章 4: Fact is Stranger

Another fun fact: Laia hated system stories.

Hate is a strong word.

She meant it.

To the blissfully unaware, systems suck. A lot.

"No instruction manual, no orientation, not even a rundown of who I'm supposed to be?" Laia glared up at the ceiling as she laid sprawled on her new bed. For the last five minutes, she had prodded the system into giving her any information to work with. The result of her efforts? Nothing.

To make things clear, she wasn't resigning herself to this situation. Her three brain cells simply understood that she had no way of escaping her predicament. For now, she was going to bide her time.

At present, there was only a small number of things that she knew for sure. One, she was very, very rich. Two, she had a family that seemed to be decent. Three– Laia looked down at her left hand.

Three, she was married.

Her hand twitched, followed by the creasing of her brows. A tinge of bitterness, so subtle that she had to overthink it, bubbled in her chest.

To be honest, the logistics of transmigration was one big mess that always evaded her. Why was [Random Character A] the one chosen to take over the life of [Random Character B]? A divine gacha (1) game? Plot-sama? And what exactly happened in the 'taking over' process? Was the previous consciousness killed in order for her to reign wild? She sure as hell didn't want to think that she was currently possessing someone– trapping them in a deep state of helpless consciousness. Leaving them a passenger in their own bodies; unable to do anything but watch as another person live out their life–

She shook her head to dispel the dark path her train of thought was going down.

She wasn't going to think about it too much.

Onwards to four, then.

Four, her name was now Raine.

Raine. The name gnawed at her. It was familiar, but not significant enough for Laia to remember. Because of all her years of writing and having to begrudgingly meet all her mother's friends, the names of those real and those fictional were a disorganized mess in her head.

Raine could have been anyone from a friend's child, a cereal company name, a war criminal– or all three. The possibilities were endless.

She wasted another minute thinking about it.

Nope. Nothing.

Shrugging, she reluctantly left the cloud-like bed. Her eyes shifted towards the ornate rose-gold clock that hung on her wall. A strained smile graced her face as she eyed the ceiling once more. The metallic arms showed that about ten minutes had passed since her new brother had called for her.

Note: she didn't even know her new family members' names.

There wasn't much she could do with a crappy system. Game plan number one was to look for a phone that could tell her who she was. Plus, given the size of her room alone, she would likely need something like google maps to find her way around her new home.

Game plan number two was that there was no game plan number two. If push came to shove, she could probably get away with calling whoever looked the part as 'mom,' 'dad,' 'grandpa,' etcetera. After all, years of immediately forgetting people's names after introduction had prepared her for moments like this.

Another five minutes passed. No matter how many marshmallow-like pillows and fluffy blankets she overturned, there was no sign of a phone anywhere. Laia pulled a face; eyeing the mess she had made.

She guiltily swept her gaze away.

Now, where could it be?

Carefully scanning the room, her eye caught a glint on the floor.

It wasn't the phone she was looking for. A tiny golden heart shaped pendant was peeking through the snowy strands of the massive fur rug. Under closer inspection, Laia couldn't hold back the squeak that escaped her lips.

With a hand tightly clamped over her mouth, she stumbled backward. It was her sad attempt to suppress her potentially murderous desires.

A cat.

A sleeping cat.

A poofy white sleeping cat with a squished little face.

Her fingers were itching to bury themselves in its pelt and lovingly mash its ribcage into its lungs. Disregarding the original goal of finding her cellphone, she inched closer to the sleeping feline. Partially hidden by its mane was a pale pink collar where the heart-shaped pendant hung. Its tiny nose twitched every so often, pulling at the strings of her debatably cold heart.

The little thing suddenly opened its eyes.

Laia bit her lip; suppressing the squeal that wanted to escape. "Hello there," she cooed, "You're adorable, aren't you?"

"I suppose," it spoke.

Laia blinked.

