The Forgotten Time (Arifureta Zero x Oc/Male Readers)

Chapter 1 The Meeting That Started It All

No one's POV

A figure lazed in the center of a pure white room. One could tell from a glance that there was something odd about them. For one thing, they were wearing a bizarre mask with a smiley-face drawn on its cover. For another, the arms and legs poking out of their milky-white robe, while artfully crafted, were clearly made out of metal. It was a golem that was lying there in the center of the room.

Miledi: Ugh, I finally managed to finish my repairs. Damn that white hair boy. How dare he leave some explosives there at the end! And I can't believe Ryu didn't do a single thing to stop him!

The voice that spoke sounded youthful and feminine. Its owner, the golem lying in the center of the room, was Miledi Reisen. She was the creator of the Reisen Gorge, one of the Seven Great Labyrinths, and a Liberator. She stared up at the sky and screamed.

Miledi: The next time I see him, I'll be sure to annoy him till he could no longer scream!

She looked like a child throwing a tantrum, thrashing about on the floor. Her robe flapped wildly around her, and her mask's expression morphed. Upon closer inspection, one could see that her robe was charred at the edges and covered in soot. There was a small crack in her mask as well.

Hajime was the cause of her current distress, and the reason she was in such a sorry state. He along with a gray hair boy named Sora whom Miledi refered to as the Dragon King were the first to have cleared the labyrinth she'd created. And the first thing Hajime had done after defeating her was to demand she give him all of her possessions. And Sora didn't do a single thing to help her.

She'd planned on giving Hajime everything but the items she absolutely needed to maintain the labyrinth, but he'd insisted on taking even those. He was no conqueror, just a thief. No good person would ever demand that a labyrinth master hand over all her possessions. That was the act of a common brigand.

Naturally, Miledi had refused. Half in jest, she'd tested out her toilet shortcut and flushed them out of her labyrinth. However, just before they'd been washed away, Hajime had thrown some grenades her way as a final parting gift.

His grenades had blown up not just the deepest chamber in the labyrinth, but a good portion of her private resting quarters as well. In tears, Miledi had set about the task of repairing her precious labyrinth. She'd only just finished.

She cursed at Hajime for a while longer, complaining about the unfair retribution she'd received for the harmless prank she'd played on him. Objectively speaking, it was pretty hard to feel sympathetic toward someone who'd flushed people out of her home. Once she was done, complete silence returned to the room. Miledi was this labyrinth's only resident. It sat deep underground, at the bottom of a gorge everyone avoided. A dark place where the light of the sun never reached.

Without Miledi's cursing, there was no noise at all. As she was a golem, there wasn't even the sound of her breathing or heartbeat. After a few moments of silence, Miledi raised her hand up to the ceiling. Had there been any light, her metallic hand would have gleamed brightly. This golem was something someone very precious to her had made. The crystallization of all their hard work. This inorganic hand of hers was very unlike the actual hand she'd had back when she was alive.

Miledi: To think... He really returned back to Tortus... Your prediction really did come true... Lina...

She balled her outstretched hand into a fist. The reality of it was finally hitting her. Then, she glanced over at a corner. The room she was in now was her bedroom. Meaning her personal possessions were all stored there.

There was a bookshelf in the corner she'd looked at, a number of picture frames lining the shelves. Long ago, an exceptionally skilled Synergist had invented a device that could perfectly record all the details in a scene and copy them. The pictures he'd taken with it had been his gift to Miledi, and her greatest treasure.