I entered the world of time once again. Jules was already waiting for me. Now that I think about it, Jules's real reason for wanting me to find the fragments probably wasn't to save the Ghost Burial Squad.
"Did you find it, Ethan Zhang? The third Time Fragment."
I shook my head. At that moment, the pair of black eyes on Jules's pale face flickered, and he spoke with a hint of confusion.
"Didn't you already enter the real point in time?"
"I ran into someone—I'm not sure what it was. When I tried to take the fragment, I failed. Just get me something to eat first."
As I spoke, Jules waved his hand. In the distance, a wooden floor and a dining table appeared, covered in food. I sat down, planning to take my time talking with Jules.
I wasn't actually hungry. I just needed to think about how to talk to Jules. But I had a feeling he already knew what I was thinking.
"Go ahead, Ethan Zhang."
As expected, here it comes.
"Why, exactly? What are you trying to do? If you need my help, I'll do what I can."
Jules started laughing, his mouth splitting open wide. He came over to sit across from me, and we drifted together in this pocket of time. The spot where I sat kept slowly spinning, but strangely, there was no sense of dizziness at all.
"You've seen that guy, haven't you? We can't catch him, but he keeps poking around, like a thorn in our side, always doing something in our territory. That's why we have to erase the markers he's left behind."
"It's these Time Fragments, right?"
Jules nodded, then pointed upward.
"We want you to deal with the thing above, but in the short term, it's impossible."
I made a sound of acknowledgment, but quickly understood what Jules meant.
"It's my Instinct. Coexistence, huh?"
Jules got up and came to stand beside me.
"A few years, decades, maybe hundreds of years—you'll never truly coexist with that thing. But what about a thousand years? Ten thousand?"
I swallowed, finished my drink, set the glass down, and looked at Jules.