Encounter with a Native
Upon stepping through the Dimensional Gate, the first thing that greeted me was a modest clearing enclosed by a ring of trees.
"Success! I actually made it through!"
Mana possessed its own distinct scent, and the aroma drifting through this place was, without a shadow of a doubt, completely foreign—something I had never once smelled in my entire life.
Which meant, in other words, that I hadn't accidentally bored a hole into the old man's house next door.
Naturally! As if the genius archmage, the great Ian, could ever fail! Ah, Ian... is he truly the God of Magic incarnate?
Even the scenery was picturesque enough to belong on a canvas. It appeared to be night in this realm, cloaking the surroundings in deep twilight, yet across the vast expanse of the sky above, brilliant stars glittered like scattered jewels.
Looking closer, every single constellation was one I had never laid eyes on before. Unmistakable proof that I had reached an entirely new world shimmered right before my eyes.
As a mage whose sole pursuit in life was truth and exploration, what moment could possibly make the heart race more than this? It felt as though this unknown dimension had arrayed itself in welcome, stepping forth to greet a great seeker such as myself.
Ah, what a truly magnificent night.
"Wait... what on earth is that?"
While basking in my own swell of narcissistic triumph and scanning the surroundings, my gaze dipped slightly—only to catch something tiny flinching directly beneath The Observer's Eye.
A living creature? But why was it so ridiculously small? A bug?
I dialed up the magnification on the magical lens to inspect it closely.
"Wh-what in the world?!"
To my utter astonishment, the creature before me possessed distinct facial features and four limbs—a completely humanoid entity.
Except it was barely the size of an ant.
Well, what did size matter anyway? It was the very first native I had encountered in this new world; who cared how small it was? It was probably a member of some pygmy race that dominated this realm.
As I observed it from every angle with boundless curiosity, a sudden, jarring sense of dissonance struck my mind.
"Hmm... Wait a second. Is it just the native that's small, or is everything small?"
The lush trees surrounding the native, the boulders, even the mounds of dirt were all miniature. The tallest tree was barely the length of my finger. It felt like peering down at an intricate diorama.
Does that mean this tiny creature is actually average-sized here? Did I connect to a lower dimension?
My academic curiosity flared up like an erupting volcano, demanding answers to everything.
Well then, time to get down to business.
The very first step one must take upon setting foot in an uncharted world.
Analyzing the composition of mana.
As I mentioned earlier, mana carried a unique scent, usually varying only slightly from region to region. But the aroma wafting through this world was remarkably faint and crisp. That suggested a high probability of it being an entirely unprecedented form of mana.
"Now then, let's take a look, shall we?"
Just as I held my mana sensor in one hand and moved to slide it through the crack of the dimensional rift, a tiny, chattering voice began to pipe up from below.
"What's this? Who dares interrupt my grand research?"
Looking down, I saw the pint-sized native craning its neck up at me, rattling off a frantic string of words.
Though I couldn't understand it right away since it wasn't a language from my world, such a trivial obstacle was nothing to a great mage.
A spell that translated and projected thoughts directly into the recipient's brainwaves, bypassing the tedious chore of learning foreign tongues. That's right—I had my Thought-Transmission Magic, a spell of my very own design.
This spell was one of the crowning masterpieces of my magical career, though it did suffer from one minor flaw.
Namely, to the listener on the receiving end, my voice got distorted into something resembling a cold, mechanical rasp.
Well, it wasn't like my natural voice was some sweet melodic tenor anyway, so I never bothered to fix it.
Sure, during the academy demonstration, my foolish classmates had showered me with senseless slander, crying that it was 'grotesque' or 'downright terrifying,' but I wasn't the sort of man to be swayed by the prejudices of the ignorant.
Regardless, I routed this Thought-Transmission Magic through my miniature familiar, The Observer's Eye—'the Eye' for short—and patched it straight into the tiny creature's mind.
Now I'd be able to clearly understand what that little thing was babbling about.
"Come now, speak. Tell me your impressions upon meeting a great archmage, native."
"E-excuse me... Can you hear me?"
Mina felt her knees trembling violently, but she gritted her teeth and attempted to communicate with the colossal eyeball looming overhead.
Anyone watching might have thought she had lost her mind. Yet before an overwhelming entity so terrifying she couldn't even dream of fighting it, dialogue was the only survival strategy Mina had left.
Seeing as it wasn't attacking immediately... perhaps it was a reasonably sentient, rational being. Even if its sinister, bloodshot appearance looked anything but benevolent.
"Can it not understand my words...?"
