Chapter 311 (Patreon)

Chapter 311

The group was still trying to get past the giant cloud wall to reach the archipelago Kel had mentioned, but it proved much harder than anticipated. Whenever they made a wrong decision, they were transported back to their starting point, and Maya spotted a pearlescent shimmer in the clouds that finally let them advance a little.

“I was really hoping it was over once we figured out the tunnel…” Anna let out a sigh as she looked around in the square room their boat had ended up in. They were still floating on the ocean, but there was a cloud wall on each of their sides. The one behind them that they had just passed through was fully white, but the ones on either side of the boat had the familiar golden glow from the previous tunnel behind them.

“Yeah, that would’ve been too easy, huh?” Sophia nodded a few times. “Well, at least we already know which routes we shouldn’t take.” She then looked to her right and then her left. “The golden glow definitely is the wrong choice if we go by the tunnel rules.”

“But what if each room has its own rules?” Steph tilted her head in return.

“Then I’d probably start to get upset.” The blonde’s smile turned a little sinister.

“Oh, that looks promising!” Chloe pointed ahead of the boat, where the cloud wall was a little different. It was also primarily white and quite easy to miss, but it had the same pink-and-blue pearlescent shine that was the key to solving the previous room. “I mean, there’s no reason to assume we should stop following the pretty shimmer, right?”

“Maya, please!” Anna faced the cat-girl, who was still in charge of steering the boat.

“Aya aye, captain!” Doing a cute salute, the cat-girl quickly headed for the wall to find out if their theory was correct.

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“Seriously?!” Anna didn't like what she saw on the other side of the wall. Thankfully, they didn't return to the open sea and had to start from the beginning again, but it wasn’t the exit, either. Instead, they found themselves in yet another room with many cloud walls.

“This archipelago of Kel better be worth it!” Steph was also losing her patience.

“I think it’s still fun~.” Sophia was enjoying herself.

“Same!” Chloe was on her side. “However, we might have a problem here.” She then gestured around in the new room. It had five walls this time, and the one behind them was still a regular cloud, but the other four had a bit of a surprise. The one on the very left had the familiar golden glow, and the one next to it came with the pearlescent shimmer that allowed them to progress in the maze. Next to that was another golden cloud, but the last wall on the very right was the actual issue. It, too, had the same pearlescent shine as the second one, so now they had two options to advance.

“Wait, how is this going to work?” The princess stopped pouting and looked confused instead. “Do we just have to 50:50 it and hope for the best?!”

“I mean, worst case is that we have to start over, and that would take us a minute at best now that we know where to go.” The blonde was okay with simply guessing.

“Yeah, not wrong. Though, if there are more rooms, we’ll have to start taking notes or else we’ll definitely get lost.” Anna scratched her cheek while looking at the two pearlescent walls. “Okay, let’s try the left one first.”

Maya steered the boat through the cloud, and they immediately found themselves in another five-sided room with exactly the same wall pattern.

“Well, at least we’re not back outside.” Steph let out a small sigh.

“Wait…” Sophia looked around while tilting her head. "Is this the same room as before, and we looped somehow, or is it the next room with the same options?”

“Hah.” The princess paused for a moment. “Good question, actually. