Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

"The storylines of some open-world games are so excellent that the protagonists controlled by players often neglect the main plot and become engrossed in side quests such as scavenging, playing cards, and fishing. They forget about the imminent world crisis. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as players are often drawn out by these side quests. Both players and game developers are happy to see this happen."

"But if this were placed in the real world, such an attractive side quest would become a problem. The world is on the verge of collapse, and the hero doesn't have time to help the old woman clean up the rats in the field—a normal hero certainly wouldn't be bothered by such a thing. But if the world becomes real, and the hero is still a game character controlled by a ruthless player, then everything becomes very troublesome."

“So,” Sirin snapped her fingers, “we need to help the protagonist stop being confused by external things and events, so that she can truly focus her energy back on the main storyline and complete her mission.”

"Let's start with this city."

Section 66. Alice's Delay

The commission has been terminated. What should I do next?

Alice's boots touched the melting and refreezing snow, feeling the rough texture of the soles and the slight chill of frost, as she continued her unhurried journey toward Morningstar City.

She saw Xilin, and Zheng Zha beside Xilin, and also the entire Morning Star City in a state of time reversal. She saw the broken planks and stones float up from the embedded ground, reassembling themselves into the positions of the brick walls or eaves. She saw the dead or injured people turn from their prone or curled-up positions, retreating or flying backwards back to their homes in a way that completely defied human biomechanics.

She saw the patterns of sound recede in the air, saw the ash on the ground gather again, and then piece together the original structure of the building. She saw the raging flames shrink, collapse, and return to nothingness, saw the shattered armor reassemble and then reload onto the town guard who had been placed back in his original position.

She walked past the guard, naturally not seeing the light reflecting her figure in his eyes. In fact, even the workings of light itself were reversed; the scene she saw was entirely based on her own extraordinary perception.

The air around her thickened, like mud or glue, then transformed into flowing, sharp icy sand. It was the natural compression caused by the various gas molecules in the air vying for position, trying to return to their original state. However, what would be a thousand cuts for ordinary objects had almost no effect on Alice; she simply moved forward silently, and continued forward.

The damaged buildings on both sides of the street were restored to their original state, and the pulverized cobblestones, just meters in front of her, continued to regenerate and extend in the direction she had returned. Destruction lay before her, creation behind her; the reversal of time was irrelevant to her, yet her steps seemed to represent the changing landscape. She could clearly sense two gazes directed at her from the watchtower not far away, but she ignored them.

There was no authorization, nor was anyone issuing an authorization.

Then all of this is not worth paying any attention to.

When she returned to her hotel, she saw the hotel owner, whose forehead had been pierced by a broken wooden stake from the explosion, visibly coming back to life. He had gone from a pitiful state, half-impregnated in the wall, to mixing drinks at the bar. She walked past the drunkards who had gone from panic and fear to revelry and drinking, and slowly made her way back to the top of the hotel via the constantly piecing together staircase.

She saw another 'self' at the door of the top-floor luxury room. It was a puppet avatar she had created using fragments of the dragon soul, devoid of consciousness and simply thrown back into the hotel as bait. As Alice passed this avatar, which was predominantly gold and red, its power silently flowed into her body, making her soul more complete and powerful.

Powerful, but that's all it is—becoming powerful.

Even the greatest power is meaningless without a goal and direction.

When Sirin teleported to the inn and took Serana away, her avatar stood outside the door. However, until Sirin defeated Serana and forcibly took her away, this avatar, which possessed at least a third of Alice's fighting power and should have been able to delay Sirin and even escape with Serana, simply stood at the door, refusing to move forward.

Because its mission was to act as bait, not as a guardian. And since it had no duty to protect, this avatar naturally wouldn't protect any additional targets.

No instructions, no action. This is a classic example of the "like master, like pet" phenomenon.

The door opened silently, and Alice stepped inside. As she watched the damaged room being restored, her gaze fell upon the bed where Serana had been. She stared for several seconds, but even after everything in the room was completely restored, the space above the bed remained empty, without a single thing attached.

