POV Swap – Tobias

Atop a skyscraper’s roof, I lit another piece of homemade fireworks and threw it into the air. Watching carefully as it exploded, releasing a flower of light into the surroundings.

Hopefully this works. If it doesn’t, I can only swap over to plan B.

To be honest, plan B isn’t exactly a good plan. It basically involves threatening various guilds until I attract enough attention that Rin is forced to show up.

There are too few ways to attract Rin’s attention. She doesn’t pay much attention to anything not dangerous.

Actually, plan B was my initial plan when I first thought of attracting attention. After thinking it through, fireworks sounded like a better (and less violent) idea. When Rin discovers the fireworks, she’ll almost certainly come and check it out. Rin should've never seen anything similar in her world.

The only problem with this plan is that if Rin discovers I’m the source of the fireworks early, she might choose to escape or reload before I get chance to speak with her.

To avoid her noticing my existence early, I can only try to stay as stealthy as possible whilst releasing the fireworks

I have no idea whether that’ll work, but I can only hope.

Taking a seat on the floor of the build’s rooftop, I stared down toward my limited number of fireworks.

Three fireworks left.

I’ve temporarily reactivated the power save mode of the system to extend the battery life, but it has only extended the battery by a couple extra hours.

Now, we wait. I’ll release fireworks approximately every hour.

If Rin’s in the vicinity, staggering the releases has the best chance of attracting her attention.

In the meantime, I merely resting and stared upward at the stars in the sky. Time went by swiftly without much happening.

It’s certainly rare to get peaceful time like this. I’m usually constantly going from one place to another without breaks.

I tried to think of what I’d talk with Rin about. Imagining various scenarios of interacting with her.

When another hour passed by, I set another firework off.

Two fireworks left now.

The resulting explosion was beautiful… although I’d made this particular firework incorrectly, it directly exploded like a normal bomb instead of a firework.

Well… it should attract attention regardless.

Sitting back down and continuing to wait. A short while later I heard footsteps, proceeded by voices.

They were speaking gibberish (the translation function is still off).

Sadly, I could easily tell that none of the voices were from Rin.

Two men and a woman opened the door to the rooftop. Splitting up, they began to case the rooftop and presumably search for the cause of the fireworks.

I didn’t really bother dealing with this group of people. Instead waiting for them to leave, without particularly caring about their existence.

Even if they wanted to find me, my ability kept me from their sight.

The group spent several minutes searching the rooftop before convening into a group to talk with one another. They left shortly after that.

I had no idea what they had said to one another, but they seem to have given up their objective.

…

Bored with blindly waiting around, I stood up and gaze at the city below. Even at night, people were traveling throughout the city. A small crowd seemed to have accumulated below the building.

I considered removing the perceptive glasses that blurred my vision of the beautiful sight of the city below, but decided against it.

If I wasn’t careful, from this height, I might accidentally make a large portion of city into statutes.

Whilst nobody would die from it, petrification isn’t easy to solve. Unless I spent a significant portion of time to free them afterward, they would probably stay petrified. (If I can even figure out how to injure myself in the first place.)

The city is peaceful at night, though.

While it wasn’t as populated as during day, there were still a decent amount people walking around.

Sighing, I realized there wasn’t much hoping for Rin showing up at this point.

If Rin was coming, she should’ve shown up by now. I suppose this plan has been a dud. While I still plan to continue until the fireworks run out, it’s unlikely that Rin is going to show up.

Leaning back into the wall around the rooftop, I gaze back toward the rooftop’s entrance and my heart jolted in surprise.

Rin was stand right next to rooftop’s entrance.

…Of course, she would show up the moment I looked away. I cannot actually surprised this idiotic plan to release fireworks actually attracted her attention.

“Rin…” I found myself whispering.

While I wanted to have a proper conversation with her, I had no idea what to say or how to speak with her.

Even with Rin standing in front of me, embarrassment and fear swelled the desire to run away and hide.

Rin briefly glanced around the rooftop before heading back toward the stairs downward.

She’s leaving… Damn it.

Forced myself to talk, I stepped forward and yelled. “Rin! Wait.”

Rin paused and looked back toward me.

The world briefly disconnected, distorting and a massive lightheadedness spread over my body. My legs gave out.

My position in space had change. Instead of walking toward Rin, I found myself sitting near the railing of the rooftop.

…Oh god, I really don’t feel well.

Clenching my stomach , I nearly threw up. Inhaling and exhaling multiple times, I barely managed to prevent myself from vomiting. Using the nearby wall to stand, I glanced toward the rooftop entrance.

