You can read ahead up to 110 chapters on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darkshadow6395
Inside the shut-in's room, dim yellow light spilled across the walls, casting shadows of ancient runes. Claire sat in a corner chair, slowly sipping her black tea, as if placing a time machine in the drawer had been the most natural thing in the world.
'This must be the technology the Titans claimed to have mastered.'
'After all, they reaped the first wave of benefits from the Creator God, essentially devouring God himself.'
'For anyone who had labored so exceptionally, achieving such feats would be perfectly reasonable.'
"You've practically milked all the Japanese manga dry," Ian muttered as he crawled into the open drawer. It looked ordinary enough, a plain wooden drawer, but an unfathomable darkness emanated from within.
It looked like an entrance to another world.
Once he had crawled inside, the room fell silent again.
Just as Claire was about to quietly drink her soup and pick up her video game again, Ian's head popped back out of the drawer.
"Are you sure this thing won't suck me in and turn me into dust inside a black hole?" He asked tentatively, his voice laced with uncertainty.
"In theory, it won't." Claire put down her soup bowl before speaking. "Unless you press the wrong button."
That answer did not reassure Ian.
"Huh? There's a wrong button?"
Ian clung to the edge of the drawer, not daring to fully drop into the space inside. Below him was a pitch-black dimension. Within it, he could see a time machine with a familiar design.
"Of course." Claire nodded.
"It's covered in stickers, so it should be pretty intuitive. They're all labeled 'oh' for 'obvious.'" She had clearly provided a "newbie tutorial," demonstrating a clear awareness of how complex her creation was.
"So, I crawl in, I'll fall straight into a time machine that's exactly like Doraemon's?" Ian's lips twitched. He could indeed see numerous buttons on the time machine.
"That's right!" Claire nodded proudly, clearly oblivious to copyright laws. Of course, as Titans, they might not care about such modern concepts.
"..."
Ian took a deep breath.
Carefully, he let go of the drawer's edge.
The next second, it felt like an invisible force yanked him downward. His vision went black, and his body sank violently before a sudden sensation of weightlessness surged through him.
He fell into the void.
Ian felt like he was floating in the weightless void of space, surrounded by darkness, with only the whistling wind in his ears. A few seconds later, his rear end slammed heavily against a cold, metallic surface.
Thud!
He landed on a soft yet icy-cold metal surface. Looking up, he confirmed his suspicions: he was sitting in a time machine identical to the one Doraemon used!
"Hiss..."
He rubbed his tailbone and looked around.
It was indeed the same Doraemon-style time machine.
Its rounded, retro exterior was primarily blue and white, covered in various buttons, dials, and displays. The most outrageous part was that there were Doraemon stickers pasted all over it.
The cabin walls were also plastered with Doraemon stickers, some showed him eating dorayaki, others rummaging through his fourth-dimensional pocket, and one even depicted Nobita crying.
Beyond this, there were operation tips and stickers encouraging Ian, such as "Raven, you can do it!", "Time travel, let's go!", and "Don't be late, oh!"
The air was thick with the scent of a hardcore otaku's creation.
"..."
Ian expressionlessly reached out and peeled off a sticker, only to discover a line of tiny text hidden beneath it:
[Claire's Creation - All Rights Reserved. Infringement will be prosecuted with the fullest extent of the law.
'Well, perhaps the Otaku Female Titan isn't entirely ignorant of copyright law,' He thought. 'At the very least, she was extremely skilled at slapping copyright claims onto blatant copies. Though I wonder exactly what kind of infringement she's planning to prosecute...'
"..."
At that moment, it sounded like Claire's voice was coming from above, as if she were a hologram.
"Can you hear me?"
Ian looked up and saw a semi-transparent image of the Claire materialize on the cabin ceiling.
"I can hear you," He replied woodenly.
"Great! Now, we will begin the time machine operation tutorial!" Claire held her video game console and clapped excitedly. Ian could see her clearly within his field of vision.
The image shifted to a virtual operating interface.
"Are you seriously teaching this to me now? You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?" Ian shouted upward.
"Hurry up and stop dragging your feet." Claire's voice echoed from above.
She didn't answer directly, but her tone carried a hint of amusement.
Ian sighed, straightened up, and began studying the control panel before him.
"First, find the dial in the center of the console!"
Ian looked down and saw a massive circular dial etched with ancient runes instead of ordinary numerals.