The commission was finally over; the time reversal within the limited area couldn't bring the vampire lady, who had been thrown hundreds or thousands of kilometers away, back to this place. Even if it could, Sirin wouldn't allow that to happen. And if a normal Alice were here, she certainly wouldn't waste even a microsecond on this meaningless wait.

Unfortunately, she wasn't the normal Alice; unfortunately, she couldn't think like a normal mortal or a supernatural being. A few seconds later, as the time reversal came to an end, she finally obtained a fact from her completely unresponsive head—a fact that, in a sense, could be considered 'common knowledge'.

Serana has returned to her family and will not be appearing again. The commission is completely finished and there is no possibility of renewal.

The mission is over.

The room was silent, but the girl's eyes shifted slightly. It was as if a task list, visible only to her, was displayed at the top of her retina. And in her gaze, the unfinished task had zero entries.

Why am I standing here? — I don't know.

Why should I fulfill this obligation? — I don't know.

Why am I...? — I don't know.

The three old questions resurfaced in her mind, but this time, the result was still the same: nothing was found. The rewind of time had come to an end, and the sounds of the patrons' commotion could be faintly heard again downstairs at the inn. Amidst this irritating and pointless background music, the emotionless Alice sighed softly for no apparent reason.

She went back to her bed, lay down, and closed her eyes.

There were no more commissions for her to fulfill, so like any ordinary open-world RPG player stuck at a level, she decided to take a good nap in a place where she could rest. Perhaps entering a dream would trigger a new quest, or perhaps a new commission would be available to activate when she woke up—she didn't know if it would work out, but that didn't stop her from trying.

And so, Alice entered a deep dream. In her dream, the stars beyond the heavens twinkled silently. The entire planet Nirn appeared in her vision like a small glass ball. The blizzard clouds that had hindered her travels in the past quietly dissipated, revealing a clean and vast expanse of pure white earth.

Everything was clearly presented before her eyes. She even felt that she could interfere with this planet at will, shaping the celestial bodies into ovals or roses. Apart from those two strange, uninvited guests, everything else was nothing more than tattered rags and dust that could be easily destroyed in her eyes.

However, she did nothing.

Because no one had asked her to do anything.

............................................................

The wind stopped and the snow ceased, and time, after returning to normal, continued backward for several hours. When Alice awoke from her brief hibernation, no new requests for her to obtain her target had appeared in her memory.

[Should I do something?] — I don't know.

She blinked and got out of bed. The clock beside her showed three in the afternoon, and then she vaguely heard a familiar voice.

There was someone nearby, and it was someone she knew. She got out of bed, pushed open the partition door, and looked at Serana's old bed—it was still empty. She then took a few steps outside and opened the doorway.

"Hello, Miss Alice."

"Ahem, Margot Royd, it's been a long time."

Two familiar faces appeared at the guest room doors on the left and right respectively. One face still held a slightly embarrassed expression, while the other was full of smugness and indifference—Alice's gaze swept over the two of them, and then she regretfully found that there was absolutely no hostility or expectation in either of them.

There was no hostility, no strife. There were no expectations, no entrustments.

If that's the case, then the two of them have no value to Alice at this moment.

[These two stones are irrelevant to me. Where they choose to live is none of my concern, nor are their daily actions.]

She drew her conclusion and then ignored the two uninvited guests who had checked into her room while she was resting, just as she ignored the gravel on the roadside. She walked straight past them, went down the stairs to the bottom of the hotel, while the two uninvited guests exchanged a knowing glance and followed silently behind her.

Where they go is their freedom, and it's none of my business. I haven't been commissioned to wipe them out.

Thoughts raced through her mind, but Alice continued to ignore the two men. She descended the stairs to the first floor of the hotel. The hotel owner, rubbing his eyes, greeted her in the quiet lobby.

The snow had stopped, and it was daytime now, so it was normal that there were few customers in the hotel's lower-level dining and beverage area. Alice, who had been greeted, nodded slightly to the hotel owner and went to the bar to request a check-out.