Rin was gone.

So much for talking with her. Unfortunately, if Rin didn’t want to talk, there’s no way I can force her to.

Not that I even knew what to talk with her about.

I just… I just wanted to have a proper conversation with her. Talk to her about what we’re going to do in the future.

I suppose that not going to happen. I don't even know what to do now.

What’s with that sudden dizziness and lightheadedness, though? A mental attack of some kind? I didn’t realize Rin was that determined to avoid me.

Now that Rin knows I’m here and is determined to avoid me… the remaining fireworks are useless.

There’s only three left, anyway. Let’s just give the crowd below a spectacle.

Wait…three fireworks left? Weren’t there two fireworks remaining?

I scratched my head in confusion. Concentrating on anything was difficult at the moment, clearly a side-effect of whatever disoriented me.

Had I miscounted earlier? It’s certainly possible and the number isn’t that important.

Grabbing the fireworks, I examined them.

There’s definitely three fireworks now, regardless of how many there were earlier.

Considering I don’t need them anymore…

I threw them out over the rooftop after lighting them and watched them explode into flowers of light. Although one of them was improperly made like the previous one, it was still an impressive sight.

As I heading down the building, I noticed the three people from earlier climbing the stairs. Two men and a woman.

Chuckling, I realized how confused they must be. Fireworks were just released from a skyscraper they’d checked mere minutes ago and found empty.

I moved aside and let them climb up.

Let them stay confused. No reason to spoil the mystery of the mysterious firework man.

Although, I think I’m going to head back home. My head is burning up. A good night sleep would probably do a world of good.

When I’m properly awake, I can try to solve the next problem on the task list. Figure out how to transfer Sidney over to Hell Difficulty.

How am I even going to do that without the administration codes or with a system that cannot connect to the mainframe?

Gah, I’ll leave that problem for tomorrow.

Yawning, I headed back to my residence in Hell Difficulty portion of the Residential Zone. Once I arrived, I went to the bed and passed out.

I had an unexpectedly decent night sleep. Normally, my nights are disturbed and I’m barely able to sleep through the night. One of the curses of this bloody wristband.

A refreshing night sleep is a rarity and allowed my head to clear up significantly. Which allowed me to realize something odd.

Yesterday… the dizziness, slight spatial location change, and the number of fireworks increasing…

Would it have to do with Rin’s save/load power?

Did Rin reload upon seeing me? Hmmm… No. If that were the case, I shouldn’t remember anything. Rin’s power works by directly turning back time for the entire universe and effectively sending her soul back to that past.

Only by having a power that restrains it or a similar ability related to time would allow someone to keep their memories… and it’s not like I magically gained a new ability recently-

Wait… No, I did gain that useless ‘death vision’ power. Although that shouldn’t make any difference. You need to be in physical contact those weapons in order to utilize abilities from that realm.

What nonsense am I thinking up… that's near impossible. It’s irrelevant anyway, without more proof there’s no way to tell for certain. I shouldn’t raise expectations about anything related to this topic. Sometime hope is crueler than despair.

Shaking my head, I directly ignore any further thoughts on the matter. I would find out eventually regardless of whether I actively set out to.

Traveling a short distance, I reached the residence where Sidney stayed in Hell difficulty.

The residence is completely empty. A quick glance around the place revealed that Sidney had left awhile ago.

Sighing to myself, I quietly left the residence.

I certainly knew it was a possibility that Sidney would take advantage of the opportunity to escape… but I’d hoped otherwise.

I’m terrible at training disciples.

Fine… if she wishes to leave, I’ll leave her be. Disciples should leave behind their teacher eventually. Sidney merely left early. I should be proud. (Translation: I cannot be bothered to go track her down.)

Wiping away an imaginary tear, I returned back to my residence.

Discarding the task of sending Sidney into Hell Difficulty, I realized that I was nearly finished with the tasks I set out to accomplish.

There was only one task remaining now. Mining nearly twenty miles underground to reach an underground temple.

If this next task goes the same way as the previous two, it should be finished in no time.

Clearly, everything is going perfectly fine. There are absolutely no problems at all.

I only need to somehow learn how to make machinery that can mine twenty miles underground. Make that machinery. Then successfully use it to drill that entire distance.

How hard could that be?

Reentering into the virtual hub, I returned to the area with various books regarding crafting.

Whilst I didn’t really like this place, it’s probably the only hope I have in mining that deep underground.

Turning over various books, I quickly came across those relating to machinery.

Let’s hope that somewhere in this library a book mentions something related to mining deep underground. Otherwise, I’ll have no idea what to do next.