Parallel Memory

Chapter 770: The Skill That Should Not Have Been

The capital had returned to normal.

That was what everyone believed.

The convergence had been averted.

The northern ruins had been secured.

Hiro had received another victory.

People talked about him again.

The strange pressure Zero had felt was gone.

And yet—

Zero couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Not with Hiro.

Not with Mia.

Not even with Earth Zero.

With himself.

**********************

Zero sat alone in the guild’s archive.

Stacks of old records surrounded him.

Most concerned ancient magic, bloodlines, legendary abilities, and forgotten civilizations.

None were supposed to have anything to do with him.

That was why he had come.

He needed information about one thing.

Parallel Memory.

The skill had existed within him for as long as he could remember.

At first, he had considered it strange.

Then useful.

Then dangerous.

Now—

he wasn’t sure what to call it.

Zero opened another archive.

Nothing.

Another.

Nothing.

Another.

Still nothing.

"Why is there nothing?"

He leaned back.

There should have been something.

Every known skill had a history.

Even obscure abilities had records describing their origin, limitations, or previous users.

But Parallel Memory—

was almost completely absent.

Not rare.

Not classified.

Absent.

As though the world had never expected anyone to possess it.

Zero opened an older volume.

The pages were yellowed.

He searched through the skill classifications.

Combat.

Magic.

Support.

Transformation.

Unique.

Forbidden.

Zero’s finger stopped.

There was a section beneath the ordinary rankings.

F-Rank Skills.

He almost skipped it.

Then one entry caught his eye.

A familiar name.

Zero’s breathing stopped.

Parallel Memory.

His eyes widened.

"No..."

He read the description.

There was almost nothing.

No advanced technique.

No special application.

No combat function.

No growth potential.

Just a single classification.

F-Rank.

And beneath it—

Practical Value: Negligible.

Zero stared at the page.

For several seconds, he couldn’t move.

Then he whispered—

"That’s impossible."

**************************

The skill he possessed was classified as F-rank.

Not SS.

Not S.

Not even A.

F.

The lowest classification.

A useless ability.

Something people would normally ignore.

Zero continued reading.

The description was painfully ordinary.

Parallel Memory was described as a minor mental phenomenon.

Occasional flashes.

Fragments of unfamiliar memories.

No reliable combat benefit.

No measurable mana increase.

No known evolution.

No recorded user had ever demonstrated meaningful applications.

Zero slowly closed the book.

Then opened it again.

The answer didn’t change.

F-rank.

He looked at his own hand.

The same hand that had used abilities far beyond what an F-rank skill should have allowed.

The same mind that had experienced visions of Earth.

The same existence that seemed to be connected to events Earth Zero had spent years trying to understand.

Zero whispered—

"Then why am I different?"

******************************************

The door opened.

Zero immediately closed the book.

Hiro stood there.

"You’ve been here for hours."

Zero looked at him.

"I needed information."

"About what?"

Zero hesitated.

Then—

"Skills."

Hiro walked closer.

"Anything interesting?"

"No."

It was technically true.

Zero didn’t want anyone else to see the page yet.

Hiro noticed his expression.

"You look troubled."

"I’m fine."

Hiro smiled.

"You’re terrible at lying."

Zero almost smiled.

Almost.

Then Hiro’s expression became serious.

"Is this about what happened at the ruins?"

Zero looked away.

"Maybe."

Hiro leaned against the table.

"You’ve been watching me."

Zero’s eyes narrowed.

"Watching?"

"Ever since the northern ruins."

Hiro crossed his arms.

"You keep checking where I am."

Zero remained silent.

"I don’t mind."

Hiro continued.

"But something changed after that."

"What?"

"People started treating me differently."

Zero looked toward him.

Hiro smiled faintly.

"I don’t know why."

Zero knew.

He didn’t tell him.

Instead, he asked—

"How does it feel?"

Hiro thought for a moment.

"Strange."

"Good strange?"

"No."

Hiro shook his head.

"It feels like people suddenly remembered something about me that I forgot."

Zero froze.

The words struck him.

Remembered something.

He looked at the closed book.

Hiro noticed.

"What?"

"Nothing."

********************************************

After Hiro left, Zero reopened the book.

The entry remained unchanged.

Parallel Memory — F-Rank.

Zero stared at it.

Then he remembered Earth Zero’s words.

Your ability doesn’t behave like everyone else’s.

I stopped believing Parallel Memory was only giving you memories.

Zero slowly turned the page.

Nothing.

Another page.

Nothing.

