To convince FDH Aegean, Rian Azure waxed poetic about how he understood the FDH’s hard work and sacrifice to teach him what he needed to know to run the company in the future.

To convince his father, Rian Azure changed into the child-version of the clothes his father liked to wear, and emphasized how he was now twelve years old, and that it was time for him to explore the world a little with his own eyes. He gave evidence of the work and small errands that some other young fourteen-year-old heirs had done. He was younger than them, but he was also the heir of Sedavaria Industries.

To convince his mother, Rian Azure promised he’ll call home every day.

Before FDH Aegean comprehended what was happening, Rian had ordered his personal hired servants to pack and send his clothes in a car, jumped into the back of the car, and rode off with a small group of personal bodyguards.

…

Meanwhile, in the Schauss residence, the servants were busy preparing for the new day. However, a certain room with south-facing windows was quiet. The room was beautifully and elegantly decorated, softly lit by the slanted sunlight glow through the embroidered cream curtains.

The young girl in the bed opened her sweet pink eyes. The light reflections were like little stars.

She was dazed.

Not long ago, she had finally graduated from high school! Immediately after, she played all the dating sims she wanted to play and read all the romantic fantasy webtoons and novels she wanted to read. Not long after re-reading one of her favourite novels, she went outside…and…

And what happened next?

She could vaguely remember a truck…

This didn’t look like her bedroom ceiling. This didn’t feel like her bed.

Confused, she sat up. Her hands were small, pale, and smooth. Her hair came into view: it was long and pink.

Her eyes widened. She jumped out of bed and hurried to the standing mirror in the room.

Long pink hair cascaded down her body in gentle waves. The exquisitely embroidered white night shift with airy lace gave her an aura of youthfulness and innocence.

Slow realisation…!

She looked at her body, up and down, and couldn’t help but burst into a smile.

She couldn’t believe it! It looked like…she had reincarnated into her (second)favourite romance novel! She had all her old memories and all her new memories! She knew everything that would happen. Her life would be so smooth, and in the future, she’ll have a handsome husband and be the governor! This was a lot better than suffering and barely getting through life in that kind of world!

The novel technically wouldn’t start until she entered the International Sedavaria Academy a few years later. She was a little nervous about seeing actual, real zombies in the future, but she also knew it would be all fine in the end, because she could cure people.

That reminded her—she was now superhuman!

She closed her eyes, recalling the memories of her past lessons.

There was a deep well of power inside of her. She opened her eyes and controlled the energy inside her to create light…and there was light!

Happy!

She continued to manipulate her internal energy, delighting as each one worked.

Then she noticed a certain door: the door to her walk-in-wardrobe.

Eyes brightening, she padded over and opened the door. Seeing all the pretty dresses, her eyes turned into little stars and hearts.

A servant knocked at the door.

The girl hurried to sit on the bed. “Come in,” the young girl, Cassiopeia Schauss, said.

The maid walked in and bowed. “My Lady, are you ready to start your day? After dressing, your breakfast will be prepared. Today, Young Miss Alexandra Slate and Young Miss Ethel Silvercharm will come for afternoon tea.…”

Cassiopeia’s eyes curved with delight.

...

In the original history, the RC building, or what still remained, would still be on fire, as they slowly began to die down. Alyssa would have been outside, being comforted by a few mature and sympathetic company personnel and the few bystanders that were up this morning, cold, alone, and fractured mentally.

But right now, ‘Ayden Rosewood’ was currently sitting alone in a holding cell. He was surrounded by guards that were heavily armed on account of his fire ability.  A few moments ago, a few people came in and offered some food for him.

Ren Xiyang avoided the bread and meat and selected the fruit. The fresh fruit tasted sweet and refreshing, without any weird flavours. Ren Xiyang had missed this. While he ate, he quickly scanned the whole facility with his powers.

Judging by the people inside the facility, it was a pretty small holding facility, as many of the people here were those prosecuted or those about to be. There were only a few people who were under high surveillance, him included.

It would be a few weeks until Ren Xiyang’s trial began for crimes including arson, destruction of private property, terrorism, unauthorized power abuse, and other such crimes.

However, Ren Xiyang wasn’t quite worried about being held up in jail for too long. Worse case scenario, he’d break out when the zombie apocalypse started in the upcoming years.

No, instead, Ren Xiyang was much more concerned about other things. For example, adapting to his current state. Not only was he, once again, biologically female, not only was his reserves of power smaller than before, but he’d also have to fix his own mentality.

