Cold sweat. That was the first thing.
Sitting upright before I was fully awake, heart moving faster than it should have been. The gray — that was what lingered. The way everything had drained of color before the end, like the world wasn't being rewound but hollowed out. It didn't feel like sleep. It felt like something else, and I didn't have a name for it.
Why am I even thinking about this? Strength is the priority. Not the mechanics of a system I can't interrogate.
The room came into focus. Same house from before I left the Lin family. Wait —
That crack in the wall. Running diagonally from the corner, maybe half an arm's length. I didn't remember it being there.
Memory being wrong? Possible. I'd never paid much attention to the walls. Could be nothing.
Filed it away and went outside for air.
The moment I stepped out I immediately ran into Liam.
Old friend of this body. He'd died the day of the bandit assault in the last simulation — no time to bond, no particular reason to try. But he hadn't come by the house before. Something small had shifted.
Butterfly effect, probably.
"Hey Lian, what's up? Why do you look so down? Did something bad happen?" he asked.
"It's nothing."
"Want to go out to a pub?"
"Another time. I have an escort mission to get to."
No mission. Just no interest in bonding with someone who would die soon, or forget everything anyway the next time I reset.
A few days passed. Different in small ways, similar in most. The butterfly effect seemed like the right explanation — time had reset, but that didn't mean every detail had to follow the same path.
At least, that's what I told myself.
The escort mission fell on schedule. Liam was already at the gate when I arrived.
"Hey, are you ready? From what I heard, this is a big one. The pay is also extremely high compared to usual — basically an extra month of salary."
"Just focus on the mission. Who knows what might happen when things look too good."
He slapped my back. "Come on, don't be so grumpy. Be happy for once. You've been like this for weeks now. What happened? Did some secret girlfriend leave you or what?"
"Just focus on the mission. Don't worry about anything else."
"Fine. You're not even funny anymore."
Everything went as usual after that. At least until the bandits.
The steward offered a maximum of one hundred silver again. This time the bandits asked for ninety percent. Not eighty.
Just a butterfly effect, right?
The battle started.