Stop Hypnotizing Me, Villainous Princess!

Chapter 49: The Lake and the Ripple Theory of Fate

[Plot Deviation: 0.00%]  

Lynn’s mind faltered for a moment, staring in disbelief at the system panel.  

The events with the Creationist Sect had only unfolded yesterday—scenes still vivid in his memory. He had saved over three hundred lives, drastically altering their fates and indirectly affecting the trajectory of Yveste’s future.  

Even setting that aside, Lynn vividly remembered their first encounter when he removed her mask. If not for that pivotal moment, he wouldn’t have earned the system points necessary to acquire the Lie Eater skill, let alone survive the hypnosis experiments.  

Cause and effect are intertwined. If there’s a cause, there must be an effect.  

By all logic, the plot deviation shouldn’t be zero.  

Yet here it was, staring him in the face.  

After a moment of silence, Lynn began to consider alternative explanations.  

No, that didn’t make sense.  

He dismissed the idea almost immediately. Not only did he find the concept absurd, but the original novel contained no such setting. The story followed a single linear timeline, with every event progressing toward a predetermined ending.  

From Lynn’s perspective, this was more akin to axis time theory—a single, unalterable timeline that moved forward until the story concluded. The notion of infinite possibilities contradicted the very structure of this world.  

In fact, Lynn had always thought parallel worlds were a flawed premise. Consider stories from his past life where protagonists traversed to alternate timelines to save heroines from tragic fates. While these tales often ended on a joyful note, they overlooked the countless other timelines where the heroines remained doomed.  

Salvation in one timeline merely bred complacency about the suffering in countless others.  

But if not parallel worlds, what could explain this phenomenon?  

Could it be predetermined destiny, where the future dictates the past?  

For instance, if someone were destined to die in poverty, even an unexpected windfall would be squandered through various means, ensuring they remained impoverished.  

In this analogy, Yveste was the impoverished figure, and Lynn was the windfall. His intervention, no matter how impactful, was ultimately powerless against the world’s will to correct the plot.  

But this theory didn’t hold either.  

If it were true, Yveste should at least retain memories of her "wealth"—the changes Lynn had brought. Yet her earlier reaction showed no trace of recognition.  

Feeling the Witch of the End’s gaze on him, Lynn broke the silence.  

“Your Highness… do you remember Morris, Afia, or Milanie?”  

His eyes fixed on her face, searching for any flicker of recognition.  

This time, the Witch’s reaction was different.  

Her expression froze briefly before returning to its usual icy indifference. Lynn caught a fleeting trace of recollection in her features—a memory, perhaps, though not a pleasant one.  

“By now,” she said softly, “their time is almost up.”  

Lynn’s heart sank.  

“What do you mean?”  

“They’re still alive in your era,” the Witch explained calmly. “But they won’t be for long.”  

Lynn took a deep breath. He had no reason to doubt her words.  

In the original novel, little was said about the princess’s subordinates, and Lynn couldn’t recall any mention of those three. It was entirely plausible they had died early in the story, long before the plot’s main events unfolded.  

Alternatively, these characters might not have existed in the original timeline. Their presence could be a result of the world’s will filling narrative gaps after Lynn’s arrival.  

But this revelation wasn’t his primary concern.  

If the Witch remembered her former subordinates but not Lynn, what made him different?  

A realization began to form in Lynn’s mind.  

Perhaps it was because he wasn’t an inherent part of this world.  

To its inhabitants, he was an anomaly—a foreign element incompatible with the established narrative.  

A… flaw in the system.  

Lynn glanced at the Witch again.  

“Your Highness, may I ask one more question?”  

The Witch nodded faintly.  

“In your long life, have you ever heard the name ‘Lynn Bartleon’ elsewhere?”  

Her answer was immediate and dispassionate.  

“No.”  

Lynn exhaled deeply, relief washing over him.  

“That’s good to know,” he murmured.  

The Witch tilted her head slightly. “What do you mean?”  

“I mean,” Lynn replied, his eyes sharp, “to you, my era is history. But to me, if I had truly existed in the past, there’s no way I would have been insignificant.”  

“The name Lynn Bartleon is destined to echo through the world.”  

With that, Lynn dismissed his earlier "poverty" analogy.  

This world might be bound by predestination, but Lynn was not.  

The term plot deviation was a clue. Combined with his memories of his past life, it became clear: he had been placed here to alter the original story’s course.  

There were no parallel worlds or alternate timelines—just a single axis of time.  

The Third Princess and the Witch of the End were one and the same, separated only by time.  

To Lynn, the situation was like standing on one side of a vast lake while the Witch existed on the opposite shore. Neither could directly affect the other.  

The only way to bridge the gap was to throw stones into the water, creating ripples that could propagate across the lake.  

In the real world, these "stones" represented changes to the plot.  

The lake itself symbolized the world’s will—its corrective forces—and the ten thousand years of time separating them.  

Currently, Lynn’s actions had only created small ripples, easily absorbed by the lake.  

This explained why the Witch had no memory of him and why the plot deviation had reset to zero. To the world, Lynn didn’t exist in the past or future—only in the present.  

But this didn’t mean his efforts were futile.  

So far, he had only tossed small stones into the lake.  

But what if, one day, he hurled a mountain?  

If the ripples became waves, they could eventually cross the lake, defying time and rewriting fate.  

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