Chương 369: (362) 5.58. A Gentle Warning

Prior to their recent expedition that involved going around and taking a peek at all the fragments surrounding the alliance's territory, if asked, Vin would have told anyone that the vast majority of fragments 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 fragment potentially not taking well to outsiders, but overall, he would have said most fragments were at least survivable.

Other than the death fragment, the sky fragment, and any of the fragments with extreme temperatures, such as Forpurt's arctic home 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 fragments back-to-back had changed his view of Edregon just a tad. Horrifying locust swarms. Burning terrain all but made from lava.

An immensely 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 fragments 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 fragments 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 fragment," he declared, looking at his friends as he made his decision.

"Obviously we shouldn't just teleport blindly into the next fragment. Not with how deadly some of the most recent ones have been."

"Sounds good," Lumel 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 time he'd done this, he cancelled his spell at just the right time to let gravity arrest his ascent at the top of the wall, and he landed on it with surprising grace. Alright, moment of truth…

Walking forward, Vin peered down and out at the first of the three possible fragments the orcs and beastkin had available to them, crossing his fingers as he prayed for something relatively mundane and normal. It would be nice to get lucky and have the first of the three fragments work as a viable option. But despite his desires, rather than grass or trees, there was only one thing he saw within this new fragment. Ice.

"Damn it," he sighed, narrowing his eyes as he tried to look out further into the fragment. The entire thing seemed to be one flat sheet of solid ice. He did catch a few signs of movement, 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 moment before deciding he should test the obvious.

Casting Create Cloud, he made a small platform for himself and hopped onto it. Sixth ring fragment discovered! 3, 000 exp gained. To his surprise, the temperature wasn't actually quite as bad as Forpurt's fragment 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 same 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 fragment. Not nearly as bad as Forpurt's, though more icy than snowy this time 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 fragments 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.

"Lumel, 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 fragments 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 me of the flat plane that was the death fragment. Not a fan of this one at all."

"I see why you think this was a bad pick," Shia nodded.

"Though it does make me 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 fragment don't mind the cold and just live off of the fish?"

"The list of places we need to come back to one day just keeps growing larger and larger," Lumel 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 fragment. Vin was still carrying Lumel on his back and Reginald in his pocket, and Scule had hopped over to Shia's shoulder for the time 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. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Anyone got any bets?" Scule called back at them as they ran.

"Come on, last second bets for the next fragment?"

"I think if there's anything we can all take from these past few days, it's that what we find in each fragment 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 Lumel all said at the same time, along with a squeak from Reginald that Vin could sense meant the same thing. The moment 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 fragment, in fact, was quite lethal.

"Come on, you can't honestly look me in the eyes and claim that people ever lived in there!" Scule argued, gesturing at the fragment before them as they stood safely atop the goblins' wall.

"The Gods had to have been smoking something when they took this one! That's ridiculous!" At first glance the fragment 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 assortment 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 moments.

"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 mean, it looks like as long as you stay on the roots or the lily pads you're okay," Lumel ventured, wincing as the bubbling muck eventually returned to normal.

"Maybe the people in this fragment live in the trees?"

"Maybe…" Vin muttered, trying to think how leading a few thousand people through this fragment 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 fragments? I mean, 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 method 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 fragments immediately surrounding your own ones that were more easily survivable."

"I think you might be onto something," 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 came to talking about what was going on with the other Earthers summoned from other countries and scattered around Edregon, which meant he couldn't actually say how the Goddess had mentioned that the survival of his people was critical to Edregon for some 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 came 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 fragment 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 meant trying to sneak something 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 fragment, Vin blinked as the expected notification refused to appear. He could almost feel the System hemming and hawing with itself somehow, 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 fragment 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 me or something? 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 me a warning that I'm in trouble."

"What do you mean?" Lumel 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 comes 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 same thing. Does walking five feet into a brand-new fragment before turning around and heading back out sound like something an Explorer would do? I'm basically farming the fragments 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 mention that before on Edregon."

"My class ability, Beyond the Veil, lets me notice strange stuff sometimes," 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 time to time. I think this might have been one of those times."

"In that case, no more poking your nose into fragments 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 Lumel onto his back as they took off for the third and final unknown fragment bordering the goblins.

"Let's hope I haven't screwed up enough that I can't recover from this."