Editing City Series:Volume5b Chapter14 (section)

===The Prophetess’s Letter: To Monsieur Guilliaum, the Former Royal Guard Chevalier===

Hello again. This year is approaching its end. I imagine this will be the last letter I send you, Monsieur Guilliaum.

So I will use this chance to tell you everything you must know.

The girl in France with the same name as my daughter is not technically my daughter. She is my great-granddaughter – that is, a descendant of mine from the outside world.

I met an adventurer 25 Rondeaus ago who gave me detailed information on Paris before the Primitif and on the outside world afterwards.

That adventurer’s name was M. Schrier. He had also visited Herlde in ’39 to research the Attesor Project.

In ’39, he was only 27, but when I met him again, he was an old gentleman in his 50s. I used my abilities as a Correcteur to view his memories and confirm it was really him before listening to what he had to say. He had met my daughter in the outside world and received a lot of information from her. I also heard he had met Jack before the previous war. Oh, yes. And my daughter was apparently friends with you at the time of the First Primitif. However, all information on you was apparently erased from the modern records because it was thought best to hide that you were a Resistance leader.

He also told me that my daughter was putting together a method of liberating France.

A number of conditions were necessary, but one was considered the most difficult:

*'''Prove that fully closing oneself off is not possible.

When I asked how you could prove it was not possible, M. Schrier told me this:

“The First Erased were removed from France by the Primitif, but what if an identical person appeared in France and history repeated itself as it had the first time around?”

France’s repeated history has been fixed in place by its immune system, but that would allow you to intervene in the pre-Primitif events.

Then something would exist here that France had supposedly eliminated. Hence, shutting oneself off was not possible.

Do you understand what this means?

My daughter has sent someone to France who will act as her double.

She was supposedly eliminated, but this double is meant to fool France.

If France is trying to fully close itself off, then we must declare that it cannot do that. And that declaration must be made with a voice loud enough to reach every part of France.

But doing this is guaranteed to sacrifice my daughter’s life.

The First Erased do not exist in our version of France. They left France between August of ’43 and August of ’44, so they escaped the Primitif.

If France is resurrected to the outside world’s ’44, no one will notice anything is amiss. But the First Erased will likely notice that all evidence of their time in France is missing. After all, France has been repeating this year without them as a part of it.

But there is one exception: Beretta.

If France is liberated, there will be a Beretta in France that France accepts to be the original Beretta, but my actual daughter will be outside of France.

I have heard of someone stuck in the past waiting long enough to meet their younger self, but there is only one option when the exact same person exists twice in the same timeline.

When they both appear, the one with less ability to prove their existence will disappear.

Two identical words are not needed.

I do not know why my daughter is trying to sacrifice herself, but that is what she wants and I wish to assist her.

My daughter once discovered where I was but lacked the courage to come meet me. But this other Beretta will come.

We need to play the part to help her take on the role of my real daughter. Do you see now why I have been sending you letters under a pseudonym and suggesting that you tell them nothing? I knew they would come to visit me, so I could not have Rosetta seeing my name on the envelopes. I must be no more than a mother who knows nothing and cannot prophesy.

My daughter once abandoned so much and fled.

Is that why she is working to liberate France even though it means erasing herself?

I will continue to wonder about that as I wait for the other Beretta, greet her, and tell her nothing. She must liberate France of her own free will. That is the only she can be the “real” Beretta.

Monsieur Guilliaum, do you wish to be the real version of yourself?

If so, continue ever forward no matter what sacrifices it requires. I believe you will soon be planning an uprising of the Paris Resistance.

No matter how that ends, always be calling for the liberation of Paris.

History will attempt to correct itself before long. All of this is following the same course that led to the first Primitif, but that changes when she visits me. I want to bet everything on that.