Transmigrating a third time took longer to recuperate from.
Nicholas wasn't sure if it was because of the number of times he'd transmigrated, or whether the manner of his death influenced the experience, but regardless it took him nearly the entire thirty minutes to finally feel the pain receding.
What was with the constant drowning? Was he fated to always die in the same way as his original death? Admittedly with slight variations but drowning is drowning.
Once more, Nicholas came up with a list of what his previous attempts at the World had taught him:
1. Transmigrating hurt.
2. Upon dying before completing the mission he would return to the initial moment of transmigration.
3. The system was voice activated (admittedly limited to a mere "Help" option).
4. The Help Option could only be activated once per mission.
5. Synching the original's memories didn't guarantee knowing all the details necessary to survive the world.
6. Simply letting the female lead die wouldn't be enough to save the original.
7. The original's car was the murder weapon.
8. The male lead was definitely involved in an organised crime syndicate. Most likely the female lead as well.
Here, Nicholas paused. It was never clarified whether Louisa knew about Gabe's mob ties but he couldn't imagine her being kept in the dark for nearly a decade. The memories from the original suggested that she was probably involved, at least in a supportive wife role, but Nicholas made a note to never assume she was either aware nor in the dark. It was better, he decided, to assume that everyone was more involved than they were and maintain his own ostrich act.
9. The male lead was not the friend that the original thought he was.
10. The original's apartment was bugged. Definitely with hidden cameras but possibly with a wire tap as well.
11. Logic dictates if his own home isn't safe from surveillance, then he would most likely have a shadow everytime he stepped out of the house too. Being the closest companion of at least one gang lord was obviously a prime target for corruption and having men follow the original would have let the male lead stay ahead of the competition.
12. The male lead knew about the original's crush.
It was this final point that most concerned Nicholas. The rest could be avoided (mostly through keeping his head in the sand and pretending he knew nothing of Gabe's real life while still side stepping any future plots), but Gabe knowing about the original's crush had nothing to do with Nicholas' presence in the World.
<World resumes in 5 minutes. Pause function will be temporarily unavailable until mission quests completed.>
"Hey! System! You fraud. What mission quests?" This bloody system needed to come with a manual. Or at least a copy of "Transmigration for Dummies".
<You have selected Mission Quests. Please select from the following:
Introduction to Mission Quests
Instictualisation of Mission Quests>
"Oh no... You won't catch me out a second time." Nicholas shook his head as he made his selection. "If absorbing the memories is this screwy then I bet that 'instinctualisation of mission quest' means I have no clue what the quests are, but find myself driven to do random stupid shit until I complete the quest. No thank you."
<You have selected Mission Quests. Please select from the following:
Introduction to Mission Quests
Instictualisation of Mission Quests>
The writing in the air disappeared and when more didn't appear, Nicholas wondered if maybe he had chosen the wrong option afterall. No sooner had the thought occurred to him, then his vision went spotty and he found himself glad to still be sitting down. He better add that to his list of things about the system;
When accessing any information from the system, make sure to be alone and seated before making the selection.
<Mission Quests.
Mission quests are small tasks designed to facilitate the completion of the World Mission. This World has three tasks;
Save the Female Lead
Find true love
Change occupations
Completion of these tasks accelerates the completion of the World Mission; Save the Cannon Fodder Nicholas Kim.>
What kind of romance novel BS was this? Nicholas remembered teasing his mum about her addiction to Mills & Boon trashy romance novels and this sounded like it could have been taken out of any one of those stories. Save the female lead? What was he? A Knight In Shining Armour saving the Damsel In Distress from the Big Bad Mob Boss? And then theyd fall in love and ride off into the sunset to have lots of babies? He shuddered at the terrible cliché of it all. Nope. He'd find some way to complete the World Mission without finding himself living in story his mother would read.
<Pause function deactivated. World Mission resuming>
In the blink of an eye sound poured into the changeroom as the world once more returned to normal.
"Nicky?" Louisa called again, her voice sounding slightly concerned at Nicholas' lack of a response. "Sweetie? You okay in there?"
"Of course I am. I'm just stunned speechless at my own good looks." Forcing cheer into his voice, Nicholas quickly wiped the last traces of tears off his cheeks and took a deep breath before dramatically flinging open the curtain and posing in the new shirt. "What do you think?"
The woman waiting outside took one look at Nicholas' face and dropped her bags on the ground. Not giving Nicholas a chance to protest she pushed him back into the changeroom and down onto the chair. Once he was seated, she parked herself on his knees and held his face with gentle hands.
