What on Earth?

  A series of class options descended in front of Momo’s eyes. Wizard. Rogue. Chef. Merchant. Paladin. Knight. Warrior. Blacksmith. Huh? Was the Nether Administration Department having an aneurysm ? This had to be wrong. Earth didn’t have a System.

  A bright red dot appeared on Richard’s forehead. Momo wouldn’t have even noticed it if it wasn’t for her fly eyes; they were attracted like laser pointers to the shimmering point.

  Huh. That dot kind of looks like the one you see in the sight of a rifle in an action movie when they're about to shoot someone in the head.

  Momo squinted.

  Wait.

  Oh.

  Right.

  Richard is supposed to die right now.

  Despite having known this for literally weeks, Momo's brain hadn't really computed the fact that she was about to watch a man get murdered.

  Yeah. Yep. She was about to watch a man get murdered, and she wasn't allowed to do anything about it. Or… was that even true? Were there actual rules and guidelines dictating if the Grim Reaper could interfere with the whole murder attempt thing?

  If she recalled, the quest just said she had to shepherd his soul to the afterlife or whatever, but it didn't say she had to do that today, like, specifically. Just to do it when he died.

  So could she save him now, wait for him to wither away at the peaceful age of 93, and then deal with it then, right? That sounded plausible.

  Just as she had convinced herself of it, the window on the north side of the room exploded in a harrowing pulse, glass pieces showering over screaming waitresses.

  Momo watched in slow motion as a bullet soared across the room. She reached into her mind, trying to transform out of the fly form, but she wasn't quick enough. She couldn’t think straight. The bullet was nearly there, it was too late—

  Maybe this was just how fate was supposed to go.

  She closed her eyes just as the bullet went to strike Richard’s forehead.

  One long, terrible second past, her heartbeat hammering in her chest.

  Only she didn't hear him scream out in anguish, or hear Laura cry for help.

  Instead, Momo only heard a metal clang, and then Richard shouting, "What the hell is on my face?"

  Momo's eyes snapped back open. Richard was alive, and probably relatedly, now dressed in a full suit of armor. Knight armor. In fact, Momo had seen that exact suit of armor on one of Jarva's henchmen previously. It even had the emblem from the Knights of the Sun.

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  Momo's eyes traveled to the ground. A bullet, dented, was lying on the floor alongside hundreds of pieces of glass. Her eyes tracked back up. There was a dent in the exact same size of the ammunition in his helmet, right above the bridge of his nose.

  "Mr. Smith!"

  One of the waitresses, her face cut up from the glass spray, ran up to Richard in a panic.

  "We think there's a rifle up there,” she said, trembling. “We've called the police, but you have to evacuate right now.”

  Richard glared up at her in-between the slits of his helmet.

  "A rifle? Are you shitting me?”

  The waitress’s voice wobbled and she shook her head back and forth.

  “N-no sir. Please, come with me.”

  Across from Richard, Laura's outfit suddenly changed. Her pantsuit momentarily became blurry, as if the universe was providing a modesty-cover as it altered the makeup of her clothing. A second later, she was outfitted head-to-toe in robes, dark, long, and wizardly. Momo recognized the witch’s hat she was wearing from the original Wizard of Oz.

  Interesting. Richard's outfit seemed to borrow precisely from Alois, but Laura’s looked distinctly… earthly in its motif, as if the System was borrowing an equal amount from the planet it had landed on as it was from the actual lore the gods had created for themselves.

  And that's when it hit Momo. That’s what this was. The lore department. Something had happened, and they had deemed it time to install the System on Earth. But why now? And what did it mean for her? What did it mean for her family? Her brother?

  Her parents—

  Oh god.

  Those two were barely able to wrap their minds around the invention of the flatscreen television. There was no way they were prepared to pick a class.

  She needed to get home. Now.

  But what about Richard? Stupid Richard. Well, not stupid, he turned out to just be grumpy, not evil, and maybe actually a good person—but she still had to deal with him.

  Was fate going to just keep returning for him? If the universe was hell-bent on putting him out of existence today, would the shots just keep coming?

  She didn’t know how this whole free will thing actually worked in practice. None of the onboarding materials mentioned that.

  Not that she had read any of them.

  Oops.

  Well. C'est la vie.

  Richard had linked his arm with the witchified Laura, and they were now heading for the elevator. No more shots had come yet, but that didn’t mean he was safe.

  Momo took a look at his Death clock.

  -1:00 minutes.

  Great. The clock was now counting backwards. That did not help clear things up.

  Well, maybe one thing. It was clear now that the whole sudden System Apocalypse thing had indeed been an aberration from the “plan,” so to speak; the timeline had taken a sharp right turn, and was now like a run-off truck barreling toward an unknown end.

  There would be consequences, Momo just didn’t know which, and when.

  She swapped her screen over to the quest itself.

  Ok. It was still active. She hadn’t succeeded or failed.

  And as long as the quest was still active… Momo couldn’t go back to the Nether.

  At least, she didn’t know how to. Valerica had mentioned that Momo would be whisked back there as soon as the quest was over, but what about the scenario where she was unable to finish it? If the quest was just in this permanent limbo state?

  The elevator dinged. The bar’s manager, who had been on the phone with what Momo guessed was an emergency operator, approached the stunned pair of them, careful to make sure he was not in sight of the windows. Luckily, the elevator was shielded by a wall.

  “The police have arrived in the lobby,” he informed them. “You’re safe to go down.”

  Richard scoffed loudly.

  “Are you an idiot? I’m not taking an elevator when someone is trying to kill me.”

  Uncoordinated and clumsy in his knight armor, Richard nonetheless headed for the stairs.

  Laura looked between him and the bar manager, and then ultimately started trailing after him. Momo made the same call.

  She had no idea what was going on, and just how bad things had gotten in the Nether that this was even happening—her educated guess: very bad—but she had a feeling that following the meant-to-be-dead-man might give her a clue.

  So she lifted off the table with a flutter of wings, and darted toward the stairwell.

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