“Scrrraach—”

The desk beside her got kicked aside without warning. Dropped into a totally new setting with zero clue what was going on, Lily Ashford sat there looking completely stunned, brain basically offline.

“Hey, didn’t I already tell you...”

A boy’s voice rang out by her ear—rough with puberty, but still carrying that sharp, clean edge unique to teenage boys. That was what finally snapped Lily a little back to herself. She turned her head and looked over.

The guy was wearing a red tracksuit in the most half-assed way possible. One pant leg on the left was casually rolled up, and on his feet were a pair of slippers. He looked exactly like the kind of bad-boy troublemaker teachers got headaches over.

He curled his lips into a lazy grin. The split at the corner of his mouth still showed off yesterday’s glorious battle damage. Looking all casual and cocky, he said, “Didn’t I tell you to talk to the teacher and switch seats? What, you deaf?”

The last syllable lifted slightly, with a smile in it that sounded dangerous no matter how lightly he said it.

Everything in front of her felt so real—way too real. Lily’s expression turned straight-up horrified.

What was happening?

Who was he?

No, wait, more importantly—

Where even was this?

Last night she had finally dragged herself to the finish line, wrapped up her final manuscript, and sent it to her editor. At this very moment, shouldn’t she be at home, sleeping like the dead and enjoying life?

Catching the fear in the girl’s eyes, the boy leaned in closer like he was enjoying this way too much. He stared right at those confused dark eyes behind her glasses, then said slowly, like he was teasing her with a joke, “Book. Worm.”

His warm breath brushed against the young girl’s cheek. Even while her world view was actively collapsing, Lily had to admit one thing—

The person in front of her was terrifyingly real.

She suddenly shoved him away. Under everyone’s shocked stares, she bolted straight out of the classroom.

“Tch. Scared that easily?”

Damien Lockwood shot a disdainful look at her retreating figure, then swaggered over, dragged a chair out, and sat down like he owned the place. The boys behind him rushed up right away, one fanning him, another handing him water like he was some kind of campus king.

But right now, Lily only wanted one answer.

What the hell was going on?

She ran into the girls’ bathroom and immediately saw herself in the mirror. She recoiled in horror, stumbling back a step—and the girl in the mirror did the exact same thing.

Short student-cut hair stopping by the ears. Standard issue school hairstyle. A pair of dark, bright eyes hidden behind glasses. The whole face screamed top student, model class rep energy.

But...

That face was not hers at all.

So what was this?

By then the class bell had already rung for the second time. From the classroom came the clear, practiced sound of students reading aloud in unison. But inside the bathroom, it was so quiet she could hear water dripping.

“Di— bzzzt—”

All of a sudden, an electric current-like sound crackled through her mind. Right after that, the space before her eyes started rippling like water. In the next second, the scene transformed into a gorgeous, endless universe.

Her whole body floated in midair. She stared around in shock, but before she could even sort out her thoughts, the big bed from her home appeared out of nowhere in front of her. Then her body slowly steadied itself, automatically coming to a stand on top of it.

“Welcome to the AL Quick-Travel System. I am System Cupid Sparrow. Very happy to serve you.”

The mechanical voice sounded out abruptly. Lily immediately looked toward it and saw the little bird that had been on her bed. There was a vivid flame-red tuft on top of its head, while the rest of it was white as snow. It tilted its head and looked at her, absurdly cute.

“I’m... still not awake?”

Keeping herself weirdly calm, Lily reached up and pinched her own cheek hard. Pain exploded across her face at once, jolting her nerves so badly she sucked in a breath.

“Hiss!”

Right after that, she heard the mechanical voice ring out again. Weirdly enough, it even carried a hint of playful teasing. "This is a world-space governed by the AL Main God. During your writing process, you accidentally stirred up a lot of reader resentment, so you were selected by the AL quick-travel system's Main God to serve as a divine agent and enter parallel worlds to begin your stage-clearing journey."

"What? Resentment? Seriously?" Lily Ashford let go of her face, rubbed her cheeks, and looked at the tiny bird, barely bigger than half her palm.

"Because you wrote the male lead of your novel into a tragic death, your readers banded together and made wishes for the author to be punished," Cupid Sparrow said in a solemn, matter-of-fact tone.

"..."

As an author who spent years lurking in the shadows of her own comment section, Lily Ashford couldn't help twitching at the corner of her mouth. Last night, she had even been scrolling through the comments under her bestselling book, grinning at how adorably naive her readers were...

"The Main God chose you, naturally, because you're gifted, quick-witted, silver-tongued—" Cupid Sparrow was just gearing up for a full-on rainbow-fart praise speech when she cut it off.

"Get to the point." As a veteran author who had spent ages daydreaming all kinds of wild plot setups, Lily Ashford accepted this reality way faster than most people would. But then something important hit her, and she asked seriously, "Am I still alive?"

"Of course. As long as you complete the mission, you may return to your original world. Everything that happens here is only the span of a single instant in your former world. On the contrary, if you fail the mission, you will remain here forever. Forever." The mechanical voice repeated the last two words without the slightest warmth.

Lily Ashford raised a brow. She didn't look especially shocked by that answer. Honestly, she'd imagined endings even more over-the-top than this, so this one was still within her range of acceptance.

"As long as the host successfully completes the strategy mission in the previous world and gathers enough energy, she may enter the next world. When the mission is evaluated, rewards of equal value may also be drawn, which will be more beneficial for completing the next world's mission."

After Cupid Sparrow's explanation, Lily Ashford got the gist. She was currently in the first world, where the difficulty level was relatively low. The whole story revolved around the boy she had seen first—Damien Lockwood. The plot of this world flashed through her mind at high speed, then settled there with perfect clarity. That, apparently, was one of the system's built-in abilities.

In every world, all she had to do was fulfill the original host's role without affecting the main storyline, win over the target character, and obtain the hidden energy.

In the first world, the original host had the same name as her: Lily Ashford. Female. A second-year student at No. 2 High School in this city. Top student. Both parents were university professors. The original host wasn't exactly stunning to look at, but she had a pair of especially pretty black eyes. And her one secret hobby, unknown to everyone else, was karate.

She happened to be deskmates with the school tyrant male lead, Damien Lockwood, and the two of them disliked each other on sight. Later, during the college entrance exam, she forgot to bring her documents, rushed back to get them, and died in a traffic accident on the way—a pitiful background extra, basically.

On top of that, according to Cupid Sparrow, the original host's physical stats could all be manually adjusted. To Lily Ashford, that was basically a cheat code dropped straight from the heavens. Of course she didn't hold back—she immediately maxed out the body's condition and combat stats to the best possible setting.

After all, Lily Ashford firmly believed she was scared of pain, scared of death, and very into staying alive.

After sorting through the world setup and character connections, Lily Ashford fell silent for three seconds. Then she lifted her head and asked in an unusually serious tone, "So... how do I get back to where I was in the first place?"

Cupid Sparrow clearly hadn't expected this divine agent to accept reality this calmly either, but it didn't say much. It tilted its little bird head slightly. Its flame-red feathers swept across her vision like a flash.

And by the time she came back to herself, she was already standing in the same bathroom as before...

Footsteps came from behind her.

Then, almost immediately, a young girl's clear, tender voice rang out...