"I'm sorry…but I need a second here…" Elizabeth said as she thought about all the issues that the crowns had given her, granted. Her Crown of Sin had helped her greatly…But it also hindered to some degree. Granted, it had been mostly because Elizabeth hadn't understood truly how to use it and was bludgeoning things with it.

If she had started using it as she was doing now, merely channeling one or two aspects through it…perhaps she could have saved more issues than not.

"So?" Jenna asked, "Can you release him?"

While Elizabeth was internalizing all of that, Jenna continued speaking with Mira, why did Jenna care that much about him anyway? Was she into [The Traveler]?

"I guess? Can you keep this stable? Old hag?" Mira said turning to Aura.

"I am barely fifteen years old, you timeless trap." Aura answered while scoffing, "But yes, unlike you. My constructs are foolproof…But then again, can't make something foolproof if you yourself are made out of a fool can't you?"

"Stuff it," Elizabeth groaned, "We are dealing with serious stuff here; act like the powerful hidden entities you pretend not to be, not like two high school cheerleaders fighting over something stupid."

"..." "..."

Both Aura and Mira stopped for a second and turned to look at Elizabeth, "I just found out there is not only a fricking Saintsworth alive, but somehow he is more special of a Saintsworths, and he apparently is the heir to a stupid crown. Do you know how dangerous all of this is?" Elizabeth groaned, "Nothing good ever comes from the fricking Saintsworths."

"True," Jenna nodded to Elizabeth's statement, "But you are missing a very important bit, he isn't from the same side of all the Saintsworths you know."

"...He isn't a cockroach that somehow keeps surviving while causing issues to the people around him?" Elizabeth deadpanned, "Because it sure as hell looks like that."

"...I mean….yeah, but he isn't responsible for the death of a whole planet." Jenna said with a shrug, "Don't get me wrong, he does cause issues, but he also fixes them. That ought to be important and relevant."

"I mean… they do help from time to time?" Aura said in a wondering almost wistful tone, "At least from what I have seen in other realities…There is even one where one of them works as a simple nurse in a nightshift turn, reading web novels and imagining himself as an evil overlord."

"That sounds like someone who never grew out of their delusions tho." Mira said shrugging at the idea, "But the old hag has a point, you can't rule out a whole bloodline just from a singular example."

"....He killed a planet, mistake or not." Elizabeth pointed out, "And yeah…The Saintsworths have helped…Mother was one…And while not very helpful, I did benefit from Alexanders…But…all the other ones…"

Elizabeth hadn't seen many examples, but from the files and archives she inherited…not many good things were said from the other clansmen of the Saintsworths, she had seen records of slave camps, black markets, wars, weapons development, experimentation both in human and nonhumans, galaxy-wide empires built-in blood and intergalactic wars…

The Saintsworths…were at the peak of their world, but that point was achieved by not very good means, and they were about to bring back what was possibly the last scion of that said clan.

"There are other Saintsworths here then?" Elizabeth asked, just to be sure, "Or is he the LAST, actually [The Last]?"

"He is the last one yes," Jenna said nodding, "He survives thanks to his skill and the body he got from his use, he is out of time."

"A man out of time…" Mira said looking at the rift, "Yes, I think I can work with that, I should be able to help him, should you wish for it Mistress."

"The question is…do you want to?" Aura said raising her hand towards the rift, "No matter how much they complain, should you ask for it, I can vanish this rift way beyond what these two can go."

"....You would-" Jenna started speaking as an ethereal armor started forming around her, the armada of [Echoes] manifesting around her.

"I would do it and you couldn't stop me before I did, there is no [Echo] in any plane that has the same powerset or anything that could help you bridge said rift back here." Aura smirked at Jenna, "And the only thing that keeps that open is my will, knock me out cold and see what happens…assuming this is even my real body that is."

The predatory smile on Aura was something to see, not that Elizabeth wanted to even deal with that.

"I will not mind should you wish to leave this poor innocent man rotting out in the void either," Mira said, sighing, "He will get out eventually, and Time is meaningless to people like him and me. He would return exactly to the moment he wishes to. Should he free himself now or in twenty millennia?"

