After snatching the falling spear, I nearly plunged deep into the hole.
The portal spat me upward, but it could not overcome gravity.
I dropped back down again.
At any other time, it would not have been a problem, but right now, my energy was depleted.
The magic circle had stopped, and it did not transport me through space again.
Instead, I nearly got sucked into the underground waterway.
I threw the spear, drove it into the wall, and barely managed to get out of the hole by climbing up the whip.
Once I was out of the hole, I lay sprawled on the floor.
“I went through all that to come back, only to nearly die.”
Soph did not offer any rebuttal to my grumbling.
Instead, he praised me.
[Well done. I have many things I want to ask, but for now, you should rest.]
Even without Soph saying it, I really was exhausted.
The depletion of my energy was one problem, but the mental shock was no small thing either.
I had thought of death, and I had experienced space firsthand.
I had even dipped a foot into a higher-dimensional truth.
I could not remember all of it, but even now, my head was a mess.
Still, I could not keep lying there.
“Urgh.”
I forced myself up.
Half leaning on the spear, I walked across the underground plaza.
The underground plaza, the sewage treatment facility, looked as if it had been bombed.
Most of the floor that had withstood the tentacles was shattered, and even the intact places were piled high with stones and boulders that had fallen from the ceiling.
Everything around the hole had been destroyed as well.
“The magic circle must be ruined too.”
[It was only meant to be used once anyway. It was a spatial transfer device designed to move only contaminants. There was no way the facility could endure transferring a giant monster.]
I stared at the spear.
Soph was a mage who had once been furious when he saw that the spatial transfer device had been modified, saying its lifespan had been reduced to a few hundred years.
And yet such a person had modified a spatial transfer device for single use.
He had changed since the time we first met.
If the mage himself said that, there was no need for me to feel regretful.
I kept walking slowly and arrived at the sewer entrance connected to the plaza.
The sewer entrance was blocked.
Stones and boulders that had fallen from the ceiling had sealed it off.
I had sent the others in there, but I was not worried.
Because I could sense people with my super-senses.
The number of people I sensed had not changed.
There might be injured people, but no one had died.
“Phew……”
I took a deep breath and placed the tip of the spear against the boulder blocking the entrance.
“Please.”
[Move. Shift aside.]
A small amount of energy flowed into the staff.
Soph had used a spell that consumed as little energy as possible.
Rrrrrumble.
The boulders and stones began to move.
Like stone golems gathering together, the boulders and stones moved on their own and created a path.
Beyond the opened passage, I could see the team members holding torches.
They were covered in white blood and dust, but no one was injured.
The team members came running over with bright expressions.
As I watched them run toward me, my body swayed.
It seemed that resting for a little while had not been enough.
Still, I waved at them.
The team members who had been running over with smiles saw my face and opened their eyes wide.
Instead of rushing at me, they approached carefully and asked me,
“Are you all right?”
“You don’t have to worry. I took care of that thing.”
“That’s not what we’re asking.”
At Magreta’s serious expression, I could only tilt my head.
Following the team members, the Americans also came out.
The expressions with which they looked at me had changed from before.
Catherine was the same.
She carefully asked me,
“We saw you fighting. The entrance was blocked, so we couldn’t see until the end. What happened to the monster?”
It seemed they had not seen the moment I fell into the hole with the monster.
That was fortunate.
If they had seen that, everyone would have worried.
I explained to her in a little more detail.
“I used the spatial transfer magic circle inside the hole to send it flying into space.”
At my words, her eyes became round.
“So that really was possible.”
I had clearly told her when we were making the plan, but it seemed she had not believed me.
She looked like she had many questions, but after seeing my face, she stepped back.
“I’d like to ask in more detail, but I suppose I should do that later.”
Her reaction was strange this time too.
When I looked at Hanna with a puzzled expression, she pointed at my face.
“Oppa, your face is whiter than the light around us.”
Hanna looked at me with a face full of worry, and Magreta pulled me along.
“If you took care of the monster, you should rest right now.”
Come to think of it, there was nothing urgent at the moment.
The monsters might be coming toward the city, but there was no way for them to come down this far underground.
The tension left me.
The world went dark.
I fell asleep on the spot as if I had fainted.
***
I woke up four hours later.
Soph told me the time.
I was lying under a monster-hide blanket, and the spear was placed beside me.
The black stone at the spearhead had grown cloudy.
It had used up all its energy and broken.
To use it again, I would have to repair it with the facilities at the terraforming ruins.
However, I had no intention of fixing this black stone.
Because I had a better one.
It was the black stone I had obtained from the Control Object.
Of the three black stones that monster had possessed, I had only managed to obtain one, but even that alone was a tremendous achievement.
The new black stone was different from the existing ones.
I was extremely curious what would happen if I attached this black stone to the spear.
Thinking that, I looked around.
The others were sleeping as well.
The place we were in was inside the sewer whose entrance I had opened.
