Matt POV

"Bubble..."

"sway... sway.. sway..."

My eyelids feel heavy and damp.

"Schwarz, wake up! At this rate, you’ll disappear again!"

A muffled and distant voice echoed somewhere far away.

Huh... who is Schwarz...

"Wake up! You promised me!"

Promised...

Promised...

...I don’t remember promising anything.

"Where did your resolve from that day go?!"

Resolve...?

Me?

If I had something like that... my life wouldn’t have turned out like this.

...I must be dreaming again.

"Dammit,"

"splash!..."

"Bubble.... bubble....."

"Bub... glub... w-a-a-a-ke... u-u-u-p... "

My body was shaken rigorously, yet all I could feel was a gentle swaying motion.

It felt like I was sleeping in an automatic swaying hammock.

...Mmn...

This went on for a good 10 minutes until it slowly stopped.

Magic hammock... did you break?

Don’t worry... I’ll fix you later...

"Bubble... bubble..."

"... N...oo... ch...oi...ce....."

"Bubble.... bubble.....bubble....."

.....

Warm..

Something soft pressed against my lips.

Instinctually, I clamped my mouth shut, but I couldn’t stop it. It slipped inside and started to move, wiggling against me before wrapping tightly around my tongue.

I couldn’t think, I could only feel the way it tangled with me. I felt like I was being violated, yet I didn’t even want to fight anymore because of the euphoria that came with it.

I could feel a thick warmth starting to burn at the top of my head.

_________________________________

[Universal System Override]

[Code: 0003]

[User: Verde]

[Granting temporary shared access to Verde’s Existence]

[Stabilizing host condition...]

[Transferring necessary narrative...]

[Warning: Partial existence overlap initiated]

[Sustaining user through external life-link]

_________________________________

...Huh?

Did I... forget to turn off my alarm...?

A sharp light cut through everything.

A translucent screen formed, close enough that I couldn’t look away.

_________________________________

[User: Verde is sending a message within the link]

"Is the debt you promised to settle with that boy a lie?"

_________________________________

Debt....

I don’t have such a thing. I cut ties with everyone.

....

But I guess, I do have one...

One that I cannot repay enough with my life alone.

Right....

The reason why I insist on living this pathetic life is to see his story reach a happy end.

_________________________________

[Universal System is online]

[Code: 00##]

[User: ########]

[Stabilizing host condition...]

[Complete.]

[User: Weiss is sending a message within the link]

[Welcome back, World Rejector]

[Retrieval of access to the Universal System function in process]

[Complete.]

_________________________________

As I slowly regained consciousness, the first thing I saw was exactly what I expected.

It was a blurry, glitched green silhouette, but I could see her much more clearly now.

Back then, all I could make out was a shadow. Now, I could see fragments of her hair and even her physical form.

Her hair was incredibly long and straight, flowing wildly through the water.

....

Huh?

Wait, water?

"Gurgle! ...Gurgle!!"

What the heck? Had I been sleeping underwater this entire time?

Panicked, I thrashed around, trying to swim toward the surface, but Verde stopped me.

She swayed her hand, leaving behind green luminescent particles that shaped themselves into letters.

"Calm down. We are in a garden."

Huh? How did it make sense for us to be in a garden?

Suddenly, the underwater scenery shifted instantly into the backyard garden from my previous world.

!!?

What just happened?

"Welcome back, Schwarz."

"Verde?"

So, your memory of me remains. It seems your authority has completely left you.

"Why are you here? Why did you save me?"

"Weiss discovered our connection. As shameful as it is, I am forced to be his eyes upon you."

She flicked her hair with her hands, and the strands twisted themselves into the shape of a drill.

"Beyond that, I am not obliged to say anything more., you’ll just forget it all anyway."

I wanted to refute that, but given my circumstances, I knew I shouldn’t.

I looked around....

It truly was the garden from my previous world, the one my mother had tended to in her limited free time.

I walked toward my favorite section.

A bush of white baby’s breath. Beside them, daisies grew in bulk.

I crouched down and took a whiff.

The nostalgia hit me immediately. This felt too real to be an illusion.

Verde stepped up behind me and tapped my back.

"This is not an illusion. We are in your sea of consciousness. Everything you have experienced and remembered will be made real here, depending on your thoughts."

"So that’s why you said we were in a garden. It’s to shift the landscape. But how did you know I had this memory?"

"Has your authority left your memory foggy again? You offered it yourself during the coming-of-age ceremony, allowing me to peek into your everything.

"There wasn’t much to search, as your ’Destroy’ authority was erasing your memories constantly, but I could still trace a quarter-century of foggy fragments."

Did this mean she knew the truth about me and the future of this world?

...

Oh, right! I forgot.

Once you reach a certain pinnacle, you naturally gain that knowledge, and since Verde sees me as Schwarz, she assumes I already know.

Even if I didn’t, everything would just trace back to my authority destroying my memory.

She crouched down beside me and sniffed the flowers.

"It doesn’t smell like anything at all. In all my long life, I have never seen a flower like this."

"Haha...., I know. I think you’ll prefer the one beside it," I said, pointing at the daisies.

She caught their scent and smiled. "It’s fragrant and not overly sweet. What are these called?"

"The small clusters of tiny flowers are called baby’s breath. The fragrant ones are called daisies."

"I see. I’ll remember them. I recall the boy you owe wearing a spatial storage device shaped just like that daisy. I thought it was just a strange design, turns out it was a species I simply hadn’t seen."

I felt a spark of happiness at her praise. That ’flower’ meant a lot to me.

Naturally, it’s also my responsibility to nurture and repay what that flower represented.

"Verde... I think it’s time for me to go back."

She touched a daisy gently.

"I don’t think you would want to wake up if you knew what was happening outside."

I shook my head softly left and right.

"I know."

...

We just squatted right beside each other, staring at the flowers in front of us in silence.

...

After a while, I stood up and patted the dirt from my knees.

I remembered we kept floral shears in the garage.

The moment the thought crossed my mind, they appeared in my hand.

I crouched back down and snipped a few stems of baby’s breath.

"Verde, did you know that many people consider this flower a weed? It gets trampled on a lot."

I gathered the stems and arranged them neatly.

"More often than not, people would rather pluck them out. But the moment I saw this ’weed’ bloom, I felt attached to it. I didn’t even know it was an actual flower. It’s just like me. Useless, unwanted, and a mistake."

I then sheared off some daisies and arranged them with the baby’s breath.

"But you see, sometimes this grass shines best when it’s with others."

I thought of a ribbon and the white plastic film we used for wrapping; they magically appeared in my hands. I put together a humble, neat bouquet.

"So even if I am useless and unwanted, I will still exist. I’ll do it for the sake of someone who can shine and someone with a more meaningful purpose than me."

I handed the bouquet to Verde. She accepted it, looking down at the arrangement.

"Beautiful..."

"Thank you for saving me, Verde. I think it’s time to face my despair."

She looked straight into my eyes—or at least, that’s what it felt like. All I could really see was her glitched, silhouetted frame.

She reached out and touched my chest.

"Your friend was very diligent in preparing things for you."

"Haha, I’m sure he was." I shrugged.

"I hope we see each other again. I quite fancy your current self."

I nodded.

"Yeah. I think I like my current self more, too."