Nana Shi had planned to slip into the independent space and grill that idiot for everything that happened on her turf these past six months. Intent shot like an arrow; a pebble of interruption knocked it off course.

A small incident cut across her path, like wind shearing a banner. She had to return to the city and put things in order, dust settling like ash.

“Your Majesty…”

She’d barely changed into a new black gown, night pooled like ink, when a soldier hurried up outside her door like a gust through dry reeds. Her next move still a blank sky.

“What is it? Spit it out.” Nana opened the door, gaze sharp as a knife’s edge. “More envoys from other nations coming to offer their heads?”

“...” Your Majesty fixating on other nations’ envoys losing their heads… that’s a thing, huh. The soldier flushed, sweat beading like dew, but he didn’t delay the message.

“Report. Your Majesty, the annual Continental Joint Conference is in a few days. Here’s the invitation…” How do we handle it, hung there like a bird on a wire.

Before he finished, Nana stepped forward and shut the door. The click fell like a gavel.

“Send it back.” Her voice was calm as winter water. “I haven’t cleaned up my own yard. I don’t have time to bicker with other countries’ idiots.”

“...” He’d expected that answer, wind reading the weather, but still…

“Lord Yan advises Your Majesty to attend this Joint Conference.” A cautious tide in his voice. “Since your ascension, you’ve never gone. It might be time to make a showing.”

“Reason?” The word fell like a pebble into a well.

“Lord Yan says the conference could make your future work lighter.” He kept respectful, back straight like a spear.

Nana’s brows drew together, a shadow crossing snow. “That idiot really said that?”

“...” Hard to echo when Your Majesty calls Lord Yan an idiot. But—

“Ahem… Lord Yan did say exactly that.”

“Put it aside. I’ll ask him myself tomorrow.” Her tone was a closed gate in the fog.

“Yes.”

Nana rarely stayed in the palace; a comet skimming roofs. If not for the recent news of her killing a Left Chamber noble of the Pan Mountain Empire outside the walls, many ministers would still think she lay comatose behind that door, sleeping like stone.

Even so, she kept Chronos City in order, threads taut as a loom.

“Send a notice.” Her words cracked like ice. “I’m giving those people half a day. They’d better roll out of Chronos City. If they don’t… don’t say I never gave them time to breathe.”

Their hands had stretched too far, like vines strangling a pillar, and she could feel their eyes sliding past her, as if she were air.

The continent’s powers hadn’t shifted much in her six-month coma, the stars steady. Yet in the past two days alone, five messages burned through her desk, all about foreign envoys requesting audience.

The reason was the same drumbeat: priority access to buy her advanced tech and IP. Their noses lifted like crows on a wall. Nana almost lopped the lot of them down, heads rolling like gourds.

She didn’t have time to swat flies. If they were sensible, she’d save herself the trouble. If not, she didn’t mind carving out personal time to play.

On the other side, the System saw Nana again two days later.

She’d just stepped out of an instrument with a new body, metal scent fading like storm ozone. The data in her head hadn’t settled, thoughts like scattered leaves—then she ran into Nana Shi, who’d come looking for the black-clad figure.

“Huh? Host…”

“Yo. You’re up?” Nana’s tone was level as a lake at dawn.

They’d only traded the first words when Nana strangled the chat dead, a silk thread snapped.

Too calm—her voice and face both. Like waving to a neighbor on a dusty street, asking if they’ve eaten.

In short, the System felt crushed. A walnut in a press.

“...” What do you mean I’m up! And why do you look like you should obviously be here, like the moon above tiles!

“Ah… Nana, you’re here.” The black-clad figure emerged from the independent space, voice its original timbre, a low bell. “Here to see Yi-chan?”

“No.” The answer was quick and clean, a blade’s flick. Dead-fish eyes, emotion as thin as frost. Kill the body, then the heart.

Silence pressed the pocket space flat. Especially for the System beside the black-clad figure—her gaze went damp and wounded, like a little wife thrown out into rain.

Sudden regret bloomed—why had she saved this scumbag Host? The thought stung like nettles.

“But why is Host here, anyway!” Her words tumbled like stones. “Weren’t you supposed to follow history and become Chronos City’s ruler!”

Do rulers have this much free time? A crown can’t be this light.

“I came to check on Nesting Phoenix,” Nana said, cool as shade. “And to ask about continental news from my six months out.”

“You’re asking about Nesting Phoenix? Huh?!” The System blinked. “Host knows Nesting Phoenix in real life?!”

“Because Seven is Nesting Phoenix.” The black-clad figure reached over and ruffled the System’s hair, palm warm as sun through paper. “I’ve been explaining what happened these days, remember?”

“...” Who knew the road would twist like a mountain path.

The System felt herself splitting. After she returned from Blue Magpie’s world, she’d sensed something off, a grit in the gears. She hadn’t expected this level of absurd.