"I'll be staying here. Please settle the rent and return my deposit."

“Oh, okay.” Her request was perfectly reasonable, and coupled with her strong aura and the intimidating ebony blade on her back, it was easy to dismiss it. The innkeeper, rubbing his eyes, readily retrieved the few gold coins she had used as her room deposit from his drawer. Then, while scrutinizing her, he cautiously spoke just as Alice was about to accept the money.

"Madam, you look like a strong warrior. Here's a job opportunity; I wonder if you'd be interested—"

Before he could finish speaking, the next moment, accompanied by the disturbance unique to spacetime interference, Sirin, who was not far behind Alice, suddenly snapped her fingers!

Chapter Sixty-Seven: Alice's Variables

Time stopped, then flowed backward. However, this massive temporal interference, which would normally trigger divine retribution and annihilation, failed to elicit any consequences at this moment. The powerful Holy Spirit who governed the realm of time within this worldview turned a blind eye to Sirin's blatant abuse of authority. Then, time throughout Morning Star City began to flow backward!

The innkeeper's half-spoken words abruptly reversed, the sonic waves echoing back into his vibrating vocal cords. Except for Alice, Sirin, and the others who remained standing, the movements of everything in the area, living or dead, reversed direction. The number of guests in the inn increased, the slanted sun returned to the sky, but only for a moment—no, the quantifier "moment" was meaningless in this reversed timeline. And time simply and clearly reversed three or four hours!

“Zheng Zha, go out from here, turn left and cross three streets. There’s a hole leading to the sewers. There’s a gang in there. In their base, on the third room on the right, in the dungeon, on the lowest level, there’s a hotel waiter locked up. Take care of those gangsters and open that waiter’s cell—do it now,” Xilin said in a deep voice. As she spoke, her entire body gathered energy, her eyes fixed intently on Alice in front of her.

“Understood.” Zheng Zha nodded, and the next moment he vanished from the time-reversal space. The air particles that swirled back like ice sand as time flowed backward did not hinder him in the same way as when they were used against Alice. Alice, who stood still in the time-reversal flow, did not bother him in the slightest either, but simply watched Sirin quietly.

She stared at her, and although the latter was on high alert, her expression was not particularly solemn.

“You won’t make a move now, Alice. Your commission hasn’t even started yet, and hindering me at this time wouldn’t be in accordance with your rules,” Sirin said with a confident grin. “You only act when you receive a commission, don’t you?”

Her deduction was correct; Alice in the timeline indeed made no response to the current situation. She didn't move, didn't take a step, didn't raise her sword, and didn't get angry. She simply looked at Sirin quietly and then uttered a question devoid of any doubt.

"Why do you do this?" Alice asked.

"Is this something you 'want' to know?" Celine replied with a smile. "If so, I'll tell you the answer."

"When you last saw me, you said you would 'liberate' me from my shackles. Is this what you're doing?" Alice continued to ask, but her tone still lacked the doubt that should accompany a question.

"Do you really 'want' to know? If you do, I'll tell you."

“It’s true,” Alice replied quickly.

“You only said ‘it’s true,’ but you didn’t say what ‘it’s true’… I thought you wouldn’t play word games in this state. I didn’t expect that cunning and caution are already written into your true spirit?” Xilin curled her lips, wanting to continue mocking, but thinking that they would be colleagues in the future, she suppressed her wicked pleasure for the time being—she snorted with a little dissatisfaction, while sensing the change in the situation several kilometers away.

Zheng Zha has completed his mission, and this operation is about to come to an end.

“You don’t ‘want’ to know the truth about everything in front of you. But I’m not like you now. I’ll reveal a message that you can immediately understand everything if you ‘want’ to—what we’re doing now is exactly what you’ve done countless times in the past. And we’re actually helping you.”

"..." Alice didn't answer; she simply tilted her head slightly. Silence.