Ren Xiyang already knew there were many things wrong with him, at least in the eyes of society. A prime example of being how he decided to save the lives of other people earlier. It was a moral and just thing to do, but he had done it for his own personal gain. He didn’t think society would appreciate his callous and calculative views on human life.

Another thing he was concerned about was his noticeable lack of money. He had nothing to his name. Perhaps if he decided to run his own company… but that was too much work. But it wouldn’t be easy to find a job either.

No matter how Ren Xiyang thought about it, it would be in his best interest to inherit the Rosewood Conglomerate. But this also led to his second problem.

He had no clue how to run a company. He was an agricultural scientist, not an economics major! He could list all chemical processes that a corn plant could go through, but he couldn’t begin to list the positions that one could have in a company, let alone how one could actually run!

His one saving grace was that he knew the future. However, even that had its limits.

Ren Xiyang decided to stop going down that train of thought before he had a headache, and instead decided to focus on the plots of the novel.

In the original novel, Cassiopeia was beginning her third year at the International Sedavaria Academy when the zombie apocalypse began. It took another two or three months before it really began to turn infected into zombies, and another four months for things to turn bad.

Judging from the novel’s content, it was quite similar to Ren Xiyang’s apocalypse. A mutation type, versus the typical swarm type zombie apocalypse.

Ren Xiyang had two very simple goals. One, to prevent the zombie apocalypse from happening. Failing that, his secondary goal was to survive the zombie apocalypse. 

Ren Xiyang decided to at least be somewhat productive with his time here, and decided to start doing some exercises to pass the time.

…

Rian, after a day or so of traveling from the capital, had finally reached Redmond County, where he then proceeded to be booked at a 5-star hotel, much to FDH Aegean relief.

The next day, they made their way to what remained of the RC building.

“I still see no point in visiting the Rosewood Conglomerate building! You have so many more productive things to be doing, Young Master!” FDH Aegean complained aloud. He had teams to manage back at Sedavaria Industries, he had no time to manage a young brat!

“There is a point of seeing the RC building,” Rian said. “I want to keep in mind what could happen at the company, and measures to stop them. Even if we already have methods to prevent these sorts of things from occurring, there is much we can do in order to improve them.”

FDH Aegean detected the faintest smell of prime bullshit, but thought that the Young Master’s words sounded wise, so he refrained from speaking more.

Rian Azure wasn’t here for the RC building, he would have cared less about it. Instead, he was here for something else.

Rian had many objectives to be here. Primely among them was A. discovering information about this new Ayden Rosewood, and B. finding out what was different about this timeline.

Rian had heard many rumors about Ayden Rosewood, but they were just that. Rumors. However, rumors usually had some truth to them.

Currently, there were two main versions of rumors circulating around. One was that he was the culprit of the RC building fire(that was false), and the other was that he had worked to save people in the RC fire.

Rian presumed that the second rumor was the one that had the most truth to it, as it aligned with the information he knew of the timeline. However, Ayden Rosewood himself did not belong in the timeline. So, Rian knew that he couldn’t trust his knowledge fully.

Ayden Rosewood’s trial was planned for a month or two in the future, but he didn’t have any lawyers to defend him. Rian fully planned to make use of this time to uncover as much about Ayden as he could.

…

It was already two weeks since Rian had arrived in Redmond county, and he was at a loss. Or rather, he was stuck. Nobody knew anything about Ayden Rosewood. It was as if he had popped out of nowhere!

At the very least, Rian had many accounts about how Ayden had indeed saved people from the fire. But this led to another point. 

It was common knowledge that you could only control magically conjured elements. However, information from the firefighters that had put out the fire had told Rian that the fire was non-magical.

This was a direct contradiction from what Rian knew. It seemed that the very existence of Ayden Rosewood served to cause Rian multitudes of headaches and paradoxes.

Rian could only think of one thing to do. Talk to the person himself.

Rian couldn’t talk under normal circumstances, as those conversations would be recorded for use against him in his court case. There was only one way to talk to Ayden Rosewood without risk of anyone eavesdropping. 

Rian needed to contact his law agency and tell them he needed a psychic mage. It was time to talk to the person in question.

...

Sorry for the long wait! I had to go to a funeral of a family member with my parents, and I was both depressed and unmotivated for the rest of the week. I'm much better now!