
"Damn, no system menu. No stat screen. No pop-up tutorial. This is the worst isekai ever," he grumbled to himself. "I've been here for hours and nothing's happened. Seri-chan's ignoring me, and I've got no cheat powers. Zero. Nada."
He stopped suddenly, eyes lighting up.
"Wait…"
He reached into his hoodie pocket.
"My phone!"
Sure enough, it was still there.
"Ah, I almost forgot about you," he said with relief, unlocking the screen.
The display was cracked. No signal. Not even a battery percentage.
"Of course," he sighed. "Like there's going to be reception in another dimension."
Across the room, Seris finally glanced up from behind her book.
"What is that thing you're holding?" she asked.
Ren blinked. "Huh? Oh, this? It's just a smartphone."
Her brows furrowed slightly. "Smart… phone?"
He scratched his head. "You seriously don't know what a smartphone is?"
She tilted her head, visibly confused.
"It's, uh… a gadget. Super common in Japan. Where I'm from."
Then it hit him. His brain finally caught up with his mouth.
"Right. Of course you wouldn't know what a smartphone is. You're from a fantasy world, you absolute dumbass," he muttered to himself.
"Common?" Seris repeated, this time her voice tinged with curiosity.
"Yeah. Very common. But it doesn't work here, obviously. Which… kinda confirms it. I'm definitely in another world."
That caught her attention.
She slowly closed her book, eyes narrowing as she studied him—not just looking, but analyzing, like trying to solve a puzzle that didn't fit the box.
"You keep saying this word. 'Japan.' And calling this place 'another world.' What do you mean by that, human?"
Ren turned to her with a grin. "Oh? Is Seri-chan finally interested?"
He struck a proud pose, one hand on his chest.
"Japan is the country I'm from. We don't have magic like you guys, but we've got plenty of technology and—"
"Wait," she cut him off. "So you're… not from Runteria?"
He blinked. "Yeah? I've been saying that."
Her eyes widened slightly. Then narrowed again in thought.
"That explains it," she murmured. "Why you could say my name without hesitation. Why you weren't affected."
Ren blinked, confused.
"…Affected?"
Seris didn't answer. Her gaze wandered into the dark, somewhere distant beyond the shelves—as if watching something only she could see.
"What do you mean by affected, Seri-chan?"
Her teeth clenched with a quiet grind.
"Can you stop calling me that, human?"
"Huh? Why? 'Seri-chan' suits you. We're friends now, right? It's normal to—"
"That's a forbidden name."
Her voice cut through him—cold, emotionless.
Ren stopped. The atmosphere dropped like a blade into the silence. He wisely kept his mouth shut this time.
Seris stared into the void again. Her voice was lower now—measured, brittle.
"Over a thousand years ago," she began, "there were seven of us. Seven witches. My sisters and I… We brought prosperity to all of Runteria. Magic, healing, growth… We served the world. And we were loved."
Her hands curled into fists on her lap, knuckles pale.
"But we were betrayed. By someone we called friend. Sage Arlan."
The name hung in the air like poison.
"He asked for our help," she continued. "He said the world faced calamity. That he needed our power to protect it. We believed him. We trusted him."
Her voice wavered, but she pushed forward.
"But Arlan was a fool. A genius, yes. But weak. The moment he held our power, he became drunk on it. Blinded. He started wars. Crushed kingdoms. All in the name of order."
A single tear rolled down her cheek.
"And when the world cried out for answers… he blamed us."
Ren opened his mouth to say something, but she didn't let him speak.
"All the races of Runteria turned against us. The ones we healed. The ones we saved. They hunted us down. Labeled us monsters. Sinners. And in the end… they sealed us away."
Her voice trembled now, stained with something between fury and grief.
"History erased our truth. They called us the Witches of Sin. The ones whose names must never be spoken."
Then, slowly, Seris turned to face him.
Tears streaked silently down her cheeks, glowing faintly against the flickering candlelight.
"That's why," she said, voice shaking, "you don't get to call me 'friend.'"
Ren took a breath.
Then exhaled.
"You know… I said earlier I didn't care about all that stuff," he said. "Still don't, really."
He scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
"My grandma always told me not to let a woman cry. Even if she's an ancient evil witch who almost destroyed the world."
He laughed lightly and took a slow step forward.
"Well, okay, that part she didn't specifically say, but I feel like it still applies."
He smiled—genuine, if a bit foolish.
"I don't believe you're as evil as you want to look. So I'll keep calling you my friend. And I'll keep counting on you like one."
He reached out a hand toward her.
Seris stared at it.
Then slapped it away and kicked him square in the chest.
"You stupid human! I'll kill you!"
Ren flew back, crashing into a distant bookshelf with a loud thud.
Flat on his back, he groaned.
"…Yup. Definitely thunder."
Seris stood frozen for a moment, her expression unreadable.
Then she turned her back to him.
"I need time to think," she said coldly.
The silence in the Library of Time was always deep. But now… it felt heavier somehow. As if the walls themselves were waiting to hear what she'd do next.
She kept her gaze forward, locked on the endless shelves, but her mind refused to stay still.
Stupid human…
She clenched her hand against her chest.
He doesn't even understand what he's saying. He doesn't know what I've seen. What I've lost.
And yet… he reached out to her.
Without fear. Without hatred. Without hesitation.
She had crushed kings with a thought. Broken armies with whispers. Even her sisters once feared her more than they loved her.
But this boy...
This fool.
He simply smiled and called her friend.
Seris turned her head just slightly, her crimson eyes drifting back to the far corner of the room.
Ren sat there, legs pulled in, arms resting on his knees, quietly muttering to himself.
"Okay, so magic might not be happening, but maybe there's a secret boss trigger in one of these books. Or a talking cat. Or like… a menu? Do I need to say a magic word? Uh—Open Sesame? Stats? Quest?"
He waved his phone like a magic wand, got nothing, sighed, and leaned back with a thud against the shelf.
"…Nope. Still cursed. Figures."
Seris watched him.
Not with rage. Not even annoyance.
Just confusion. A strange, unfamiliar warmth curled deep in her chest, like the flicker of a candle long thought dead.
She closed her eyes for a moment.
Just what kind of creature are you, Ren Kisaragi…?