Chapter 61: Wait, Did It Just Load a Save?
"You said yesterday?"
Kazama Chiba looked at Eriri standing before him with that "hurry up and coax me" expression, feeling nothing but absurdity.
He'd been through so much, captured so many Clow Cards—how could it have only been one day?
Besides, his phone clearly showed today was Saturday.
"Have you gotten hit by a truck and lost your memory recently?"
He couldn't hold back, shoving his phone directly in Eriri's face. "See for yourself—what's today's date?"
"Hah?"
Eriri was startled by this sudden move, instinctively leaning her head back.
She glanced at the screen, and that ojou-sama arrogance on her face instantly transformed into the disgust one reserves for idiots.
"Kazama Chiba, have you gone crazy wanting to apologize? Just to save face, you actually adjusted your phone's time? Stop messing around—today is obviously Tuesday!"
"Tuesday?"
Chiba pulled back his phone.
Though Eriri had a stubborn personality, her brain definitely worked fine.
As an honor student and renowned artist, her sensitivity to time was even higher than ordinary people's.
After all, deadlines were the Sword of Damocles hanging over every artist's head.
If even she was this certain...
Chiba suddenly turned around and grabbed a random passing otaku.
"Bro, quick question—what's today's date?"
The otaku was hugging a body pillow with a silly grin, looking a bit confused at being suddenly grabbed.
"Huh? Today? It's Thursday. What's up? Isn't this convention running through the weekend?"
"You sure about that?"
"How can I not be sure? I've got a limited-edition item releasing today, so it's definitely right."
"Thursday? That can't be right!"
At that moment, a cosplayer nearby adjusting their wig overheard and immediately chimed in.
"Today is obviously Friday! I specifically took time off work to come here! If it were Tuesday, what about my perfect attendance bonus?"
"What nonsense are you all spouting? Are you all sick?"
Another passerby joined the group chat.
"I've already worked three days this week! If today were Friday, I'd be laughing in my sleep! Today is absolutely Wednesday!"
...
Before long, the circle of people grew smaller and tighter, with more and more people dragged into this absurd argument.
It was like pouring water into a pot of hot oil.
The previously harmonious convention scene instantly exploded over this seemingly idiotic question.
Everyone reported different dates.
Some said Wednesday, some said Thursday, and one ridiculous person even shouted that today was the first of next month.
Everyone pulled out their phones and watches, swearing on their lives that they were right.
Yet bizarrely, even though everyone's phones displayed different dates, not a single person found this odd. Instead, they all accused others of having fake times.
The entire inner hall lobby instantly transformed into an asylum filled with logical paradoxes.
"This..."
Chiba released the otaku's collar, watching this crowd trapped in cognitive chaos, his scalp tingling.
This wasn't simple memory confusion.
This was spacetime being chopped into pieces, then clumsily spliced back together by some hack editor.
"Chiba! Something's wrong!"
At that moment, Kerberos, which had been playing dead on his shoulder, suddenly bristled.
It clutched Chiba's clothes tightly, obvious terror in its voice.
"Magic! The magical concentration here is skyrocketing! And that feeling—it's like a tsunami approaching!"
Before it could finish speaking—
A bizarre green light burst forth without warning.
In that instant, the world seemed to have its slow-motion button pressed.
That green light was like a thick layer of grease, instantly covering the entire field of vision.
Chiba felt his thinking slow down as if someone had pressed a button.
The surrounding clamor of voices stretched into low, drawn-out roars. The air became incredibly viscous—even lifting a finger became abnormally difficult.
Immediately after—
An intense sticky sensation wrapped around his entire body.
Like being thrown into a barrel of amber that hadn't yet solidified.
His vision began to blur, his consciousness experiencing a momentary gap.
...
Light and shadow flowed, heaven and earth inverted.
When that nauseating dizziness faded and his vision refocused—
"Since we've met by fate, why not check out my new work? This is a story about 'the true protagonist.'"
That soft, sweet voice drilled into Chiba's ears once again.
Chiba blinked.
Standing before him was that pink-haired strange girl who called herself Shinjou Akane, holding out that sketchbook with monsters drawn on it.
Her expression was excited. That gesture of offering the book, that look in her eyes, even the fat guy passing by wiping his sweat at the exact same frequency—everything was identical to what he'd experienced just minutes ago.
"..."
Chiba looked at this pretty face so close to his, then looked around.
Everything had returned to square one.
Or rather, it had already become the past.
"It loaded a save?"
As a transmigrator with extensive gaming experience, this sense of déjà vu was way too strong.
Chiba cursed internally.
This mechanic that should only appear in games had actually been brought into reality?
And it was a forced reload?
"It's The Time!"
This time, before Chiba could speak, Kerberos had already poked its head out from the backpack, lowering its voice to speak rapidly.
"That green light can't be anything else! That's the magical fluctuation of time reversal! The Time card just activated temporal regression and reset everything here back to a few minutes ago!"
"I see."
Chiba's brain spun at high speed.
That explained everything.
Why the people here had such chaotic time perception, why The Move card went to such lengths to lure him inside.
This was simply a massive time prison.
To avoid drawing attention, Chiba ignored Shinjou Akane who was still waiting for his evaluation, zipped up his backpack, and turned to leave.
He had no mood to chat with this anti-human monster enthusiast right now. He needed to find a place to sort out his thoughts.
"Hey, what the... that reaction again."
Shinjou Akane's somewhat disappointed voice came from behind.
"Could it be that a modern setting doesn't work either?"
She watched Chiba's back, even more resolute than before, her previously excited face falling.
Looking down at that sketchbook, she seemed to fall into some strange self-reflection.
"I clearly sensed kindred spirit vibes from him, and I revised it again—why is he still not interested?"
Shinjou Akane muttered, pulling an eraser from her pocket and frantically erasing the page with the monster drawn on it.
"Could it be that modern times lack immersion too? Don't today's male high schoolers like this kind of grand narrative anymore?"
"Looks like this won't work. What if I make the setting more relatable?"
She turned around, found an empty corner to crouch in, and prepared to rewrite it.
"Since modern times don't work either, I'll set it ten years ago. Back then... mm, it was a good era. Skyscrapers everywhere—destroying them with monsters would definitely have more texture!"
The girl completely immersed herself in her revision work, completely oblivious to the abnormality of the surrounding world.
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