World Keeper

Chapter 565: Second Guessing

The stony ceiling of this floor, upon closer inspection, was infested with a large number of white spider-like creatures. Seeing that, the halfling no longer considered staying to recover his lost energy. Rather, he abruptly removed his hooks and descended again, controlling his mech to rapidly spin and remove the creatures stuck to it.

If they were normal insects, perhaps it wouldn’t have been an issue. However, through his pilot’s essence he could feel a crack form where the first spider had initially tapped it. Clearly, these things had powerful limbs capable of easily piercing the metal of the lower floors.

Once he had ensured that he had flung off the creature from his vessel, he saw it falling, unable to stop itself. At this high of a layer, it was thousands of kilometers between the ceiling and surface. However, the increased gravity also caused its acceleration speed to increase drastically.

One hundred seconds… that’s all it took for the creature to fall into the water. Using the optical zoom on his mech, he was able to see the bug flailing around, a dark shadow appearing beneath it. This shadow grew larger and larger, before a gaping maw erupted and swallowed an entire section of the sea along with the fallen spider. Clearly, this was the same type of creature that had previously devoured his friends.

So… those things are its normal food supply? Thoughts flashed through the halfling’s mind at that. If he had more people with him, and didn’t have concerns about his energy, he would purposely shoot down a few of those insects to lure out the big fish, so that they could gather together and kill it.

Sadly, he was alone. Worse still, he barely had enough energy remaining to get back to the gate if he allowed himself to glide most of the way. If he tried to hurry, and burned through his energy, it wasn’t even clear if he’d be able to do that.

With that plan in mind, he turned himself back towards the west, in the direction of the gate. With one small burst of his explosive energy, he sent himself careening towards his destination. Meanwhile, he activated the comms in his mech, switching it to an open channel. “Hello, hello, this is Seth Serian, is there anyone hearing this?”

He waited, not wanting to burn through too much of his energy. There were naturally no communication satellites in Fyor to extend broadcasting range, and this floor hadn’t been colonized enough to place the towers. After five minutes, he made the call again.

Like this, he gradually made his way back to ‘base’. Every time he failed to get a response, it made his situation seem more and more dire. Had the rest of the exploration parties been killed as well? Or were they simply out of range or not monitoring public channels?

It was over an hour later when he finally received a response. “Mister Serian, this is Lana Jurer. Are you lost?”

He wasn’t offended by the question. It wouldn’t be hard to get lost if there was a problem with his navigation system. And if he was lost, it would only be natural for him to broadcast an open call. However, he shook his head. “My exploration party has been killed. I have important information that I need to report, but I am running low on energy. If you have any air support, I’d welcome it, but first, you have to get everyone off the water.”

“Please elaborate, Mister Serian.” There was a clear tone of concern in her voice as she made that request.

“There are whale-type creatures in the water, roughly five kilometers long. At least, the one I saw was. It swallowed my party, ship and all. At first, I thought I lost them, since they did not immediately die. But then I saw it surface and spit them out as it killed them. The water is not safe, but neither is the ceiling.”

“While the whales will eat anything on the surface, they seem to mostly eat large insects that fall from the ceiling. These creatures are strong enough to pierce through metal with a casual tap.”

Once Seth had finished explaining his findings, there was a long moment of silence. He began to worry if perhaps he had conveyed the information too late. It was a full thirty seconds later when the woman on the other end spoke up again. “Thanks for your report. We’ll hurry back to the gate. There aren’t enough pilots to carry everyone, so we’ll have to risk it. Do you have any room for a passenger?”

Seth gave a bitter smile, shaking his head. “I’m a halfling with a single-person mech… if you have a rather small halfling with you, I might be able to fit them in my lap. But right now, that’s not much of an option anyways. Like I said, I am running low on energy. I wouldn’t be able to make a detour and still get back to the gate.”

There was a sullen sigh sent over the channel. “I understand. We’ll call out to anyone we find along the way to try and spread the information.”

The first foray into the twenty-fifth floor ended with a mass recall. Of the parties that went to explore, roughly one in ten did not make it back. While these numbers were somewhat manageable, it had to be remembered that the exploration did not last very long. None of the surviving teams were able to report that they had found any signs of land.

With the sea and ceiling both considered dangerous, the only options were direct teleportation or finding a way to fly that would not require hitting either of those extremes. This meant a craft that could be piloted without needing to rest to recover energy, something that the current generation of mechs was incapable of.

As I watched that, and saw the consensus that had been reached, I silently shook my head. In fact, the twenty-fifth floor of Fyor was rather unique in its design. It was split straight down the center, with one half being an ocean and the other being solid land.

Of that land, there were forests and plains, followed by mountains that touched the ceiling, and finally a desert that occupied a third of the landmass. The two gates for this layer were on completely opposing sides, each in the center of one of the split halves. It would take over two hundred and fifty thousand kilometers of travel to get between one of the gates and the border to the opposite territory.

