"The pocket watch…"
Shaer looked down at her hands. They were empty; only the cut on her right thumb reminded her that the watch had ever existed.
"What's wrong? Thinking about me?"
A bright silver light screen unfolded before her, following the turn of her head and always staying in front of her eyes.
Shaer remembered that when the watch had been activated by her blood just now, some kind of binding notice had appeared.
Had the watch bound directly to her body?
"System?"
She called out.
The screen flickered and shifted, and several options appeared.
"Simulation"
"Skills"
"Storage"
"Point Shop"
"Ps: Next time just say it in your head :D"
It really was a system.
And a chatty one, at that.
Shaer opened the "Simulation" tab. A familiar screen flashed before her eyes.
"Future: 2 Days (Saint 741, June 19, 18:58) (Cost: 10 Fate Points)"
"Past: 1 Day (Saint 741, June 16, 11:55) (Cost: 10 Fate Points)"
"Old Days: ***, *** Days (???) (Cost: 10,000 Fate Points)"
"Ps: Your 'Future' simulation is frozen at or before 18:31 on June 19. Make changes in reality to break the death ending, and you can widen the number of days available to simulate in the future."
She saw that aside from the future, the dates for "Past" and "Old Days" had become random.
"Until the host's 'death ending' is changed, the future simulation will be limited to the period before the moment of death."
As if anticipating her thoughts, the silver screen explained her doubt.
In other words, unless she survived the death event the day after tomorrow, the window for simulating the future would always be limited to the time between now and 18:30 on the 19th?
"Correct."
"System, if I go back to the past, can I change the future?" Shaer asked on reflex.
This question was too important. Anything she did after going back could trigger unpredictable butterfly effects.
"Simulations of the future and the past will not affect reality. Simulations of the 'Old Days' will only affect the 'those' that belong to the Old Days."
So she couldn't change the past…
Hard to say if that was good or bad. At least nothing she did inside a simulation would cause massive damage to reality.
As for simulating the future—never mind anything else—she could get rich just betting on horse races. As long as she kept a low profile, controlled how often she won and lost, and went to different tracks each time, the gangs wouldn't come after her.
Exhaling slowly, Shaer exited the simulation screen and digested the information.
She didn't want to jump into the future again right now. Rushing two days ahead would accomplish nothing—and would force her to witness her sister's death again.
First, she needed to understand all of the system's functions.
She opened the second tab, "Storage." Inside were four empty little slots, with nothing in them.
So this must be where items were stored.
She left "Storage" and opened the "Point Shop" below.
A large interface spread out before her, filled with densely packed categories and slots, though only the first few were lit.
"[.450 (11.43 mm) Black Powder Bullet (slightly deformed)]"
"Fate Points: 1"
"[Bolen Private Middle & Secondary Academy Diploma (Shaer)]"
"Fate Points: 1"
"[Bolen Private Middle & Secondary Academy Graduation Robes]"
"Fate Points: 1"
"..."
A quick scan left Shaer momentarily speechless.
She recognized these—they were the things she'd had on her person when she entered the simulation.
She hadn't expected that even the bullet that entered the back of her skull could be purchased.
A bit of gallows humor, that.
But—
You could actually buy items out of a simulation? Wouldn't that cause some kind of time-space paradox?
"Purchasable items are system copies. Except for items with the [Unique] trait, everything else can be bought."
The system replied in time, resolving her doubt.
Her last question, naturally, was about the skill she'd received after the previous simulation:
[Dexterity Lv.1].
As she thought it, a silver panel appeared before her eyes.
"Dexterity Lv.1: Slightly increases your agility, making your movements nimbler."
Shaer curled her fist; she didn't feel any increase in raw strength.
She stood and tried a few warmups. After some testing, she realized her body had, in fact, changed.
She could jump farther and higher than before. The beam about two and a half meters up—she could now touch it with her fingertips without even going all out. Given her previously unremarkable fitness, this was a big improvement.
With her height, that had been impossible before.
Beyond that, her sense of balance had improved significantly, and when she landed, her body instinctively used techniques to absorb force.
Shaer was certain she hadn't known those moves before. She wasn't exactly clueless about sports previously—she simply didn't know them at all.
It seemed [Dexterity Lv.1] had improved her overall bodily responsiveness, making her more agile than she used to be.
