"Yuusha, why did you stop? Oh! Could it be that you're already impatient about the secret place I mentioned earlier?" Iris asked, seemingly noticing that I was lost in thought.
I paused for a moment when I realized that my time had looped again, because I had to process once more what had happened in the previous loop.
So, it was only natural for Iris to ask me since I suddenly stopped. She must have been worried and confused about me.
I used my hand to give her a gesture that I was fine.
I showed her my palm, indicating that I was okay.
"I was just thinking about something for a moment. But yeah… I really am impatient about that place you mentioned. Should we walk a bit faster?" I replied while inviting her.
It was time to do the same things again in this time loop, and I had already decided what I would do here.
I was quite sure that my attempt this time would succeed, and that I could finally be free from this strange cycle that still confused me.
I jogged slightly to Iris's side, then returned to walking beside her as she spoke again.
"I see. I don't think this secret place will surprise you that much, you can see it later anyway," Iris said.
—
Not long after that, the two of us finally arrived at an empty area behind the Yggdrasil tree, more precisely behind Iris's house.
I was no longer surprised by this place at all, because the two of us had already visited the same place in the previous time loop.
"So, where is that secret place?" I asked.
Instead of answering my question, she walked ahead of me and stopped.
She turned around and asked me in a playful tone, as if it truly was part of her nature.
"Yuusha, try to guess the secret place~! If you can guess it, I'll give you a reward," she said with a smile.
"Huh? What kind of thing is that? Hmm…" I muttered softly while thinking of the answer I would give.
I couldn't just say that the secret place was an underground room. If I said that… she would surely be confused and suspicious about how I could know.
As much as possible, I had to think of a clear reason if I wanted to answer her question.
I looked at where she was standing and realized that she was standing right in front of the entrance to the underground room.
Hehe, she was asking a question while also giving a hint at the same time. I think she should study again if she wants to give questions to other people.
She was far too amateur, judging from the question and where she was standing right now.
I pointed toward her, though I didn't mean to. My intention was simply to point at the place behind her.
…I think she understood what I meant, because she fell silent for a moment when she saw me pointing at her.
"Behind you, Iris. I think there's something there," I said while staring straight at her.
"Oh? I didn't expect you to answer like that. You're right! There really is something behind me. It seems I can't play around like this with you," Iris said as she walked toward the door connected to the ground.
I was sure Iris felt that I wasn't someone who could be invited to play guessing games.
Because she might think that I would know the answer anyway, as if I already knew about it.
She cleared away the bushes behind her, and a door connected to the underground could be seen there.
Iris opened it slowly, and the sound it made when opening was almost the same as an ordinary door.
"Let's go in," she said as she walked down the stairs.
I walked behind her, letting Iris enter the underground room first.
——
This was the second time I had entered this place, so I didn't know what to say when I came in.
"Iris, may I read the books on that shelf?" I asked her.
"Huh? Of course, there's no problem if you read them. In that case, I want to look into that large corridor," she said while pointing toward the corridor with an entrance like a cave.
As I remembered, that corridor connected this room to ancient ruins, the place where monsters had appeared in the previous time loop.
After reading a few books here, I would enter that corridor and go to the ruins.
I didn't need to spend too much time on this. I really wanted to live peacefully again without constantly thinking about this repeating time.
The book I took back then… where was it… I think it was around here… it couldn't have disappeared…
Aha! Here it is, the book I took back then but didn't have the chance to open, because monsters had already appeared before I could read it.
Looking at it, I could leave Iris alone for a while with her curiosity, and just focus on this book.
I couldn't read the title anymore, because it was covered by thick dust that hadn't been cleaned for a long time, and I myself couldn't clean it.
I opened a few pages, searching for the truth about what needed to be done for the princess of Riruyo's power to awaken.
…There was nothing different from the book in the ruins over there. Basically, all I had to do was perform romantic actions toward Iris.
Such as hugging, holding hands, patting her head when she was sad, and several other romantic things.
I closed the book and placed it back in its original position, neatly arranged on the dusty shelf in front of me.
I had absolutely no intention of opening the other books. There were too many of them, and I would need time to examine them one by one.
At the very least, I already knew what I had to do now. All that was left was to hold her hand, hug her, and if necessary, make her feel that I would be the only one by her side.
"Iris, do you want to go inside?" I asked while slowly walking toward her.
She glanced at me for a moment before answering my invitation.
"Hmm… I think this is quite dangerous since no one has ever entered it before. But I think the two of us should try," she replied.
I smiled softly at her, before the two of us slowly walked into the corridor.
For Iris, she surely didn't know where this corridor led, unlike me.
"Iris, where are the ancient ruins located?" I asked.
As I remembered, if I had looped back in time starting from a few hours earlier, that meant she and I hadn't gone to the ruins yet.
I asked this as well because it was related to this corridor.
"You even know about the ruins? Well, they're not too far from Yggdrasil. Do you want to visit them tomorrow? Of course, I'll accompany you," she said.
"Of course, that would help me a lot," I replied.
—
Finally, we reached the end of the corridor, and we could see that we had truly walked from beneath Yggdrasil into the ruins.
Iris still looked confused as she glanced around the room, as if trying to confirm where we were.