I heard Amity talking, but I honestly didn't register what she was saying. My mind was on the ending of the last loop and the information that I had given away part of my remaining humanity trying to level up when it wasn't necessary.

"Amity," I eventually called her. When I heard her say "yes?" I continued. "How does someone level up?"

"Oh, that's a sudden question," she said. "Hummm. I guess you could fight opponents that are around your own level or higher and kill them."

"Do you need to kill to level up?" I ask. I already knew the answer, it had happened to me last loop, but I wanted to hear it from the mouth of someone who could be considered a force of nature.

"Not really, no." She shrugged. "It's just the easiest and fastest, as part of the energy of the thing you kill is absorbed by you, but as long as you improve yourself enough, you'll get a level up. Even if you do nothing but stay in a closed-off house for many, many, many years, you'll eventually get one level."

Her face darkened a bit at the last part before abruptly returning to her normal self, smiling. "Why the question?"

I decided not to touch on that subject and return my gaze to the ceiling, letting my head hit the mattress. "I wanted confirmation," was what I eventually said to her.

"Oh?" She said. "Are you planning on sleeping for hundreds of years to level up, eh? I heard some dragons do that."

She was poking my side as she said it. I mostly ignored it as she wasn't putting enough force to break my ribs or hurt me.

"Amity," I said without turning to her. "Could I be alone for a while, please?"

"Okay!" She said. "I'll be visiting this city's dungeon. I wanna check out what they have in store. It's been a while since I found a dungeon that could give me a run for my money!"

With that, she exited the room by almost breaking the door as she opened it up with too much force and closed it with just as much force. I winced a little when I heard some cracks coming from the door, but decided not to check it out.

I spent the time during the next several loops just thinking about what I discovered about levels and what I did. "Time heals all wounds" is the saying back on Earth, but now that I had nothing but time, I could tell for certain that it didn't heal shit. It dulled the pain, but it was still there, as fresh as the time I got them, just covered by delicate scars.

Even if their deaths were reversed, even if everything that happened on that loop was erased completely, it still wasn't okay for me to go out of my way to kill people. I could say they were criminals and that they deserved it, but those are just excuses I created to lessen the burden. No, I needed to face the fact that I had discarded my morals and went looking for people to kill.

Even with control over the flow of time, I couldn't change the past, at least, not my past. My actions were erased because of the nature of the loops, but my memories were preserved. The only fragment of a time long rewritten.

But still, no matter how much I wanted to lie on this bed, blaming myself for turning to extreme violence so easily, time still passed… I groaned.

"I can't even place the need to continue forwards on the passage of time!" I growled at the ceiling. "Time is passing and then turning back!" I honestly don't know if the loops were a blessing or a curse, but no matter what they actually were, I had to continue.

While I technically could live forever on these loops, would it truly be living? Repeating the same three days… would it continue to be three days? At the start of the loops, it was, but since I exploded myself at that loop and brought Amity to this city, Jack is finding me in about a day and a half after the start of the loops. I wondered how long the loop extended if I managed to not get killed by Jack. Surely it couldn't go on forever and then revert back, right?

As I thought about these questions, I also tested my skills, confirming they were working normally after my soul burn was healed. [Mathematical Cortex] was still a little sore since I kind of abused it when I shouldn't, but it was nothing I couldn't handle.

I also used the opportunity to finally finish my studies about runes I was procrastinating on for months. I went into the mage's guild and used [Knowledge Library] to download every bit of information I could from the books. The amount of information put enough of a burden on me that I had to rely on [Mathematical Cortex] to divide my mind into several thought processes. It was so much that [Automatic MP Regeneration] and [Pain Resistance] leveled up as well.

It was worth it, though. After so many loops, after several months from my perspective, I knew enough about runes that I could create spells using them if I wanted. Not that I would do it. I had my own skill for spells and, honestly? I preferred it. It gave me more freedom to do whatever I wanted.

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Not that the knowledge would be a complete waste. After so many loops trying to learn them, I think I would cry if they were totally useless to me. Everything I learned through the books inside the mage's guild gave me enough insight on how magic worked that I was confident enough to create a few more complex spells using my own skill.

Up until now, I was just scratching the surface of what I could do using the skill. I wasn't sure what was and wasn't possible, but now I knew how badly I was using it.

Something I also picked up from this was skill levels. I hadn't realised, but not all of my skills had a level associated with them.

