Chapter 26. A Complete Mess
A giant lizard crawling across the ground gets trampled by an elephant that floats in the sky before crashing down with a heavy thud.
Things that I have no idea what to even call imitate the cries of various creatures and try to deceive stupid beasts.
And flying whales dive toward the swamp.
“I always wonder about this, but why do whales always fly through the sky in fantasy worlds? Did someone see clouds shaped like whales floating in the sky and get the idea?”
That kind of complete mess was exactly what this place was.
Sometimes we had to walk through a desert.
Sometimes we had to swim underwater.
Sometimes we even had to cross flames.
I had a small doubt about whether I could still call a place like this a forest, but since everyone called it a forest, I decided to call it a forest too.
“That is a cloud flying fish. It is so huge that it looks like a whale.”
“Flying fish or whale, why is something that lives in water flying through the sky? And why can we see that thing so clearly when you cannot even see an inch ahead of you up there? What kind of logic is this?”
“Normal thinking is poison here. That is why so many guides seem to have reached enlightenment and simply accepted everything.”
“Who are you to talk about guides?”
“Most of the guides I have encountered looked like they had given up fighting and were simply waiting to die.”
Oh my god.
Pai's attitude toward Oehorn was getting sharper and sharper.
Oehorn knew that perfectly well, yet he continued provoking her as if daring her to come at him.
“Great Warrior! Look! Look over there! It is a banana! A flying banana! And it can talk!”
“No! Flying bananas cannot talk! Therefore, that is a carrot that looks like a banana!”
Perhaps the badgers had become intoxicated by the fog, because they were barely maintaining any sanity and were spouting complete nonsense.
“Phew… Today is the last day.”
Yes.
Today was the last day.
There was only about an hour left in game time.
I was seriously running out of time.
As if that wasn't enough, this morning the Chairman had casually told me that he was really looking forward to today, making me even more anxious.
Seriously.
Seriously, that Chairman was definitely a pervert.
Otherwise, how could he look at someone becoming this exhausted and say something like, “You really have high expectations for this. Very interesting.”
“But shouldn't we at least be seeing the edge of the artifact by now? How many times have we fought here, and how far have we walked?”
“There are countless people in this fog who think exactly like you.”
“Shut up!”
“If there is one thing I can tell you, it is that as long as you remain in the Labyrinth Forest, you will not even see the edge of the artifact you mentioned after merely one or two months.”
“Really? Reeeally? Thanks for the advice! Why don't you just tell me to throw everything away and burn down the entire forest! Ah! And then you'll say something like, ‘Do you really think you're the only one who has ever thought about burning this forest?’ Won't you?”
“Yes.”
“Aaaaaaargh!!!!”
I knew that.
Since this was a forest where space itself was distorted, I already knew that even if I burned it for the rest of my life, I would accomplish nothing.
Instead, I would probably end up fighting living trees.
They were apparently called Grotesque Trees.
The sap they released instead of blood actually had a rather refreshing taste.
Anyway.
The problem was that I genuinely couldn't think of any other way besides burning the forest.
Couldn't someone give me at least one hint about this forest?
If this was a quest, shouldn't they at least throw me a hint so vague that I would wonder whether it was even a hint?
“Life…”
“Are you going to stop?”
Oehorn casually asked with his usual emotionless expression.
That guy really had a talent for making people's blood boil.
He was like an onion that revealed a new layer every time I peeled it.
The more I learned about him, the more I disliked him.
“No. But now I really don't have any time left. If I keep walking, I'll probably just keep going around in circles, so I need to think of another method.”
“Wise.”
“Thanks, friend.”
I sat down on the ground for a moment to think.
“I'm a carpet! I'm a carpet! My hide will be used as a carpet!”
“I'm a chair! A clattering chair!”
I ended up sitting on the two badger friends who had jumped underneath me.
Then I dragged up an annoyed sigh from deep within my stomach.
Whatever.
Putting aside the soft sensation underneath me, I needed to think about how to accomplish my goal in this horrible and boring place.
Let's think carefully.
What exactly did I know about the artifact?
Hmm.
There wasn't much that could help.
The problem was that I had ignored too many important conversations.
Then let's think about the lines spoken by the NPCs that seemed to have some meaning.
Perhaps the developers had hidden a tiny bit of consideration there for the players.
“Is it a flying banana?”
“I can confidently say it isn't.”
…Really?
It wasn't?
I'd heard the word banana so many times that it was echoing in my ears.
It really wasn't a banana, right?
“Could we travel by riding the lizard? The way it moves seems unusual.”
“Indeed. That sounds plausible. You have a useful guide.”
“But if the lizard is a means of reaching the place where the artifact is, wouldn't that guy already have the artifact?”
“That's true.”
“So it really is a banana…”
“Why don't you just let go of the banana already…”
“Then what the hell is it?!”
