Chapter 83: The King's Treasury Within a Twenty-Meter Radius

At this moment, Roland felt a bit dazed, as if he were standing among the clouds. In JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, compared to the final antagonists with all manner of time-related abilities, Killer Queen initially seemed rather unremarkable. After all, when facing bosses who could stop or erase time at will, the power to turn someone into a bomb, while ruthless, always felt less oppressive.

But everything changed with the appearance of the third bomb. Its advent declared a simple truth: time does not only flow forward. The ability to rewind, "Bites the Dust," left an impression on Roland when he first read the original work—one even deeper than the other villains. That power, which mercilessly erased all factors but left behind endless despair, was uniquely terrifying.

Were it not for the fact that, except for its first use, even the user retained no memory afterward, and that the activation conditions were so strict, it would have been an invincible Stand. The nature of a Stand’s power is intimately tied to its owner’s character. When Roland’s soul reached a new height and his Stand entered dormancy, he once heard Killer Queen’s call—it was asking for his desire.

Roland had thought deeply about it. He was not born evil, nor was he some misfit with a warped nature. How should he move forward? How should he face himself and his own desires? These questions had once confounded him. Fortunately, he had many teachers beside him. Ryūnosuke Uryū, who indulged himself and fell into the abyss; Kirei Kotomine, spiritually incomplete, seeking release in the extremes of repression and struggle; Kiritsugu Emiya and Zouken Matou, who lost their true selves and became twisted in pursuit of their ideals—all served as vivid examples.

To find the path he ought to follow, he needed to know where "after" lay. Looking back on his life, that turning point was simple enough. From the moment he was chosen by the Key of All Spirits, from the moment he contracted with his first Spirit, Roland’s "after" was set—something to remember, and also the "before" toward which he would advance.

The instant these two became one, Roland understood his answer. He didn’t need the power to erase all his enemies, but rather hoped for a chance—a chance to overturn the past when facing utter despair. No matter what foes might seal him away, no matter the world’s enmity or the endlessness of his goals, he could always seize the possibility of change.

Just as he had the moment he first embraced his Stand.

Suddenly, a mysterious sense of enlightenment surged through Roland’s heart. Without thinking, he looked up at the sky. The high-hanging moon was beginning its slow descent; midnight had passed, and a new day had arrived. Today marked exactly thirty-one days since Roland set foot in Fuyuki City. The Spirit Contract: Yoshikage Kira—completed.

“Impossible! This is absolutely impossible!”

Gilgamesh ground his teeth, unable to accept what was before him. Even Saber was aghast. Before such a fearsome power, even the King of Eternity himself felt a trace of despair.

At first, he speculated whether Roland had deployed Avalon—the noble phantasm that shielded its bearer, repelling all interference. But when his second attack was similarly erased, Gilgamesh dismissed that thought. The ability to restore the past for a single individual, without affecting any other beings in the world, was simply too outrageous.

This could already be called a miracle—no, even a magic, or perhaps something greater. To wield such power in the mortal world, like a Reality Marble, should draw the world’s correction. Yet Roland seemed utterly unaffected, strolling nonchalantly toward Archer.

“There is nothing impossible about it, Gilgamesh. As the King of Heroes, don’t lose your composure. If you still can’t understand, let me teach you a lesson. No matter the time or place, one must always treat the unknown with reverence.”

The moment Gilgamesh was marked by the fourth bomb due to his hostility, the outcome of this unfinished battle was already sealed as his defeat. No matter what attacks he launched at Roland, as soon as the result was set, time would rewind to before the attack. The unaffected Roland would have already advanced farther into the future. The more Gilgamesh struggled, the greater the distance between him and Roland became.

Roland smiled meaningfully. “The fourth bomb’s power is to rewind time, but at its core, it erases the abnormal results from past to future—it manipulates causality, manipulates fate. What truly happened cannot be changed.”

“Your attack struck me; that is a reality that cannot be erased. That causality is already engraved in time. Even if the flow of time is bound by my Killer Queen, that reality will not change, for it is absolute fate.”

Watching Gilgamesh frown at his words, Roland’s lips curled upward. “King of Heroes, will this fated reality befall the me who stood in the future, past the moment of attack—or will it strike you, who has only just reached a time that is my past, but for you is the very next moment? Why don’t you try and guess?”

“Could it be—” Gilgamesh’s expression changed drastically. He glanced instinctively at the wound that had suddenly appeared, the one that struck him down.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Roland answered his guess with a smile.

In the next instant, a roar of explosions burst directly upon Gilgamesh!

If not for his golden armor, which could withstand even A-rank Noble Phantasms and absorbed the brunt of the damage, Gilgamesh might already have been at death’s door. Even so, he was in a bad way. Blasted back several steps, he clutched his mouth, but blood still seeped out between his fingers.

“This is a reality I will never acknowledge!”

Yet even now, Gilgamesh’s fighting spirit was unbroken. He shouted in a strident voice, “The world is but my garden! An aberration that overturns the rules of this planet cannot be permitted to exist!”

“I shall not lose to you! If this is not a curse, but true fate, then witness this strike!”

Gilgamesh’s expression grew solemn. At such close range, he now had a better means of attack. All around, golden ripples spread outward from Roland, enclosing him in a barrier. In such a cage, no one could escape. Gilgamesh, battered as he was, regained his air of confidence.

Roland, however, looked up expectantly and pointed at Gilgamesh.

“Your next words will be—”

“Be torn to pieces for my pleasure, mongrel!”

“Be torn to pieces for my pleasure, mongrel!”

Roland and Gilgamesh spoke in unison, the complete transparency of the situation making Gilgamesh’s face grow even darker.

But his confidence remained undimmed. “This is a cage the King has prepared for you. The moment you make a move, they will slice apart everything in this trapped space—be it you or this so-called Killer Queen. I shall see through your every action.”

Hundreds of golden portals enveloped Roland layer upon layer; even Gilgamesh himself could no longer see what was happening inside. But that suited him just fine. He sneered, uttering the words of doom.

“Take this: the King’s Treasury, with a twenty-meter radius!”

Current progress: 6000/16000. Another chapter will be released later; the remaining 8K will be posted at 5 o’clock.

(End of this chapter)