Prior to their recent expedition that involved going around and taking a peek at all the fragnts surrounding the alliance’s territory, if asked, Vin would have told anyone that the vast majority of fragnts making up Edregon were relatively safe for people to go through. Sure, there was always the threat of monsters to be worried about, or citizens of that fragnt potentially not taking well to outsiders, but overall, he would have said most fragnts were at least survivable. Other than the death fragnt, the sky fragnt, and any of the fragnts with extre temperatures, such as Forpurt’s arctic ho or the red desert, one could probably manage to survive for a good bit, provided they didn’t run into any monsters.
That said, hitting so many incredibly lethal fragnts back-to-back had changed his view of Edregon just a tad.
Horrifying locus swarms. Burning terrain all but made from lava. An imnsely powerful whirlpool strong enough to probably splinter any ship that dared enter its waters. It turned out the Gods had in fact grabbed plenty of dangerous fragnts in their desperate rush to create a new world for the survivors of the old universe to live in.
Essentially, if he’d been asked a few days ago if he thought the odds of at least one of three entirely unknown fragnts would be livable, he would have laughed and said absolutely.
Now, he wasn’t quite so sure.
“I’ll go over the wall and take a peak at the next fragnt,” he declared, looking at his friends as he made his decision. “Obviously we shouldn’t just teleport blindly into the next fragnt. Not with how deadly so of the most recent ones have been.”
“Sounds good,” Lul smiled, giving his hand a quick squeeze before letting go. “Be safe.”
“I’m not going far,” he chuckled, turning and casting Redirect Gravity on himself. Knowing the height of the wall from the last ti he’d done this, he cancelled his spell at just the right ti to let gravity arrest his ascent at the top of the wall, and he landed on it with surprising grace.
Alright, mont of truth…
Walking forward, Vin peered down and out at the first of the three possible fragnts the orcs and beastkin had available to them, crossing his fingers as he prayed for sothing relatively mundane and normal. It would be nice to get lucky and have the first of the three fragnts work as a viable option. But despite his desires, rather than grass or trees, there was only one thing he saw within this new fragnt.
Ice.
“Damn it,” he sighed, narrowing his eyes as he tried to look out further into the fragnt. The entire thing seed to be one flat sheet of solid ice. He did catch a few signs of movent, and he peered directly down, blinking as he realized what it was.
There was liquid water under the heavy ice sheet, and pale silver fish were swimming around down there. Ranging in size from minnows to fish nearly as large as he was, he watched curiously for a mont before deciding he should test the obvious.
Casting Create Cloud, he made a small platform for himself and hopped onto it.
Sixth ring fragnt discovered! 3,000 exp gained.
To his surprise, the temperature wasn’t actually quite as bad as Forpurt’s fragnt had been. The cold still stung and bit enough to make him shiver slightly, but with his high endurance and Total Resistance skill, he could probably walk around in regular old clothes for hours without worry.
The sa probably couldn’t be said about the orcs and beastkin, however.
Hopping back over the wall and drifting down to his friends with Slow Fall, he shook his head. “Another arctic fragnt. Not nearly as bad as Forpurt’s, though more icy than snowy this ti around. And no trees or anything I saw that they could possibly burn for warmth.”
“Still, it’s better than instant death,” Shia said. “Worst case scenario, if neither of the other two fragnts pan out, we could potentially travel through it and keep looking.”
“It would be a rather rough couple of hours, but yeah, you’re right,” he said, smiling at her attempt to keep things positive. “Lul, want to just warp us up to the top of the wall? It’s thick enough for us to run along if we’re careful, and that way you guys can see the new fragnts as well.”
“Sure, that’s a good idea,” she agreed, taking their hands again and doing just that. Once the world had stabilized, Scule let out a whistle as he peered down at the sheet of ice.
“Reminds of the flat plane that was the death fragnt. Not a fan of this one at all.”
“I see why you think this was a bad pick,” Shia nodded. “Though it does make curious about the people who live here.”
“I know ice-fishing is a thing in my world,” Vin shrugged. “Maybe whatever people live in the center of this fragnt don’t mind the cold and just live off of the fish?”
“The list of places we need to co back to one day just keeps growing larger and larger,” Lul smiled.
Careful to stay single file, Vin and Shia took off along the top of the wall, making their way over to the next adjacent fragnt. Vin was still carrying Lul on his back and Reginald in his pocket, and Scule had hopped over to Shia’s shoulder for the ti being. Seeing as they’d started in the middle, they would have to double back along the icy-plane to check on their third option, but that was a problem for later.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Anyone got any bets?” Scule called back at them as they ran. “Co on, last second bets for the next fragnt?”
“I think if there’s anything we can all take from these past few days, it’s that what we find in each fragnt is pretty much unpredictable,” Shia pointed out as Blossom ran under her.
“Yeah, that’s what makes betting so much fun,” Scule scoffed. “It would be kinda pointless if we already knew the answer. Fine, we can make it simpler. How about ‘lethal’ or ‘nonlethal’ as the bets?”
“Lethal,” Vin, Shia, and Lul all said at the sa ti, along with a squeak from Reginald that Vin could sense ant the sa thing. The mont the words left their mouths, they all glanced at one another and laughed as Scule frowned.
“I guess for the sake of making things fun, I’ll bet ‘nonlethal’ then. I hope you suckers are prepared!”
The next fragnt, in fact, was quite lethal.
