Exploration (3)
There was an old saying: curiosity killed the cat. It meant that poking your nose too far into the unknown was an express ticket to disaster.
"Aaaaagh—!"
A lesson driven home quite vividly as I found myself literally 'falling' into the open sky.
It had taken only a single step. Just one measly pace toward that inverted waterfall.
Yet the instant my boot crossed the threshold, the world flipped upside down as if an unseen giant had snatched me by the collar and hurled me upward. To make matters worse, I had a sword clutched in one hand and a shield strapped to the other, leaving me completely helpless to catch myself.
Skrrrrt!
Fortunately, Bbarmbo was riding on my back. Blessed with reflexes sharp enough to swat flying arrows and burst speed that left afterimages in his wake, he instantly drove his claws into the earth. But his claws were far too sharp. Instead of anchoring us, they sliced through the soil like hot knives through butter, skittering uselessly along the ground.
If I knew this would happen, I wouldn't have buffed and manicured his claws so diligently…!
Still, Bbarmbo's desperate effort bought us a precious split second.
"Ggyuuuu!"
"Kkiiik!"
Wonmo and Tyrano, who had been trailing behind us, leapt into action like clockwork. Wonmo stretched out his stubby limbs to catch Bbarmbo's hand, while Tyrano clamped his jaws onto Wonmo's foot, flapping his little wings frantically against the pull.
"#$%!"
"Kku-eong."
The rest of the team anchored the tail end. Largo whipped his long, crane-like neck around, deftly clamping his jaws onto Tyrano's dangling ankle just before the baby dragon could be sucked into the stratosphere. With Largo as the fulcrum, Ludwig and Ggobongi dug their heels in and carefully reeled in our linked conga line like a string of runaway sausages.
A catastrophic disaster had been averted by a hair's breadth thanks to everyone's flawless teamwork.
"Whew… holy shit…" I breathed, collapsing onto solid ground and clutching my chest.
[That was a precarious situation indeed,] Cain remarked from my chest.
If I hadn't securely strapped his miniature statue to my breastplate, he would have been shot into orbit like an artillery shell, and I would have lost him forever.
Just what kind of messed-up anomaly is this?
I stared up at the thundering column of water, willing my pounding heart to slow down. I had known something was deeply wrong the moment I saw water rushing toward the clouds, but I never imagined the localized gravitational field itself would invert.
I've seen the terrain twist and shift at random, but flipping gravity on its head is a whole new level of absurd.
So, what was waiting at the summit of that reversed fall? If there was nothing at all, that would be bizarre enough on its own. But what if there was another landmass perched above the sky? That spawned an entirely new set of headaches. Would it be an upside-down landscape mirroring the inverted gravity, or an upright world resting on clouds? Or perhaps this entire forest was the part that was upside down?
I rubbed my temples, completely baffled by the architecture of this realm. If I had known we'd run into this, I would have grilled Vanir for more details before she drifted off to sleep. Then again, who could have anticipated an upside-down waterfall? I sighed heavily. It was becoming painfully clear why the ancient dragon had declared my chances of escaping this place were effectively zero. When fundamental constants like gravity didn't even play by the rules, common sense ceased to exist.
I picked up a loose pebble from the bank and tossed it forward with a flick of my wrist.
Whoosh!
The stone shot horizontally for an instant before taking a sharp ninety-degree turn, hurtling straight up alongside the roaring water and vanishing into the dense veil of mist at the top. The visual was breathtaking, but my aching muscles were proof that it wasn't an optical illusion. Beyond that invisible boundary line, up was down and down was up.
"…Let's take a breather here before we decide what to do."
My physical stamina was fine, but the mental exhaustion of confronting such a dizzying reality had worn me down. Every time I felt like I was mapping out an escape route, this wilderness threw another impossible barrier in my face, making the outside world feel farther away than ever. Even so, giving up wasn't an option. I was going to crawl out of this hellhole no matter what it took.
