Sean, remember this. You must ensure the Viger family continues! You must..."
"Huh? What are you talking about? Hang on, you can still be saved."
...
Sean snapped back to reality, looking around at the unchanged surroundings. He had dozed off again.
Why was he having the same dream...
It always brought him back to the day he first arrived in this world.
Staring at the dark room, he let out a long sigh.
He had been in this world for nearly half a month now, every day hoping that waking up would reveal it was all a dream, that he hadn't been transported to another world. But every time he opened his eyes, the result was the same.
He had lost the sense of time from his own era and found himself in a completely unfamiliar world.
Transmigration...
Such a clichéd trope had actually happened to him, and the place he ended up in wasn't exactly pleasant.
The air was chilly, the room felt icy cold and dimly lit!
It was the dead of winter, with heavy snow falling outside, leaving him no choice but to huddle by the fire indoors.
Sean remembered that about two weeks ago, he had been living a summer-like life. Now, he was wrapped in clothes reeking of mildew, sitting by the fireplace to keep warm.
Crack.
The firewood in the hearth made a sound.
At that moment, an old servant always entered the room.
"My lord, would you like some hot tea?"
"I still have some, not for now."
"Very well!"
Sean didn't like being disturbed while thinking, so he usually turned down most offers when the servants brought things. He preferred quiet, probably still not used to his new role.
"Oh, my lord. Danti just bought some live chickens in town. We'll have chicken for dinner tonight," the old servant said.
"Is that so? I'll look forward to it."
Sean replied, mimicking the tone of leaders he'd seen in various TV shows and novels.
He watched the man leave with a smile and let out a breath, still feeling unaccustomed to his current circumstances.
Baron Sean Viger...
That was his identity now—a minor lord in a remote region.
On the day he first arrived in this world, the father who had belonged to this body died on his sickbed, and Sean seamlessly inherited the title of Baron Viger.
During the funeral days, Sean was in a daze. Fortunately, the household servants assumed he was too devastated by his father's death to speak, allowing him to get through that period safely.
In the time that followed, Sean slowly tried to familiarize himself with his current environment.
This area was called Tylermian, a small town nestled in the mountains, and he was its leader.
Sean's fiefdom didn't have millions or even hundreds of thousands of people, nor was he a regional power. It didn't even have tens of thousands. He estimated his land held at most a few thousand people, certainly less than ten thousand.
It was incredibly impoverished.
But if there was one change since arriving in this world, Sean felt it was his vision—different from normal, and he still hadn't fully adapted to it.
Because everything before his eyes came with special prompts and numbers:
Take the pile of charcoal in front of him.
Sean used the tongs by the hearth to nudge the coals slightly.
[Charcoal: Remaining burn time 4:30:23] This meant it would take another four and a half hours to burn out completely.
He had verified such numbers many times, and they were always accurate, counting down to the second... When the last second ticked away, touching it revealed no heat at all.
Usually, it would go out after about two hours, with the remaining time being cooling. By the last few dozen minutes, it was already cold to the touch, so whether it was truly accurate was debatable.
And nudging it would change the time...
Sean knocked off the covering ash, and the time immediately shifted.
[Charcoal: Remaining burn time 4:10:59]
It sped up by twenty minutes.
It updated in real-time!
But aside from the charcoal, there was one thing that never changed—the weather at that moment.
Sean looked at the sky, where a display appeared in his field of vision.
[Daytime: Heavy snow, 6:35:30]
Like the charcoal, this number didn't represent the current time but the remaining time.
The seconds ticked down, indicating there were still six hours until nightfall. This number was always accurate because day and night alternated without time variation. The only change was the weather displayed in the middle—rain would show rain.
Cloudy, clear, rain, snow... and so on.
It would shift accordingly.
It was just like the games he used to play. Many times, Sean felt he was looking through a game interface, specifically a player's perspective.
He had subtly asked those around him if they experienced the same thing, wondering if this was a shared vision in this world.
But others seemed completely unable to see these things...
And it wasn't just objects and weather—people also had similar attributes, though they displayed differently.
Stepping out of the room, the temperature dropped instantly. His room was on the second floor, with a corridor outside connecting to another building.
It was a heavy snow day, and even the corridor railing was covered in a thin layer of snow.
The weather was cold, but people were still busy working in the yard.
The Viger family was not only the ruler of the Tylermian region but also the sole local nobility, with the right to collect taxes and receive subsidies from the Empire.
Many townsfolk preferred to work as long-term laborers for the Vigers, as the pay was higher and more stable.
Sean watched the workers shoveling snow in the yard.
Above their heads, a string of text appeared:
[1000/1000, Friendly.] The number represented their health bar. From his first day in this world, Sean had never stopped analyzing these data.
Basically, all adults had a health bar of 1000, with slight variations for some. The status behind it indicated their attitude toward him, akin to a favorability rating.
Below that, another constantly changing status appeared.
Most people currently showed [Fatigued!] and [Anticipating!] icons and states—the former likely from their labor, the latter probably because they expected to clock out soon.
Of course, some had special states like [Angry!], [Thinking!], or [Happy!], and so on.
Sean couldn't guess those.
They all represented some mood of theirs at the moment.
The more he looked, the more it felt like a game. He had once wondered if he had transmigrated into some game world!
As he was pondering, he spotted a middle-aged man at the yard's entrance carrying a whole dressed fat chicken. That was Danti, the one the old servant had mentioned earlier.
When Sean saw him, he suddenly noticed a new icon above his head that had never appeared before.
A skull-like pattern, with the words [Cursed!] written on it.