"!!!" Though his original purpose had long been forgotten, Darius was still obsessed with Pandora's Box. He even forgot to stop Miyu from rescuing Shirou Emiya, hurriedly asking the man before him, "What's inside!?"
"Another worldline." Looking directly at the settings could save a lot of trouble. "Pandora's Box, in essence, is a Branch Correction Regeneration Device. When a worldline becomes distorted, it swaps the inside and outside of the box, using the other worldline backed up inside to prevent the world's destruction. And, this box has actually been opened before."
Although there were only two sentences, for Darius, who had spent his entire life entangled with Pandora's Box, the amount of information was already too much to bear. He had actually guessed long ago that the box might contain another world, but the phrase "the box has already been opened" still shocked him.
"You say the box has already been opened?" Darius's face gradually contorted as he covered his eyelids with both hands. If this were true, then the world replacement had already taken place once. In that case, the hope within the box simply did not exist; instead, it was a distorted world. All his efforts seemed like a joke. "This, this is impossible. This is impossible! Pandora has no reason to lie to me!"
Indeed, Darius had spent his entire life trying to open this thing, yet Jiang You had dismissed his thousand-year-old wish with a single sentence. No one could accept this. However, Jiang You had directly revealed the Ainsworth Family's darkest secret. Combined with his own knowledge of Pandora's Box, all the evidence told him that Jiang You was likely telling the truth. After his beliefs were repeatedly tested, he simply labeled Jiang You's words as a lie. "No, you're lying! This world is the one that's distorted! What proof do you have? That's right, you're on Shirou Emiya's side, you're lying to me!!! Go to hell!!"
"I knew this would be the outcome." Jiang You also planned to resolve the final boss of Prisma Illya this simply, though the result was indeed quite simple. "Then... Miyu, beat him up!"
As mentioned before, Darius, who had swapped himself into the Giant King's body, was just so-so. Now, in his current state of having seized his descendant's body, he was even more hopelessly weak. Jiang You directly chose a forceful solution.
In his berserk state, Darius did not choose to flee. He was desperate to capture Miyu and fulfill his thousand-year-old wish. Meanwhile, Miyu was also fuming with anger because Darius had harmed her brother. When enemies met, their eyes turned red with rage, and the two immediately clashed in a fierce brawl.
Soon, drawn by the sounds of battle, Angelica and Erika rushed over, and Kuro, unable to resist the urge to fight, joined the fray.
"What do you mean the Box has already been opened?" Prisma Illya was completely bewildered. She couldn't understand how Jiang You had managed to break Darius's composure with just two sentences. She understood absolutely nothing.
"To put it simply, this world has already been reset once. According to the development of your world, Pandora's Box was ultimately never opened, and this world was eventually destroyed because of Darius's selfish desires. You traveled six thousand years into the past to save the world, changed Pandora, and had her open the Box, which swapped this world, destined for destruction because of Darius, into the Box. The world Darius wants to go to is actually the one he abandoned, the one that was destroyed."
"Then here's the question: You said my original worldline didn't have you in it, right? Since everything is different, how can you be sure this is a swapped timeline?" Prisma Illya seemed to have grasped the key point, remembering clearly what Jiang You had said before. "If it's a branch worldline, then the plot up to this point should be the same, right?"
"It's simple." Jiang You spoke with an air of complete confidence, then leaned in and whispered in Prisma Illya's ear, "I was just bluffing. It would have been great if I could've tricked him into stopping now. But obviously, it failed. We just have to solve this with force... wait..."
Jiang You suddenly realized something. If this was indeed a New Game Plus playthrough, killing Darius right now would create a logic paradox. In this kind of situation, anyone else would have been corrected by the Counter Force. But the person who tampered with things was Jiang You. If he were to do that, the Counter Force wouldn't be able to affect him, and it would have no choice but to resort to letting the world be destroyed as a backup measure.
"Alright... Thanks for reminding me, but this is also very easy to verify. Anyway, let's just pray that this is the first playthrough, otherwise things will get very troublesome."
"Don't you have any friends?" Jiang You suddenly asked Erika a completely random question. The blonde loli just glanced at Jiang You and didn't respond.
Then Jiang You launched a follow-up attack. "So you still don't have any friends?"
This time, Erika's gaze lingered on Jiang You a bit longer before she looked away. But the fleeting panic in her eyes confirmed the current state of the worldline for Jiang You. Crap, it's a New Game Plus!
"Illya, you don't want the world to explode either, right?" Having reached his conclusion, Jiang You grabbed Illya, who was about to help.
"Why is the world suddenly going to explode?!" After her initial confusion, Illya immediately understood what Jiang You meant. In other words, this world had already been swapped. "So, I have to save the world now, right? Tell me, what should I do?"
"How about a journey lasting six thousand years?" Jiang You extended an invitation that sounded as heavy as a black hole, only slightly less intense than forming a band for a lifetime. Jiang You also added an explanation that this journey was a one-way trip.
"Didn't you say you wouldn't let me stand alone for eternity?" Illya shivered. On the original worldline, she had made that choice to save her friends after fully preparing herself mentally. Now, her bonds with Miyu and Kuro had only just begun. To complete the mission of saving the world over a period of time that almost exceeded human history was still too terrifying for an elementary school student like her.
Although she would eventually choose the same path, the current her couldn't wholeheartedly agree right away.
Reading Illya's inner thoughts clearly, Jiang You also thought of a countermeasure: "Tada! The complete Prisma Illya manga series! Just consider it as if you've experienced the full Bond. Also, I won't let you be alone; I'll spend those six thousand years with you."
"I really can't just let the world be destroyed." Illya finally made up her mind. She also couldn't refuse Jiang You's offer of companionship. Having someone she knew spend that long stretch of time with her was infinitely better than going through it alone in secret. This way, Jiang You would take up too much of her life. "You guy, you're so despicable!"
Of course, it wouldn't be so extreme. In terms of actual operation, those six thousand years wouldn't need to be spent in full. With Jiang You's Authority, accelerating it would be significantly faster.
"So, let's just play along with our Mr. Darius for a bit." To ensure Darius wouldn't be killed instantly, Jiang You could only temporarily BAN Tiamat. Still, it wasn't a big deal; for Miyu, it was just a matter of tolerating it for a while.