Flashing lights.
Swirling colors.
An apocalypse.
"Wake up, Princess."
"Mn...."
Caldera.
Exadiamond miner.
Ash winter.
"Princess, are you doing alright?"
"Ah!"
*A dream?*
Jisha realized she'd fallen asleep. She touched her cheeks and vividly remembered the sensation of tears dripping down.
*I... cried?*
She sat up with labored movements and put a palm to her forehead.
It had been difficult for Jisha to feel many emotions lately, but telling her parents of their fate in another life must have been traumatizing.
"Princess?"
"Ah, Eia. Yes, I'm alright."
"That's good to hear. I fixed your makeup just before you awoke. It's good as new."
"... Thanks."
Though Jisha felt a bit embarrassed about sobbing so violently in front of her parents, at least Father had cleared the room beforehand. It would have been another story if other government officials or nobles had seen her tragic state.
She was also grateful that her parents returned her to her room.
*Well, time to try and start the day again...*
Jisha hopped off the bed and inspected herself. But before she could do much, Eia was already fixing up her dress. And the process was done as quickly as it had started.
When Jisha looked in the mirror, her appearance was exactly how it had been the first time she left the room.
"Thanks, Eia."
"You're very welcome, Princess."
*... Ok, now what?*
There were so many things she had to figure out that she didn't know where to start.
What she knew for certain was that a war would break out soon. And this wouldn't be on the scale of a skirmish between a couple of angry families. It would be a full-blown continental conflict.
And Jisha realized there was a problem.
She didn't know how it started!
Surprisingly, it wasn't even her young self's fault for remaining oblivious.
It was true that she had ignored the consequences of the war until Niyo died. However, when she eventually asked about it, she got many different responses from many people.
"Skeran bombed us."
"Zaki stole our farm and food supplies."
"Cytem's daughter is extremely annoying."
"Arsen killed one of our foreign ambassadors in a colosseum duel."
"Chu looked at us menacingly."
She couldn't get a straight answer, she eventually gave up on figuring it out. Even Father's clue, "Zhi shot down our recon drones," didn't help.
And, obviously, asking around right now would be insane.
The only thing she could do was research current foreign relations. With this information, maybe she could figure out where the initial conflicts would break out.
*If only I had my computer... Oh, wait.*
On a nearby desk, Jisha spotted a set of contact lenses.
AR contacts were the primary user interfaces of modern computing. But this technology was 11 years old, and she'd forgotten how to use it!
*Ah, there it is. That's why it wasn't working...*
A smartwatch was laying right next to the contact lenses. It took her a moment to figure out that it was also a part of the computer system.
The screens on the contact computer had to be navigated using the touchpad watch. Once she'd figured it out, she quickly surfed the net to find any clues about foreign relations.
And what she immediately found made her raise an eyebrow.
*These countries...*
The political map of the continent was different from what she remembered! In other words, there were several countries that existed now that didn't exist in the future. There were also countries in the future that didn't exist in the present. And finally, the borders of countries that continued to exist had changed.
Currently, there were nine countries on the Northeastern continent. These territories were all named after the families that ruled them.
The most obvious one that had persisted through these 11 years was Slyker. And even her home country's borders looked unfamiliar.
*Were we really this small?*
In Jisha's previous life, Slyker didn't control a lot of territory, but it wasn't a small amount by any means. However, their current country was less than a third of the size she'd remembered it to be.
This was a problem.
If Slyker had annexed territory left and right, it was likely that they'd made a lot of people unhappy with their decisions. This only widened the potential pool of suspects that Jisha was searching for...
*What a headache. Let's look at something else for now.*
She turned her attention to the two countries that didn't exist in the future.
The first was "Alacai".
But when Jisha tried to find information about this country, she was met with another surprise.
*... What?*
Nearly nothing was known about them. Public records regarding this country were incredibly sparse. No matter how hard she searched, she couldn't find any useful information.
Just like the Northeastern continent was isolated from the rest of the world, Alacai was isolated from the Northeast. Since they had powerful anti-reconnaissance, it was suspected that they had a strong military. However, there were equally as many rumors that their anti-recon was strong because their military was actually weak.
Etherless searches about this country would only result in a circular loop of conspiracy theories. There was nothing more Jisha could do.
The second was "Tchan".
Fortunately, information about this country was readily available.
*Thank God that Alacai is a unique nutcase. If every country was like that, I probably would go insane.*
Apparently, most of their GDP originated from their crude oil exports. The Northeast didn't have much of a use for crude oil, but the demand ran high in the rest of the world. Tchan's massive oil reserves and their intercontinental trade made them extremely wealthy.
This crude oil was used for many purposes ranging from energy to creating plastics. And since Tchan and the rest of the Northeast relied on nuclear power, it was pointless to keep crude oil for energy purposes.
After looking into them a bit more, Jisha ran into something unexpected.
*It's just surprise after surprise today, huh?*
Apparently, the first name of the first prince of this territory was "Bren".
*Bren Tchan... Bren and t. Could it be...?*
What were the odds that she'd run into the first prince of a lost nation in the first half hour of her reincarnation? She would have to find some way to verify his identity. After all, it could easily be someone pretending to be him.
When she looked into his information, Jisha determined that it was indeed possible for "Brent" to be Bren Tchan. He was apparently an avid Virtual Martial Arts player with the same username.
*Interesting. VMA... Should I play it today?*
In the future, VMA was a completely obsolete game. Synergy was superior in every aspect. However, in this day and age, VMA was the most popular virtual reality game.
*I'm not going to lie, I kind of want to check out how it was.*
In the past, Jisha hadn't played much of VMA. She hadn't been into fighting games back then. Even in Synergy, she was an extremely casual player in the beginning. It was only after her intense training during the war that she got addicted to battle.
When she thought about fighting in a different VR game, her inner battle junkie craved a hit.
*... This is purely for research purposes.*
It's to research Bren Tchan.
It's to figure out how to fight in her current body.
It's to judge the current combat standard of the world.
These were just excuses she was making to herself.
In reality, she just wanted to fight!
Jisha unequipped her contact computer and turned to Eia.
"I'm going to play a game. Let me know if something important happens."
"As you wish, Princess."
Eia was unsurprised at this declaration. She was used to seeing Jisha play games for hours at a time, and sometimes even the entire day. And as a robot, Eia wouldn't get bored of watching over the first princess no matter what.
With that, Jisha lay on top of her plush Bvorak blanket and slid on her Vbian-02 helmet once more.
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