Mash’s first instinct upon stepping into the formation was to fight. Or rather to prepare for a fight. His body reacted naturally, and his body began to change slightly before he stopped and just stared at his surroundings. There was no light. Not even a tiny spec from a star or moon. It was cold too, dangerously so, and even his blood began to freeze. Mash paused on the transformation and diverted his efforts to change his body temperature. He could control it himself though it was normally Priscilla who adjusted for those kinds of things.

His eyes were made useless at the moment. Without even a tiny speck of light, there was nothing for his eyes to see. That wasn’t the worst of it. He couldn’t feel anything either. There was nothing for his skin to touch, and he didn’t even think that there was any air for him to breathe. There was no odor. It was just empty. No sound for his ears to pick up on. He might have panicked if not for his domain, and some help from the other skills that were steadying his mind.

None of his normal senses could help him now. His domain, however, was not normal and was not limited by the same things as the others. With it, he could tell that he hadn’t been teleported, and better yet he could get a sense of direction. He wasn’t being teleported but moved. The space around him was being dragged behind as he propelled forward. The shifting space was odd. It didn’t feel like he was moving, but his domain showed him otherwise. Mash could see himself too, and it looked like he was just hovering in place. Not standing, but it was like he had been frozen while falling.

Mash looked around in awe, though he didn’t do it with his eyes. The way the space around him shifted backward was fast. Faster than he could’ve moved. Faster than he thought was possible. He wanted desperately to know what was happening, but it was impossible for him. There was a problem though. None of the others were within his domain. Mash thought of a few possibilities for that. They were too far forward, and well out of the range of his domain. That seemed like the most likely explanation. The other would be that they were all moving in different directions. He hoped that wasn’t the case. Another thought passed his mind, and he turned to Priscilla.

[Priscilla. I think I recognized the symbol. Check my memories of a long time ago. It was in that book. In a book I found before I met you.]

Mash vaguely remembered the incident in question. It had been a journal of sorts that had been tucked away and hidden. Within, he had found references to the large snake which owned that labyrinth world. The one that had left its mark on him and laughed at his fate. Mash would not forget that encounter, though he had forgotten about the book. He felt a little guilty about not thinking of it, but it had been a long time and the book wasn’t very important. Although, he remembered that one of the pages had a drawing of the symbol. He was surprised by his own memory but guessed it was Priscilla’s influence.

[I found it.]

Mash watched as the image flashed in his mind. The symbol was recreated almost exactly, and he saw some text written beneath it. It wasn’t in a language he could recognize, and his translation item didn’t seem to work with memories. Did he have the book with him? No, he remembered that he had given it to someone. His brother? He had asked about it, but Mash didn’t know if he actually had it with him. Did Red take it? He remembered giving it to her once. He wanted to open his storage space to check, but he was pretty confident that it wasn’t there.

The book had notes on the World Owner. The snake was mentioned directly, and he remembered that it had talked about others as well. Other than that, it had information on unique monsters and strange creatures too. He had enjoyed flipping through the book and just seeing crude drawings of unknown creatures. Although, he never actually read the book fully, and he didn’t pay much attention to other information in it. The darkness around him was complete, but it broke eventually.

One second, he was floating through a river of nothing, and the next he was standing on solid ground. His body had grown considerably hotter during the trip; he had needed to increase his body temperature a lot to counter the coldness. The tiled floor beneath his feet felt cold with how hot his body was. He quickly let the heat bleed away, but it was a slow process. Even for him, it was dangerous to shift it too rapidly. He needed to gradually change the temperature. It would only take a minute or so, but it was still a pain.

His domain filled the space and didn’t hit any walls. He did feel the others within it though. Red, Jill, and Luke were huddled together. Mash could see that Luke was healing Jill, whose skin was slightly discolored in some places. She had changed from her pajamas into a much thicker sweater. Red’s pale skin was still pale, although he didn’t see any signs of frostbite like on Jill. Since Luke was still healing her, then they had probably only arrived a few seconds before he did.

He looked around. There was light here and an open sky to boot. Despite the floor being comprised of stone tiles, the sky was open, and he saw an orange sun in the sky. That was strange, though not as weird as the blueish-green sky that surrounded it. Mash was glad to realize that he could breathe here. The stone tiles lead in a straight path up to a series of buildings that he could barely make out in the distance. Surrounding the stone path was grass that was surprisingly well kept. It was clearly cut regularly, and he even noticed some flowers placed in obvious patterns across the plains. The flowers ranged in different shades of reds and yellows. It was all very pretty. Despite the inviting beauty, the trip didn’t wasn’t very inviting. Jill’s frostbite was proof enough of that.

