"It's me, Traveler! Did you miss Paimon?"
'Yeah, Paimon, I missed you a lot.' Natsume was a bit excited. After all, in a strange world, having something familiar by her side made her quite happy.
"Paimon is also very happy to see Traveler!" Paimon's voice was light and cheerful. "Now, let me introduce the system to Traveler."
"Traveler can call out 'Menu' in your mind to open the system menu. It's similar to a game menu."
Natsume called out 'Menu' as Paimon said. Sure enough, a light blue translucent screen appeared before her eyes, with her avatar in the top left corner. Natsume clicked on it with her consciousness and found her detailed information. Her name had been changed to Natsume Natsuki, and her age was 20, shrinking by several years compared to her previous life. Her appearance had also changed to look like Lumine from Genshin Impact. It felt a bit strange seeing it for the first time.
Closing the personal information, there were several sections below, including Inventory, Characters, Quests, and the Shop. Natsume noticed one section in particular—Gacha.
She couldn't help but ask Paimon, 'Paimon, what's this Gacha all about?'
Paimon explained, "As Traveler can see, Traveler needs to complete quests to earn rewards like Mora and Primogems. Quests are issued irregularly. The Mora and Primogems obtained can be used to buy weapons, food, and upgrade materials in the shop. Among them, Primogems can also be used in the Gacha system to pull for characters. The specific rules are similar to the Gacha systems Traveler is familiar with."
'Quests? Is there a penalty for failing?' Natsume had never done quests in real life and was a bit worried about not doing well at first and failing.
"Don't worry, Traveler, there are no penalties for failure. Quests related to the protagonist offer the most rewards. While there's no penalty for failing these, it will definitely affect the goal of balancing red and black. Traveler should still try to complete them."
Paimon comforted Natsume. He was Traveler's best companion, how could he punish Traveler for failing a quest?
"And don't worry, Traveler. Although Paimon can't appear by Traveler's side yet, Paimon will definitely help Traveler and will always be by Traveler's side."
'Always...?' Hearing Paimon's words, Natsume felt touched. She had always been alone, solving problems and living by herself. This was the first time she had heard someone say they would always stay with her. Even if it might not happen in the end, Natsume would always remember the emotion of this moment.
'Of course Paimon has to stay by my side forever. After all, Paimon is my emergency food.'
"Traveler!"
Paimon's voice in Natsume's mind suddenly grew louder. Natsume could imagine him stomping his feet and shouting at her in anger.
Everything had happened so suddenly before that Natsume felt like she was in a dream. At this moment, she finally felt a sense of reality and began to actively learn about the situation.
'By the way, Paimon, what's the deal with the characters I pull? Do I need to control them, or can they act on their own?'
Hearing Traveler's question, Paimon immediately forgot about the small argument just now. "Traveler needs to control them personally. Traveler needs to split a part of your consciousness into the character. Your consciousness will be influenced by the character's innate memories, making you act more in line with the character's personality. No one will be able to tell it's the same person."
"Furthermore, characters can be temporarily stored in the system space. However, once a character appears in the outside world, they will enter sleep mode if not controlled by Traveler's consciousness. Traveler should be careful."
'Consciousness control? Is it hard?' Natsume was an ordinary person in her past life. Consciousness control sounded difficult, and she lacked some confidence.
"Don't worry, it sounds hard but is actually very simple to operate. There happens to be a newcomer reward. Traveler can open it and take a look. It usually gives ten pulls, so you can pull a character to try it out first."
Natsume only then noticed a small red dot on the information bar, indicating an unread message. She clicked it with her consciousness, and it was indeed the newcomer reward. Continuing to open it, Natsume was a bit disappointed. It only gave ten pulls; she had thought there would be more. The rest were just some Experience Books and Mystic Enhancement Ore for upgrading characters and weapons, along with 3,000 Mora.
But it wasn't bad. At least she had some starting capital, which was better than having nothing at all.
Since she had ten pulls, Natsume prepared to try once. At least she was guaranteed a character, so she would have someone to help—even if it was just herself.
However, before starting the Gacha, Natsume had one more thing to do. She looked around her surroundings and found she couldn't find what she was looking for, so she asked Paimon, "Paimon, do you know where the nearest restroom is?"
"Restroom? I know. Go down this road..." Paimon was puzzled. "Traveler, do you need to use the restroom now?"
'No, I just want to wash my hands.' Natsume expressed that for her first Gacha pull, she wanted some good luck, so she would wash her hands to prevent having 'black hands.'
"Wash your hands? But Traveler's hands aren't dirty?" Paimon was confused. Traveler was just about to pull, so why the sudden urge to wash her hands? She had only been here a short while and hadn't touched anything.
After washing her hands in the restroom, Natsume prepared to go back to the seat to pull. She was looking down, carefully wiping the water off her hands, and didn't notice for a moment when she bumped into a Little Girl.
"Ah—"
Natsume quickly stopped and looked down. She saw a seven or eight-year-old girl with shoulder-length short hair and a red top who had bumped into her leg.
"Little Girl, are you okay? Did it hurt?" Natsume knelt down to check on her. Fortunately, it was just a light bump, so she should be fine.
"Big sister, I'm okay. I wasn't looking where I was going either, so it's partly my fault." The Little Girl looked up at the big sister in front of her, blushing slightly. This sister was so beautiful, and her hair was golden, just like sunlight.
"Ayumi, what's wrong?" Just then, two boys' voices came from outside the restroom.
Ayumi? So this Little Girl was Ayumi. Natsume felt it was quite a coincidence to meet a member of the protagonist's group so soon.
In that case, the two boys outside must be Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya and Genta Kojima—the other two members of the Detective Boys.
Ayumi's next words confirmed Natsume's suspicion.
"Genta, Mitsuhiko, I'm fine." Ayumi Yoshida shouted outside, not wanting her friends to worry, and then continued to the big sister in front of her, "Sister, I'm fine. If you have things to do, you can go ahead. I need to use the restroom too. Goodbye, sister."
After saying that, she waved and hurried into the restroom.
Seeing that she was indeed fine, Natsume left with peace of mind. As she walked out, she took a special look at the two boys at the restroom entrance. One was fat and the other thin, with a huge difference in physique. One had a round head and was constantly muttering about food, while the other looked more composed. At a glance, they looked just like the images she had seen in the anime.
Natsume didn't look further. She planned to go back and do a pull first to try out the consciousness control Paimon mentioned.