Either I'm just imperceptive as hell or this is a weird thing to say, but was Rel ever mentioned in some capacity to be related to the countdown or be a plot to free Samuel before Alessia had the milkshakes with Bitey and Bernardo? Honestly I didn't even think he was a part of any of this so far, and when one of the theories of the burned man was that Rel was going to help with freeing Samuel it kinda threw me off a bit.
The burned man has speculated that the countdown could be when Alessia meets up with Rel when discussing the countdown with Pyr which was simply denied by him. (I think this occurs after finishing Aloys 2, Bitey 2, and Alessia 2 when the burned man discovers Pyr's existence.) Rel’s involvement with everything so far was revealed during Aloys 2 when Obli talks about how Rel is helping rebuild the portal with a shapeshifter. Rel’s involvement with the portal is also stated later on during the new part of the story.
Assuming that you are talking about one of my theories, it is a stretch to say that Rel was helping free Samuel specifically. My theory assumes that he knows about the portal, and understands what will happen after opening the portal with the goal of freeing Samuel. It also assumes that he is willing to do this, with a certainty of annihilation of the world as a result of the portal opening. This could be explained, as someone could give him the information about the portal and was under the gnosis processes, but there is little evidence to say this is the case. (This also assumes that my idea of the gnosis processes is correct, but that is for another post.)
My theory should have been more vague, saying that the resulting help from Rel will result in the freeing of Samuel, and being more open to other ideas instead of the idea being the only true way of thinking the situation. But I guess I wanted something concrete to stand on instead of giving vague answers.