BOOM!!
A familiar explosion rang out.
The enormous creature called a cloud flying fish had leaped out of the swamp and was once again soaring high into the sky.
Even when I didn't want to look, I couldn't ignore them because they occasionally appeared whenever I looked upward.
“Damn it! Why do those bastards keep doing that?! I'll kill them!”
“Can you even kill them?”
“Why can't I?! They're right there in plain sight! If I throw something and hit them enough times, they'll fall…! …Huh?”
That's true.
Why could I see them so clearly?
“Did you figure something out?”
“Does it look like I did?”
“Yeah. You're making the same expression you made when you verbally crushed that bastard you wanted to tear apart.”
“That is an extremely unpleasant way of putting it. The guide who cannot do anything without this creature is ridiculously arrogant.”
“Can you really talk?”
“Enough! We'll fight after we accomplish our goal!”
Maybe.
Just maybe.
An incredibly tiny possibility.
Perhaps those creatures cleared away the forest's fog whenever they jumped into the sky.
If that was true, then if I used them properly, I might be able to clear away the fog and find the location of the artifact!
“Good idea. But how are you planning to do that? We can see those creatures, but we cannot touch them.”
“There is a place where they frequently come and go. I'll wait there and then…”
“You are going to catch one when it comes out?”
“I'll catch one when it goes in!”
“…Why?”
Why?
Because when one came out, it created a crazy water storm and shot into the sky at a speed too fast to even see.
Who could possibly catch that?
Of course, if I caught one while it was going into the ground, there was a very good chance that I would be dragged underground with it and crushed.
But wasn't life itself a gamble?
Still, I wasn't doing this without any basis.
For example, whether they entered or came out, they always made a loud noise.
But no hole the size of a flying fish appeared in the swamp.
Even though the flying fish jumped straight into ordinary ground, both the flying fish and the ground remained perfectly fine.
Didn't that mean the flying fish had some ability that allowed it to freely move through the earth?
“You guys wait here! I'll try it, and if it doesn't work, I'll come back!”
“What if it doesn't work and you die?”
“Come on! I won't die, I won't!”
I said the number-one phrase that men probably said most often right before dying, then took my position near what seemed to be their home.
It was a place where there were unusually large traces of holes compared to the surrounding area.
Fortunately, I could still see my companions from where I was standing, so I probably wouldn't get lost.
Okay!
Let's make a plan.
When I saw the flying fish descending from the sky, I would take the opportunity to loosely spread my Unbreakable Chains over the hole in a net-like shape.
Then, if the flying fish got caught in the chains and entered the ground…
…everything after that would be up to God.
The battles we had fought after entering the fog had all been fights where enemies swarmed us like ants.
There hadn't been many battles that made my heart race or made me nervous.
So this was the first time in a long while that I had felt this excited.
If I had been the kind of person in real life who enjoyed fighting and shouted, “My heart is pounding!” whenever I thought about fighting like some alien race from a manga, society would have socially distanced itself from me in an instant.
Hmm.
Growing older really did make watching manga difficult.
When I was younger, I could simply accept things and move on.
But now I kept stopping and thinking, “Does that even make sense?”
“…It's coming down.”
What I was doing right now didn't exactly make sense either.
I was actually living out the world from the manga I had dreamed of as a child.
I had achieved my dream.
Shrrrkkk.
As I created the chains, I forcibly ignored the fatigue spreading throughout my body and spread them beneath the creature falling at terrifying speed.
I clicked my tongue, wondering if I had spread them too early.
But the flying fish seemed to tell me not to worry.
It accelerated even more and dove straight onto the chains I had spread!
“Hup!”
The moment I felt the tremendous force, there wasn't even time to resist.
With a sound like air escaping, I was dragged underground together with the flying fish.
So far, everything is going according to plan.
Apparently, the flying fish really did have a special ability.
Although I couldn't open my eyes and had some difficulty breathing, I was being dragged downward without any particular resistance.
Deeper.
Deeper.
The flying fish continued descending much farther than I had expected, and I was beginning to run out of breath.
[Modak: Are we going to arrive at some underground kingdom at this rate?]
[Hayang: That would be interesting. Although our entire plan would fail.]
I was so disoriented that I couldn't even tell which way was up or down.
Yet everyone inside this thing was enjoying the situation.
I wished they would lend me even half of that composure.
BOOM!
I finally realized that we had come out when I heard the same explosion that occurred whenever the flying fish entered or exited.
I opened my eyes.
“…Huh?”
We were extremely high in the air.
Below us were unidentified creatures making horrifying noises.
A disgusting sensation surrounded my entire body.
Something was wrong.
The sensations that had been filtered once because this was a game, sensations I had previously only known through descriptions and text, were now touching my body directly without any filter.
My senses had become incredibly sharp.
And they were telling me something.
