The rigid samurai captain’s glare dropped from Ryan’s uninspired Western collar to the small, steady glow emanating from his wrist. With a gauntleted finger that trembled with superstitious dread, the officer tapped the glass face of Ryan's digital wristwatch, demanding that the blinking green numbers be surrendered immediately as undeniable evidence of foreign sorcery. The surrounding guards murmured anxiously, pressing their wooden staves forward as if expecting the quartz movement to detonate like an unvetted corporate server box.
Ryan let out a soft, flat sigh, the kind he usually reserved for an IT support ticket that had somehow been escalated to the executive board. He pulled back his cuff slightly, eyeing the digital display with mild irritation rather than fear. "It’s just a standard quartz timepiece," Ryan explained in a flat, matter-of-fact tone, treating the accusation of witchcraft with the exhausted diplomacy of a marketing coordinator explaining a basic spreadsheet formula to an auditor who refused to read the manual. "Head office issued it for tracking event run-sheets. It doesn't cast spells; it just keeps track of the schedule."
Unimpressed by explanations of time zones and battery-powered oscillators, the magistrate extended an open, demanding palm, insisting the demonic contraption be handed over for immediate ritual quarantine before it corrupted the district's ledgers. Ryan quietly weighed his options, wondering if surrendering a piece of his daily routine would trigger an administrative error far worse than missing his morning transit connection, and resolutely kept his wrist safely tucked inside the fold of his canvas messenger bag strap.