He searched for previous users.

Only one vague reference appeared.

Historical Record: Unknown.

That was all.

No name.

No origin.

No known technique.

No explanation.

Zero frowned.

"Then where did the SS-rank classification come from?"

The question escaped his mouth before he realized it.

He immediately stopped.

SS-rank?

Why had he thought that?

He looked at the skill entry again.

F-rank.

There was no SS-rank anywhere.

Perhaps—

he had simply remembered incorrectly.

Zero closed the book.

But the thought remained.

**********************

That night, Zero returned to the abandoned building.

Earth Zero was waiting.

"You found it."

Zero stopped.

"You knew I would."

"I knew you would eventually."

Zero stepped closer.

"What is Parallel Memory?"

Earth Zero looked at him.

"You found the old classification."

Zero’s expression hardened.

"F-rank."

Earth Zero said nothing.

"Is that what it originally was?"

A long silence followed.

Then—

"Yes."

Zero froze.

"Originally?"

Earth Zero nodded.

"F-rank."

Zero stared at him.

"You knew."

"I suspected."

"That’s not what I asked."

Earth Zero sighed.

"I knew."

Zero’s voice became colder.

"Then why did everyone treat it like something extraordinary?"

"They didn’t."

Zero frowned.

"What?"

"Most people didn’t."

Earth Zero looked toward the dark city.

"That was the point."

Zero didn’t understand.

Earth Zero continued.

"For a long time, Parallel Memory was exactly what the records said."

"Useless?"

"F-rank."

The answer was simple.

"Nothing more."

Zero’s expression changed.

"Then when did that change?"

Earth Zero looked at him.

"I don’t know."

Zero narrowed his eyes.

"You don’t know?"

"No."

Earth Zero’s voice became serious.

"That’s what makes it dangerous."

**************************************

Zero pulled out the archive page.

"I found no record of an evolution."

"There isn’t one."

"No previous user?"

"None that matter."

"No advanced technique?"

"No."

"Then how did it become what it is?"

Earth Zero didn’t answer.

Zero stepped closer.

"How did an F-rank skill become strong enough to connect two worlds?"

Earth Zero’s expression darkened.

"We don’t know that it did."

Zero stopped.

"What?"

Earth Zero pointed toward the page.

"You’re assuming the skill evolved."

Zero looked at him.

"What else could have happened?"

Earth Zero shook his head.

"That’s the question."

*******************************************

The silence between them became heavy.

Zero looked at the classification.

F-rank.

A useless skill.

Something no one should have cared about.

And yet—

his existence had become connected to Earth.

Earth Zero had appeared in Edolas.

The Emperor of Destruction had crossed into the world.

The convergence had nearly happened.

All of it surrounded a skill that was never supposed to matter.

Zero’s voice became quiet.

"If it was always useless..."

Earth Zero looked toward him.

"...then why did everything begin changing after I received it?"

Earth Zero’s expression hardened.

"That’s what I’ve been trying to find out."

Zero looked up.

"You don’t know either."

"No."

"Then you’ve been acting all this time based on a theory."

Earth Zero didn’t deny it.

"I acted based on what I saw."

"And what did you see?"

Earth Zero’s eyes darkened.

"Two worlds beginning to move toward each other."

Zero’s expression changed.

"And you thought Parallel Memory caused it."

"I thought it was connected."

"There’s a difference."

"Yes."

Earth Zero looked toward him.

"That’s why I never told you it was the cause."

**************************************

Zero slowly lowered the page.

Something about that answer bothered him.

Earth Zero had spent so much time manipulating events.

Restoring Hiro.

Preventing the convergence.

Yet he still didn’t know what Parallel Memory truly was.

Which meant—

Earth Zero wasn’t controlling the situation.

He was reacting to it.

Just like Zero.

"Then what do you think happened?"

Earth Zero remained silent.

Zero waited.

Finally—

"I think something changed the moment your skill stopped behaving like an F-rank skill."

Zero’s eyes narrowed.

"When?"

"I don’t know."

"Who changed it?"

"I don’t know."

"Why?"

"I don’t know."

Zero stared at him.

Earth Zero looked almost frustrated.

"That’s the first thing I’ve never been able to find."

Zero’s expression became serious.

"You’ve been searching."

"For years."

"And?"

"Nothing."

***********************************************

Zero looked down at the page again.

Then something caught his attention.

The classification.

The letters were slightly blurred.

Not because the ink had faded.

Because the writing itself seemed distorted.

Zero touched the page.

The moment his finger made contact—

the room disappeared.

