Descending Into A Novel

Chapter 178:Female Raymond

Raymond shouldn’t have been surprised.

With an infinite number of possibilities to randomly select from. There were an infinite number of different future timelines where his gender was different. As well as an infinite number of future timelines where he was still the same gender.

He couldn’t choose which possibility timeline he selected from in advance after all. It was only after he had summoned it once could he choose it again.

With his two thousand plus attempts however. He was bound to run into one eventually. It wasn’t a matter of if, but merely a matter of when.

But this was the first time he had actually summoned a female version of himself.

The female version of him opened its eyes. Looking at him, and then the surroundings. Including the engraving on the ground.

"...so I’m a possibility?"

It was still a clone of Raymond after all. Possessing his intelligence and his mind. She read the purpose of the engraving, and easily deduced her own nature.

"Yep. Number 2008."

"Interesting...I’ve never even considered that I might be a possibility, but the signs were there."

From her perspective, she had just randomly appeared here the moment she opened her eyes. Her head filled with memories of things that hadn’t even happened yet, and wouldn’t happen for a while.

It was like being in a dream. Everything was very clearly wrong at times, but her subconscious state merely brushed it all off.

He asked, "So...why the gender change?"

"You know what happens when possibility’s try to tell the future. It never works out."

Rather then telling the future, it was more like the possibility was just reading out the memories that they had.

"I know. But you’re one of the most notable ones so far and I’m burning with curiosity right now."

She pursed her lips, trying to figure out how to word this the best that she could.

"Lets just say that. You do something, to something. Which in return, forced you to temporarily do this. I’m guessing the event which caused my timeline is that rather then temporarily change however, I decided to stay like this permanently instead."

"How far ahead is it?"

"It should be...in a year I think? As long as nothing changes."

Her answer was extremely vague, barely giving any info about what exactly would happen. But Raymond didn’t mind, they were both just looking out for each other after all.

The clones understood they were clones, and the original understood that they were the original.

"How different is your timeline?"

"It should be pretty consistent with what would happen normally. I think the only difference is your choice to remain like this permanently."

Just to check, Raymond threw out several questions that could easily determine this.

"...are you still called Raymond then?"

"Yes. That is weird now that I think about it."

"Does Erin call you dad or mom?"

"Dad, she says Ellen is mom no matter what."

"Does Ellen still punish us for no reason?"

"Yes."

The answer was relatively consistent. There shouldn’t be much differences between her ’past’ and the future.

So the possibility that he had summoned this time was a relatively normal one all things considered.

"So, what is my purpose exactly that I’m here for?"

"...to help me with magic."

"Oh my god."

Raymond, the Archmage. Was too lazy to do his own magic research.

So the answer was simple(to him). Create a possibility from the future that would hopefully have recovered more of their original strength, and would be able to do it faster or better then he could.

Although this was mainly just an excuse for his own laziness...it couldn’t be denied that it was an effective method.

"You’re such a damn-

She paused, realizing that cursing him was the same thing as cursing herself. (Not that it mattered, Raymond cursed his own past self plenty of times before)

In the end, after a lot of struggling and hissing through gritted teeth. She relented.

"Fine. In exchange, I want ice cream every day."

"That’s doable."

"And I want to see Erin every day as well."

"Sure..? But make sure Erin keeps your existence a secret."

"I know, and I also want mandatory three hours of rest each day as well."

"Two hours."

The two of them haggled like that back and forth for a while, discussing the terms of this employment.

Raymond was already plenty used to it, this wasn’t the first time he had to bargain with his possibility clones or his true clones.

It was also made a lot easier when both of them knew who was the original and who was the clone.

The hierarchy was clear after all.

While discussing, Raymond suddenly had a thought appear in his mind.

Not to brag or anything, but he was extremely attractive after all, and she was also extremely beautiful.

If both Raymond and her showed their appearance on Earth, the entire fashion, cinema and art world might have collapsed all together, even on Terra. Where the standard was much higher thanks to mana, the two of them were still considered to be extremely good looking.

"This is your appearance without the ring right?"

"I took off the ring a while ago already."

"How exactly did you change your gender?"

"I used a perfect morph, the spell that Flare taught us. So there’s absolutely no downsides to this form compared to other forms of morph."

"A perfect morph..."

Raymond trailed off slightly.

A perfect morph was a spell every dragon knew, allowing them to perfectly change their forms without suffering any downsides. Since most morphs either weakened the user or something similar.

The perfect morph was, a perfect morph. Allowing the user to transform their body into basically anything with no downsides. If Raymond tried to make himself taller using regular magic, his body would weaken, bones becoming more brittle etc. But a perfect morph would just make himself taller while keeping his body the same.

Which meant that the female him used such a spell purely to change her own gender, when most dragons barely even used the spell unless they needed to.

It’s important to note that the spell caused immense pain.

"...I know I shouldn’t ask but I’m so curious on why this even happened."

"You’ll find out soon anyways. No point in me telling you."

"Didn’t you say it was in a year?"

"A while then."

Raymond knew he shouldn’t have been afraid. According to her, the main difference was that he had chosen to remain female. Not that it was permanent.

But it still meant that sometime in the future, he still inexplicably decided to change his own gender for some reason.

Sometimes, knowing about the future like this was...

"Make sure that Ellen doesn’t find out about this."

"Naturally, this includes my own interests as well after all."

He immediately made his decision, the others couldn’t find out about this. Even Thomas, and Ellen especially couldn’t find out about this!

There wasn’t actually any real problem with letting Ellen know.

If the situation ever came down to it. Raymond was fine with telling Ellen.

But there wasn’t any situation right now, and knowing Ellen. The simple act of showing this clone to her was enough for the two of them to get teased for years straight. Equivalent to social torture, with her holding a sword to his neck.

’Eh? A girl? I didn’t know you had these kinds of tastes Raymond...’

Even if he insisted each time that it wasn’t like that, and it was merely a possible event in the future. Ellen would merely shut her ears and go ’lalala’. Refusing to listen to even a single word of his defense. It was really damn frustrating.

If not for Raymond revealing his past history, Ellen might have continued teasing him about his lack of experience. Despite her own lack of experience herself. Thankfully, she had mostly stopped that now.

But it was only a false sense of security. The calm before the storm. Waiting for something new for her to bite down into.

And she was a perfect topic for Ellen to bite down on.

The two of them quietly imagined what would ever happen if she did find out.

"..."

"..."

The two of them also quietly gritted their teeth in unison.

***

Elsewhere, a certain someone narrowed her eyes.

Looking up at the roof, she paused. Her body still sweating hard.

As usual, Raymond had declined to go to class today. Leaving Ellen alone, and while she normally might have let it slide.

Her intuition was warning her of something. Trying to tell her.

It wasn’t anything bad however, but rather. Something very special instead. Her ’Raymond sense’ had been triggered, something that very rarely triggered unless it involved Raymond.

When she had told Raymond about it, his only reply was ’you’re like an animal’. But she felt that this was a very real ability she had developed recently.

The corner of her lips briefly curled up.

"What is it this time?"

Her opponent also paused, seeing her not moving and assuming something was happening.

"Uhm...is everything alright?"

"Yes."

Everything was more then alright as a matter of fact.