Nana Shi was indeed Chronos City’s newest ruler. And the reason she became Nana Toki to plane-travel with the System was to treat the comatose Nesting Phoenix—and finish the enemy who hadn’t died years ago.

Nana Toki was Nana Shi’s alias. The Host had guessed early; Trollop had leaked plenty, crumbs like breadcrumbs in snow.

But that her Host would team up with her own Boss—that had never crossed the System’s mind. Two dragons sharing one sky.

And to stage this drama, Nana had sealed most of her past memories. The black-clad figure had replaced them with crafted ones, bright shards in dark water.

Ridiculous. Off the rails. The world tilted.

So that “web author” being hounded by higher-ups—turns out the higher-up was her own Host in the shadows, whip in hand.

Dear heavens. The clown was me all along.

“No helping it. You believed your idiot Boss without blinking,” Nana said, taking a stack of files from the black-clad figure, pages whispering like reeds. She didn’t look up. “Now you finally realize you were sold.”

System: “...”

“But if it’s that simple, why did you need me at all?” The words came out small, a sparrow in wind. “I’m just dead weight.”

Your Boss and your Host were already monsters. They didn’t need a paperweight.

“I call you an idiot for a reason.” Nana’s glance flicked over, cold as moonlight. “Use your brain. Without you, who would disrupt time and go back to save me, back when the Ice Emperor left me half-dead?”

“Your Boss’s body is too weak to bear time travel. She also had to stay in the future to help me keep Chronos City steady. She couldn’t move. Without you, the plan doesn’t take a step.”

“Eh?! So I’ve been that important all along?” The System’s eyes pricked, like spring water welling.

“But only while my memory was gone,” Nana said, cutting the string. “The rest of the time, you were a professional slacker.”

“...”

“It’s just a pity Blue Magpie’s plane was invaded too hard.” The black-clad figure exhaled, a wind across scorched fields. “We had to advance the plan. Otherwise, Nana Toki could’ve gotten more intel.”

“Those guys?” The System’s brow wrinkled like ripples. She still hadn’t pinned down who Trollop was.

“They’re the ones who invaded Nesting Phoenix’s spirit world and interfered with Nana Toki.” The black-clad figure drew a curtain of light from thin air, a virtual screen blooming like a lotus.

“Trollop and Nana Toki aren’t the same. Nana Toki crosses planes through my tech. If something happens mid-transit, that’s real death, tombstone and all.”

“But Trollop’s different. He can die mid-plane without touching his real body, like cutting a shadow.”

“That kind of intervention can’t be achieved with tech. If I’m right, Trollop carries the Law of Time.”

“Speaking of time—Host is the Queen of Time’s successor. Why doesn’t she have the Law of Time in her body?” The System tilted her head, a bird pecking at a seed. They even share the surname Shi.

“Because that happened after you saved Nana Toki…” The black-clad figure’s voice went bitter, tea steeped too long.

“Toppling Moragus wasn’t easy. Hard as lifting a mountain. Especially with Chronos City’s tech centuries ahead of the continent—his grip was iron. If Moragus hadn’t misread the board, thought Nana Toki died in the snowy peaks, and abandoned keeping Seven alive, he might still be in power.”

“War burns money like a wildfire. If Nana Toki had truly died, Seven as a hostage chip became dispensable.”

“But Moragus never expected the one in charge of studying Seven was me.” For once, the black-clad figure sounded pleased, a smile ghosting under the hood like dawn.

“But what does that have to do with Host lacking the Law of Time?” The System’s curiosity bubbled like a pot.

“Well… the last battle was won because Nana set down her pride and went north to the Northland to ask the Ice Emperor for help.”

“Eh?! Host asked someone for help?!” The System jolted like a cat.

“Ask, not beg.” Nana’s face didn’t change, correction falling like sleet.

“...” Same river, different banks.

“Anyway, they were the two strongest alive then. Their Spirit Energy clashed like thunderheads. Many on the continent died in the storm.”

“To repair shattered Chronos City and most of those who died in that war, Nana rewound time. The cost was most of the time-law in her body, bled like gold dust.”

“And because it was a rewind, those people have no memory of Nana saving them. Instead, they resent her for becoming Chronos City’s new ruler, grudge blooming like mold.”

“That’s why, when Nana Toki traveled planes, you saw her reputation points so low. That metric converts from people’s belief. When the crowd hates you like a tide, your numbers surge and dip.”

“How can it be like this! Isn’t that too unfair to Host?” The System’s chest tightened, a drum in rain. But Nana looked unbothered, a mountain under snow.

“No matter. I started this, so I end it.” Her tone was a sword slid back into its sheath.

“A throne is a height common folk can’t fathom. Whether my own citizens, or others, love or hate me—I don’t care.”

“As for pity? That’s a thing only the weak keep in their pockets.” Her gaze was distant as starlight. “In this life, it’s a shore I’ll never touch.”