Can I Still Play a Management Sim?

It was probably a wild monster, right?

Watching the Health Bar on the distant hillside at the edge of his vision vanish, Gu Mo could not be sure for the moment. Because of the Idiot System, the world he saw was completely different from everyone else's. In his eyes, all beings were truly equal—

Whether human or object, everything had an ID floating above it, followed by either a red Health Bar or a yellow durability bar.

So far, there had been no exceptions. No matter who or what it was, as long as he saw it... no, even if he himself had not realized he had seen it, the system would thoughtfully mark any target his gaze happened to catch.

Even so, all he could do was spot Health Bars immediately and confirm that there was someone—or something—there. He had no way to immediately tell whether the Health Bar belonged to an enemy or something else.

Before someone revealed hostile intent and was truly judged to be hostile, every person's or monster's Health Bar looked the same. Only after they definitively entered a hostile state would a red skull icon appear before the Health Bar of an entity classified as an "enemy," indicating that it was a hostile unit.

So he could not determine what was over there. Perhaps it was merely someone passing by. But before dawn, aside from someone like him, guilty of abducting someone else's daughter and fleeing through the night, who else would risk traveling after dark?

Ordinary folk had no need to wander about, and merchants had no need to risk traveling overnight either... Though there was no proof that yokai and bandits only emerged at night, nighttime was clearly far more dangerous than daytime.

As his thoughts turned, Gu Mo shook his head and did not dwell on it.

There was no need to fear grinding wild monsters, anyway. He had the most reliable partner possible; he just had to coast. He glanced back at the black-haired girl sitting quietly in the carriage and smiled. When she seemed to sense his gaze and looked over, he raised a thumb at her.

"?"

Hidechiyo tilted her head slightly, as though a tiny question mark had appeared above it. She did not quite understand what he meant. Why had he suddenly turned around, smiled at her, and then given her a thumbs-up...? Was he trying to signal something?

But he clearly had no intention of explaining. He turned away, walked to the riverbank, and squatted down, staring at his reflection in the water as though he had drifted off again.

So he really was not washing his hands. That was only an excuse...

Hidechiyo pressed her thin cherry-colored lips together. She was perceptive and had noticed long ago that Gu Mo's hand-washing did not look like hand-washing. Many times, he would stare blankly at the reflection on the water's surface for a while. Washing his hands was probably only a pretext; using the water's surface to perform some secret art was the real purpose.

Of course, though she was perceptive, she was not especially curious. Even after noticing it, she had no urge to investigate. For one thing, she could not speak. On top of that, years of living alone had given her an indifferent temperament. She did not feel compelled to chase down every question until she had an answer.

The other reason was that this world, this era, was already steeped in mysticism. Beyonder Power truly existed here. Demons danced wildly, a hundred ghosts roamed at night, and all kinds of Demons and Monsters, monsters and demons, emerged without end. Tales of powerful warriors slaying demons, eminent Buddhist monks subduing yokai, the Eight Million Gods, Onmyoji Magic, and ninja arts were widespread...

None of that was feudal superstition born from the ignorance of ancient people and distorted through rumor. It was a real aspect of this world. Every incredible occurrence had a factual basis and was not without cause.

Even Hidechiyo herself was a Half-Yokai who possessed yokai power stronger than that of any demon or ghost. Naturally, she would not find it particularly surprising that "her companion had mastered some secret art"... Besides, this person had always been mysterious, she thought.

Familiar with the process, Gu Mo opened the system panel that only he could see. He did not spend much time on the pages that required no interaction, instead directly opening the "Messages" page near the bottom.

It included "Friends List," "Blacklist," and "Mailbox." The first two were useless for now, and he did not know whether they would ever be useful. He had tried sending Hidechiyo a friend request, but there had been no change or response. Her name had not appeared on the list, which remained empty.

The blacklist was somewhat useful. He could manually enter an ID to search for it, then block the corresponding target... And then, well, then he could no longer send messages to that person. That was the only effect he had discovered so far...