The next moment, Zheng Zha burst back into the air, and at the same time, the events were reconstructed, and the flow of time was reversed once again!

..............................

At the bar, the hotel owner revisited the moment he had first sized up the imposing traveler before him. In the burly Nord man's memory, one of his honest henchmen had heard two days earlier about a minor financial dispute with a local gang. The gang had threatened revenge, and then, just hours before today, news arrived that the poor fellow had been kidnapped.

We need to find a way to get that poor kid out.

The innkeeper racked his brains. As a Nord, seeking the lord's help wasn't the best option at the moment. Besides, the lords of Dawnstar were currently busy with the influx of refugees and diplomacy with neighboring territories. They had no time to deal with these trivial matters. Since he couldn't place his hopes on the lords and nobles, he had no choice but to rely on the strength of other factions and his own fists.

No, there is another option.

He saw the indifferent young woman descending the stairs. His years of experience running the shop told him she was a formidable character, highly skilled in physics and ruthless in action. People like her were usually short of money, and the fact that she was willing to honestly pay for a room meant she was also a lady who followed the rules. So…

After processing the check-out request from the girl who called herself 'Alice,' the tavern owner carefully began to speak.

"Madam, you look like a strong warrior. Here's a job opportunity; I wonder if you'd be interested—"

A loud bang interrupted the innkeeper's words as the inn door was suddenly flung open. Amidst the rush of cold night air, a disheveled, familiar figure scrambled into the inn.

"Uncle Taren! The Viper Gang's down!" The young shop assistant looked exhausted, but couldn't hide the excitement in his eyes. "I don't know what kind of tough guy those bastards messed with. Before I could even react, those bastards were all finished! Now the guards are leading people to clean up that sewer. I'm completely done for!"

"Oh, that's good." The hotel owner nodded happily, inwardly relieved that he had saved another expense. He gestured to his dim-witted young man to get back to work immediately, and then returned Alice's deposit to her.

"Sorry, just pretend I didn't say anything." He nodded apologetically to the girl in front of him. "I don't have any work for you right now—this is your deposit. I wish you a safe journey ahead."

..............................

Alice left the hotel.

Then, over the next half day, the same thing was repeated at least ten times.

As Alice walked into the blacksmith's shop, the blacksmith, who had been struggling with smelting techniques, suddenly discovered an inspiring metallurgical formula. Passing by the alchemy shop, a traveling merchant suddenly brought her materials urgently needed by the alchemist. As she approached the bounty board, the bounties for the monsters and bandits were all claimed. Even as she saw a homeless beggar looking at her, just before he spoke, the homeless man's wealthy distant relative spotted him!

All the quests were deciphered, and all the commissions were terminated before they could even be initiated. From the moment Alice left the inn until she reached the outer walls of Morningstar City, she didn't receive a single commission.

She wandered aimlessly, following the desires of mortals to every place that might offer a commission. During her journey, she witnessed time reversals time and time again.

The past had been altered, and altered many times. And each time, Sirin was able to accurately eliminate the source of the commission without creating new branches of events. In any other world, such behavior would be enough to be repeatedly killed a hundred or eighty times by the local humane authorities, the masters of time and space, or the automatic backlash of time and space operations. However, this time, she encountered no obstacles.

Xilin is the time traveler, keeping a close watch on Alice during each rewind to prevent her from disrupting the flow of time. Zheng Zha, on the other hand, is the time corrector, handling every change to the past.

During each correction, Alice remained obediently in the observer's position, simply watching quietly and doing nothing else.

until now.

When she, along with Sirin and Zheng Zha who had been following behind her, arrived at the gates of Morningstar City, they were met with a Nord female warrior who was completely unexpected. If any mortal familiar with the game The Elder Scrolls V were present, they would undoubtedly recognize this female warrior immediately.

Lydia, the squire, is the resolute woman who accompanies the Dragonborn throughout their lives in countless alternate timelines outside of this ritual.

Then the biggest variable arrived.

Chapter Sixty-Eight: The History of Alice