"Let's back away from the water's edge and set up camp over there," I instructed. "Wonmo, Tyrano. You two can play, but stay far away from that river. One wrong step and you'll fall into the sky. Got it?"
"Kkiik!"
"Ggyu!"
Leaving the two overly curious troublemakers under Ggobongi's watchful eye, I sat down against a boulder. Whether the ape could truly handle babysitting duty was a gamble, but I had to trust him. While they were occupied, I pulled up my interface. It was time to consult the collective brain trust of the Gallery. Ludwig and Cain had already confessed they'd never witnessed such a phenomenon in their lives, but who knew what the internet might yield? After all, an entire Magic Tower had taken flight just the other day. In a high-fantasy reality, strange was the new normal.
[Attached Video: A massive waterfall surging upward toward the clouds]
[Attached Video: A thrown pebble abruptly 'falling' straight up into the sky]
[Attached Video: The misty summit where the ascending water disappears]
The Forest of the Four Seasons really has everything. First a reverse-flowing sea, now this shit;
Does anything like this exist in the outside world? Please tell me it does.
P.S. Almost got sucked in and died, barely survived thanks to my crew holding onto me.
The dwarf's practical suggestion hit me like a lightning bolt. Why risk my own neck when I had tools at my disposal? With the indestructible World Tree Silk in my inventory, tethering a scout device would be a breeze. All I needed now was a recording crystal.
"……"
[……]
"……"
[…Why art thou gazing upon me with such an unsettling countenance?]
I looked down at Cain strapped to my chest. Did I really need to waste a precious crystal orb when I had a self-aware, indestructible stone statue right here? He's way more versatile and observant anyway.
Sensing the dark intent swirling behind my eyes, Cain's voice turned distinctly guarded.
[Whatever lunatic scheme thou art currently contriving in thy skull, I strongly advise thee to desist.]
"How do you even know what I'm thinking?"
[Whatever it is, it bodes nothing but ill for me. Fold that thought away posthaste and seek an alternative course.]
Damn, he's sharp when his own neck is on the line. I swallowed my disappointment with a sigh. It had only been half-serious anyway. If the tether snapped, I'd lose Cain forever, and that was a risk I couldn't afford. Ignoring the statue's suspicious glare—or whatever passed for one on a stone carving—I opened a direct messaging window.
Three smooth, crystal recording orbs materialized in my hands. All that was left was to wrap one securely in World Tree Silk and lob it into the waterfall—or rather, up into it.
Orientation doesn't matter, does it? Even if the footage recorded upside down, I could just flip the projection. I retrieved the spool of World Tree Silk from Ggobongi. We had barely used any thread making our way through the woods so far, and since the plan was to haul the orb back down anyway, using the main spool wouldn't waste an inch.
[And what if something perilous lurks at the summit?] Cain asked, watching me work.
"Then we run like our lives depend on it," I replied bluntly. Given the immense height of the cataract, whatever was up there would take time to reach us anyway.
With preparations complete, I led the entourage toward the edge of the inversion zone. The roar of the water vibrated through the damp air as the surging torrent defied every law of nature, plunging toward the heavens.
"Hup!"
Whoosh!
I hurled the tethered crystal orb directly into the updraft. The spool whirred, thread uncoiling in a silky blur as the orb was caught by the inverted flow and catapulted straight toward the clouds. In seconds, it vanished past the misty ceiling, but the thread kept spooling out at high speed. The altitude of that mist was deceptive; it was far higher than it appeared from the ground.
Tug!
About ten seconds in, the silk thread gave a distinct jolt. The rate of unspooling slowed to a lazy crawl, indicating the orb had splashed into a pool of water, before halting completely with a faint clack.
Plonk.
It had touched bottom. Now came the simple task of twirling the line around to sweep the camera across the surroundings.
"Ludwig. If you see me getting dragged into the sky, cut the line immediately."