Yes, that was right. Gu Mo had discovered that the send message function could actually be used. It worked somewhat like transmitting one's voice directly into another person's mind. And with the Idiot System's encryption, it was probably quantum communication-level secure. There was no need to worry about eavesdropping or leaks unless the people involved exposed it themselves.

That was precisely why he did not understand the point of the blacklist. If he did not want to contact someone, he could simply not contact them. Why go out of his way to blacklist them?

Maybe it was another classic idiotic design from the Idiot System, or maybe he simply had not figured out its real use yet. Either way, he would ignore it for now.

Gu Mo opened the mailbox. This was the real focus—

All system notifications and records were stored here. This included every prompt he had failed to hear, failed to hear clearly, or missed for one reason or another. They were retained here as read or unread messages in the form of historical records.

The message limit was three hundred. Once that number was exceeded, the oldest messages would be deleted in chronological order.

Fortunately, not much time had passed yet, so Gu Mo's accumulated records were nowhere near that number. Everything had been preserved... And that was why he saw the forced logout notification that made his blood pressure spike with fury.

The anti-addiction mechanism...

He took a deep breath and eased the pressure in his head slightly. Finding the latest notification, he clicked the link attached to it and jumped to the "Real-Name Verification" page... Then the familiar sight appeared.

What kind of Idiot System was this? Had something gone wrong when it selected him and adapted to the cultural rules of his world, or was it actually connected to the real-world public security system?

With a tense expression, Gu Mo resisted the urge to complain as he entered his real name, ID number, and other information into the painfully tacky input fields one by one. Then he clicked submit. He moved quickly, partly because he did not want to look at the page for even one second longer, and partly because he had developed the speed over the past few days.

After all, he had submitted it several times already...

Sure enough, as he watched the spinning icon suddenly appear before him, along with the line beneath it reading "No response from network connection," Gu Mo sighed as expected and silently closed the page.

Again. Was it because he was inside a Dungeon, or should he hurry back to the real world and try there?

Feeling irritated, he scooped up some clear water and washed his face. The cold freshness perked him up and somewhat dispelled his drowsiness. Rising to his feet, he looked around, found nothing unusual, and returned to the carriage.

The two carriages set off again. Tokichiro led the way in front, with most of the luggage loaded onto his carriage.

Gu Mo drove the carriage behind him, holding the reins with great interest and occasionally cracking the whip through the air, producing sharp reports. Though he was somewhat unskilled, the old horse knew the way. It only needed to follow the carriage ahead, so there would be no problem.

Having adjusted his mood, he quickly shook off the gloom in his heart and focused instead on this novel experience. After all, it was something he had never experienced before.

The black-haired girl behind him sat upright, quietly watching the scenery around them. The dim sky did not seem to affect her mood.

"Doesn't it feel like a weight has been lifted, Axiu?" Gu Mo casually struck up a conversation as he drove. "You won't have to see that awful old man for a while. You must feel much more relaxed."

Hidechiyo turned her eyes toward him and glanced at his back without making a sound.

But Gu Mo did not look back. He seemed to understand what she meant anyway and chuckled. "Actually, the old man is pretty good... Well, I mean he's good to you. He even speaks softly, like he's afraid of frightening you. He just cares too much, so he overdoes it."

Overdoes it... The black-haired girl paused, thought about it briefly, and then understood what the phrase meant. It did seem extremely fitting.

She knew that the old man truly treated her well, but he had treated her too well without considering that she needed time to adapt—his parental affection was so intense that the love and doting had become unusually heavy. In only two days, not only had she failed to gradually accept everything, she had instead begun to feel suffocated.

Subjectively, she knew he was her father...

Objectively, she had only known him for less than two days. She had no memory of him before then, and their relationship was truly unfamiliar...

That was why she felt so awkward about it.

The person in front continued to chatter while driving. "So taking a brief break and letting him calm down a little isn't necessarily a bad thing. But you still have to learn to accept it eventually. He is your father, after all, and your only family in this world..."

"Oh, no, not your only family. You were born as twins, so you have a younger sister too." Remembering something, he added that, while silently muttering that she also had an uncle, Ōtakemaru, the biological elder brother of her mother, Rin.

