Book 2: Chapter 395
They walked for a very long time.
Lukas recognised this from the fact that the sky colour changed five times.
At some point, the surrounding landscape had changed completely. He hadn’t noticed it immediately. This wasn’t just because he was focused on the changing colours of the sky. Instead, it was because something that Lukas couldn’t perceive interefered with his concentration as they entered the unfamiliar area.
…It was similar to the first time he’d entered the Flower Mountain.
A feeling of incongruity hidden in the midst of perfect naturalness.
It was almost as if they’d stepped into a completely different dimension…
Splash-
The touch of cool liquid.
Lukas found himself standing in the middle of a sea. Or at least, that was what the surrounding scene claimed.
From the surface, the sea seemed unthinkably deep, but in truth, it was only ankle deep. In reality, this was not a sea, but a vast puddle of shallow, stagnant water.
“Where are we?”
“The Northern Region, The Sea of Lost Possession.”
Pale answered with a wide smile. For her, it was a good answer.
As usual, she spoke in a straightforward tone without any explanations that only she could understand, but just knowing the name didn’t actually tell him where it was. This was especially so for Lukas, who was new to this world.
“Hang in there for a bit longer! We’re almost there!”
It seemed that this wasn’t their final destination.
Pale strode forward with brisk steps.
Splash, splash.
The sound of splashing water was almost deafening.
As he followed behind, Lukas felt that his robes were a bit c.u.mbersome, so he just discarded them.
They didn’t walk for that long this time.
After the sky had only changed colour a few more times, Pale stopped walking again.
“This is probably it…”
Just as she mumbled under her breath.
Rumble…
Lukas felt the surface of the water begin to shake slightly. His expression grew stiff.
“Pale.”
Something was coming. Before he could say that,
Fwoosh!
The surface of the water erupted with a loud sound. From beneath, the shadow of something huge was revealed.
‘Big…!’
Lukas couldn’t help but admire the size of the monster.
At first, all he could see was a golden eye. Then, a gigantic body covered in smooth turquoise scales appeared.
The monster had the appearance of an enormous sea serpent. Just by raising its head slightly, it obscured the entire sky.
It was different from the monsters he’d encountered in the desert. It wasn’t just its size. There was something, but Lukas wasn’t sure what it was.
Was this normal in this area? Suppressing his doubts, Lukas shouted again.
“Pale!”
However, Pale was looking up at the monster with her characteristic nonchalant expression.
“How lucky! I can’t believe it showed up so quickly!”
“What?”
“I’ll be going first~”
Pale kicked off from the ground slightly and leaped towards the sea serpent. The sea serpent calmly looked at her with eyes that were larger than her body and opened its mouth.
Gulp.
“…!”
Just like that, she was swallowed.
This was literal, the sea serpent had swallowed Pale’s entire body whole.
Lukas stood there like a statue.
Shuk-
The sea serpent’s gaze then turned in his direction. Its eyes were filled with indifference.
There was no hostility or hunger.
Rather, it seemed to be calmly asking what Lukas intended to do.
‘Do I have to get eaten too?’
“…”
Lukas bit his lip.
He didn’t know what was going on, but one thing was clear. If he did not step up now, the sea serpent would leave.
‘…a method to become strong.’
As for what that method was, Lukas had no idea.
Pale was his only hint.
Sss-
Slowly, his body floated up into the air. The giant sea serpent opened its mouth in the direction of his floating body as if waiting for him.
Lukas threw himself into its throat.
* * *
The slippery texture of the oesophagus was unpleasant. The sticky saliva that got into his clothes, the terrible stench… If he’d known this would have happened, he would not have discarded his robes.
He slid down for a while, as though he was riding a slide.
It was the same feeling, but, naturally, it was not nearly as pleasant.
Thud.
“Ugh.”
He b.u.mped into someone. He felt a throbbing in his head as if something hit him.
“Ow ow ow ow…”
He heard a groan. It sounded like Pale’s voice.
Lukas blinked, but he could not see anything around him.
Paht-
He used the Flash spell to illuminate the surroundings.
Then, he saw Pale, who had fallen onto her b.u.t.t and was holding her forehead.
“Are you alright?”
Pale looked at the outstretched hand of Lukas, who wasn’t groaning. A strange look flashed in her eyes.
“Pale?”
“…yeah.”
With a disinterested tone, she held his hand and stood to her feet.
Lukas took the time to look around… Was this the sea serpent’s stomach? It felt strangely hot and stuffy.
“Being digested and becoming a part of a sea serpent’s flesh and blood isn’t really a method to become stronger.”
“…”
Pale didn’t answer right away. Instead, she was looking down at her palms. Unlike normally, there was a serious expression on her face.
“Pale?”
“…huh? Oh. Come to think of it, was this the method?”
“…”
Instead of feeling shocked by Pale’s unexpected response, Lukas decided to first feel relieved that his words weren’t wrong.
With a slight smirk, Pale clenched her fist slightly and spoke.
“This place is a garbage dump.”
“Garbage dump?”
“We should go deeper first.”
Bouncing, Pale walked forward. He had no choice but to follow her while looking around.
The first thing he noticed was the wall… Was this the wall of a stomach? It looked that way, but it felt strangely different. Just as he was thinking about touching it, he heard Pale’s voice.
“Thank you for your hard work.”
They were at a dead end.
But that didn’t mean there was nothing there.
Someone was standing in front of Pale. Lukas couldn’t help but feel surprised when he saw their appearance. A smooth, clean skull, white bones, and empty eye sockets.
A skeleton. (TL: Diablo’s brother?)
A skeleton was standing at the dead end.
