[Homescreen]
- Torolith (Tuesday), Janna (January) 22, 1002041.]
After learning that he could not touch the translucent blue screen, Liam had learned that he could command the system via his thought, toggling between the system's various functions as he studied it.
Fueled by his curiosity, he began analyzing everything about the Mighty Tower and the System.
The home page showed the date but in Tarurian Calendar, the Mighty Tower's Calendar System, which was very similar to Earth's Calendar System.
There was a camera and music icon on the home page as well, which would play any song the player wanted to listen to as the background music via thought command.
There was a Player Stats Tab, which displayed his skills, stats, and important information like his codename and the ID that seemed like an account number or something.
The Equipment Tab, which displayed his body and its parts that could wear items exactly like in MMORPG games.
The Inventory Tab, which displayed 15 empty boxes and the currencies.
The Chatroom Tab with different sub-categories like Global tab, Guild tab, Party tab, Player Level tab, Floor tab, Private tab, and System Commands tab, which was the only available sub-categories currently.
Lastly, there were greyed-out tabs like Floor Map, Guild, Mount, Pet, Duel, Tower Bulletin Board, and other locked features.
There were illuminating explanations for each tab and the system's mechanical voice benevolently guided him to understand everything even the things he would face in the future like Dungeon Delving, Chests, Floor Trials, Monsters, Guilds, Professions, and whatnots if he can manage to survive up to that point.
As expected, after he had inquisitively read everything once, it felt like he had grasped all the functionality and everything.
'Even forensic science, human relations, judicial function, and criminal laws that I had studied are far more complicated than this game-like mechanics. This is a piece of cake,' he confidently thought to himself after realizing it wasn't rocket science.
After learning that he got isekai in an unknown place called Nullvard to climb this so-called Mighty Tower, he inquired what's in it for him.
Unfortunately, the system couldn't answer his questions, not even about the Warden nor about his wife who he speculated were connected to this circumstance, remained a mystery.
Realizing that he was on his own now after spending several years with his wife through thick and thin in an exigent world called Earth made him feel so incomplete.
Selene was his spouse, after all.
He wished Selene was with him at this moment, soothing him with her loving hands and incredible presence as he recalled the times they had spent together in annoying missions and all the uncertain journeys they had accepted.
The unprecedented emotion bottled up inside him because of not having Selene here.
It hurt him so bad more than he could have imagined.
Because of their line of job, he prepared himself to live alone if in case something bad happens, but now that it happened, he couldn't explain what's going on with him.
He felt like a fish out of water.
He had never thought that simply not having her here would hurt so much and accepting this fact was a tough pill to swallow.
What the system had only informed him was he would join a mandatory pre-trial, the only mandatory trial as punishment for breaking the ciphered invitation rules.
If he died in that pre-trial, everything will be over.
The world in the Mighty Tower might appear like a game but it was Liam's real life now.
Liam looked up and closed his eyes as he took a deep breath, pondering about all the crazy things that were going on.
His mind could keep up but for his heart?
It was killing him inside every second that has passed.
The excruciating pain he had experienced earlier while the system scanned him felt so little compared to the depressing feeling of longing for his home, his beloved wife that accepted him for who he truly was.
Because he had been in a life or death scenario multiple times in his life as a one-of-a-kind detective, he imagined what is in the afterlife like a hundred times already, even this kind of afterlife, an isekai.
However, thinking about that kind of scenario was just one thing, but experiencing it firsthand was quite another.
Thanks to his open-minded approach to everything, he managed to keep his cool after he released the bottled emotion a bit earlier by punching the floor as hard as he could, even though the information that he had learned still overwhelmed him.
Gratefully, he could not feel pain from it nor any self-inflicted damage because of the system's protection.
Since he would only feel pain from other players and monsters' attacks, even jumping from an imposing building wouldn't hurt him.
He re-sharpened his shattered iron will to start taking things in front of him full-heartedly.
The hardest decisions in life required the strongest will, after all.
And one of those was... simply moving on.
* * * * *
Few hours had quickly passed.
He had read all the instructions and explanations like a million times now to make sure that he wouldn't miss any vital information that might save him in the pre-trial.
He couldn't get cocky, not again.
Drastic times like this calls for drastic measures so he couldn't take things easy.
He would compete against other species in the multiverse, after all.
That gave him an assumption that the pre-trial before the death of this day would become a jungle full of terrors and surprises.
He had used his gun with unlimited ammunition, practicing alone to learn new things about the stats and how it would play out in real life, especially the fixed attack speed that compelled him from firing in rapid succession.
After training for a while, he felt satisfied and began to rest while checking on the floating blue translucent screen, showing the time.
[5:54]
Once the time arrived at exactly 6:00, the pre-trial would begin.
Covered in sweat while panting nonstop, Liam sat on the chessboard-like floor to rest while waiting for the right time.
He smiled ear to ear because of the inexplicable feeling that he hadn't felt for a long time now, looking forward to the challenging task at hand instead of panicking at the instantaneous developments of the scenarios.
The last time he felt like this was before the beginning of his career, where he didn't have the prominence and an astronomical amount of wealth yet that he had received from the world before he died.
Because of that, the leader of the dark syndicates and corrupt politicians in the U.S.A. didn't know what hit them when they got exposed to the public.
In the latter part of Liam's life on Earth, he was perceived as one of the greatest heroes in the history of the world.
Once upon a time, he certainly was.
But not anymore, not again.
By this time, he swore to prioritize his desires above everything else after all of his sacrifices resulted in nothing for his gain.
That's how he would like to live this life.
The world he served in his entire life failed him when he needed them the most and it resulted in his dreadful death.
His objective was crystal clear to him, to reign on this so-called Mighty Tower without giving a fuck of everyone's well-being.
And to serve his revenge on the Warden who humiliated him and possibly killed his wife as well to recruit her in this place.
Whatever their reason was for playing at other people's lives like that, Liam wouldn't forgive them.
**DING!**
"It's damn time..."
[You'll get summoned in 3...]
[2...]
[1...]
Liam stared at the screen nonchalantly with no expectations in mind, feeling that he could conquer everything after everything that had happened.
A deafening sound resounded in his ears as Liam was absorbed by a blue light coming from inside his body, teleporting him in the pre-trial zone for his inaugural odyssey.