Chapter 4:

Jay ducked a spear, ”I’m telling you Betsy, if you take into account that this world has the exact same length of day as Earth, it has some staggering implications.”

He dug his blade deep into his opponent's abdomen and pushed it down, ”I mean, the fact that the ‘higher powers’ here walk among us, and that we share several species sounds like it proves a lot, but it really doesn’t.”

Jay blurred the world in his mind, mentally conjuring his first opponent, ”That just proves, if I’m not crazy, that these worlds have had contact at some point. We don’t even know if it was significant contact, due to all that magic bullshit.”

Jay moved lighting fast, laying out a simple fast strike, however, that strike wasn’t fully blocked this time. Jay imagined the frustrated look on his opponent’s face as he safely stepped out of attack range.

Jay beckoned his off-hand at his opponent, ”The fact that such a major thing as planetary rotation is the same across two worlds means either:”

The bandit-looking man charged him, ”One, something created both worlds, or-”

Jay leaped out of his guard stance and rushed the man, stabbing him in the leg. Jay thought he heard bone break, ”two, something modeled one world after another.”

Jay executed the man reaching for his sword, and turned to his ass, ”Don’t you get the implications of this, Betsy?”

The donkey was completely ignoring his rambling master.

The rambling master continued on unabated, ”It either means that the gods and whatnot here played a part in the Earth’s creation, or they are so powerful that it is laughable to think they have no influence over Earth.”

Jay tilted his head, ”Fuck, I was atheist, but I guess I’m agnostic now.”

…

It was only after Jay had spent half his day admiring the difference swordsmanship 2 had made that Jay had his first real experience with his new cheat item.

Jay watched the stopwatch strike 24 hours, ”...Well, what the fu-!!”

A raging blue inferno exploded out of the stopwatch, eventually forming a flaming portal opening into a corridor.

Before Jay could even let out a witty remark to no one in particular, Jay walked out of the portal.

Current Jay flashed a confused look to Alternate Jay, ”You have a rough day there, bud? You look homeless.”

Bloodied Jay grinned, ”I could say the same thing, jackass. Hah, I forgot I had a mud golem.”

A worried look overtook dirt ball’s face, ”Haha, no really though, did-”

Jay strolled right up to Jay and gave him a hug, ”Don’t worry, I have a feeling that I won’t take any of the actions that I did.”

While Jay was stunned by the sudden show of self-affection, the clone broke into the same blue fire and flowed into all of Jay’s facial orifices.

“-Hnk!” Before Jay even knew what was happening, he was rolling around on the ground, fighting off the biggest headache he’d ever had.

And after a short while, it ended as fast as it started.

Jay was left there, panting on the ground, ”That… was more intense than I thought it would be. Am… am I crying?”

Jay felt the wetness on his face and stared at the blood on his finger, ”Pfffttt, pu, fft, haHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH”

Jay looked at the pile of clothes and bundles next to him,”...”

He smiled and gathered the items, ”Problems for later. I have more fun things to do.”

Jay laughed as he walked to his tent, ”...really though, what a fucking classic. Fantasy ass bullshit, how can I feel fine after bleeding from the eyes.”

…

Jay sat in front of his bedroll, laid out on it was several items.

An old hatchet, if Jay had to guess, it was the same hatchet he used to cut wood now, except it had clearly seen battle.

Several (common) gemstones, probably because taking coins over would be impossible, since counterfients would have to fool the merchant goddess.

Dusty dirty clothing, even with the bloodstains, they were cleaner than Jay’s current clothes. Not that he would wear them, he would just use the fabric for something.

And perhaps most importantly, a weathered journal.

Jay read through it with gusto.

He clicked his tongue when he read that he wouldn’t be able to tell much about the real future, ”I know that the butterfly effect is a bitch, but I was hoping I’d catch a break on the divine front…”

Indeed, instead of the stopwatch somehow using ‘causality’ to fool people into thinking the gods are still there, people go apeshit after a week or two, when they realise their deities are no longer contacting them.

“If I want to seriously have a chance to know what’s happening in the future, I’ll need either have proof of them planning it before the ‘reality shift’, or it needs to happen near me almost immediately after the shift…. fuck.”

It took Jay a while to convince himself that being able to predict the future a little bit was better than not at all, but he eventually decided to take everything with a grain of salt.

The only future-sight he was able to perceive from this book was that there was a good chance that word of his barony would spread among the nobles in a couple of weeks, and there was a large-scale raid on Lando in a few months.

While the rest of the book was full of an interesting tale on how alternate Jay went from town to town gambling and questing for those gemstones, Jay wasn’t interested. It was a little too similar to how he got to this point to be interesting, and there was a snowball’s chance in hell to get him anything interesting. One man only finds so many things out, after all.

Jay took out his stopwatch again, ”Damn, I’ll have to set up an information network, however you do that, sometime in the future. Not this loop though, fuck the information."

Jay clicked the button again, ”I’m going to sell this barony and title to get the best (rare) sword around! I’ll probably be able to get fuckin' loaded on gems too!”

With a harumph, Jay decided to get an early night in, so he could get a good start at transforming the dig-site into a house with a crystal basement.

“God, I hate actual work.”