But on further thought, the real Ōtakemaru had been killed long ago by Axiu, who had traveled through time to the past. The one still causing trouble in the world was only Kashin Koji, formed from Ōtakemaru's corrupted spirit and evil thoughts, so he probably did not count.

Hidechiyo's beautiful eyes widened in shock. She had a younger sister?

"Yeah. Didn't the old man tell you in the past two days? Maybe he didn't want to bring up such a painful subject yet." Gu Mo nodded, watching the road ahead as he spoke to the girl behind him. "It's Saito Yoshitatsu. She's your younger sister... Uh, maybe she's your older sister? Anyway, she looks exactly like you. You'll definitely see her soon enough."

Saito Yoshitatsu...

Her younger sister...

The black-haired girl parted her lips, her eyes suddenly becoming somewhat dazed. It was one thing to suddenly gain a father, but now she had learned that she also had a twin sister. It was deeply shocking to her.

After the confusion passed, she steadied herself and carefully considered what he had said. It did make sense. She should learn to accept all of this. After all, she only had those two close relatives in the world... No, wait, was this guy also...

The black-haired girl lifted her eyes and stared at the back of the person in front of her.

There had seemed to be signs of it before. This person appeared inexplicably familiar with and knowledgeable about her. Back in Thirteen Cherry Blossom Village, he had tried to impersonate the client to get close to her. When she had fallen unconscious, he had then pretended to Tokichiro, the real client, that he was very familiar with her...

When she had once shown confusion over this, he had deliberately played dumb, taking advantage of the fact that she could not speak and clearly had no intention of explaining.

If it had been anyone else, they would certainly have suspected ulterior motives and ill intent, or at least kept their distance... But Hidechiyo had not done that. She had not even exposed the matter herself. Perhaps it was because her sixth sense was keen, or perhaps it was an ability granted by her unknown Yokai Bloodline, but she could always sense the malice of others—

So she knew that Gu Mo probably did have some selfish motives, but he could not be called ill-intentioned...

Moreover, she had never had such a strange experience before. Someone had inexplicably appeared who knew her well, understood her, and gave her a peculiar sense of closeness that made being around him feel comfortable. Combined with her easygoing nature, she had continued traveling with him without caring much about the strange situation, remaining teammates all the way until now.

But when she thought about it carefully, this was an extremely strange matter to begin with.

Why was he so familiar with her, so inexplicably close to her, and so naturally aware of things about her—even things she herself did not know? The black-haired girl frowned and began to think seriously.

Several more days passed as they traveled.

Finally, at dusk that day, the three of them arrived at Sagiyama Castle after traveling day and night. Gu Mo had gone from being thrilled to ride in a carriage at first to being exceptionally impatient now, and he felt as though the jolting had shaken his whole body apart... Traveling long distances in this era was truly torturous.

He had only been inside the Dungeon for a little over a week, yet two-thirds of that time seemed to have been wasted on dull travel.

Did it have to be so realistic...? Wouldn't it be better to give him a world map, let him click the name of the appropriate location for the chapter, load it directly, skip the journey, and enter the corresponding scene?

The only comforting thing was that the journey had not been entirely wasted. He had fought monsters all the way here and gained another level. His total level was now LV5... Though leveling up did seem to be getting harder.

"Where should we go first? We have that awful old man's letter of appointment. Taking over as acting castellan shouldn't be a problem..." After passing through the city gate and entering the castle town, Gu Mo looked around, unsure where they should go.

"I'll do it, I'll do it, Brother Gu Mo. Leave this little matter to me..." While Hidechiyo looked equally puzzled, Tokichiro eagerly stepped forward.

"Then I'll leave it to—"

Gu Mo nodded. He had been waiting for those words, but before he could finish speaking, a burst of piercing electrical static rang in his ears.

It was blurry and fragmented, but he could barely make out the following: "Player meets... conditions detected... %￥#@&... bzzz... $#%&@... Homestead Gameplay unlocked. You may... bzzz... view, manage, and build your current homestead..."

He froze. Wait, what kind of stitched-together monster of a system was this?

Did that mean he could also experience a management sim?