“Co on, you can’t honestly look in the eyes and claim that people ever lived in there!” Scule argued, gesturing at the fragnt before them as they stood safely atop the goblins’ wall. “The Gods had to have been smoking sothing when they took this one! That’s ridiculous!”
At first glance the fragnt appeared to be nothing more than a bubbling swamp, with pools of putrid green swamp-muck here and there and a scattering of drooping trees. Vin could even see a large assortnt of frogs and other reptiles hopping about along the winding tree roots or thick-looking lily pads and living their best lives within the swamp, along with a few birds drifting along the updrafts caused from the bubbling liquid.
However, when they saw one of the frogs manage to squirm free from a bird’s talons and land in the muck, they got a first-hand view of the muck begin bubbling far more violently as it got to work, eating through the poor creature in monts.
“An acid swamp,” Shia said bluntly, squinting at one of the closer trees as she flicked her tongue out. “It’s totally natural. I don’t taste any magic.”
“I an, it looks like as long as you stay on the roots or the lily pads you’re okay,” Lul ventured, wincing as the bubbling muck eventually returned to normal. “Maybe the people in this fragnt live in the trees?”
“Maybe…” Vin muttered, trying to think how leading a few thousand people through this fragnt would work. “Though I doubt the orcs or beastkin would be able to survive in here very well. Is anyone else a bit surprised by all these dangerous fragnts? I an, after everything we’ve been through, it’s just a bit jarring, don’t you think?”
“I’ve actually been working on a theory on that front,” Shia admitted. “We already know your Earthers are special, both because of the different thod of you all being brought over and how your old world wasn’t even a part of the old System. It’s not that much of a stretch to wonder if the Gods purposefully laid out Edregon to make the fragnts imdiately surrounding your own ones that were more easily survivable.”
“I think you might be onto sothing,” Vin said slowly, thinking back to what the Goddess of Benevolence had told him a few weeks back, before the God of Contracts had shown up and yelled at her for giving away information she wasn’t allowed to. Unfortunately, he’d been bound to secrecy by the God of Contracts when it ca to talking about what was going on with the other Earthers summoned from other countries and scattered around Edregon, which ant he couldn’t actually say how the Goddess had ntioned that the survival of his people was critical to Edregon for so reason.
It was arguably one of the biggest revelations he’d learned from the Gods, and one he absolutely couldn’t tell anyone about if he didn’t want the invisible chains wrapped around his body to snap tight and tear him to pieces.
But if his friends ca to the conclusion all on their own…
“It is strange,” Scule nodded. “Granted, it could all just be pure luck.”
“Maybe… I guess there’s no real way to know for sure,” Shia said, shrugging as she turned to them. “Well, we have one last fragnt to check out before things get even more complicated than they already are. Shall we take a look?”
“Might as well,” Vin sighed, already thinking about how he could possibly steer the conversation where he wanted it to go in the future. The problem was even thinking about trying to lead his friends toward the revelation of what he’d learned made those invisible chains around his core begin to tighten in warning, and he knew there wasn’t any chance he’d be able to pull a fast one on the God of Contracts. According to Scule, he was one of the strongest Gods there was, which ant trying to sneak sothing by him was probably about the most foolish thing Vin could try.
Casting Create Cloud and hopping into the air above the swamp for his free experience for discovering a new fragnt, Vin blinked as the expected notification refused to appear. He could almost feel the System hemming and hawing with itself sohow, a sensation within his core that was about the most uncomfortable thing he’d ever experienced. After a few more seconds, it finally popped up, almost begrudgingly.
Fifth ring fragnt discovered! 2,500 exp gained.
“Woah,” he muttered, hopping back onto the wall and dismissing his cloud. “I think… the System might be mad at or sothing? My usual discovery notification didn’t appear for a few seconds, and I felt really weird until it did.”
“The System can’t get mad at you, it’s not a sentient thing,” Scule pointed out. “If anything, the Gods would be the ones getting mad at you. They control the System after all.”
“Well great, that’s so much better,” he drawled, his blood running cold as a sudden thought struck him. “Oh crap. I think my class itself might be trying to give a warning that I’m in trouble.”
“What do you an?” Lul asked, looking worriedly at him. “In trouble, how?”
“Not like I’m going to die or anything, but that I might be shooting myself in the foot when it cos to my next prestige,” he said, the theory sounding more and more concrete as he talked it out. “Think about it. I’m an Explorer, right? Or an Adventurer now, I guess, but sa thing. Does walking five feet into a brand-new fragnt before turning around and heading back out sound like sothing an Explorer would do? I’m basically farming the fragnts for free experience, which is great in the short term, but probably not great long term.”
“I didn’t know people got a warning if they weren’t embodying their class enough,” Shia muttered. “I haven’t heard anyone else ntion that before on Edregon.”
“My class ability, Beyond the Veil, lets notice strange stuff sotis,” he explained. “I’ve been actively holding back on using the ability like the Goddess suggested until I hit level 50, but it still kicks in from ti to ti. I think this might have been one of those tis.”
“In that case, no more poking your nose into fragnts you’re not planning to at least make an honest attempt at venturing further into, I suppose,” Shia said, getting nods from the rest of the team. “The last thing we want is for you to hamstring yourself. You’re already the highest-leveled person on the team, it wouldn’t hurt you to slow down a bit.”
“Good idea,” he said, helping Lul onto his back as they took off for the third and final unknown fragnt bordering the goblins. “Let’s hope I haven’t screwed up enough that I can’t recover from this.”
User Comments
0 comments from readers