I gave her a small nod, then bolted. A second wave of the humanoid saplings rushed down another corridor toward my party, and I heard my friends begin the fierce battle behind me. I did not look back. My friends were strong—much stronger than me. But only I could see that monster. Only I could bring it down. Save Lana. That singular goal in mind, I dived into the darkness.
I ran.
And ran.
And ran.
I just needed my legs to carry me to her. My heart could explode from exhaustion for all I cared. Following the route my AI bot displayed on my glasses, I raced down corridor after corridor with nothing but the flickering lantern light to guide me. My body burned, and my muscles screamed in pain, but both sensations felt detached. As long it meant I could save my wife, I’d surrender everything I had.
O, my goddess, Lady Mythlanica.
I offer you my life.
I beg of you, hear my prayer.
Give me the strength to save her.
I’ll sacrifice anything—anything.
I begged, I prayed, I ran, then withdrew my woodsman’s ax. Up ahead stood an Eye with a crushed leg that’d kept it from joining the others. Ducking under its raised claws, I dug my hatchet into its throat. Powered by sheer momentum, it cut through the sapling’s flesh; I hardly felt anything until it drove into the thing’s bones. I jerked the blade out, then savagely severed the wraith’s head. I felt nothing. There was no time to waste on emotion. Without breaking my stride, I pushed on.
I turned into a killing machine, obliterating any obstacle in my way as I followed Yukikaze’s guidance, turning around who-knows-how-many corners and racing immeasurable distances. My legs held up. My enemies, I managed to slay. Though I still only had the strength of an average man, my days in this dimension had hardened my body for these tasks.
“Approaching thirty-five-strong enemy band. Avert immediately!”
“Tch!” Clicking my tongue in frustration, I kept an eye on the red enemy markers on my glasses while I found a corner of the tunnel to hide. The saplings raced past me like a horde of zombies. My heart would not slow. Sweat began to seep from every pore on my body. Far off in the distance, I could hear the clangor of my party in battle.
“Enemies fifty meters away. Safe now to proceed as is.”
Lana’s marker had stopped moving. Only two hundred meters stood between us now. Using the last of my strength, I sprinted—
—or tried to, but— “Yukikaze, what is this?”
—I immediately had to stop. The corridor came to a dead end. I’d reached an impasse.
“The navigation route followed the exact path Mistress Lana took. The enemy must have passed through here.”
I threw myself at the wall and started hacking at it with my ax. But it was harder than rock; I couldn’t even make a dent. Panicking, I slammed the wall in a desperate search for a secret passage or switch.
Nothing. I couldn’t find a single thing.
“Shit!”
Giving myself over to my rage, I punched the stone barrier. The skin on my fist was scraped off, covering my hand in blood.
A plan. I’ve got to think of a plan. There must be something I can do.
“………Yukikaze, activate your pulse scanner and analyze the wall’s structure.”
“The scan will alert monsters to our presence. It is exceedingly dangerous.”
“Just do it!”
“Understood,” she relented. “……Operation canceled due to the Restricted Zone. I cannot activate the pulse scanner.”
“What the—?” Was she broken? I had no idea what kind of garbage she was spouting. “Then at least run an optical analysis on it. There’s got to be a secret passage somewhere. Hurry! Try anything!”
“Understood.”
I lost my balance, steadying myself with a hand against the wall. Dizzy and furious, I felt nauseated with panic. Clammy, cold sweat clung to my body. As my hand slid across the wall, it ran over something unusual. I rubbed my poncho against it like a rag. There, beneath layers of dust and grime, appeared a pattern, a pentagram. No, wait, that wasn’t it.
“Cos……cosmos?” Or so read the large letters inscribed beneath the circle containing the unfamiliar markings. Though faded from its exposure through the years, incomplete, and crumbling, the writing was undeniably—English.
“Data corresponding to the depicted representation found,” Yukikaze announced. “It is a structural diagram of the cosmos as developed by the fifteenth-century mathematician Petrus Apianus in his publication Cosmographia.”
I scrubbed more dust off the wall, quickly uncovering something that looked like those explanatory plaques you saw at museums. The text on it had degraded so badly that I couldn’t make out any of it. “Yukikaze, can you read it?”
The mini kettle’s analysis laser ran over the plate. “There are too many unreadable portions. The message is incomplete.”
What the hell is this? What is it doing in the Other Dimension? No, stop. I don’t have time to waste brainpower on that. I’ve gotta find something to get past this wall.
“It reads: ‘Here is a display XXXX by our distinguished forebear XXXX proving our XXXX theory beyond a shadow of a doubt. XXXX the universe is essentially XXX as far as we can comprehend XXX. XXXX endless darkness. XXXX to shine a light of hope, we XXXX the Sails XXXX.’
“That’s all,” Yukikaze informed me.
I wiped the sweat from my brow. “Anything else?”
“No. Howe—ver, the wall and the structure have———Restricted Zone’s……rra……”
“Yukikaze?” Static ate up her words. I opened my eyes wide in despair to have come so far only for her to break down here.
“Mr. Souya, please remove my core unit and place it in the center of the diagram—”
Her speech cut short; the lock on the top of the mini pot opened on its own. No time to stand there dumbfounded. Following her instructions, I pulled out the cylindrical artificial aqueous cerebrum in Yukikaze. Streaks of electrical currents, which were probably the AI bot’s activity, fissured through the cylinder, lighting it up like millions of stars shining in the dark night sky.
I brought the core close to the cosmography diagram. Right in the center of the map, a door just big enough to fit the cylinder opened. No time to consider what to do. I inserted the core. Light ran throughout the diagram, illuminating the markings. The sphere in its center glowed like a blue celestial planet I knew very well.
Something heavy shifted. Then thick doors slid open—the very same doors that had fooled adventurers for years. A path opened before me.
“Yukikaze, can you hear me?”
“Yes. Just as well as in the mini kettle. All in order,” her voice came through the receiver on my glasses.
“Send Pops my location. I’m going in. You stay here and keep the door open.”
“The risk is too great. I strongly recommend you wait for backup before proceeding.”
“That’s one piece of advice I just can’t take.” Ignoring her warning, I went on.
The tunnels behind the door differed from the rest of the dungeon, their walls and floors showing less degradation. They must have also contained a higher concentration of raw emiluminite, since I could see well enough without lanterns lighting the way. The good news was, I could see. The bad news, I had no map to guide me. Lana’s position still showed up on my screen, but I couldn’t read the layout. If you were to draw a straight line between us, it’d measure only one hundred eighty meters, but the place was an intricate labyrinth with a slew of dead ends. There wasn’t a direct path to my destination.