"This dial is used to set the time," Claire's voice chimed in magically. "You can rotate it to select your target year. The outer ring represents the century, the middle ring the year, and the inner ring the month and date. It's very straightforward, so be careful not to choose the wrong time, okay?"
Ian tried rotating the outer ring. The runes flickered with a faint glow as he moved it.
"Why does it sound like you've done this a million times before?" Ian grumbled as he adjusted the dial.
"Because I've built several different types of time machines," Claire replied earnestly. "While each model varies slightly, the fundamental principles remain the same."
"Next, inject Magic power to activate the navigation system!"
She continued her explanation.
Hearing this, Ian drew his wand and lightly tapped the center of the dial. Instantly, a soft blue light illuminated the interior of the time machine, and the runes on the dial began to flow as if coming alive.
"Now, set your target time... 300 BC, Greece!" Claire's voice genuinely had that newbie tutorial vibe, like a female guide in a video game.
"This is the target year for your first Quest," Claire explained. "Somewhere in that region, there's a talking rose."
"So I still have to find it myself, right?" Ian nodded.
He continued examining the other buttons.
"This red one is the activation button," Claire said, pointing to a prominent red button in the center. "Press it, and the machine will start a three-second countdown before teleporting you."
"Sounds simple enough," Ian frowned. "But are there any precautions I should take?"
"Absolutely," Claire's tone turned serious. "First, you must not alter any critical historical turning points. Second, you must complete the quest within the time limit, or you risk being trapped in that era. Third, if you encounter danger, immediately press the green button; that's the emergency return key."
Hearing this, Ian muttered, "Sounds like a game tutorial."
"Actually, what you're doing is far more complex than playing a game," Claire said with a cheerful smile. Her words didn't comfort Ian; instead, they filled him with resignation.
Ian took a deep breath.
He carefully adjusted the dials. The outer ring's rune stopped on a symbol resembling an olive branch, representing ancient Greek civilization. The middle ring locked onto the "300 BC" node.
"Final step!" Claire's holographic image suddenly zoomed in. "Press the red activation button!"
Hearing this, Ian nodded.
His fingers slowly approached the red button.
"Wait," Claire suddenly interjected. "One more piece of advice."
"What is it?"
"Don't let anyone see your time machine, okay? That era has Gods you're familiar with," She said. "And the time machine's power was stolen from them."
Ian was stunned.
"..."
He didn't know how to react.
He closed his eyes.
And pressed the red button.
"Three... two... one..." Accompanied by a low hum, the entire space began to distort. Blue light flashed, and the surrounding scenery blurred rapidly.
The time machine shook violently as the surrounding darkness twisted into a vibrant, kaleidoscopic tunnel. The Doraemon stickers on the cabin walls floated up, bobbing gently in the air.
"Good luck!"
Claire's voice faded into the distance. "Remember to collect Epiphyllum Nectar!"
Ian didn't even have time to get angry at her words. In the next moment, a violent pulling sensation slammed into him, and he felt like he'd been thrown into a spinning kaleidoscope. His figure vanished into the drawer, leaving only the sticker-covered time machine silently suspended in the darkness, awaiting its next activation.
Outside the room, Claire set down her teacup, a faint smile playing at the corners of her lips.
"I hope you don't mess this up," She murmured, her gaze drifting to the boundless starry cosmos visible through the window.
"After all, this timeline is far more fragile than any we've traversed before." Claire's voice echoed in the empty room, but Ian could no longer hear her whispers.
Ian had never experienced such a dreadful crossover.
If the Time-Turner's time jumps felt like being abruptly shoved forward, this "Doraemon" time machine was akin to being stuffed into a washing machine, then tossed into the eye of a hurricane for a berserk spin.
Ugh... Urp...
A powerful wave of dizziness hit him instantly. Ian gripped the armrests of his seat so tightly that his knuckles turned white from the strain. Outside the cabin, the multicolored torrent of time spun wildly, forming a dizzying vortex. His vision stretched into blurred blocks of color, and his ears filled with a piercing buzz, and it felt as if tens of thousands of Mandrakes were screaming at once.
"Damn you, Titan! This isn't meant for humans! It's far more terrifying than a Time-Turner!" He roared inwardly, but his mouth wouldn't open, and his voice was swallowed by the raging current of time.