In truth, they made good progress for their first expedition. The furthest party managed to get a total of eighty thousand kilometers before turning back, a full third of the distance. This was because the team had been a pair of halfling pilots in a two-person mech-jet. The first pilot used their full power to go their maximum distance, before passing control to their partner for the return trip. Though they had managed to circle the entire distance around my old earth twice, this was only a small piece of the current Fyor.

Because of this event, the Adventurer’s Guild of Fyor began to focus their development in a new direction. Combat mechs would not be helpful for the time being, so they turned their direction instead to full speed and efficiency.

Which metals, and from which floors would they be able to get the best effect? Though the iron mined from the fifth floor was lighter than that of the eighteenth, it was also weaker. Would it be able to withstand the gravity of the floor without crumpling in on itself mid-flight?

The next question was how they should solve the question of energy consumption. While optimizing the materials and design of the craft would definitely show an effect, it wouldn’t be enough. Should they focus on the option for multiple pilots, or find a way to lessen the strain on the pilot themselves?

Multiple pilots was certainly a fair choice, but adding more pilots meant a larger craft with more weight, which would in turn mean more energy was required to fly it. For this reason, the jets were kept to a limit of two pilots each. Instead, they began to study how to create batteries to store the pilot’s essence, allowing them to easily recharge mid-flight.

For the essence itself, this was not a difficult task. Once their request was submitted to Deckan, James had prepared a storage device almost immediately. However, the explosive waste energy was another matter entirely. As this was the energy used to create thrust with the jets, it was arguably even more important than the main essence. At the same time, it was the most difficult to store, due to its explosive nature.

Because of this, even James was at a loss for a while. As soon as the energy was released from the body and no longer guided by the pilot’s essence, it would unconditionally combust. Could he use the pilot’s essence to lead the explosive waste into an energy container, and then extract the essence? When he tried that, the container itself exploded in his face.

James let out a resigned sigh as he collected the debris from another failed experiment. It wasn’t that he didn’t know a method to store the explosive waste, but that the technology to do so didn’t exist in this world in the same form that it did in his. The alterations to the physical and metaphysical laws meant that a large variety of devices would function differently between the two worlds. Unfortunately, this was one of those devices.

“Maybe create an essence shell around the explosive cell to stabilize the energy?” A young voice spoke up from behind James, the voice of a silver-haired kitsune. She looked to be in her early teens, sitting on the edge of a chair and swinging her legs back and forth. The kitsune wore a pair of overalls that made her look like a small mechanic, even carrying a few tools in her pouches.

James shook his head to deny the idea. “The storage would work like that, but it would become unstable as soon as the energy was extracted.” After he said that, he began to grumble slightly. “This wouldn’t be a problem if I could finish my side project.”

The young kitsune giggled lightly at that. “What’s stopping you? Didn’t manage to master that new energy yet? Or is the queen denying your request to hunt down research material?”

“Neither, actually.” He admitted with a small smirk. “I finished my study on the research just before you showed up, and the queen said that I am free to go where I please so long as I don’t harm anyone. The problem is that I can’t find any information about the subjects I need.”

“Want me to put a word in with Accalia? She seems to be the monster encyclopedia of this world’s Keeper. If you tell me what characteristics you’re looking for, I can try to pass it along. She’s nice enough that she’d probably help.”

James seemed to consider that for a moment, before nodding his head. “I need two monsters, maybe three. The first one needs to be capable of using their hair as an external energy storage. The second one–”

“Needs nine tails.” The kitsune said with a knowing grin, earning a light laugh from James.

“Right. And the third one, more as an optional choice, would need to be able to grow their physical body by obtaining more energy. Out of these, the first one is the one I’m really struggling with. Generally, creatures that are able to store their energy in removable body parts can only do so because they are energy creatures in the first place. And if that’s the case, I won’t be able to use the evolution catalyst on them to trace the genetic markers.”

“If we were to get all three, then forget just Fyor’s problem, any world would experience a sharp increase in energy storage. Just imagine a single hair being able to fuel a second tier spell. With nine tails as external storage, they would have more than enough power to cover so many shortcomings!”

“Don’t lie. You just want all the animal people to have nine tails.” The kitsune teased with a knowing look that didn’t match her age.

“You know me too well, Chel.” James grinned, not denying the claim of his reincarnated love. Although her body was immature, she was still smart enough to act as his research assistant. “How late are your parents letting you stay over today?”

Chel stuck her tongue out at that. “They just told me to be back by dinner.”

“Am I not invited?” James asked playfully, already knowing the answer as Chel rolled her eyes.

“After the last time you met my dad? He might be protective of his ‘little darling’, but he’s not suicidal. You really put the fear of the Gods into him.”

James shook his head with a bitter smile. “Who told him to use a third tier restriction spell to try to threaten me? He’s lucky I know he’s a good father.”