Chapter 116 116: Time-Stopping Pocket Watch

— — — — — — ≪Gakuen de Jikan yo Tomare ≫ — Stop Time at School. The scene was way too familiar. That setting, that eerily nostalgic pocket watch—Veyron immediately realized what world he'd landed in. It was just like before—he might not instantly recognize a name like "Olga" or "Celestine," but give him a little context and he'd remember: Ah, that's the dark elf queen from the Kuroinu Hentai. Same deal here. "Excellent Girls' School" didn't ring any bells by name. But "a mysterious figure showing up to hand over a time-stopping pocket watch at a school full of busty girls?" Yeah, now we're talking. It all came rushing back. This was another one of those R-18 worlds that existed purely for, well, "action." Just like the Kuroinu world—except Kuroinu at least pretended to have a fantasy backstory, with its whole "Seven Shields Alliance vs. Demonkind war" thing spanning centuries. Time-Stopping School? Nah, it skipped all that and dove straight into chaos? The protagonist here was the bastard son of a a rich aristocrat—specifically, the founder of this Girls' School—who had abandoned both his mistress and their child. With no father in the picture, and a sick mother to care for, the kid grew up in absolute misery. After his mother eventually passed away, he was consumed with hatred toward the father who'd left them to suffer. So when he stumbled across a mysterious pocket watch with the power to freeze time, he didn't hesitate—he marched right into his father's School with one goal: destroy everything that man held dear. Now, sure, it made for great "content" in certain situations... but from Veyron's perspective, this whole "revenge" thing just felt like a half-assed excuse the guy made up to justify his future scumbag behavior. I mean, come on—If you're really trying to get back at your deadbeat dad, why not do something public? Hit him where it hurts. Expose him to the media or something. But no—you go after innocent students instead? Seriously? And right now, Veyron was witnessing the exact moment where it all began. The down-on-his-luck protagonist was about to receive that time-stopping pocket watch from a mysterious cloaked figure. Just as Veyron was about to casually yank the watch away with telekinesis, he suddenly felt something... off. A strange, subtle change in the scene. He narrowed his eyes. The bench where the gloomy-looking young man had been sitting? Now it was just a dried-up corpse, long weathered by time. And the mysterious figure standing in front of him? Gone. "Time...?" Veyron murmured. He leaned against the rooftop railing, calmly turning his head toward the shadow that had suddenly appeared beside him—seemingly out of nowhere. "Bingo. Time," the cloaked woman replied cheerfully. She held up the pocket watch. "This is a time-stopping device. Press this button, and time around you will freeze completely... Wanna give it a try?" "All I have to do is press this, and time stops?" She handed the watch over to him. Veyron took it, eyeing it curiously. "Yup. Just like falling asleep~" she said with a sweet, expectant smile. Under her watchful gaze, Veyron casually pressed the button on top of the pocket watch. In an instant, the entire world went still—frozen in time. Everyone and everything stopped, except for him and the cloaked woman standing before him. "Something this powerful... Aren't you worried I'll just take it and run?" he asked, toying with the watch in his hand. "If that's what you truly want to do, then from this moment on, it's yours," she said, gesturing generously. "Do as you please." "So generous?" Veyron raised an eyebrow. "Honestly, I thought you were planning to steal my time or something—use this watch to drain it away like that guy over there. Guess I misjudged you. My bad, my bad..." "......How do you know that?!" The smile on her face froze completely. She stared at Veyron, cold and stiff. "Wait," he said, a thoughtful glint in his eye. "You still haven't noticed anything, have you?" "Could it be... the effect wasn't strong enough? No, that can't be right. The time stop is affecting the entire world." Noticed something? What's that supposed to mean? The cloaked woman's brows furrowed as she tried to make sense of his words. Then, just a few seconds later, her expression shifted dramatically. "No... That's impossible!" "What's so impossible about it?" Veyron replied with a casual smile. "It's happening right in front of you, isn't it?" He stared at her cheerfully, almost playfully—but to the cloaked woman, locked in place by his telekinesis and aura, his grin looked more like the smirk of a demon. Sure, this world had the vibes of one of those adult-fantasy settings, but the fact that the Time-Stopping thing could even manifest as a fully structured world meant it had to follow some kind of internal logic. Like how an apple falls down because of gravity—basic, reliable laws. Which led to one very important question: In a world that, based on his first scan, had zero supernatural elements... how the hell was there a pocket watch that could stop time without limit? After taking the watch from the cloaked woman and testing it for himself, Veyron still didn't know exactly how it worked. But with the feedback he got from the world's will, he understood one thing clearly: The pocket watch didn't freeze time for free—far from it. The cost just wasn't something a normal person—or even most low-tier supernaturals—could perceive. What it actually drained... was the abstract concept of time belonging to the watch's user. A regular person who pressed the button would have their personal "time"—from birth to death—instantly sucked dry. After all, the total amount of time a human has is what, maybe a hundred years tops? And that's supposed to power a global time stop? The watch could barely pause reality for a nanosecond before it drained everything. Only a special kind of person, like the gloomy young man from earlier, the protagonist, could withstand the cost—and even then, the time + fate drained from them would be stored inside the watch, like fuel. That's what the cloaked woman had been doing: She scouted the world for individuals with that kind of unusual "time durability," handed them the watch, let them use it... and waited for their lifespans to be devoured. All so she could stockpile enough "time" to use the watch herself without cost. And her plan might've worked—If she hadn't run into Veyron. The problem? The watch couldn't drain Veyron's time. Or rather, it tried—but because of how unique he was, and how powerful his Divine Ki had become, any time the watch managed to siphon off just flowed right back into him. It was like his very existence refused to be consumed. Once Veyron figured out how the watch really worked, and instinctively found a way to stop his time from leaking out—He refused to even let the world unfreeze. The global time stop held firm...But now it was feeding off her reserves. Her stored time. Even her own lifespan. Thirty seconds later, the cloaked woman started begging. She said she'd swear loyalty to Veyron, give him full control of the pocket watch—just let her live. A minute later, her voice was hoarse. Her perfect, porcelain-smooth face was starting to wrinkle with age. Two minutes later, she looked like a hunched, withered old woman. At the two-and-a-half-minute mark, she croaked out one last bitter line—"You win..."—before her body and cloak crumbled into dust under Veyron's calm gaze. And just like that, the pocket watch officially became his. The proof? He could now toss it into the dimensional Chat Group's—or even upload it straight to the group store. Apparently, the group system had safeguards in place. Probably to stop members from, you know, picking up an entire planet or universe and putting it up for sale. Only items that were fully recognized as belonging to a group member could be used that way. And now, the time-stopping pocket watch? It was his. . . .