NOVEL NEXT Traversing Space? Being Traversed?
I was so shocked to hear this answer from him that I could hardly believe my own ears.
Ever since confirming that Selene and I were definitely not in the Astralrealm Kingdom, I had been convinced that this bizarre experience was caused by us traversing across space. Even if we did not cross into another world, at least traversing within this world would have been my conclusion.
However, Alfreed was now telling me that this was not spatial displacement at all. I was utterly confused.
Wait, if this wasn't spatial traversal...
"Is it time then? Do you mean we have traversed across time?" I tried asking. Having been influenced by all kinds of online TV dramas, my mind raced to another possibility quite quickly.
If it was merely a problem of the time being off, that would also make complete sense. For example, we could be in some distant past or future thousands or millions of years from when we took on the mission back in the capital city. But that would make returning even more troublesome.
"No...you're overthinking things," Alfreed said with some amusement, seemingly not expecting me to think of the time aspect.
"Sorry, I must not have expressed myself clearly earlier."
He then reiterated what he said:
"It's not that you traversed space while up in the sky. Rather, it's that space itself moved you here."
"Space itself moved us here?" Selene and I exchanged confused glances.
Although I didn't get it at first, when prompted like that, I started to catch his meaning.
To be honest, traversing space and space itself moving us sounds the same at first glance. But if you think about it a little, there are still subtle differences between them.
Traversing space generally refers specifically to me passing through some spatial rift or portal to arrive in another space. It implies an active crossing.
Whereas space itself moving us means a chunk of space carried me through to another space. That indicates a passive teleportation.
While both can achieve the effect of switching spaces, the principles behind them are somewhat different. I had thought all along that Selene and I were the first type - inadvertently actively passing through a spatial rift to arrive here.
But the truth was that it was the second type - being passively moved to this place.
"So you mean...a chunk of space moved us here?" But from Selene's expression, she didn't seem to have wrapped her head around it yet.
"Then why didn't we feel anything while up in the sky?"
"No, it didn't happen in the sky."
I shook my head. According to this line of thinking, there was already an answer as to where the traversing happened.
"If I'm not wrong...we were already moved to this Dark Continent when we were still in Tethys Town?"
"That should be the case!" Alfreed said approvingly, seemingly pleasantly surprised that I could figure it out so quickly.
"That would also explain the dark pollution in Tethys Town."
I let out a breath and looked at Selene. Although she didn't understand it at first, with Adrian and the rest explaining it to her, she soon grasped it too.
"The dark elements had long existed on this Dark Continent. It was because the entirety of Tethys Town was suddenly moved here that it got eroded by the surrounding dark elements. That's what caused so many people to fall ill."
This inference perfectly explained why the concentration of dark elements suddenly spiked from all directions last night.
"Actually, the mountain range where Tethys Town was located should have thick vegetation, with terrain very different from this continent. If you didn't fly above the clouds, when passing through the boundary of the spatial transfer, you should have noticed something amiss."
Alfreed pointed out a blind spot in our handling of this incident. It was precisely because we sensed the dark clouds and thought it would rain that Selene prompted me to ascend, causing us to miss the chance to observe the changes on the ground.
"That's not necessarily the case! Visibility under the clouds was so poor, plus it was nighttime and pitch black. It's very possible we wouldn't have seen anything." Selene obviously wouldn't take it lying down and retorted.
But she did have a point too. Even after we descended under the clouds later on, we only noticed the completely different terrain after flying close to the ground.
"Then there's another question. Since Tethys Town was moved to this barren land, it must have taken up a huge area of space. So where did that original space go? Could it be..."
I suddenly thought of another overlooked blind spot.
"Did the spaces swap positions?"
"Bingo! You finally realized it." At this point, Adrian joined in the conversation, smiling at me as he said, "Didn't you keep asking how we got here? Well, there's your answer. We came the same way."
"Then tell us about what happened on your end," Alfreed said, seeing that Selene and I more or less understood things. He got Blanche, who had kept silent all this while, to be the spokesperson to describe what they had experienced.
"Yes, Captain." Upon hearing that, Blanche promptly cleared her throat and slowly began narrating:
"Ever since this wave of magical beast attacks began, the top priority mission for us in the 5th Legion was to provide support to the other legions battling at the borders."
