Editing CubexCursedxCurious:Volume10 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 2===

Hinai Elsie listened with delight to the sound of «Clockwork Life»'s spring being wound.

Surrounding her, the spring was not the only clock sound she was hearing.

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

A clock's inorganic noise was calming. Without it, she could not possibly live on&mdash;Literally.

These clock ticks were coming from the headphones she was wearing on her ears, the music being played nonstop on repeat by her portable music player.

This was the curse of «Clockwork Life». She must listen to the sound of clocks. As soon as she stopped hearing the sound, her body would be overcome by a sense of extreme discomfort and nausea. Although not to the point of causing immediate death, should the shortage persist, she would probably go insane and die within a day. However, she was never worried at all. Because this was the way things were. She was going to listen to this sound forever. Starting from the moment she first obtained this tool, forever&mdash;

Guided by a clock's steady sounds, past scenes surfaced in Elsie's mind.

Once upon a time in a certain town, there was an insane clockmaker. He loved clocks and watches zealously and only made bizarre timepieces. As a result, he lived in destitute poverty, finally going mad, unable to win recognition from others. Hence, he started advocating that time ruled over everything; time was precious. To people, time was "life" itself.

Starting from some unknown point in time, he started believing that his mission in life was to spread this truth among the other foolish humans. Hence, he began to take action towards this goal.

Namely, he would lock two people in a cellar and make them kill each other. These two people would be linked by an existing, deep bond such as being family or lovers. Once he prepared the location and the circumstances, all he said was the following.

I'll give you four minutes to kill each other. If one of you succeeds, the survivor shall go free. Once the time limit is reached, I will release poison gas to kill you both.

Finally, to inspire the foolish humans, he gave a single hint&mdash;"Time is life."

The cellar contained nothing, except for a pocket watch that merely counted up to four minutes, specially made for this experiment, attached to a long silver chain. One minute to grasp the situation, one minute to hesitate, one minute to understand what needed to be done and commit oneself, one minute to take actual action. Hence, he decided on these four minutes as the time limit.

Everyone locked in the cellar died. Confronted with an order to kill a loved one, everyone was at a loss on what to do. Meanwhile, four minutes passed and the clockmaker released the poison gas. Among the victims, there were some who made their decision to kill the other person, but they either met opposition or failed to kill within four minutes. Barehanded, there was simply not enough time.

However, the clockmaker was not asking for something impossible. He had given a hint.

Only one person understood his hint.

Only one girl, locked into the cellar together with her father, understood the significance in the words "time is precious" and ''used the only tool present in the cellar, namely, the pocket watch's long silver chain, to strangle her father to death''&mdash;



In terms of time, this was but a moment's reminiscence.

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

Currently, Elsie found the ticking sounds, coming from both her headphones and the pocket watch in her hand, especially nostalgic. In that particular cellar, this pocket watch was making these noises as it mercilessly marched on for four minutes.

In this dream-like state yet not in a dream, she kept staring at the clock hands. The rhythmic movement seemed extremely slow to her. Like eons&mdash;yet a brief duration.

Ahhh, the clockmaker's ideas were not wrong&mdash;Back then, the time defined by this pocket watch was indeed life itself. The time known as her own life was concentrated in those four minutes.

Click click. Click click. Elsie turned the watch stem. She had already spun it enough for two minutes' worth, probably. But still not done yet, still too early. Click click. Click click.

Time, i.e. life, was gradually injected into the pocket watch. New power was injected into the pocket watch.

Then «Clockwork Life» began to animate.



It was as though it were trying to imitate the answer prepared by that clockmaker back then.