A wide lake reflected the moonlight. Surrounding it was the thriving Principality of Attoria. And floating in the center of the lake was Attoria Castle.
The setting is the 13th century in southeastern Europe. The castle town is quiet, and there are no lights of culture inside the castle, as if welcoming silence under the veil of night.
Just then, one by one, shadows leaped out from the tall ridges of the castle, blending into the darkness of the night. They weren't bats. They were the figures of people who seemed to be riding on something.
Without anyone noticing, the flying creatures chased each other through the air.
"Wait! I've finally got hold of your tail!"
A young man straddling what appears to be a tireless motorcycle holds a gun.
Flying in front of them is a man riding on something that looks like a small carpet.
"Tch, you're so persistent!"
Breaking into a cold sweat, the man grabbed the painting and fled into the deserted forest. Where on earth was he heading? He looked and saw a gaping hole in the air.
The man immediately tries to jump into the hole, but the young man catches up with him.
"Give up already!"
The young man reaches out and grabs the painting the man is holding, but the man resists.
"What the hell! Let go! Let go!"
The man pulls himself into the hole with great force and operates a boat-like machine at the end, causing the hole in the air to close.
Snap. The sound of something breaking was heard, and the man was so shocked that his blood ran cold.
"Ahhhh!? What a shame, such a wonderful masterpiece!"
It seems the painting got caught in the closing hole and was cut cleanly. All that was left was the painting on the wooden board, cut cleanly in a curve.
The painting depicts the back of a girl wandering through the forest and a bat flying, but if it were cut in half it would lose its value as a painting.
"Ugh, I guess I'll try again..."
Suppressing his anger, the man takes control of the boat.
The place where the boat set off was neither the Principality of Attoria nor Lake Attoria.
It's a space-time hole, a distortion hole that lets time flow back and forth.
Yes, the man is not from the 13th century.
He was a thief, a Time Hunter, who had traveled to this era in a time machine.
"Wait! I won't let you get away!"
"Eeek! You're so persistent!"
The young man from before chases after me through the space-time hole.
He also rides a time machine and is a time patrolman who arrests time criminals.
The chase resumes in the space-time hall, where space undulates unstably.
The two of them continue on through a tunnel that is unclear as to which era or world it leads to.
"Take this!"
The Time Hunter fires a ray gun to keep them at bay.
In response, the Time Patrol looked impatient.
"Whaaat?! Don't fire a gun in a place like this!!"
The rays that missed flowed towards the walls of the space-time hole, creating waves.
The space-time hole swells, and large holes appear here and there.
Is it the past, the future, or a completely different parallel world?
It's a fissure in the world that branches out into countless branches.
"This is perfect. Now I have an escape route."
Perhaps taking an optimistic view of the situation, the Time Hunter gleefully uses the distorted space-time hole as an obstacle to shake off the Time Patrol approaching from behind.
There's no telling what would happen if you accidentally got sucked into the hole.
The Time Patrol was unable to pursue the matter any further and had no choice but to give up the pursuit.
"I was so close to making an arrest..."
With their feelings of frustration blaming themselves, the Time Patrol travels back to their original time...
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*
--The time and place have changed, to the outskirts of the castle town of the Principality of Aturia, in a nearby forest.
At dusk, the sky was covered in orange sheep clouds.
A girl with long blonde hair, her hair braided in the back, runs past.
She wears a noble dress and a cape, and her eyes shine a mysterious shade of blue.
The girl's name is Claire, and she is the princess of the Principality of Arturia.
He seems to have had a fight with a friend, and continues walking through the forest in a sulky manner.
"Seriously... how rude of you to leave me alone."
As Claire was walking and grumbling to herself, a cold wind suddenly blew through her.
What initially seemed like a simple breeze suddenly turned into a gust of wind, stirring up dust.
"Whoa, what? What's going on?"
As Claire panics, a crackling sound like lightning echoes from the sky.
When I looked up, I saw a strange, large hole in the air, and the wind seemed to be blowing from there.
Even though the sky is clear, the hole is raging like a typhoon.
"Maybe it's a demon?"
The legend of the demon Isere flashes through Claire's mind.
The wind gradually gets stronger and even lifts Claire's body up.
There was no way to hold on. No matter how hard I struggled in the air, there was nothing to grab onto.
Claire floated up and was sucked into the large hole.
"Someone help――..."
Before Claire could finish her sentence, she disappeared into the mysterious hole, and the hole closed without leaving any trace of Claire, who had been there just a moment before.
Looking up at the sky, all I could see were some dull orange sheep clouds.
Neither Claire nor the people of this era could have known that the hole that suddenly appeared and then disappeared was actually a space-time hole.
A distorted hole, and it's unclear whether it connects to the past or the future, or to any other time period.
No one knows where Claire is.
All that can be said is that after this, the entire Principality of Arturia mobilized to search for Claire, but in the end she was never found...
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*
--After traveling through time, the Time Hunter man rocks on his boat.
He looked very seasick, his face was blue. He had caused so much disturbance in the space-time hole. It was like sailing through a stormy ocean.
Even though it was to shake off the Time Patrol, I am aware that I took a rather reckless approach.
At last, the weather started to calm down like a lull.
The Time Hunter attempts to fix the messed up gauges to normal numbers.
"Umm, the Principality of Aturia is..."
He expertly enters the values he has memorized, and the boat's course is determined.
"Geez, my face is cracked now, so I'll have to find another disguise. What should I wear next? If I'm dressed as a clown, I can move around the castle without arousing suspicion."
Even after being chased so many times, he doesn't seem to have learned his lesson at all.
With new clothes on, the boat was on its way to 13th century Europe.
He had to rethink his strategy, he thought, as he continued through the space-time hole.
Suddenly, that was when it happened.
Something was floating in the space-time hole, which was supposed to be a time distortion hole.
I was shocked, thinking that the Time Patrol had caught up with me, but it seemed that was not the case.
A small, blonde-haired girl appeared unconscious and was floating in the air.
"A girl? Why is she here? No, I feel like I've seen her somewhere before..."
The time hunter is then shocked.
He picked up one of the wooden paintings piled on the boat.
It was the painting that had been caught in the space-time hole and split in half when the Time Patrol was chasing him earlier.
It depicts a girl, who looks exactly like the girl in front of me.
"Ah, I see. So you've become a time traveler."
The man understood everything and nodded slightly in understanding.