Elizabeth groaned at that statement, "Fricking time travelers…" And more so since it was probably true. If [The Traveler] got out, he would return to Zaanam at whatever point in time he wanted, Elizabeth wasn't sure how that skill worked. And while she probably could tamper with it…it wouldn't be now. Probably in the future when she had more mastery over [Time].

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But then he only needed to return to a moment where Elizabeth didn't have said mastery…and was that even how it worked? She didn't know. "Time travel makes my head hurt." Elizabeth complained while sighing, "Fine, get him out."

In the end, she did want to free him, even while being a Saintsworths…It was someone who Jenna cared for, probably Amelia and Lily too. And while Elizabeth had hope at being stronger in the future, she did not want to guess how she would fare against Jenna.

Lily…would probably defeat Elizabeth, too, should they fight. Amelia…was a wild card, she seemed to be more of a tinkerer as her name implied, but surely she had a way to fight, more so since she was a member of [The Twelve].

"Thank you Elizabeth," Jenna said sighing in relief, "Truly, thank you. I can guarantee that you will not regret this."

"I am already regretting it, just get it over with." Elizabeth said in another tired sigh, turning to Aura and Mira she added, "Aura, make sure he doesn't leave. Mira…do whatever you want to keep him around long enough that he can explain whatever issues he had."

"As you wish, Mistress," Aura answered first, her presence turning both faint and, at the same time, more permeated around, the room suddenly feeling more vast than before. Elizabeth wasn't sure what the hell Aura was doing, but she could faintly hear the yip of foxes somewhere around.

"Easily done Mistress, you won't even notice a thing." Mira said afterwards, only for…nothing to really happen?

Perhaps the mana seemed to turn slighty more stagnant? Elizabeth wasn't sure what Mira had done. But she did notice Aura scoffing at the other girl, so she assumed that something did happen.

Either way, Elizabeth re-centered herself, summoned a second pair of clothes, and used the function to equip them straight to her body from when her [Garage] was a simpler [Inventory](She hadn't used any of these functions lately. Had she?) and prepared for the next thing.

When Aura finished doing whatever she was doing, and the same to Mira. Both girls nodded at each other and then turned to Elizabeth, the untold question hanging on the air.

"Do it." Elizabeth merely said and with a final nod, both girls got into work.

First Aura pulled at the fabric of space and a set of purple chains materialized around the weird crystal-mirror like rift where [The Traveler] was stuck, with each pull Elizabeth noticed how space seemed to want to crack, only to be mended a second later. Aura pulled slowly but steadily, each action measured, and each crack mended before the purple-haired girl pulled again.

When she was done, the rift now rested in the middle of the room.

"My turn." Only for Mira to step forward as soon as the purple chains settled against the floor, Elizabeth wasn't sure what the floor was made out, but she was half sure it shouldn't be able to hold these types of chains; Aura was probably setting them against the very fabric of space instead of the floor.

Then the blue-haired girl smiled and raised a hand against the rift, as soon as she touched the rift a mandala almost as big as the room manifested behind the rift, already spinning, Elizabeth could make out some of the glyphs on it, but most of it was in a language that she didn't understand. Not with any of her skills, not even the inherited skills that she had gotten from Alexanders pulled anything.

Elizabeth couldn't help but marvel at that, from the first time she took a step into the world of Magic and Skills, of Mana and Prana…This was the first time she was seeing anything and not understanding it.

The design of the mandala was simple enough, a six-pointed star with a double circle. Some weird runes and letters dancing around between the two circles. But it was the middle of it that made Elizabeth marvel.

Most of her mandalas or magic circles were designed to be efficient; they were the product of cold calculations and science, and nothing was left there without a reason. Unlike how other magical girls that put flair and logos on their magic circles, Elizabeth went for efficiency above all.

Adding a cute flair, a bear, an emblem, more often than not meant that the magic circle was unbalanced, so they ended up having to compensate manually for that, either by pulling more mana into the magic circle or using some complenetary skill. It was how Elizabeth learned from the mistakes of others really.

But this?

Elizabeth couldn't sense any unbalance at all, the magic circle was perfectly moving mana all around and weaving its effect, affecting the rift where [The Traveler] was stuck.

And that was what made it more impressive to Elizabeth, as this mandala, this magic circle, this marvel of magic…Had a goddamned waning crescent moon stuck in the middle of the mandala, worse. The stupid moon sigil was changing across all the stages of the moon. Why a moon? Of all the things, why a goddamned moon?

