We were halfway down a cliffside. It stretched out so far, above and below, that light didn’t even reach it. I couldn’t see the bottom of the cliff or the sky. Several lights dotted the stone facade, faintly illuminating the walls, showing their rough, irregular formation. I looked all around, peeling my eyes, and could see several other passages and waterways like the one we’d come through. It must have been about fifty meters to the opposite side. A handful of similar openings were there, too. Additionally, I spied many cutaways of rooms, and walls and pillars that appeared only half demolished. It was like looking at a gigantic skyscraper split in two by a huge wedge.
On my back, Mizuho gasped.
“This can’t be…”
“What is it?”
“Dungeonstorms always mess things up by swapping around Million Dungeon’s countless rooms, but I’ve never heard of such an extreme change.”
She craned her head to peer above.
“Incredible… You can see the gaps between the strata.”
It would seem the situation we were bearing witness to was out of the ordinary for this world’s denizens.
“We could probably move up or down from here. What area is your nation in, Mizuho?” I asked.
Mizuho swung the flashlight here and there, then started gazing intently at the walls. The tool’s strong rings of light revealed the torn-apart levels of the building. Some creature that had been hiding in the dark quickly slipped away the moment it was illuminated. I caught a glimpse of its silhouette—it looked like a mouse, except it was the size of a large dog.
“Oh!” Mizuho cried out, pointing in the direction of the beam of light. “Over there! It’s the statue of His Majesty!”
I squinted. About fifteen meters diagonally upward stood a white figure against the cliffside. The man was brawny, with a big beard and bare chest, but the statue was slanted like it was about to fall any moment now.
“It’s the one that stands in the center of our nation’s plaza. If we can get there, we can go home.”
“…Oh.”
“What?”
“If it was set in a common area and now it’s right up against the cliffside…wouldn’t that mean the other half of the plaza is gone?”
Mizuho returned her gaze to where her kingdom should’ve been.
“That is…what it would mean. It was a terrible storm, and I doubted we would make it through unscathed,” she said, voice hard.
“We have to see how your country is doing, and quickly,” I stated. “Let’s hurry.”
Mizuho nodded.
I let her down for now and took back the flashlight, then inspected the walls again. We could use the stones and trees sticking out here and there to make it up to the statue. The question was whether we had the stamina.
Mizuho seemed to have recovered somewhat after riding on my back, and she could manage to walk again. Still, that would only be temporary. If I forced her into a position with bad footholds, she’d end up falling.
I was freezing, too, though not as severely as Mizuho. After getting the blood flowing in our legs again with some stretching exercises, we began our careful climb.
“I’ll go first and establish a safe route. You hug the side of the wall and follow me slowly.”
“O-okay.”
I stepped out of the flooded passage and onto the edge of a stone floor, then moved along the wall. I spied solid bedrock in the foundation, so this area seemed to be sturdy. I reached out a hand for Mizuho and brought her over. Even with her standing next to me, the floor showed no signs of collapsing.
“Good, good. Now we climb.”
Ahead of us was a set of ascending steps. The stairs were made of wood and had elaborate decorations on them, but they abruptly ended partway up. My hand could reach the ground on the level above, but Mizuho wouldn’t be able to get up there herself.
I placed a foot on the stairs. The sound of wood creaking echoed along the cliffside. After making it up to the top of the half-finished steps, I poked my face into the upper floor and scanned it with my flashlight. It was the middle of a passage running parallel to the cliffside. Nothing that seemed dangerous. I looked back and gestured to Mizuho. After she nervously joined me, I lifted her to the next strata before me.
Once she was there, I put a hand on the edge of the platform and pulled myself up after her. Mizuho and I exchanged nods, and then we proceeded. A ladder led higher to a trap door in the ceiling.
Opening it brought us to a room full of rubble. Fallen stones covered the floor, and bits of mortar danced in the beam of my flashlight. The portion of the chamber that faced the cliffside was wholly gone. Gazing out, I could see the other half of this room on the opposite side of the gap, separated for life.
From here, it seemed prudent to travel up a set of horizontal stone pillars that had fallen away from the wall. After getting through the chamber’s debris and back out into the open, we set foot on one of the upward-slanted stone pillars. I checked to ensure my weight wouldn’t dislodge it, then pulled Mizuho up. The column was about a meter thick. Beneath it was the great pit. Slipping here meant death. It was a good thing Mizuho was so light.
“Don’t look down. I’ll hold on to you, so keep your eyes up and scale the pillars.”
Mizuho let out a scared squeal, but she went with me, her face looking desperate. Many people would be too frightened to do anything in such a high place. She was doing well.
After reaching the third pillar, I let out an exhale. There were four more columns ahead of us. “Can you see it? Just a little more. Keep going—”
But then I cut off; no sooner had I seen the pebbles falling than the shaking started again.
“Ahh!”
As soon as Mizuho let out a yelp, I grabbed the young woman and threw her and myself against the wall on our perch.
I saw a shadow overhead, and not a moment later, a huge rectangular chunk came hurtling toward us, slamming into three of the four pillars we were about to cross. The mass flattened, spewing bricks and lumber, tumbling down through the gaps in the columns. It was like an entire portion of the room had just fallen in. Having taken the brunt of the impact, all three of those pillars snapped at their bases and plunged noisily down with the rest.
The shaking came and went quickly, but the effects had been extreme.
Mizuho opened her eyes, astonished. “Taiga, the path, it’s…”
“…Well, that’s not good.”
Our way forward had vanished. Maybe we were lucky that thing didn’t hit us, but now we needed to turn around in the middle of the route. Was it better to go back and find another way? I wasn’t sure either of us would hold out that long.
Just then, something new sounded from above. I looked up and saw a pale-blue light shining from beyond the statue Mizuho had pointed to earlier. The glow was drawing nearer.