Although he had completely lost his mory, fortunately, Longjing Tea found his own case record book. Through a quick read, he roughly guessed that the person who had just called him must have been "Inspector John".
As for his identity, he was a "patrol officer", holding a part-ti position as a "special spell advisor" for Angus City.
...Angus City.
Is it the Angus in Scotland?
Longjing Tea found sothing that sounded familiar to his ear.
What surprised him even more was that he found a sowhat odd service pistol. The pistol looked similar to a police handgun, but it had no magazine and, oddly enough, three safeties.
He casually disengaged the first safety, and the mont his palm touched the grip, it began to vibrate buzzingly. A red light flickered from the crystal on the side of the handle.
Suddenly, Longjing Tea realized sothing.
He switched it to his left hand—then he saw his own Unforgotten Item activate automatically, summoning cursed runes that erged on the side of the grip and twined around the back of his hand, mingling with the upside-down tree pattern on his skin.
And soon, the crystal was fully charged, turning green.
Although he knew it would surely invite trouble,
just to be safe, Longjing Tea aid at the flowerpot in the corner of the wall and pulled the trigger.
A ghostly green glow shot out and easily shattered it into pieces.
...It was not fully automatic, unable to fire continuously when pressed; it wasn’t loud, about the noise level of a child’s toy pistol; its power was roughly equivalent to that of a small caliber handgun.
"Is this the wizard weapon of this era?"
And the consumption was quite low—Longjing Tea didn’t even feel his curse reserve being depleted.
He then tentatively aid it at the wall and fired once.
He found it had made a hole about the thickness of a little finger.
...So it’s a piercing wound, not an explosive one.
Longjing Tea quickly made so calculations in his mind.
He didn’t continue experinting, but instead, he placed the gun in the holster at his waist and left.
—Although many things had changed,
he recognized at a glance that this was precisely the style of the tropolitan giant city he had seen before entering the subterranean world. However, there were no giants among the passers-by, just humans of about the sa height as him.
...Does that an they are still in the Land of Eternity?
As Longjing Tea pondered, he asked for directions and hurriedly walked along, soon arriving at Angus City Police Station.
It was surprisingly not far from his ho, just two streets away.
"You’re too late, Longjing Tea!"
A middle-aged, portly man with a small mustache, sitting on the sofa, bellowed at him loudly, "Hurry—where’s Job? Poppy! Take Longjing Tea to the scene and explain the situation to him on the way!"
This must be Inspector John.
Longjing Tea quickly assessed the situation.
...But why didn’t they let go directly to the scene?
He murmured to himself.
But soon, Longjing Tea found out why—a middle-aged man with blond hair rode directly on a motorcycle while he sat in the sidecar on the left, and on the right was another short man with a gun in his right hand.
—This must be a design allowing him to draw his gun and dismount quickly, if necessary.
Without a doubt.
This was a completely different world from the Foggy Continent he knew, or at least a different era.
But to say it was different, yet there were similarities—
At least to Longjing Tea’s ears, that blond-haired man had a distinctly Dennisiowa accent.
"...I see."
The situation wasn’t complicated, Longjing Tea quickly grasped everything.
Soone had been attacked on the road—it was a high-ranking Transcendent being of at least [Condensation] level; the attacked party was an ordinary person.
But the strange thing was that the attacker never tried to deliver a fatal blow. Otherwise, the victim would have died long ago.
Logically, since the opponent didn’t finish the job or abduct the victim, it ant the problem shouldn’t be too serious.
Yet a girl was frightened and called the police on the spot—and after all, it was a violent incident involving high-ranking Transcendent beings, Angus City Police had to respond imdiately.
Of course, they didn’t need to do much. Just chasing away the Transcendent being and stopping the violence would suffice... It was just an ordinary act of violence, and his two officers, both "Corruption" grade bronze rank Transcendents, clearly couldn’t do much.
At that mont, Longjing Tea, curious, asked an extra question.
"What about the violence caused by ordinary people fighting each other?"
"If we can overpower them, of course, we’ll arrest them," said the short man nad Poppy, his voice sowhat shrill, as he shrugged, "Mainly, the situation hasn’t escalated to require backup... all we can do is drive them away."
"What about Inspector John?"
"Could such a matter bother the inspector to take action? What if there really was danger?"
—So you knew there could be danger, huh?
Longjing Tea snarked in his mind.
Soon, the motorcycle raced to the outskirts.
Longjing Tea focused, drawing out the strange gun with his left hand.
He was ready to recite a Decree spell at any mont.
But he quickly saw the scene—
"...Hmm?"
It was more of a beating than an attack.
A very strong, towering bald man was punching a slender, short, white-haired boy over and over.
Each punch drew blood—there was already a frightful pool of blood on the ground, enough to fill half a bathtub, yet the white-haired boy still staggered, refusing to fall.