Elizabeth knew she had some weird affinity with the stupid thing, Zaanam didn't even that special of a moon. Unlike other planets in their solar system, their moon was more of an aesthetic choice since the original had been blown out by an accident(tantrum) during the Second World War or something.

Their oceans and tides were controlled by self sustaining magic spells that Mother had set up ages ago, no one ever noticed it anymore, and then they merely stuck a new moon and made sure that its gravitational pull didn't mess up things around.

So really, the moon in zaanam was more of a show than anything, not many knew that of course, Elizabeth only knew it because Mother had blabered about that at one point as a way to show off to Elizabeth when they didn't knew if she would wake up magic or skills.

Another moot point.

But no, the stupid magic circle that Mira was using ran heavily on those things. Why did it use those stupid things?

Either way, Elizabeth didn't have enough time to ruminate on that, as the spell form started shining and the rift slowly shifted from a two-dimensional object to a tri-dimensional object, from a simple mirror-like object into a box made out of crystal.

Elizabeth even walked around it as she noticed how the mandala was visible from all angles, how did that even work? Elizabeth wasn't quite sure, she did thought this seemed more of a space related magic than a Time related one, but who was she to judge?

Either way, the object in question was manifesting in real space faster and faster, soon Elizabeth could see the full size of the man who was hailed as [The Traveler]. One of the twelve most powerful men in the world (Allegedly).

And as the figure started materializing, Elizabeth noted the mana seemed to…tremble, as if wanting to react and attack the man, as if the presence of Arthur Saintsworths was somehow anathema to Zaanam.

"Mistress… I'll need some help here," Mira said as her voice was filled with grunts and sweat started to form on her temple, "Can you…take in some of his mana and purify it?"

Purify it?

"Isn't that dangerous?" Elizabeth asked, taking in someone's mana wasn't something done lightly, more often than not, it caused mana poisoning, an example of why the mana terrorism event that Elizabeth caused was so dangerous.

She had forcibly injected her mana in many civilians, people who didn't know how to survive to be exposed to such dense mana.

"Not in this case, you and he have similar mana wavelengths, you are not a Saintsworths of Terra Invicta, just as he isn't a Saintsworths of Terra Invicta," Mira said as she grunted, turning to Aura, "Get to work hag, I need-"

"I know what you need you second class trap," Aura hmphed as a portal opened in front of Elizabeth, "That goes straight to his Core, now that he is stabilized in Zaanam I can open this. Just take in the mana and send the purified one back."

Elizabeth… didn't do it just yet.

"...Will this not poison him? Or me?" Elizabeth asked, "Why do I even need to do that?"

"He is being erased of Zaanam, I am slowing it down, but Zaanam is treating his mana as anathema, as poison. He can't survive within Zaanam like that, it is why he sealed himself away out of time. He probably survived long enough thanks to his state." Mira answered.

"You will be fine, your Heart is designed to withstand all kinds of Mana and Prana," Aura added, "If anything you will probably empower him somewhat, it is different when there is intent and when it is just a rampage, you will not repeat the Mana poison event."

Elizabeth…took a deep breath and closed her eyes, "I am trusting you both." And feeling the foreign mana, Elizabeth started taking in the mana, first slowly, measuredly, she felt the mana enter her system.

It tasted like…aged wine, it was sweet and it made Elizabeth want to take it all, to make it hers and only hers, but the feeling was fleeting and she was able to center herself, she quickly sent that strand across her mana cores, one by one the mana was purified to its most simple concepts and reformatted again.

If she took aged wine, what she sent back was closer to a gourmet wine, fully refined and prepared to store.

And while Elizabeth wasn't sure if this was eight, she would trust in Aura. The purple-haired maid had never deceived her. So she would trust.

And so, she started doing that. First slowly, monitoring the state of [The Traveler] each second it went. And when nothing happened, she started accelerating.

What she noticed, however, was that the more Mana she refined. The less pressure Zaanam's mana put on the time rift.

So Elizabeth continued, and soon enough no more pressure was sent towards the rift. And before Elizabeth noticed, the time cube broke.

[The Traveler] had officially returned to Zaanam.

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