Then she shrugged. If she was in a world where systems were real, then talking animals wasn't any more of a logical leap.

"Uhh," she wasn't quite sure how to make small talk with animals, "Do you know who I am?"

The cat had just become game plan one point five.

It blinked; sleep and confusion coloring its eyes. "Lady Laia, were your memories wiped by Young Master as well?"

A record scratch sounded off in her head.

This thing knew her as Laia, and there was only one instance that she knew of wherein someone had tacked on lady to her name. Except, this time, it lacked the British accent.

"Fox?" She couldn't remember the name her kidnapper had called out.

It stood on all floors. Watching it move its husky body made her fingers twitch. "Yes, I am the same fox that was hoping to save you from the Young Master's shenanigans. My words earlier seemed to have angered the Young Master earlier, so I've been dragged into this nonsense with you. A pleasure, I am called Saffron." He dipped his head in greeting, "I'm sorry that we're meeting in these circumstances. Don't worry about your life on Earth as time moves differently here and there. When you return it will be as if nothing happened. In the meantime, we'll have to stick together."

Laia didn't miss a beat. "Time moves differently? Where exactly are we?" Not satisfied, she tacked on another set of questions. "Why am I here? What are you? And why is there a stupid system threatening to terminate me?"

Saffron let out a pensive hum. "Well, the Young Master is able to open a number of dimensions and create them at will. They can even be forged from stories, like this one is. Its the reason why I am to guard him at all times, so that he does not cause chaos and implicate other people."

She pursed her lips.

Didn't do quite good of a job, now did it?

Nonetheless, he was her only ally of sorts. She wasn't going to complain too much because the fault didn't lie with him alone.

Ah, what she wished she could do onto that kidnapper of hers.

"Do you not recognize this world, Lady Laia?" Tilting his head to the side, Saffron blinked as he looked up at her inquisitively.

She furrowed her eyebrows. Was she supposed to know?

"No?" Was the only answer she could come up with.

"My, that's confusing." Without warning, his green feline eyes changed became blue. Not even its pupil remained. The hair on the back of Laia's neck stood to attention at the unnerving sight.

"Status, please." Saffron called out.

Before Laia could ask him what he meant, a robotic voice began to speak.

<< Status: Active. Host has triggered one out of three mandatory quests. >>

<< Progress: 0% >>

The host in question had a grim face on. Sure, while she had spent five minutes nonstop trying to get the system to reply, only cricket sounds responded back. But when Saffron did it, the response was instant.

She pinned this one as another point against kidnapper kid.

"Map," it continued.

<< Map: Laia Marasigan's [Untitled (47) ewLOLfinal ewer.docx] >>

"The Young Master was quite predictable in placing you in this setting. My initial understanding was correct, Lady Laia. You should know of this world since you are the one who created it in your novels. Does it ring a bell?"

"My novels? I'm in one of my novels?" File names had no significance to her. All her works had similar labels which meant that her literary agent always had a headache when looking through her revisions.

She frowned. "That can't be right. I've never written a modern setting. I've only ever written historical and fantasi-" Her voice cut off as horror stunned her face.

Shit.

Oh, shit.

She had written stories in a modern setting before. More than a few times, actually. Only, the results had been so bad that she banished any thoughts of them to fester in the back of her mind. Under an unnamed folder in the bowels of her laptop where all the sad failed attempts she made at writing romance.

Raine. Now she knew exactly why that name was familiar to her.

Given that she had transmigrated into a fictional world of her own making, she would be privy to every secret, every hidden artifact, and every plot twist. She had banked on becoming a god-like entity– blackmailing and causing chaos at will.

But, there was a problem with [Untitled (47) ewLOLfinal ewer.docx].

It was an abandoned, incomplete story.

And she was the bad guy.

(1) Gacha: Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound created by cranking a lever in vending machines. The term describes the machine itself or the toy. It can be seen as a form of gambling because the results are randomized/uncertain.