"Understood."
Taking precautions against worst-case scenarios was basic survival doctrine. After giving the tether several wide rotations to ensure a panoramic view, I began reeling the line back in. There was no reason to linger; all we needed was a glimpse of what lay beyond.
Man, it feels like I'm hauling it up from a bottomless pit. Or pulling it down from orbit, rather. Thankfully, the crystal orb was light, and the tension on the line remained constant. Nothing was snagged on it, and nothing seemed to be chasing it down.
"It's coming back."
Winding the silk like kite string, the glittering crystal orb finally burst through the mist and plummeted straight toward us. I caught it neatly out of the air. Eager to see what was recorded, the entire group gathered around in a tight circle, their eyes wide with anticipation.
Tap, tap.
I tapped the surface of the orb twice, paused, and tapped it twice more. Having operated one before, the playback procedure was second nature.
Flash!
The crystal flared with soft azure light, projecting an ethereal holographic window into the empty air. The footage began with the camera shooting upward along the roaring water, bursting through the thick blanket of clouds to reveal the summit.
"A lake…?"
[A lake indeed. And an exceedingly vast one at that.]
Resting atop the sky was a gargantuan body of water. It stretched as far as the eye could see, vast and shimmering like an endless inland sea.
Splash!
Just as I wondered if it might genuinely be an ocean, the crystal plunged beneath the azure surface. The water was remarkably clear, illuminated by ambient sunlight that filtered through the depths like liquid glass.
"Huh…"
[Abundant schools of fish.]
Cain was right. The depths were teeming with vibrant aquatic life, darting between underwater flora. Yet that alone was nothing out of the ordinary. The recording panned smoothly as I had twirled the thread, capturing the sandy lakebed and distant rock formations. That was about all there was to see.
Doesn't seem like there's anything particularly threatening up there.
The footage shifted as the orb began its ascent toward the surface, preparing to breach the water and show a wide-angle vista of the overhead lake. Feeling satisfied that the coast was clear, I reached out to switch off the projection.
Then, the abyss opened.
Snap!
"Huk?!"
"Ggy-ggyak!"
"Kkiiik!"
"Oooagh?!"
A chorus of terrified gasps ripped from our throats as two colossal golden eyes snapped open in the dead center of the lake. They were gargantuan, seemingly spanning half the entire seabed, slit-pupiled and radiating a chilling, primordial malice.
Before my mind could even process the horror, the playback rolled forward. The orb cleared the water's surface, accelerating down through the mist.
CRASH—!
Beneath the projection's rippling waves, the owner of those eyes began to rise, parting thousands of tons of water in a furious, churning surge. The dense fog obscured its facial features, but the sheer scale of the silhouette was enough to freeze the blood in our veins. Whatever that thing was, it was an absolute nightmare.
"……"
As the video fizzled out, I slowly tilted my chin toward the sky.
What kind of mythical titan was dwelling at the other end of that waterfall? In gaming terms, had we accidentally tapped the territorial aggro of a hidden world boss?
The answer arrived with catastrophic force.
KRA-BOOOM!
The mist at the summit violently ruptured, and a gargantuan, monstrous 'hand' punched through the veil into the open air.
It had thick, webbed skin between elongated clawed fingers, reminiscent of an amphibian, but its hide was armored in heavy, overlapping scales that gleamed like polished obsidian.
Splaaash! Crash!
Worst of all, that hand wasn't just dangling. It was pulling.
A massive, muscled forearm tore through the clouds, digging its talons into the roaring pillar of water as if scaling a solid cliff face. It was crawling down against the raging current, heading straight for us.
The sheer, suffocating pressure descending from above crushed the air out of my lungs. A singular, crystalline thought echoed through my panic-stricken brain.
…We are so unbelievably fucked.
The moment that realization struck, pure survival instinct took the wheel, and I screamed at the top of my lungs.
"RUN FOR YOUR LIVES—!"