19 The Redemption System (Part 2)

Suddenly, the pocket watch in my hand began to glow, which surprised me.

I had already made the connection that the system was somehow bound to the pocket watch since the system only started to speak when I got the pocket watch back from the mud, but it confused me as to why it had begun to glow.

"Press on the of the gears, but make sure not to break anything, or you will pay a price you are not ready to."

"Why would I do that? This is practically the only thing I have left from my family."

"Your choice, host, but if you want to understand how to get me to go away, you'll have to do it."

I knew that I had no reason to do what the voice said, as I was very suspicious of the voice. However, at the end of the day, if I was still truly in hell, chances were that the pocket watch wasn't real anyway. Plus, if I truly could get rid of the voice, I would be able to get to finally relax, so after taking a deep breath, I decided to do what the voice told me to.

As soon as I applied pressure onto the gears, I felt my lungs begin to compress slightly, followed by my heart, kind of like taking a long breath and having one long heartbeat just that more painful.

Immediately I took my hand away from the pocket watch and began breathing profusely, fearing for my life. It was then that I was grateful for the voice's warning, for if this is what it felt like to apply pressure, I couldn't imagine what would happen if I broke the pocket watch.

"What the hell was that?" I said, not able to scream due to still being shocked by what had happened, although I was grateful for the warning, that didn't make me forget that the voice told me to do this in the first place.

"Simple host, think of it as a self destruct button of sorts, as long as the watch is broken, you will die"

"SO IF I JUST BREAK IT ON ACCIDENT, I WOULD DIE?!"

"Please calm down, host, and no, not unless you wanted to break the pocket watch; simply put, it is indestructible and can only be broken by you or by those you want to let be able to break it. So basically, it won't ever even have a scratch on it unless you want it to."

"...That's better, so from what I understand, I'm stuck with you until I die?"

"Pretty much"

"'...What would happen to you if I killed myself then since you are bound to my 'self destruct button.'"

"That's easy. If you killed yourself, I would just return to the afterlife, and if another being killed you, I could just turn into the most valuable item of the thing that killed you and then take them as a new host."

"So you have zero dependencies on me, but I am completely dependant on you."

"Pretty much :D."

'... Well, I guess I can't change anything about this anyway, so it seems I have no other choice but to go along with this; what are you good for anyway?'

"As I said before, host, I am a system that is here purely for giving, taking away, and trading redemption points (RP for short) in exchange for knowledge, skills, and even extending your body's lifespan."

"Yea, yea, I already got that from last time; I was asking to see if there was something else that you could do, you know, like maybe have some sort of mission panel or something that I could use to know what I'm supposed to be doing."

"If you don't mind me asking, host, why would I have any of those things?"

"I don't know; you are a magical voice in my head (which I'm still not completely certain is not a figment of my imagination); I have no idea what to expect."

"Well, host, although I don't possess any sort of 'mission panel,' I do have a way to track your body's current status; that way, I can always warn you if you manage to get hurt physically and damage a body part."

"I'm pretty sure that my nervous system already does a good enough job at alerting me whenever that happens, so I don't really see the reason for you to have that feature."

As I said those words, a thought popped up in my head. The system said that it was able to track my physical health, meaning that it probably had the ability to analyze my body completely and could, in turn, create a sort of stat page to show, well, my current status.

"Oh, that, that's just the stats page, it's sort of a tracker that also has a shortcut to accessing all other things the system can do, like the store, and even tips."

"...And you didn't feel like that was something to be mentioned, you know, when I asked what you could do and all."

"Well, I was going to, right before you interrupted me and criticized my medical analysis feature."

"...Fair enough, my bad."

" Congratulations, host, you realized your mistake; anyways, are you still interested in seeing the stat's window."

"Yes…"

"Alright, here you go, host :D."

[Name: Stevan Ciracio]

[Body age: 16]

[Life Expectancy: 4 years]

[Strength: 5]

[Agility: 4]

[Endurance: 3]

[RP: 0]

[Store: Technology, Skills ]

[Tips: Get water before you dehydrate.]

'Huh, that doesn't seem quite right; my stats seem to be on the lower end. But, now that I look at myself, although I seem to be the same, my muscles are gone; that's weird. Oh, crap, that's right, I almost forgot that I needed to be looking for a river.'

I suddenly looked at the pocket watch still in my hand; I was able to give out a sigh of relief, as only an hour had passed before I could start looking for a river though, I noticed something else on the stat window, something terrifying.

"WAIT, WHY THE HELL DOES IT SAY I ONLY HAVE 4 MORE YEARS TO LIVE?!"