Because the passage had collapsed from the bombs and the entrance was half-blocked, the inside felt like a cozy stone chamber.
With torches set up along the walls, it felt even more that way.
People were covered with blankets made from monster hide and sleeping with peaceful faces.
When I tilted my head at the hides, Soph said,
[Do you not remember? You took them out of the box before you fell asleep.]
It seemed that even when my mind had flown away, I had not forgotten what needed to be done.
When it seemed I had come to my senses, Soph asked,
[Is your body all right?]
[Yes. I’m fine.]
My mind was fine as well, and my dark energy had fully recovered.
I felt like I could fight the Control Object again right away.
[That is good. May I ask what happened now?]
It seemed Soph had been waiting the entire time I was asleep.
[What you’re curious about is how I came back, right?]
[Exactly! I heard you had a method, but I never imagined it would be returning in the middle of spatial transfer. No matter how I think about it, this makes no sense!]
I told Soph, who was getting angry for no reason, what had happened then.
How I had found a new energy and switched paths.
[No, you sensed something else during spatial transfer? It should be instantaneous, so there should be no way to sense anything. And what is an energy path supposed to be? You can switch onto one?]
In truth, I had not switched paths, but changed the starting point and destination.
However, I had no way to explain that.
I did not know how that was possible either.
It had simply worked when I tried it.
[I have no idea what you are talking about. Changing the starting point and destination to return midway…… How is that any different from saying you departed again from the shattered moon!]
At Soph’s lament, a memory suddenly flashed through my mind.
[Right. I really saw it. The broken moon and the monster flying into space.]
The shattered satellite and the great red star I had seen right beside me.
I had been able to see this land from space.
At my words, Soph let out a sigh.
[Since you saw it yourself, I cannot simply refuse to believe it. Besides, your explanation is such a mess that figuring out the principle seems completely impossible.]
After clicking his tongue for a long while, Soph asked again in a serious voice,
[Then, do you think other places would be possible too?]
At Soph’s words, I thought for a moment.
“I’m not sure. If I know the point of departure and the destination, I think it might be possible…… but I’ll have to confirm it.”
That could be confirmed soon enough.
When we came to this city, we had seen one more passage.
When we returned to the base, I could examine that passage.
While I was speaking with Soph, I sensed someone approaching.
“You’re awake?”
It was Magreta.
Since I had already been noticed, I could not remain lying down.
I sat up.
Magreta sat in front of me and held out a cup.
The rich aroma of coffee flowed from the cup.
“Did I take out coffee too?”
“You don’t remember? You handed it to me before you fell asleep.”
It was not just the bedding I did not remember.
What was I, a zombie?
A sigh came out on its own.
As I accepted the cup, I asked Magreta,
“Are you on watch again?”
At my words, Magreta grinned.
“It’s the last watch.”
At her words, I looked around at the sleeping people.
“Don’t tell me the main unit didn’t take any watches?”
At my words, Magreta smiled and shook her head.
“No. Before me, they were all from the main unit. After they saw you fight, their treatment of us completely changed. It was really funny watching them creep around while reading the mood.”
It seemed everyone’s eyes were working properly after all.
The way back would likely be much more comfortable.
After hearing that, it seemed even stranger that she was standing watch.
When I looked at her, she realized what I was wondering about.
“I thought at least one expedition member should stand watch, so I said I would do it. And I thought that if I took the last watch, I’d be able to talk with you alone like this.”
Since she said it with a smile, I had nothing to say.
Instead of answering that, I expressed my thanks for the whip.
“I made good use of the whip.”
At my words, Magreta stroked the whip at her waist.
“I handed it to you just in case. If things went according to the plan, I thought you might need it.”
Unlike Catherine, who had not properly believed in my plan, Magreta seemed to have believed me completely.
“So what happened? I saw up to the point where you were running toward the hole.”
It seemed Magreta had seen more than Catherine.
If she had seen that much, she had seen almost until the very end.
The boulder that blocked the entrance must have fallen later than I had thought.
Looking at me, Magreta continued.
Magreta’s smile had changed slightly.
“According to the plan, you were supposed to drop the monster into the hole. But the fact that you used the whip means you also went into the hole……”
It was a frightening smile I had not seen in a long time.
Her expression had changed that much just from realizing I had gone into the hole, so I was worried what would happen to that smile if I told her everything.
Still, I could not not tell her.
I began explaining.
As I spoke, I felt like I understood how a husband being kicked out of the house must feel.
After the story ended, Magreta stared at me for a long time.
In the end, she let out a sigh.
“If it were like the beginning, I wouldn’t even worry…… But I can’t stop this either. It isn’t easy.”
She snatched the cup from my hand and drank the coffee inside.
“That was the one I was drinking……”
At my words, Magreta grinned.
“It was mine to begin with.”
With those words, she stood up and began waking the others.
A new morning had arrived.
Ground Shrinking