Across Worlds

"The original owner is still alive?"

I whipped my head towards Sazzy as I finally realized that I had overlooked something incredibly important.

Sazzy, with a blank face, nodded her head.

"I thought that after 20 years our bodies will stop working?"

[That is true, yes. Since this body is kind of an 'artificial' copy.]

"Then how is he still alive?"

Swinging her legs as she sat on the seat backs, Sazzy lowered her eyes to avoid mine.

[He is alive. Although in another world. His life in this world is over, but since his mission is cross-world, he stayed here for 20 years before going to another world. Most likely his original one.]

From my right, I felt Oliver's hand on my arm. He was unconsciously tightening his grip.

"Then could I ask what kind of department the original owner is in?"

Angling her head to the side, I saw her eyes glance at me before she straightened and smiled.

[There are many departments with systems, and most systems belong to several departments at once! I haven't been a system for long but the two departments I joined are the villain rehabilitation department, as well as the talent transmigration department. Ava herself has been around for quite a while and is in three departments. The talent transmigration department, adolescence department and the coding department. She only helps out the coding department occasionally though. She said she finds it depressing.]

Sazzy explained the differences between the departments and gave us some examples.

[There are times when a world has stagnated too much, and needs an outsider to be transmigrated in. This is usually quite risky since outsiders also bring about many problems like the technological lag I mentioned before, or they might be too insensitive to the culture of the world, get manipulated, and accelerate or intensify the problem. So sometimes, there are systems that decide it is better to take someone who has the position to positively change things, and bring them to other worlds to cultivate them and teach them. This job is usually taken up by the talent transmigration department. Although since this circumstance is quite rare, we mostly bring over individuals who have talents not appreciated or not expressed in their original world to a world that needs them.]

[But when we bring in outsiders, we tend to handicap them in order to not cause too many problems.]

With those words I was reminded of the time when I first transmigrated to this world, and how I felt so confused when most of the ingredients were so vastly different from my original world.

[The original owner's system, Tom, is also part of the talent transmigration system. Which is why he gets the whole two worlds treatment. And although I am part of that department, right now I am working as a system from the villain rehabilitation department.]

I saw Sazzy shoot a glance at me again. Beside me, Oliver was listening intently to Sazzy's explanation with a very concentrated expression on his face.

I was reminded of the time when Sazzy explained what the villain rehabilitation system did. And according to what Sazzy just said, Ava was probably working as a system for the talent transmigration department. I had a feeling that the adolescence department wouldn't cause Oliver this much stress.

Returning to their original world, huh.

I stole a glance at Oliver's concentrated face.

I guess that means that Oliver is going to meet with Andrew again. Although I didn't really trust him, there was no better adult to take care of Oliver until he was old enough to legally take care of himself.

Frowning as I roughly flipped through my memories in order to gauge how well Oliver would fare alone in our original world, I was suddenly worried for him. I didn't really have any friends I kept in contact with out of school, and I didn't really know Oliver's friends. Much less Andrew's relatives or friends. And Ava was his system.

Deep in thought, I was suddenly derailed by Sazzy.

[Is there a problem? You're frowning.]

Looking up, I saw Sazzy and Oliver looking at me in concern.

"No. I was just thinking about some things."

Smiling at them, I then stood up slowly. It was currently quite late. We talked so much that the sky was turning slightly dark.

"We should stop our traveling to gather some food ingredients. I think the trees beside us are Ruby fruits and over there should be able to harvest some Red wood."

Heading to the front of the car, I paused the autopilot as the three of us got down from the car.

Walking to the nearest tree, I looked at its wood color, its leaves and visible fruits before determining it was a Ruby tree. I then donned a pair of gloves I had grabbed from the car and jumped up to try and pick the low hanging fruits of the tree.

Behind me was Oliver, who was holding onto the basket and watching me.