Had Pale finally lost her mind? No. That couldn’t be it.
[Come, for, what business?]
A voice came from the skeleton.
The reason for the expression ‘came from’ was because the skeleton’s jaw did not move at all when making the voice.
It was like telepathy that they’d heard. But Pale didn’t seem surprised by this as she spoke calmly.
“I’m here to pick up a ‘possibility’.”
[I, see. A while, wait.]
The skeleton’s eyes flashed as it looked at Pale. It seemed like it was a.n.a.lysing her.
Then it spoke again.
[Not, possible. Your, origin, no loss.]
Pale shook her head as if that was expected.
“No, not me, you dumb skeleton. Why do you make the same mistake every time I come here?”
[…]
“a.n.a.lyse this uncle’s origin, not mine.”
The skeleton then turned its skull to look at Lukas. When he looked closely, he could see faint flames burning within those deep, dark eye sockets
…Was it a.n.a.lysing him?
After a moment of silence, the skeleton spoke again.
[A, being, from universe, number 2731361.]
“Mhm.”
[Strange. The possibilities, of this man, one of a kind, in this world. No. Rather, an external…]
The skeleton tilted its head to the side as it muttered in a hoa.r.s.e voice.
Pale chuckled.
“It’s not your job to care about that, is it?”
[…that is, correct.]
As it said those words, the skeleton stepped back.
There was a huge compa.s.s, or perhaps something like a clock, hanging from the wall.
However, there were far more hands than the hour, minute, and second hands. At a glance, there were dozens of them. The markings also seemed to be quite precise.
The skeleton stretched out its boney fingers in a familiar motion and began to adjust the needle-like hands. Unlike its sluggish voice, there was no hesitation in the movement of its fingers.
Pale hummed quietly as she waited.
And when the adjustment was over.
Rumble-
The dead end wall began to shake before finally splitting in half. A short while later, the black s.p.a.ce hidden behind it was revealed.
[Number 2731361, dumpsite.]
“Wow. Nice work!”
Pale patted the skeleton on the shoulder and praised it. Ignoring this, the skeleton spoke again.
[Mas-, ter, wants to, meet you.]
Naturally, it wasn’t talking to Lukas. The skeleton’s head was turned to Pale.
She dismissively waved her hand at him.
“I can’t. Can’t you see I’m busy right now?”
[…I, see. Understood.]
The skeleton did not make the request again.
[I hope, the possibility, that you wish for, is there.]
After saying that, it bowed its head. Like a machine that had finished its task.
“Now then. Let’s go!”
Pale turned her attention away from the skeleton. She suddenly got close to Lukas and grabbed his hand. Then, she led him along with a satisfied smile on her face.
As soon as they stepped into the darkness, the sound of the wall closing again could be heard behind them.
“Can we not return that way?”
Lukas asked as he looked at Pale, who was holding his hand.
“There’s no need to go there anymore. If we go a bit further… Look. Didn’t we arrive quickly?”
Pale stretched out a finger.
“We’re here.”
Lukas covered his nose for a moment. There was a stench in this place that was completely incomparable to before.
It smelled like rotting corpses.
But the scene in front of him was even more disgusting than the smell.
“…”
He was speechless as he beheld the mountain of corpses. No, there were so many corpses piled on top of each other that it could be described as a world of corpses.
No matter where he looked, there was nothing but corpses. Even Lukas had never witnessed such a sight.
“Everything here are possibilities that have been discarded.”
Pale strode through this place.
The sight left him speechless for a moment. As she walked forward one step at a time, she looked like an angel taking a stroll through h.e.l.l.
Then, she began to rummage through the corpses with an innocent expression.
“They are all hollow sh.e.l.ls, and yet they haven’t disappeared. They haven’t rotted. Why? Because this place doesn’t have anything like an underworld.”
“…these corpses died in the World of Void?”
“You could say that.”
Pale snickered.
“This world abides by the laws of the jungle. And the prey becomes the flesh and blood of the predator in the truest sense. In other words, absorption. That is the rule here, and it is the most common way to become strong.”
“…”
“By the way, the efficiency of the absorption varies greatly depending on the food.”
“…efficiency?”
“Even if the opponent is much stronger than you, if you have nothing in common, the efficiency would be very low. If you are completely different beings, it might even be as low as 0.1%.”
Pale’s tone was a little different from usual. It felt like she was a completely different person. It wasn’t just because this was her first ever detailed explanation.
For Lukas, a strange feeling was never a good thing.
He almost instinctively looked behind him, at the path that they had taken.
But he was certain that an escape route didn’t exist anymore.
Perhaps Pale hadn’t noticed his behaviour, because she continued in a soft voice.
“On the other hand, the more you have in common, the higher the absorption efficiency. Anything is fine. Whether it’s appearance, like hair colour, eye colour, the same gender, similar characteristics, or even manner of speech… What I’m trying to say is that the most efficient is… Ah.”
Her searching hands stopped for a moment.
“Found it. As expected, I’m a lot luckier when you’re around.”
Pale grinned as she pulled a corpse out from the other corpses.
“…!”
The moment he saw this corpse, Lukas couldn’t help but suck in a cold breath.
It looked like it had been neglected for a long time. It was in terrible condition.
There were pieces missing as if it had been eaten by wild dogs. In particular, the lower body was nonexistent as if it had been ripped off.
Nevertheless, the face was still easily recognisable.
Dark blonde hair, dead blue eyes.
…Pale,
Showed off the half eaten corpse of ‘Lukas Trowman’ with a broad smile.
“This is the best prey for uncle. Ah. It’s already dead, so you should be able to eat this, right?”