TEOCH 41

After resting for a few hours, we headed to our temporary shelter to retrieve our belongings.

I had roughly guessed it, but the Queen Spider’s nest was quite far from the temporary shelter. We walked for a solid two and a half hours before we finally arrived at the shelter, and after a simple meal, we worried about the return trip to the Queen Spider’s nest. After resting for about an hour, we shouldered our loads of baggage and headed back to the spider’s nest.

Throughout the entire five-hour walk, we did not encounter a single enemy. It was to the point where not even a single baby spider could be seen, no matter how much we scanned the ashen wilderness. And yet, every time my companions spotted a small spider nest, they were as startled as if they had seen a ghost, so I sighed and showed them the inside of the nests. Only after seeing the empty interiors did my companions manage to calm their racing hearts.

“Do you think the spiders went to attend a funeral or something?”

A single, thoughtless remark from Damian darkened the mood. My companions lowered their heads with bitter expressions, and I walked on in silence without offering a reply.

Damian’s guess had a rather accurate point to it. Of course, it wasn’t that spiders held actual funerals like humans do. By now, the spiders were probably burying the queen’s corpse deep inside the cave, nursing their sorrow by devotedly raising the new queen spider’s eggs. Just as they had always done.

‘In a way, it’s a relief, but… it’s a little disappointing.’

Since all the spiders had vanished, further level-ups are impossible. Not just here, but the situation in the other insects’ territories probably isn’t much different. The insects’ network is wider and more intricate than one might imagine, so the fact that the queen spider was killed by unidentified humans must have already spread to all the insects. They will all likely be hiding deep inside their nests, unwilling to come out.

Gaining any more levels in this stage is a lost cause. I cast aside any lingering feelings and silently quickened my pace. I would have to level up as quickly as possible in the next stage, so there was no time to wallow in sentimentality, but…

Still, the spider nest, abandoned in the wilderness without its master, looked somehow as desolate as a tomb.

Without hesitation, we stepped into the gate leading to the next stage. It had been shining brightly when viewed from the outside, but once we were inside, it wasn’t quite so bright. The dark and damp passage, like a cave, was narrow enough for only two or three people to pass through with difficulty, and the slightly inclined uphill path stretched out so far that its end was not visible.

We climbed up and up along the passage. About an hour after we started walking, anxiety began to creep onto the faces of my companions, who were panting and struggling.

“This is a bit strange. Just how far does this uphill path stretch?”

“Rohan, isn’t this place physically impossible? The Queen Spider’s nest was definitely underground! By all rights, we should have reached the surface by now, shouldn’t we?”

Rikiel and Rehas’s voices were laced with impatience. They seemed worried that we had fallen into a trap again, like before. I was about to sigh and answer, but for some reason, Damian’s response came faster this time.

“Ah, this seems to be a path made of magic.”

“Magic, you say?”

“Yes. In the case of magic that connects one space to another, it’s possible to create paths with physically impossible structures. Perhaps this is one of those?”

“Damian is right. The world of monsters originally has a clear hierarchy, and the zones where weak monsters live and the zones where strong monsters live are strictly separated. It’s impossible to cross between zones through normal means.”

“A curious tale. You mean they divide social standing by zones?”

“It’s a bit different from that, Sir Rikiel. In fact, dividing the zones like this is for the sake of the weaker monsters. If the zones weren’t separated this way, the strong monsters would indiscriminately devour the weak ones.”

“I suppose that makes sense. But what do they do when they need to travel to another zone?”

“That’s why there are guardians. A guardian rules over and manages the zone entrusted to it, and when a problem like the one you mentioned arises, it has the authority to use its own magic to open a passage to another zone. This is that very passage.”

When I lightly tapped the floor with the tip of my foot, my companions finally smiled, as if relieved. Receiving a portion of the boss’s magic every time we cleared a stage had a practical reason in that it helped with gameplay, but it also had a lore-based reason like this.

I only found this out myself when I read the system message after clearing the tutorial stage for the first time, but seeing how the creator bothered to attach reasons to even these minor elements, they must really enjoy world-building.

‘The balance is a complete mess, but they put a lot of effort into the lore, at least. To the point where it feels like a real world.’

A bitter smile came to my lips. Then again, I wonder what meaning there is in distinguishing between a ‘real world’ and a ‘fake world’ at this point. What’s the point in considering the world I can’t return to as real, and the world I can’t leave as fake? If I had been wandering this world without being able to see things like the status window, skill window, or system messages, I might have believed by now that this world was the real one. The line between what’s real and what’s fake is just that thin.

Enough. Let’s stop these needlessly gloomy thoughts here. I stretched my stiff shoulders and lifted my head. Walking up an incline while carrying a heavy load was starting to wear me out. The stamina I had recovered by leveling up was long gone, but thankfully, it seemed the passage was finally coming to an end. A bright light began to flicker at the end of the dark, gloomy passage.

Forgetting even the fatigue that had been clinging to our legs, we rushed toward the exit. Half of it was the desire to see the light, and the other half was the desire to see the new area. Even I, who knew what the next area was like, felt the same desire to escape this suffocating passage.

At the very least, the next area is so open and beautiful it will leave you in awe. The fact that it’s too open is a problem, but for now, let’s not worry about such minor details.

“This… is truly a magnificent sight.”

At the scenery that revealed itself as soon as we left the passage, Rikiel murmured in a voice full of awe. The other companions also nodded in silence. A vast field of reeds was spread out before our eyes. However, it had a distinctly different feel from those in the human world, because the reeds, swaying at waist-height, were all a dark crimson, as if they had soaked up blood.

But the emotion in my companions’ eyes was not fear, but pure wonder. The spectacle of the purple sky with white clouds drifting by and the endless field of red reeds was as overwhelming as a scene from a painting. The reed field, rustling with a crisp sound every time a cool breeze blew, even looked somewhat peaceful.

“Is this the next zone you spoke of, Rohan?”

“Well… more or less, Your Majesty.”

“More or less?”

“Let’s walk just a little further. We’ll take a break as soon as we get out of this reed field.”

They would understand naturally once they saw it for themselves, so there was no need to explain right now. We walked on silently, parting the reeds. Everyone was exhausted from climbing the uphill path, but no one complained because walking on a flat plain with a cool breeze was more comfortable than the dark incline.

After walking like that for about 30 minutes, the reed field, which had seemed to stretch on forever, finally came into view. What appeared beyond the reeds was a red meadow where short grass grew sparsely. I stopped, inwardly anticipating my companions’ reactions. Just as I had expected, as soon as they left the reed field, their mouths fell open as they stared at the scene before them.

But my companions weren’t admiring the red meadow. Their gazes were directed a little further away.

“An… an island… in midair?”

Gazing at the spectacular sight that could not be replicated by any magic, Damian muttered in a dazed voice. That was right. Beyond the meadow that stretched for a few dozen meters lay an infinite void. A sky that stretched out so far it made one’s head spin, a jet-black sea that continued below the sheer cliff, countless birds flying over it as if to adorn it, and…

Dozens of islands, floating in midair in complete defiance of the laws of physics.

“This is the next zone. We must fight the monsters on those sky islands.”

The party members all fell silent. Just then, as if on cue, a new message filled my vision.

[Welcome to the First Stage, the Floating Islands.]