"However, when passing through the Atrlu Gorge in the Karga Mountain Range on our way to link up with the 2nd Legion troops stationed at the borders, we were ambushed by a huge number of magical beasts, suffering massive casualties."
"Karga Mountain Range? Atrlu Gorge?" Hearing these few place names, I frowned, having absolutely no impression of those locations or where they were.
"The Karga Mountain Range is a mountain range spanning the entire Astralrealm Kingdom from southeast to northwest, almost a thousand kilometers long. Its northern tip - the Atrlu Gorge - happens to be just within the national borders, near where the 5th Legion troops are stationed."
"As for Tethys Town, it also lies in the midst of this mountain range, to the southeast of the Atrlu Gorge. There's a huge stretch of highlands separating them, around 150 kilometers apart."
Seeing my confusion, Adrian specifically explained the geographical information of those two locations. Only after I indicated I understood did Blanche continue her account:
"Even though many lives were lost before we finally retreated successfully, we had to get to the bottom of how those magical beasts bypassed the border armies to ambush our rear position. After investigation, we concluded they probably utilized spatial magic to launch sneak attacks. Hence, we promptly collaborated with other legions to organize a swift raid of the enemy stronghold within the Atrlu Gorge. Although we eventually slaughtered almost all of them, we also paid a grievous price."
"We assumed that would be the end of it. But strangely, on the next day itself, news came from a nearby township south of the mountains by the Atrlu Gorge about discovery of many magical beasts fleeing in panic there. Although they were successfully intercepted and exterminated by the local garrison troops, magical beasts appeared again on the third day, this time further south...Anyway, it seemed like the teleportation exit points were moving further and further south."
"With this development, our initial conjecture of the enemies utilizing magic to open up spatial channels to send magical beasts over became a lot more dubious. Usually such magic consumes an enormous amount of mana, has a very limited duration, and cannot transport a large military force. Plus the exits have huge margins of error in the destination - in summary, there were many constraints."
"Thus, the enemies' continual relocation and massive guerilla-style infiltration tactics were clearly highly contradictory with our existing understanding of spatial magic. Simply put, even if the enemies could freely teleport their armies here, why would they need to adhere to a sequential trajectory of transport locations? Why not teleport to even more distant regions instead of remaining within the Karga Mountain Range?"
"Therefore, we suspect that the enemy might be carrying some kind of magical device that can accurately fix spatial coordinates and transport larger numbers. The spots where it appears become the temporary openings of the teleportation exits."
"Hence, to ascertain this conjecture and seize that magical device, the legions notified militias throughout the region to be vigilant. Concurrently, they also dispatched several squads for hot pursuit, including our squad. After rushing day and night, we finally caught up to them near the Hinnib Valley within the Karga Mountain Range."
"This Hinnib Valley is less than 100 kilometers northwest of Tethys Town..."
Upon hearing the term Hinnib Valley, I took out the task card in bewilderment to check its location on the simple map.
"Around here." Adrian immediately pointed out a approximate position to me.
"By the time we arrived at Hinnib Valley, we quickly discovered a massive underground cavern amidst the woods. We had never known such a gigantic subterranean structure lay hidden within this small valley, and my companions and I were shocked speechless. The cavern walls were carved full of tunnels winding around the hollow space. At that time, there didn't seem to be many magical beasts inside, only some Kobolds. Hence, we decided to storm the cavern to investigate..."
"Hold it...this cavern you described sounds awfully familiar," I interrupted Blanche's account, as the impression was deeply etched in my mind. It didn't take me long to recall where I had seen it.
"Could it be the one at the city center?"
"That's right, it's the very same one," my conversation partner smiled and affirmed my guess before continuing his narrative:
"But we had barely stepped into it when Eleanora, who was at the back, first noticed something amiss. She saw many slender towers appear in the sky and we immediately conducted an all-round retreat. Upon emerging from underground, we realized the surrounding mountain forests had vanished. In their place was a dense cluster of buildings."
"In light of such a drastic transformation, we didn't dare enter the cavern anymore, only able to conceal ourselves temporarily amidst those structures. After investigation, we discovered we were actually in a city occupied by magical beasts."
"So all of you arrived here through such circumstances..." Having heard their experience, everything finally became clear to me. No wonder they could easily uncover the truth - after all, they had witnessed the entire shifting process after being moved here together with the cavern.