Touching the fruit, I could feel it slip out of my fingers as I fell downward. Then, as I reached the ground, I bent my legs and stretched my back, trying to get even an inch higher to properly grip the fruit.

Feeling the slight bumps of the fruit, I tightened my grip. For a second, I was hanging off the tree via the fruit. However, my weight was too much for the thin branches to handle and they quickly snapped, sending me and the fruit falling to the ground.

Landing on my feet, I used my unoccupied hands to break off the extra piece of branch that was attached to the fruit and threw the fruit into Oliver's basket.

"Be careful!"

Hearing a shout of encouragement from behind, I flashed a smile to relive Oliver before jumping once more towards another fruit.

"Wait sister!"

Hearing Oliver's exclamation, I stopped jumping and turned back to look at him. Holding tightly onto the basket with both hands, Oliver's body was turned towards somewhere to our left.

"I think I saw someone over there."

With Oliver in the lead, we left the trees alone and headed towards several bushes.

"Hello?"

Oliver called out, trying not to raise his voice too much. And as we went nearer to the bush, I could see why. Standing very still behind the bushes was a small and familiar girl.

She was the one who sold me the wooden flower bracelet on my wrist!

"Hello there. Where is your mother."

Calling out to her, we saw her slowly turn her body to face us.

"...Hello."

Replying back with a small voice on the edge of tears, we stopped at a certain distance from her. It was obvious she was scared of something, and we didn't want to add to her fear by getting too close.

"Mom... I can't find mom."

In the little girl's arms was a hand woven ball made of dried wood.

"Our car is over there. Do you want to wait there for your mother?"

Oliver put down the basket to point in the direction of our car.

"But.....mom said I should not move if I get lost."

I saw the red marks on the little girl's hands from gripping her ball too hard.

"The car is bigger, so it'll be easier to spot. We also aren't bad people."

Trying my best to sound as soothing as I could, I held out my arm and pointed to the flower bracelet on my wrist.

"Ah. The big sister from the AT center."

We watched as the girl's body became slightly less tense and she took one step towards us.

I took off the gloves I was wearing and threw them into the basket. Then, as she took one small step after another towards us, I scooped her into my arms as soon as she got close enough.

"Don't worry. Your mom will find you soon."

Repeating comforting words to her, the three of us headed back to the car. Food gathering could come later.

From the side of my eye, I saw Oliver pick up the basket and walk beside us.

When we reached the car, I placed her on the seat backs. Oliver placed the basket aside and rummaged through our ingredient bag. He then pulled out a sweet fruit and sat beside the girl.

"Do you want some?"

We watched the girl hesitantly reach out and receive the fruit, before taking a small bite out of it.

Smiling at the sight, I left her to Oliver and I scanned the woods. Sazzy herself was walking a little more into the woods. We both tried to even catch a glimpse of a shadow that could probably be her mother.

After a while of standing, I was contemplating scaling the car and standing on the roof to get a better view when Sazzy called out from a distance.

[Found her! She's here!]

I glanced at the two children, and signaled to Oliver that we found her, before I walked briskly to where Sazzy was.

In front of Sazzy, lying on the ground passed out, was the mother that I had seen at the AT center.

[She's still alive! Although looking at things it seems she passed out from poisoning. It's not serious yet, but we need to get her help immediately!]

Listening to Sazzy, I slung her hand over my shoulder and tried my best to support her all the way to the car. Sazzy, after checking that there was no one nearby, helped support her on the other side.

In what seemed like too long, we finally reached the car and I laid her out on the seat back.

"Mom!"

The little girl cried out as she tried to rush to her, but Oliver helped me hold her back.

"She's sick right now! We should not get too close!"

Oliver hugged her struggling body against him as I hopped into the driver's seat and set the car to manual. Manual driving would be faster.

"Sazzy! Can you help me navigate to the Fluvius village!"

Sazzy scrambled to the passenger seat at the same time as me and she gave an affirmative noise as she opened up her personal terminal.