Sunlight crept through the window onto the floor of the cabin, basking the ground right before Angel’s straw-padded bed in bright light. Her long hair was bundled into a bun to keep her hair tidy during her restless sleep. She had on a dress that looked more like a large white blanket than clothing.

On the edge of the bed sat Arthur. His thick hunter’s clothes didn’t do much to conceal an impressive build. His straw hat was sitting aside on a table, leaving his bald head open and vulnerable. On his face was a worried expression that contrasted the large scar and black eyepatch over his right eye.

“This is possibly the most eventful my life had been since my youth,” he muttered through a sigh.

The girl shifted slightly in the straw and moaned.

Arthur softly rested his hand on Angel’s shoulder, as if to comfort her. She had been restless the entire night and continued to mutter the boy’s name in her sleep.

“That Daniel… He’s gonna get some harsh questioning once I get down there.”

Suddenly, Angel’s eyes opened. From her calm sleeping state, her expression became alert. Quickly, her eyes located Arthur. She tried to sit up, but as soon as she attempted to move, she clenched her teeth in pain. Even though she had rewound the timeline, Angel had only sent her consciousness back, so she had the same body as when she woke up on her first take.

Arthur took his hand from Angel’s shoulder and his face lit up. “Thank god! You’re awake! Just don’t move too much for now, okay? I’ve healed your wounds, but there are some after-effects.”

“Where is Da…” Angel’s voice trailed off as her eyes wandered to the door of the cabin and images of the cellar flew into her mind.

Arthur’s expression grew serious for a split second before going back to smiling. “Yeah, he’s downstairs. Do you want to talk to him? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Angel sighed. Hopefully, Arthur hadn’t done anything to Damien yet, but if she let him go down there now, it would be too late. “I will rest for now. Could you please stay with me?”

“Sorry,” Arthur replied, putting his hand on Angel’s shoulder again, “I’ve got some business I have to go take care of. You just take a nap for now. Otherwise, try moving a little and stretching too to kill some time. Just don’t push yourself too hard.”

Arthur stood up to leave, but Angel quickly took hold of his arm. It was easy to tell that she was in pain from that tiny action. “Please… I will be scared if you leave me here alone,” she lied. Well, it wasn’t a full lie as she would be quite scared for Damien.

Arthur turned around and carefully picked Angel’s hand off his arm. “It’s okay. I’ll be back in a few moments. It’s just what I have to do is pretty important. You understand, right?”

Angel reached her hand in an effort to grab Arthur’s arm again. This time he saw it coming and grabbed Angel’s hand first, putting it back on the bed. “This is a pretty urgent business, okay?”

Arthur turned back around and started walking to the door again. But before he reached the door to open it, Angel got out of her bed and quickly sent a fist at Arthur. He dodged without looking and turned to grab her stretched arm. Angel was no match to his strong grip as he led her back to the bed.

“There might be some sort of misunderstanding here,” Arthur said, then raised his hands up above his head, keeping his palms open. “I don’t intend on doing any harm. I just want to bring you back home safely.”

Angel ignored him and immediately went for another strike. Arthur dodged again in the same way, but this time Angel used his momentum and slammed into him, knocking him off balance. Arthur was surprised that the little girl was able to budge him, but he put a foot back just in time to prevent himself from falling over.

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“You’re quite good at fighting, aren’t you? Were you trained back in your timeline?”

“And you’re quite strong yourself,” Angel replied, kneeling down onto the ground, out of breath. She was aching all over from the few moments of activity. She wouldn’t be able to win a fight against a big man like Arthur now, but she did get some useful information: he was pretty consistent with his moves. No matter how strong or skilled he is, she would be able to defeat him easily with the right choreography.

Arthur offered a hand to help Angel up, but she stood up herself and limped back to the bed. Arthur just stood there in silence, letting Angel move on by herself. Just a small brawl was enough to tell him she wasn’t only some weak little girl.

When Angel laid back in the straw padding, Arthur made to leave again. This time Angel didn’t stop him. She would attempt to prevent what he did to Damien another time. For now, she decided to think back to her previous run and plan her future actions.

First of all, it was unlikely Arthur was working with those four shooters. They had captured him when he went back down to the cellar to check on Damien. In addition, he was surprised to see his time machine broken, and the only people that could have found the time machine were her pursuers.

Second, the shooters were likely time looping just like Angel was. They did mention that she had escaped from them before, though that could be the incident at the school. But if they were using those techniques, then they were probably searching for a timeline where they could capture Damien and Angel.

But why were they resorting to the same ways as her? Timeline cherrypicking is a serious crime, so were they criminals? Arthur did mention Damien was a criminal as well, but at the time, Angel only dismissed it as a mistake with his biometrics tracking device. However, if both Arthur and those shooters were after Damien, it seemed more and more likely that he would do something in the future to anger both the Kingdom and criminals alike.

Angel counted to thirty minutes before she finally regained the strength to sit up. This time around she had recovered faster. Either way, her most important objective right now would be to help Damien escape with her away from those criminals. And first, she would have to find a way to persuade Arthur to change his view on Damien.

As Angel came to that conclusion, she stood up, got dressed, and made her way to the door, preparing to meet Arthur again. As she went around the cabin to the back, she realized that a few of the hay bales were thrown to the side, revealing the hidden trapdoor which was swung wide open.

Angel immediately became alert. Last time, Arthur had carefully covered the entrance to the cellar when he went down. Had Arthur already finished his “business” with Damien? If so, then wouldn’t he have covered it back up after leaving?

Angel slowly walked to the dark hole in the ground, fearing the worst possible scenario that the shooters had already gotten here. She stopped at the edge of the stairs. There was a flickering light of a lamp coming from the end.

“Hello? Are you down there, old man?”

Suddenly a hand reached out from behind and covered Angel’s mouth. Another arm wrapped around her neck in a chokehold. Angel struggled to free herself from the grip, but the woman behind her was too strong. She tried flinging her arms back to strike a hit but missed each time.

As Angel struggled for her life, her body was turned to face the other direction, revealing the three other criminals along with a worried Arthur and a worn-out but still alive Damien. Angel recognized all three from the school shooting.

The tall thinner man was the first to speak as he started walking towards Angel and the woman. “Diane, what’s taking you so long? Have you gotten weaker or something?”

The large muscular man adjusted his hold of Damien over his shoulder. “Relax. I did instruct her not to hurt her, so be a bit lenient.”

“I’ll never forgive you people for this!” Arthur managed to yell out before the short silent man swiftly wrapped his arm around Arthur’s neck.

The lean man ignored Arthur. He stopped at the edge of the forest and turned to wait as Angel continued to struggle. “We really need to hurry up, or she might escape again.”

“Ben, could you stop talking so much? Diane’s already got her on hold.”

That was true. It wasn’t just a physical lock the woman had Angel on, but one in the temporal dimension too. Normally, that would be more than enough to prevent someone from escaping through the time plane. But Angel wasn’t normal, and they didn’t know that.

As the world started to fade around Angel’s eyes, she gathered her energy to push her consciousness back to where she woke. The headache she felt made her sore muscles feel insignificant, but she continued. If she let them capture her, then she wouldn’t get another chance to go back and redo this time period.

And that was the second exception after “don’t die”: under no circumstance would she allow anybody to restrain her. She had already learned that the hard way when she was captured and put in prison once.

So again, Angel’s struggles stopped as she fell limp. No, it wasn’t that she had lost consciousness from the woman’s choking, but that her soul had flown to another place.

And Angel once again woke in the straw bed, with sunlight shining into the room.