"Let's begin from what we already know," the woman said. "The three players in the loop - The Master, the marines, and you. From all the information I have, I'll assume nobody knows how The Master is bringing people into the loop and that you and the marines are both using the Rewind to remember and add people into the loop."

Gaus listened in silence.

"I think you and the other Rewind holder are imposters in the loop," she said.

He figured it couldn't be good news from the look on her face. But this he didn't expect.

"Neither you nor the people you add in the loop are recognized by the system, or whatever is responsible for the loop."

"But the loop works just like the Rewind," Gaus argued. "How can I save it otherwise? I always woke up to 'magiwatch has saved twenty-four hours', remember?"

"Alright," Rachel said with a sigh. "Let's take a general view of everything going on. On one hand, we have the academy and its loopers. On the other hand, we have the marines and Rewind. When the loop resets, each retains their memories and carries them over to the next loop. For simplicity, let's call any looper from the academy as red and everyone else using rewind to join the looping as blue. The difference between the two is in the way every restart affects their body and soul.

"Take me for example, when the loop resets, my body will be renewed so all the wounds I sustained in the previous loop will be gone. My soul, longevity, and mind will all be renewed and any damage I sustained in a previous loop will be neutralized as soon as a new loop begins. However, I'll also lose my memories because my mind is also being reset. My magiwatch will be reset as well so I'll lose any skill I have managed to learn in the previous loop.

"It's different for a looper. Loopers from the academy (reds) will have their soul, mind, longevity, and magiwatch spared, so they'll retain their memories and skills. But any damage to their mind or soul will also remain even after the loop. The loop will only renew their physical bodies and hence only physical injuries will be negated.

"Loopers using the Rewind (blues) are different: the loop doesn't recognize them. At the end of every restart, their soul and body are being renewed. Any skill they learned or damage they received will be neutralized. They are connected to the loop only by a skill. They are not in the loop. You are not in the loop."

Your awareness of the loop has increased.

+87% Loop knowledge

Total: 88.5%

Impostors? A sigh escaped his mouth. He should be blue, according to Rachel's nomenclature, since he used the Rewind. But he was a member of the academy as well. What was he now? A combination of blue and red? No, he should be somewhere in-between.

"Are you listening to me?" She shouted at him which pulled him out of his reverie. "Lilat and Abbas and everyone else you will bring into the loop will never be able to level up."

"I understand," he said. "I will tell them in the morning."

"You better do," she said. "Lilat is at a low level but Abbas is worse; he's just at level 6."

So whoever created the Rewind wasn't smarter than the loop. Unless that was how they wanted it to be.

"Am I red or blue?" He asked.

"You were blue before you joined the academy but now you are red," she said. "You are an abomination of red and blue. Let's just call you red-blue."

"Red-blue?" He asked with furrowed brows.

"Yeah," she said. "Look, I think even the loop is confused about you. When you joined the academy you were supposed to retain your physique but you couldn't because the loop was confused. It was supposed to spare your magiwatch like any other looper so you can retain your physique but your magiwatch is already spared. Or at least it felt like that to the system."

It was probably the look of incomprehension on his face that amused her. She chuckled.

"Let me break it down for you. A magiwatch has three separate parts: skill, biodata, and physique. The loop has already recognized the skill aspect of your magiwatch, the Rewind, but it doesn't recognize your biodata and physique. That's why you couldn't retain your physique before joining the academy. Now after you joined the academy, the loop was supposed to spare your magiwatch as a whole so you can retain both your physique and skills, but it got confused because your skill was already spared. Somehow you ended up with only your biodata being spared, leaving your physique unaffected. You probably have to live with that for the rest of your loop days."

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The reason he couldn't retain his physique was finally clear.

Your awareness of the loop has increased.

+43% Loop knowledge

Total: 131.5%

"But if I leave the academy, the loop will no longer spare my soul and it will automatically be renewed when the loop resets. That would take the soulbond away for good..." Suddenly he was smiling. "The soul bond will be gone. All I have to do is to leave the academy. Right?"

Rachel didn't look as excited as he was.

"Right?" He asked again.

"Ideally, yes, but I fear Tyren is smarter than we give him credit for."

Damn it. The bastard was always one step ahead.

"He attached the soulbond to the one part of your soul that's connected to the magiwatch. Even if you leave the academy, you'll still be soul bonded to him for as long as you have the magiwatch."

"But how did he know it was the magiwatch? Even I was just finding out about it." Gaus asked.