—Are you sure he’s just an ordinary person?
The thought crossed Longjing Tea’s mind.
To him, the boy who seed impervious to death, as if he had a no-death cheat activated, was far scarier than the strong man...
Because at the mont of their encounter, he had already recognized the identity of the strong man.
"—Hey, police."
Longjing Tea called out languidly.
The burly man turned around upon hearing the words.
He raised his right hand, fingers together like a knife, and made a slashing motion at them.
—A moonlight-like "Qi" was conjured.
The power of the pure moonlight was terrifying and struck them in an instant.
It was powerful enough to cut them in half at the waist.
The two officers were so terrified they couldn’t even speak—let alone rember to draw their guns.
But just as the sword energy approached them.
The sword energy suddenly twisted in the middle, and the tall, muscular man silently appeared in front of them.
With one hand on an ear of each officer, he brought their temples together with a forceful bump, causing blood and brain matter to burst forth from their foreheads.
The two officers imdiately lost consciousness and fell into a deep faint.
"—A mighty split skull."
The burly man took a deep breath, bowed his head, closed his eyes, and chanted solemnly.
"Split your hamr."
Longjing Tea complained, "What are you playing at? Aren’t they dead for sure?"
"Don’t worry about that. I did it to knock them out as quickly as possible; otherwise, we would’ve had a fight on our hands."
Delicious Goose looked at Longjing Tea, "You work at the police station, and I don’t even know your address. It was not easy to find you."
"...How do you know I work at the police station?"
Longjing Tea frowned slightly, "Have you cleared the main quest?"
"Yes."
Delicious Goose nodded and said in a deep voice, "Actually, this is at least the third iteration... In the first two iterations, when you all died, I would return to 2:30 p.m. on this day.
"And besides —or perhaps, besides the last person to die, no one else retains their mory. So I said it might be at least the third iteration."
"But we have no reason to deceive each other. Since no one ca forward in the second iteration to say they had mories of the previous one, it’s likely only the third iteration."
Defu’s voice drifted over as a wildcat erged from the shadows.
Following from the other side was the one-eyed girl Elle.
"I’m the one who called the police..."
Elle extended her hand to Longjing Tea with nervousness and discomfort, "Hello..."
"Ah, hello, Miss Elle. I’ve heard about you."
Longjing Tea warmly shook hands with Elle.
If Elle was also here...
He thought to this point and suddenly turned to look at the white-haired boy who couldn’t seem to be beaten to death.
"Who is this...?"
He inquired.
"Haven’t you guessed already?"
Delicious Goose countered.
Defu answered, "Skeleton Duke. This child is the Skeleton Duke."
"I...who am I...?"
The white-haired boy who was bloodied yet unhard raised his head, looking blankly at everyone.
"What exactly is going on?"
Longjing Tea took a deep breath and asked again.
"We’re trapped."
Delicious Goose replied, "There’s sothing wrong with this city.
"To say what’s wrong..."
At that mont, the two officers—who even had their brains struck out—slowly woke up.
They looked at Delicious Goose but showed no animosity at all.
Not because they were holding back, but as if they had never been attacked in the first place.
Officer Poppy sighed in relief, "You’ve stopped fighting, good..."
"Yes, the conflict has been resolved."
Delicious Goose added, tapping Longjing Tea’s shoulder with a asured pat.
Longjing Tea imdiately got the hint and added, "I’ll stay a while to record the details of the case. You guys go back first,"
"Okay, then we’ll head back."
The two officers, unhard except for bloody foreheads, nodded. Without giving Delicious Goose another glance, as if they had forgotten his earlier attack, they just hopped on their motorbikes and left.
"...What exactly is happening here?"
Longjing Tea took another deep breath and asked, "What was I saying last iteration?"
"Everyone here is only dealing with [quests]. Just like the quest ’stop the fighting’ that the two officers received, once the fighting is over, they will end the quest and head back. This is a possibility you raised yourself.
"And attacking them was a ’test’ proposed by you in the previous iteration. The result was just as you expected—attack them ’before the fight is over’, then end the fight before they wake up, and the ’mission complete and return’ directive will override the ’retaliation’ directive. That’s why it’s ignored... But if they are attacked at this mont, they will imdiately strike back."
Delicious Goose replied, "And here, no one will ever die no matter what. But they don’t realize this at all...like..."
"...like NPCs that only process rigid tasks."
Longjing Tea took another deep breath.
At that mont, he suddenly heard the voice of Skeleton Duke in his ear.
But this ti, it wasn’t "I’m listening," but a complete sentence:
"To ensure that certain things can be rembered, people can always die a little more..."
The next mont, the main quest panel popped up in front of him:
[Main Quest: Reset]
[Find the Unforgotten Item]
[Find the Person Not in Dreams]
[Confirm the "Reset" chanism]
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