Earth Zero immediately moved.

"Zero!"

Too late.

The vision came.

A massive darkness.

A world collapsing beneath it.

Not Edolas.

Not Earth.

Something else.

A ruined world.

A throne.

A figure standing among the remains.

The Emperor of Destruction.

Zero’s eyes widened.

He could feel the memory.

Not his.

Not Earth Zero’s.

Something older.

Something connected to the Emperor.

The world was already dead.

There was no battle left.

No resistance.

No hope.

Only the aftermath of destruction.

Then—

the vision shifted.

Earth.

Buildings.

People.

A world still alive.

Then Edolas.

Its cities.

Its kingdoms.

Its people.

Then both worlds flickered.

As though something had placed them on the same page.

Zero gasped.

The vision disappeared.

He stumbled backward.

Earth Zero caught him.

"Zero!"

Zero looked at him.

His face had gone pale.

"The Emperor..."

Earth Zero’s expression changed.

"What did you see?"

"His world."

Silence.

"It was already gone."

Earth Zero stared at him.

Zero continued.

"He destroyed it."

Earth Zero slowly released his arm.

"Yes."

Zero looked toward him.

"You knew."

"Of course."

"Then why didn’t you tell me?"

"Because it wasn’t part of the deviation."

Zero frowned.

"What do you mean?"

Earth Zero looked away.

"His world had already reached its end."

The words were cold.

Final.

"There was nothing left to save."

Zero remembered the vision.

The ruined world.

The Emperor standing alone.

Then Edolas.

Still alive.

Still moving.

Still fighting.

Zero’s expression darkened.

"And ours?"

Earth Zero didn’t answer.

Zero understood.

The answer was not certain.

Earth Zero looked at the skill page.

"That’s why I became afraid."

"Of Parallel Memory?"

"Of what it might allow."

Zero stared at him.

"But you still don’t know what it can do."

"No."

"Neither do I."

"No."

Earth Zero looked toward Zero.

"That’s the problem."

Zero’s eyes narrowed.

"Then why was it ever ranked SS?"

Earth Zero froze.

Zero immediately noticed.

"You reacted."

Earth Zero looked away.

"Where did you hear that?"

"I remembered it."

"You shouldn’t have."

Zero stepped forward.

"Why?"

Earth Zero’s expression became tense.

"Because there is no record."

Zero looked at the page.

F-rank.

Then back at him.

"But I remember SS."

Earth Zero remained silent.

Zero’s voice became quieter.

"Someone changed the classification."

"No."

"Then what?"

Earth Zero looked directly into his eyes.

"I don’t know."

************************************************

The words should have frustrated Zero.

Instead—

they frightened him.

Because Earth Zero genuinely didn’t know.

And if Earth Zero didn’t know—

then neither did anyone else.

The skill had been F-rank.

Useless.

Ignored.

Forgotten.

Yet somehow, Zero remembered another classification.

One that didn’t exist in the records.

One that shouldn’t exist.

Zero looked at his hands.

"What am I?"

Earth Zero didn’t answer.

Zero looked at him.

"Not what am I supposed to be."

He paused.

"What am I becoming?"

Earth Zero’s expression hardened.

"I don’t know."

Zero looked toward the dark horizon.

For the first time, the question wasn’t whether Parallel Memory was powerful.

It was whether power had ever been the right way to describe it.

The skill wasn’t supposed to matter.

It wasn’t supposed to connect worlds.

It wasn’t supposed to influence major events.

It wasn’t supposed to produce anything beyond useless fragments of memory.

And yet—

Edolas had nearly reached the edge of destruction.

Earth had begun moving toward the same danger.

The Emperor’s world had already fallen.

And Zero stood between all three mysteries.

One world destroyed.

Two worlds still alive.

And an F-rank skill sitting quietly at the center of something no one understood.

Zero closed his eyes.

A faint image appeared again.

The distorted classification.

F.

Then—

for less than a second—

another symbol appeared over it.

SS

Zero opened his eyes.

It was gone.

He said nothing.

Neither did Earth Zero.

But both understood the same thing.

Something had changed.

And whatever had changed—

had happened without anyone understanding how.

Far beneath the capital, somewhere no ordinary person could reach, a dormant magical record flickered.

A classification tried to correct itself.

F-Rank.

It stabilized.

Then flickered again.

For one brief moment—

SS-Rank.

Then back to F.

The record went dark.

No one saw it.

No one knew it had happened.

And somewhere inside Zero—

Parallel Memory remained silent.

As if it were waiting.