021-040 · 027-ch23

Chapter 23: When You Ignore Physical Phenomena, Fantasy Begins

"It's just as huge as ever..."

>> Whoa...

>> But the lake is seriously beautiful

>> The clarity is insane

>> Are we gonna swim across?

"I'll swim across. It connects to land from a bit around where I detoured, so I'll go through there. Should reach the base by evening, probably."

On the morning of the second day after leaving base, the World Tree finally loomed before me. It would have been sooner if I'd gone normally, but since I was walking leisurely to accommodate the stream, my pace had slowed a bit.

Walking along the lakeshore, I search for where the land continues to the base of the World Tree. Even though it continues, it's in a state where multiple islands float on the lake surface with gaps in between, but the islands are only at jumpable distances so crossing them is easy.

Jumping from shore to an island, crossing that island on foot, then jumping to the next island.

Since the lake is several kilometers wide, the islands are also fairly large. Where trees grow, small monsters live, and they become resting places for seal-type monsters coming up from the water. Since I plan to basically avoid combat during this exploration, I'll skillfully dodge those as I cross the islands.

"Ooh..."

From a distance, a fish with sharp scales like a sword—probably with a total length of ten meters or more—leaped out of the water. Leaped out is one way to put it. Looks like several of them are fighting. Probably between a large monster and a smaller, but swarming-type monster.

The large fish that leaped high into the air twisted its body and opened its mouth wide toward the sky. Then light began to converge there, and by the time its huge body hit the water, it had become a ball of light about the size of its face. And immediately after, a laser beam was fired underwater.

In response, something in the water—whatever was there—answered by freezing the water. The normally flowing lake suddenly froze, and ice leaped out from it. Ice and laser collided, causing a violent explosion.

And in the middle of that explosion, a mass of ice moved with great force. A little later, the water became quiet. After a brief pause, the large fish with its head pierced—dead—floated up to the surface, impaled on an ice spear.

"I wonder if that tastes good. Never eaten it before."

>> Wait wait wait

>> No, not that

>> That's your impression?

>> I'm literally shaking

"That level of combat is everyday stuff here. Both me and Robo can kill our presence, so we don't get attacked much, but if we were really putting out presence, we'd get attacked even more aggressively, you know?"

It depends on the location, but sometimes there are areas where many ferocious monsters exist. In places like that, killing your presence is especially essential. Though conversely, I sometimes put out presence to make them attack me and then counterattack.

Even without that, combat and survival competition happen constantly in nature. If you spend several years here, you get used to it.

"Well, but this place has quite a few ferocious monsters, relatively speaking. Probably because of the World Tree's influence—the life force, or rather nutrition, and also magic power. Since it's an area with very rich amounts of those, monsters are bigger and stronger, and there are more of them."

I almost said "life force" out loud, so I rephrased it to cover up. In the world beyond this dungeon, there seems to be something that exists as life force—similar to but distinct from magic power. No, maybe it is magic power, but I should say its usage is different.

The magic power I think of is energy that the owner can freely use and convert into magic. In contrast, while monsters do exist that use magic power as a technique through magic arrays like humans do, there are also many—like the large fish monster from earlier—that treat the energy they possess purely as a part of their body. You could say the energy has become part of their ecology. I've been calling that life force to distinguish it from magic power.

Life force is also tricky in its own way. Many monsters exhibit it in completely different forms from physical enhancement through magic power manipulation. For example, skin that becomes incredibly hard. Or output that's ridiculously large compared to muscle size. Monsters with skin tougher than metal are commonplace. You could say their strength as living organisms increases.

In this world, magic power exists right next to physical laws, so physical laws are barely breathing—I could say I'm lumping all that together and blaming it on life force.

I do intend to talk about all that as my thoughts on this world at some point, but honestly I feel it's enough to recognize it as "one of those things," so I hesitate to speak my unnecessarily convoluted logic.

"Still, there are quite a few areas where strong monsters gather, not just here. Better think of the area around my base as exceptionally safe, actually."

>> Yikes...

>> Can John win against that?

>> More magic power means it's like a magic power accumulation spot in the dungeon?

>> Places with dense magic power sure feel fantasy-like

"I could win against that one. But there are probably ones I can't beat, normally. Though I haven't lost yet since I haven't picked fights with ones that seem genuinely dangerous. And, magic power accumulation spot... you're not far off."

Magic power accumulation spot refers to places that occasionally exist inside dungeons where the magic element—the source of magic power—is ultra-densely condensed, looking like pink cotton candy. Cotton candy, but you could say it's compressed air with weight, far denser than fog.

Normally magic power is colorless and transparent, with magic power existing thinly inside dungeons. Of course, magic power in the atmosphere is certainly thinner compared to what monsters and people hold, so exploration using magic power is possible in normal places.

Magic element is probably the fundamental part of that magic power. That's my guess. Life force or something, life energy mixes with that magic element and becomes magic power. I don't think magic element becomes magic power as-is.

Because, magic element—magic power accumulation spots in dungeons are pretty potent stuff. They exist from the upper layer, and while it's one thing if a person touches it, inhaling it is already bad. You get magic element poisoning and collapse. In some cases, you die.

And if you survive, immediately after, magic power is produced abnormally. So I'm imagining that magic element is part of the raw material for magic power and is reacting with something in humans.

Also, since it's a magic power accumulation spot, if you're nearby, natural magic power recovery is faster. It's a pretty popular choice for break spots during exploration. If you don't touch it, it doesn't hurt—it's like fire.

"It's not that there are magic power accumulation spot-like masses, but rather that the magic power existing in the air, water, and underground is abundant—let's put it that way. The concentration of existing magic power is considerably thick. Especially around here."

>> Hoh

>> So that's why the monsters there are strong

>> Magic power is really important, huh

"Yeah, exactly, that kind of feeling."

After walking a while watching the islands and lake, eventually, the way ahead came into view. Way ahead, or rather—a cliff.

"See, you can see it, right?"

>> Wait no

>> That's a serious cliff

>> Huh, how many meters is this?

>> What kind of structure...? The water doesn't go down?

That's right. The root portion of the World Tree exists inside a huge hole in the lake. At the bottom, water overflows from the lake and pools shallowly, and then there's land where the World Tree spreads its roots.

"Don't trust physical phenomena. Seriously. In this world, there's quite a lot of stuff like this."

Normally, water surfaces try to reach the same height. But here, the water that flows down doesn't pool at the bottom of the hole where the World Tree is.

If we follow physical laws, the walls of the hole surrounding the World Tree—maybe the ground rose or something, creating walls of earth and rock—and land juts out around the hole along those walls. At least it's not in a state where water is unnaturally making walls.

So then, where does the water go, overflowing from the hole's edge and pooling at the bottom?

"It must be sucking it up."

That's the only thing that could do it besides this ridiculously huge plant. Looking up, there's a massive tree reaching the far heavens. A huge plant where multiple trunks seem to twist together and extend upward—this thing sucks up water with overwhelming intake volume.

"Well then, let's look up at the World Tree from close by and then go down the cliff. Honestly, at this close range, I can't really tell what's what anymore."

From the outer lake edge, I could see the full form of the World Tree, but getting this close, it's just a wall.

After descending the cliff for about ten minutes—though I didn't go down vertically, there's a path that seems to go down along the cliff so I walked down that to go below.

"Yo, huge."

>> Yikes...

>> I can understand now why people of old found gods in nature

>> When it's this huge it's scary

>> You're going to investigate this starting now?

World Tree, arrival.