[Racial] Elemental Breath Lv. 4

[Racial] Dragon Scales Lv. 1

[Racial] Passive Growth [100% Remaining]

[Racial] Time Manipulation Lv. 5

[Unique] Knowledge Library Lv. 4

[Unique] Genetic Dysphoria Lv. 2

[Unique] Magical Programming Language

[Unique] Mathematical Cortex

[Unique] Liquid Quantum Flux Matrix

[Normal] Appraisal Lv. 4

[Normal] Spatial Manipulation Lv. 1

[Normal] Magicule Detection Lv. 5

[Normal] Magicule Manipulation Lv. 7

[Normal] Soul Damage Resistance Lv. 7

[Normal] Multi-Layered Barrier Lv. 2

[Normal] Automatic MP Regeneration Lv. 2

[Extra] Pain Resistance Lv. 4

[Extra] Humania Language Lv. 10

[Contract] Amity Kerahlis

Sure, it was only four skills, [Passive Growth], [Magical Programming Language], [Mathematical Cortex], and the mysterious [Liquid Quantum Flux Matrix] that I wasn't exactly sure what did besides giving me an insane MP pool. What I discovered was that these leveless skills were already offering me everything they could possibly do, with my own personal proficiency with them being the limiting factor.

What I mean is that the skills that had levels could grow and evolve into something else, while the ones without levels would be what they were, forever. I was excited about what my other skills could evolve into in the future.

Before I could snap the temporal strand around my soul and trigger the last reset, I wanted to do a few more things. While I still felt some remorse for going out of my way to kill people, the happiness I felt for finally understanding the basics of runes overshadowed it by a large margin.

I wandered through the city looking for places, my [Multi-Layered Barrier] blocking the attempts of the mind mage of trying to insert thoughts into my mind. When I found what I wanted, I triggered the loop and waited for Amity to appear.

When she appeared, I invited her to eat with me. She was taken aback for a moment, but smiled and agreed with it in a heartbeat.

Together, Amity and I went into what I could only describe as an "All you can eat buffet". It was close to the dungeon and offered meat from the monsters encountered inside.

"Check this out!" Amity said excitedly, pulling a headband with white cat ears from thin air. Before I could comment on that, she placed them on, and I felt momentarily dizzy as Amity's form blended into a mix of elf and a cat person. At the same time, her presence, which felt like an ocean held back by a single paper towel, vanished almost completely.

"Lily gave me this to blend in with people," She explained as she grabbed a mirror from somewhere and looked at herself. "It can block most of my aura and apparently can make people see me as a feline therian. I wouldn't know. It doesn't work on people who already know me. Myself included"

"...That would explain why I'm seeing you both as an elf and a cat person," I stated. I had to divert my gaze from her, otherwise, I would throw up.

This headband of hers apparently was like a perception filter, so she wouldn't scare every single person in the place. It was a good way to go unnoticed.

Amity grabbed me by my wrist and started pulling me to go, even though I hadn't told her where we were going. I transformed into my cat person form as I was dragged out of the room and into the street, where Amity finally told me to bring us to the place I told her about.

I ignored the criminal mind mage trying to make me go in a specific direction, and after a few minutes, we arrived at the place called "The Hungry Wolf Buffet". It wasn't the most original name, but that wasn't important.

When we entered, we were immediately hit by the smell of various types of meat being roasted in the middle of the room by a guy controlling the flames like whips and wrapping them around a rotisserie spit.

Immediately Amity left my side and went to ask for plates of meat. There were a lot of people there, most were wearing combat gear. If I were to guess, this place was popular among the adventurers. It even had music. I was taken aback when I noticed the music sounded like those electronic beats from popular YouTube channels.

Looking around I found the stage with four people playing some weird instruments. I could see they were using some form of magic to distort the sound, making a electronic music without any electronics.

Deciding I wasn't going to investigate it further, I sat on an open seat next to the meat roasting guy. There were other servers bringing out plates of food from an undisclosed door, probably the kitchen. The guy roasting meat in the middle of the place seemed to be the main attraction, at least. He was making tricks with fire that probably shouldn't be allowed in a closed space like this, but who was I to discuss fire safety with the fire controlling guy?

I grabbed a plate filled with grilled meat stuffed with cheese from one of the servers and started to eat it. It had a flavour I couldn't quite place, and it wasn't like anything I had ever eaten back on Earth. It was good.

Even though I didn't drink anything other than water, the cheerful atmosphere was so intoxicating that eventually I found myself humming along to the music. Amity got several people and started dancing next to the stage.

For the first time since I reincarnated in this world, I felt all my worries melt into the back of my mind as I enjoyed the food and culture of the place. It was refreshing, in a way. To not worry about things for a while.

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