"You're not okay. What happened? You were just trying on a shirt... how did that bring sadness to these gorgeous eyes?"
Said eyes met her own brown ones and Nicholas' found himself inexplicably blinking back tears— still emotionally fragile from the events that had really only happened approximately half an hour ago.
"I'll be okay. I'm just having a mood. Maybe it's that time of month?" He joked, trying to avoid a serious conversation. Louisa was smart though and saw right through the attempt.
"It can't be that time of month— best gal pals often sync their cycles and I'm not due so you're not due. What's really the matter?"
Nicholas sighed and closed his eyes. He couldn't keep making eye contact with Louisa if he wanted her to believe him. Thanks to the original's memories, he knew that the two of them had bemoaned getting older., and the original in particular had bemoaned getting older on his own.
"I look so damn hot you know... And for who?" When he opened his eyes Louisa was searching his face before finally accepting his excuse and slapping his shoulder.
"Cheer up buttercup. You've got me and Gabe..."
"Gabe and I."
"Shut up. It's me and Gabe, loser."
"It's not."
"It is."
"It's not."
"Hey! Which one of us actually studied English Literature at university?"
"You didn't study it. You studied the lecturer. There's a difference."
"Doesn't mean I'm not right. Nicky!" Louisa slapped his shoulder again, harder this time. "You distracted me. As I was grammatically correct in saying, you have me and Gabe growing old with you. Stop moping around about being single. There is a man out there who loves you for you. And the two of you will be awesome together. It's just obviously not the right time yet otherwise he'd be at your side already."
"As awesome as you and Gabe?"
"More awesome."
It was with a lighter heart that they continued their shopping in much the same vein as Nicholas' first experience with the World. This time, however, he remembered the poor assistant with the unfortunate name and managed to steer them past her store without incident. And without needing to apologies once more.
Throughout the day, Nicholas continued to try and work out a way around the fast approaching murder attempt.
A curious thing happens when you find yourself in a mental quandry— the more serious the problem you are trying to solve, the more knots you tie yourself into and the faster it becomes impossible to see a way through.
As a result, when the day drew to a close, Nicholas still had not figured a way through the maze. All he could think of was to insist on walking to the car with Louisa, keeping a wary eye out for the stolen car. He couldn't let her get hit— he knew her death wouldn't save his life but the more time spent with her, the harder and harder it was to see her as merely a character in a game— but he also couldn't let himself die. The only option he'd thought of was to dramatically rescue her without sacrificing himself at the same time.
Unfortunately, as they waited for the lights to change before crossing the road, the details of his plan were still fuzzy.
Save Louisa. Don't die.
Easy.
Oh, and establish his lack of connection to the (hopefully) attempted murder weapon.
"Do you have plans for next weekend?"
"Brunch with the girls, but I'm free for the afternoon. Why? What did you have in mind?"
"Brunch? With the girls? You are such a walking stereotype," Nicholas shook his head in mock exasperation. "I bet you even have mimosas and claim they're just juice."
"Sometimes we have Irish Coffee and say it's only Irish because the barista is called Sean. But I'm not a complete stereotype until I have a gay best friend to go shopping and brunching with," Louisa jostled him as they started to cross the road. "Only when I have a GBF do you get to call me a walking stereotype."
"GBF? Do I want to know?"
"Gay Best Friend. Duh. You are so 2000's... abbreviations are all the rage."
"Mutton-dressed-as-lamb alert."
The screeching of tyres barely registered over the sound of their laughter.
Frozen in place, Nicholas stared at the car barrelling towards them.
"That's my car...MOVE!" At the last minute, Nicholas pushed Louisa towards the gutter and then threw himself forwards at the same time. Unlike his previous rescue attempt when he was still standing and therefore hit dead center, pun not intended, this time he was horizontal at the moment of impact.
Someone fired a gun— or was that the sound of his bones cracking under the tyres— and lightning danced behind his eyes. Mind numbing pain made his stomach roll and the last thing he saw before succumbing to the wavy darkness at the edges of his vision, was Louisa's panicked face as she held a phone to her ear.
"Stay with me Nicky... stay with me... it'll be okay... You'll be okay... Nicky? Nicky!"
(A/N: I finally got my laptop back! Hurray! Not so happy about the fact that I've barely written at all and what I did write doesn't really fit with the story- my entire outline was on my laptop and I hadn't printed off a separate copy to use as reference. So I have two days to write 35,000 words... yeah, that's not happening. Oh well. At least I finally got my computer back.)