And this was just the consolation prize for running a little in the future simulation.
If she completed other tasks in there or raised the system's evaluation, would she gain even stronger skills?
This ability… was powerful.
In an instant, Shaer had reached her verdict on the system.
Something occurred to her. She left the living room at a quick pace, ran upstairs to her small room, and pulled a thread-bound, hard-cardboard notebook and a graphite pencil from a drawer.
When she opened it, the pale yellow paper gave off a faint alum scent. Shaer put pencil to page and wrote a line in Chinese on the first page:
[Saint 741, June 19 — 6:31 p.m. (Time of Death)]
That was probably when the incident would happen two days from now—the time of her sister's death… and her own.
After thinking for a while, she continued:
"From now on, I'll record every important thing that happens in a single day in this notebook. Don't overlook any detail that runs counter to reason or intuition…"
Her graceful handwriting flowed smoothly from the pencil tip. What she wrote was less a diary than a warning to her future self.
After a few lines, Shaer paused. The silver system interface appeared again before her. She opened the simulation screen once more.
She had no need to simulate the past right now. If she simulated the future, she would arrive at the point where nothing could be undone.
Too little room to maneuver.
Because when she simulated the future, she lacked the memories of the intervening time.
For example: if Shaer left a piece of cake by her bed on the 17th—today—then jumped to the 19th via the system and found the cake gone, she wouldn't know who had eaten it or why it had gone missing.
But if she used the notebook, she could check it and learn why the cake had disappeared.
She could even leave prompts in advance, instructing her future self—based on the notebook's entries—how to handle the cake.
Compared to diving straight into a simulation, leaving information in the notebook would let Shaer obtain more intel that the simulation itself couldn't give her.
She needed "herself" to help her investigate.
Through the silver screen, Shaer wrote in Chinese on the paper on her desk:
[Ayan will clash with Big Sis on June 19, leading to her death.]
[Do not attend the graduation ceremony on the 19th. Try to persuade Big Sis and me to move to another district early, away from Clocktower Lane, to avoid the clash.]
[The Blackwater Gang seems to be the hidden hand. If possible, gather information about them.]
The Blackwater Gang was a local outfit in Bolen, controlling all the taverns and underground moonshine stills in Clocktower Lane. Shaer didn't know why she and her sister had become entangled with that shadowy power.
After all, Shaer acted extremely low-key, keeping a certain distance even from the noble and wealthy students at school to avoid choosing the wrong side and being hated by the other.
With that level of caution, what had drawn the Blackwater Gang's attention to them?
Setting the pencil down, Shaer refocused on the silver screen.
When she had simulated two days ahead, she hadn't possessed the memories for the two days between now and then. The only way forward was to drive herself, in each simulation, to take a different route—and then record and analyze it.
Shaer didn't know if this method would work, but all things had to be tried.
There was something else that puzzled her.
Ayan had harassed her countless times before, but he never pushed things into a direct confrontation—he specialized in sticking like glue. Why had it escalated into bloody violence this time?
Was it because he said something that completely enraged her sister?
"No…"
Shaer shook her head on instinct.
Her sister would take her warnings to heart. The other side must have struck first.
Even though the news of her sister's death in the simulation had nearly overwhelmed her, she could still clearly discern everything happening around her.
The Blackwater Gang had come to clear the scene, and an old man's voice had said something behind her.
Shaer thought carefully and soon recalled the older voice's words:
"Six thirty-one… why is the ritual off schedule?"
Off schedule… ritual… Off schedule for what? What ritual?
Could the brawl, her sister's death, and even her own have all been products of human design?
Shaer didn't know, but she knew she could try to investigate.
With that, she put pencil to paper again and wrote another line in the notebook:
[If time permits, investigate the Blackwater Gang and this so-called ritual in detail.]
When she finished, Shaer set down the pencil and opened the system again.
"Spend 10 Fate Points to go to the Future?"
After checking her notes for omissions, she closed the notebook and nodded.
"Yes."
Silver hands spun before her eyes, growing larger and larger until her vision was filled with endless silver-white and she lost all sense of her body.
When she could move her fingers again, the silver light peeled away, and the patter of fine rain sounded in her ears.
The bright silver screen before her showed the time she had arrived.
"Future"
"Saint 741, June 19, 18:29"
"Countdown — 23:59:59"
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