"He's meticulous, I think," Rachel said. "He must have attacked your soul in a previous loop without even your knowledge and then he follows you to the next loop to see if the damage will be carried over to the next loop. With a few trial and error, he should be able to find out about it."

"And he did all that before I joined the academy before he even confronted me?" Gaus said.

Rachel nodded.

Gaus frowned. His opponent was tricky. Sometimes he wondered if Tyren was really at level 22. After all, how could a battle alchemist at level 22 be so experienced in soul magic?

"Summoning the soul-pillars doesn't work and even leaving the academy won't either. How am I supposed to get rid of this guy?"

"We stick to our plan," she said. "We wait for him to make an appearance. I'll take care of him myself. If he's dead then he wouldn't sire any soul bond. And you are wrong about the soul pillars: they are working. I don't know how much time Tyren has left but he will disappear before the end of the month. He either come to us or he dies in a forgotten corner. Either way, we will be the winners."

That was the only piece of good news he heard since the beginning of the conversation. Rachel explained how the soul-pillars were gradually degrading the soul bond. Initially, the soul bond was getting stronger and Gaus's soul was getting 'eaten alive'. The soul-pillars stopped the progression of the soulbond and that was what stopped the second time loop. Later on, the soul-pillars began to degrade the remaining soul bond and now it was down to 38%. Once the degrading was over, Tyren would be gone for good.

After a while, they kept Tyren aside and went on to discuss a 'more urging' matter about the time loop.

"The Master joined the loop before the marines," Rachel said. Her voice carrying a sense of dread. "They both joined during the period called 'M' but a vice-admiral of the marines confessed it was six years after The Master before they joined." She stared at the ground thoughtfully for a moment before she sighed. "I got some weird theories about the origin of the Rewind and how the marines got them but I'm still not sure about anything. You would have to give me more time on that."

Gaus nodded. This was already so much information that would take him several restarts to gather alone. He wondered how she got it.

"But there used to be another player who joins the loop during the same period," she went on. "They call her Javier Minorita Helsinbird Salesal. According to everyone I asked, The Master and his loopers killed her."

Linc told him about Minorita. He said The Master killed her and hanged her head on the entrance gate of the academy for everyone to see. But that didn't make any sense. Rachel was Minorita and Minorita was Rachel. It was the same body.

"It can't be you," Gaus said.

"No, it can't." She shook her head. "I came here over two decades ago and all my predecessors were older. None of them were in the loop."

"Then maybe you were in the loop and you just can't remember it," Gaus said. "Like a memory loss or something. Maybe you lost it when you were killed."

"If I was killed then why am I still alive?" She asked. "I'm sure The Master (or whoever killed me) knows how to kill a looper and how to make sure they don't return."

She had a point there. Still, she could have been reborn like everyone else but he doubted it. If she was reborn then whose head was hanged in the academy?

"Then maybe it was a coincidence," he said thoughtfully. "Someone was named after you, maybe?"

"I would have taken it as a coincidence if it were just one name, but four names is just above my threshold for coincidence. I think someone has impersonated me. Someone who knew about me and quite possibly about my predecessors and our reincarnations. They might have been reincarnated themselves."

"That could explain it," Gaus said. "But why would someone want to impersonate the most-wanted woman in the world. I mean, you are not safe. Everyone is looking to kill you. Why would anyone want to be you?"

"I don't know," she said exasperatedly. "And that's what worries me."

Gaus understood her frustration. A dead man using your name didn't sound any more welcoming than death.

"It's not just me," she said. "You are also in danger. Your magiwatch skill and that of the marines work the same way. When you rewind, the marines will know and when they rewind, you will know."

Another way of saying it was if he could see them then they could see him as well. He was quite aware of it. But that had not been an issue yet and it would be difficult for anyone to trace him with just that, hopefully.

"Just like you," she continued. "I have also come to believe that the time loop is as a result of the Rewind. Why would the Rewind be saving it otherwise? But that still doesn't mean you are recognized by the loop. You will remain an imposter using a clever method to hold on to something you aren't supposed to."

HEY, that was too harsh, he cried internally but decided it wasn't worth his time.

"And that brings the question of which Rewind is responsible for the time loop," she said. "It could be yours."

"No," Gaus said. "I don't think so. I have already entertained the possibility and the answer was (and still is) no. I don't have the mana to do it and the whole thing has been going on long before I arrived. So I can't be responsible. You can argue about the marines but I don't think they are responsible as well. I mean, the Master joined the loop before them, so who was responsible then?"

"A very good argument," she said, nodding. "But what if there's another Rewind, a third one?"