Mash walked over to the others while looking at the buildings in the distance. He couldn’t really tell how big or small they were from here, but he knew that they were buildings. They were too blocky and tall to be anything else. Mash pointed towards them and spoke once he got close.

“Are you okay? And do you think those are buildings?”

He didn’t direct his questions on anyone in particular.

“Yeah, just cold. Buildings?”

Jill replied and looked in the direction that he had pointed. She frowned slightly as she squinted her eyes.

“Isn’t that just a mountain?”

Mash looked away from the building and realized that they couldn’t see as far as him. When had that happened? Which transformation had given him an improved vision.? Maybe it was a product of his race change.

“I don’t think mountains would be that blocky. It’s probably a building.”

It had to be a town or a walled city. His gaze kept darting around randomly. He was thoroughly confused by the situation and wanted some clue as to what had happened. The others should probably know where he had seen the symbol before. Actually, it would be a better idea to just show them.

[Priscilla, show them the image from before.]

She could send the image to the others easily. While she did that, he explained what else had been in the book. He told them about it, but it wasn’t like it helped much. The mark could’ve been about anything. There were a lot of different creatures in the book, and he didn’t know which of them would be intelligent enough to manage this. More importantly, he couldn’t think of a single reason why they would even target him. Other than the snake that had marked him, he hadn’t even met with anything else in the book.

All four of them turned to look at the city. The tiled stone path was clearly leading them there, but it wasn’t like they needed to go. There was no guarantee of safety here, though there was no place where they could get that. Jill could easily teleport them back. If this was another world, then he could make a portal here too. Mash wanted to do that. He wanted to go to sleep. This was something he could deal with after a night of rest. Mash’s eye didn’t droop, and his shoulders didn’t sag either. As long as the day had felt, he was still filled with adrenaline. Arthur could join them as well.

“I kind of want to check it out. I mean, this whole situation is pretty weird, but also interesting, right?”

Jill said the words, and as one all four of them started walking toward the city in the distance. There hadn’t been some great debate or argument. Even if they were tired and irritable, they were adventurers. Their curiosity demanded that they throw some caution to the wind and explore the mysterious city. Try and find out who would bother making such an elaborate and complex setup. It couldn’t even be called a trap. There had been no guarantee that they would’ve been able to figure it out. Whoever had painted all of those symbols must have had some other purpose.

The stone walkway was smooth. Mash was able to walk barefoot easily and didn’t even feel so much as a pebble. That alone would’ve been strange. Although the setting quickly got weirder as the grass began to change color. It had been green like normal, but it had begun to shift. When the wind picked up, the whole plain began dancing to its gentle breeze. It was then that the grass seemed to shift from dark green to a deep blue. The way the grass swayed with the wind made it seem like water. Like the ripples that could only appear on the water. The breeze wasn’t cold either.

Everyone kept walking but, they weren’t looking forward anymore. They gazed across the plains; absorbed by the beautiful shifting grass. It didn’t slow them much. The sight was nothing compared to their curiosity. To Mash’s surprise, it was Red who broke their casual pace.

“Can’t we just teleport closer?”

“Yes!”

Jill replied quickly. Red hadn’t spoken with much excitement, but Jill’s one-word response was filled with enthusiasm. In the blink of an eye, they closed the distance. The city turned from an indiscernible shadow to an incredible superstructure. Dozens of perfectly shaped buildings shot into the sky. Tall glass windows scaled the sides of the buildings, and each window was framed by short sections of smooth metal. How expensive was something like that? His brother’s house had a few tall windows, and Mash had a rough idea of how much that place was worth. Every building here was layered with windows.

There weren’t any walls to the city either, but it was definitely a city. It was far too large and elaborate to be a town. What he had thought were walls, were in fact just a series of smaller rectangular buildings that encircled the largest ones. The tallest of the buildings rested in the center, and Mash was fairly certain its top would touch the clouds. Although, he couldn’t know as the sky was barren. The city itself felt barren too. Not a sound came from the city. He had never seen a silent city before. All in all, Mash couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Honestly, he wondered if this was all an illusion or a dream. He spoke aloud. He wanted to hear the others and confirm that this was real.

“Where? No, what in the world is all of this?”