Yet no matter how loudly she shouted, the bizarre eyeball didn't even look at Mina properly. It merely swiveled back and forth like a machine, scanning the clearing around her.
I'm scared...
Fear ran so cold it felt as though all the blood in her body had frozen, but she couldn't simply collapse in despair. This was a catastrophe of her own making; she had to resolve it with her own hands.
Could it not hear because it had no ears? Come to think of it, it had no mouth either—so how on earth was she supposed to communicate with it?
Her fingers trembling, just as she was wondering whether she should etch words into the dirt using mana—
Skkrrr—
The massive eyeball in the sky flared with an ominous glint and swiveled down to stare straight at Mina.
"Gasp...!"
The moment her gaze met that pitch-black pupil head-on, the breath caught in her throat.
And then, echoing directly within her mind without passing through her ears, came a voice.
It was an awful, grating noise she could hardly believe belonged to a living being, driving straight into her brain. It sounded like an uncanny abomination from beyond this world, clumsily trying to mimic human speech.
Wh-why is this happening to me...?
She had only wanted to become a little stronger. She had only wanted to earn her master's acknowledgment. Why had everything gone so horribly wrong?
Tears threatened to burst forth, but now that the colossal monster had spoken to her, she couldn't afford to break down and cry.
If she fled in terror or showed the slightest sign of defiance, there was no telling what gruesome tragedy would befall her the very next second.
"M-may I ask... where you have come from?"
Mina swallowed down the tremor in her voice, striving with all her might to sound calm as she posed the question.
Even as instinct screamed that the entity before her could erase her like a speck of dust on a whim, she had to grasp at any lead she could through conversation.
Mina found herself accepting that answer surprisingly easily. If such a grotesque and alien creature had existed in this world's ecosystem, there surely would have been at least a single line recorded about it in the thick volumes of the grand libraries or ancient folklore.
That its form existed nowhere in history meant it truly was an otherworldly entity, lying far beyond the common sense of the mortal realm.
Yet the monster's following words struck Mina with profound shock.
A... higher world...?
A fierce rejection revolted inside Mina's mind. Even by the knowledge of a spirit contractor who studied the boundaries between the mortal realm and the Spirit Realm, the hierarchy of dimensions was a domain far beyond mortal reach.
Did it refer to those unholy domains spoken of in ancient myths, where demon gods or Evil Gods beyond human comprehension lay slumbering? Or did it mean the celestial heights where true gods resided?
She felt the blood drain entirely from her body.
Her clumsy summoning gate—intended merely to call forth a high-ranking spirit—had instead breached a fissure connecting straight to a monstrous entity from a higher dimension.
What... what on earth have I done...?
Yet the moment the words 'Evil God' brushed through her thoughts, a faint, impossible spark of hope flickered within the pitch-black despair.
Wait. If it's an Evil God...
On sleepless nights during her childhood, her master, Alf, had sat by her bedside and read fairy tales in his gentle, warm voice.
The Chronicle of the Sage of Starlight.
The tale of a legendary sage who transcended mortal limits and grasped the cosmic truths of the universe.
In that book, there was indeed a passage where the sage encountered an Evil God—a cosmic anomaly that traversed dimensions at the ends of the world.
And that sage, it was said, had driven those abominations away.
H-how did he do it again...?
Mina clutched her hem with trembling hands, frantically scouring her memories.
The sage had not yielded before the absolute entity. With his characteristic wisdom and bold demeanor, he had guided the conversation and ultimately captured their curiosity.
Then could this bizarre higher-dimensional entity floating before her... also be persuaded through dialogue?
Perhaps she could find a breakthrough to prevent this forest and their cabin from being drenched in blood.
Forcing her racing heart to steady, Mina wet her parched lips with her tongue.
Though her counterpart was a colossal eyeball gazing down at her as if she were an insect, the only thing she could lean on in this moment was the courage demonstrated by the sage in her master's story.
And the prelude to that ancient tale went like this:
"Back when the Sage of Starlight had yet to claim the power of starlight, during his travels across the world...
At the mouth of the path leading beyond the western continent lay a desolate red desert, as vast and unending as an ocean.
Under the merciless blaze of the sun, where even the horizon wavered like a mirage, the sage pressed forward in silence to quench his parched throat—until at last, he discovered a small oasis quietly tucked beneath the rugged dunes.
The surface of that oasis was as deep and cold as a fragment torn from the midnight sky, with thousands of starlit ripples gently spreading across the water.
The very moment the sage caught his ragged breath and knelt by the water's edge, the still surface began to churn.
And rising from the center of the water was a girl of breathtaking beauty."