Around him, chaotic flashes of light and shadow flickered past... fragments of the past and future rushed before his eyes: a crumbling castle, a burning forest, a little girl in Muggle clothes crying, an old man writing a letter by the window... The images lacked logic or order, as if someone had shredded the entire history of the world and scattered the fragments into the wind.
Is this a crossover? Or am I going mad? Ian nearly wept.
He tried to grab something, but there was nothing to hold onto. His body felt no longer his own, but rather a speck of dust in the river of time, drifting aimlessly with the current.
Suddenly, an ear-splitting buzzing erupted, like countless old radios simultaneously blaring different stations. Just as Ian thought he'd have to use his disposable time machine...
A violent impact slammed into him.
"Claire, !" Ian ground out the name through clenched teeth, nearly flung from the time machine. "You call this, 'a little bumpy'?"
Perhaps when Claire designed the time machine, she hadn't considered that its user would be a young wizard. Even as a Legendary, Ian's physical endurance was clearly no match for the Titans. In truth, even Claire, as an incompletely developed Titan, possessed far superior physical prowess.
Fortunately, this dreadful ordeal didn't last long.
The time machine burst through the temporal tunnel.
Ian's body jolted violently as the world before him reassembled itself. Every muscle in his body ached as if trampled by a herd of rampaging hippogriffs.
Finally.
He had arrived at his destination.
Recovering from the time machine's impact, Ian scrambled to his feet, brushed the dust from his robe, and found himself lying in a narrow alleyway.
The cobblestone pavement was rough and icy cold, and the air carried a faint scent of dust and earth. Ian slowly sat up, rubbing his numb arm.
Then he glanced down beside him.
Flanked by mottled whitewashed walls, the alleyway was littered with broken pottery shards. The air hung thick with the mingled aromas of olive oil and soot. The time machine, plastered with Doraemon stickers, had vanished.
"Where's the time machine?"
Ian searched the ground and found an ancient bronze ring. Intricate runes were engraved on its surface, a miniature version of Claire's time machine.
"Quite the disguise..." Ian picked up the ring and slipped it onto his finger. The band automatically adjusted to fit his finger, and the icy surface quickly warmed to his body temperature.
The moment he put the ring on, Claire's voice echoed in his mind: "This is disguise mode. It will automatically adjust its form to blend into the environment and avoid drawing unnecessary attention."
"Oh, right, I have no idea what you're doing right now. This is just a pre-recorded tutorial message for beginners." Claire's voice faded away with a hint of excitement, as if her role as "game designer" filled her with genuine delight.
Outside the alley, a cacophony of shouts, clashing metal, and the crackling of flames filled the air.
"So, you're saying I face-planted like a potato earlier just so this thing could turn into a ring?" Ian couldn't help but grumble, though he received no reply.
"Looks like there really is no way to communicate across time, just pre-recorded messages," he sighed, stood up, straightened his clothes, and slowly walked out of the alley.
The sight before him instantly stole his breath.
The city he found himself in was a quintessential ancient Greek city-state, its architecture simple yet majestic, with towering stone columns lining the streets and exquisitely carved temples dotting the landscape.
But now, all of it lay torn apart by war.
Thick smoke billowed, flames erupted everywhere, and the entire city seemed plunged into hellish chaos. Terrified civilians clogged the streets, clutching children and carrying bundles as they fled between burning buildings. The cries of women and the elderly rose and fell in waves, mingling with the distant clang of metal and the neighing of warhorses.
Ian looked up and saw a fierce battle raging in the nearby square. One side consisted of Spartan warriors clad in crimson cloaks and wielding long spears. Their massive frames moved with machine-like precision and ruthless efficiency, making them formidable war machines. The other side consisted of Greek soldiers armed with a variety of weapons.
Though numerically superior, the Greek soldiers were being steadily pushed back by the Spartan onslaught.
'Is this the era of war?'
Ian couldn't help but frown.
He quickly ducked behind a collapsed wall, trying to stay out of sight.
On the cobblestone street, Spartan warriors in scarlet cloaks clashed with Athenian soldiers. Spears pierced shields, bronze swords severed limbs, and blood splattered in the sweltering air.
Suddenly, Ian heard a furious roar that shook the entire city.
"Athena! You have betrayed me!"
It was a thunderous bellow filled with rage, reverberating through the war-torn city.
(End of Chapter)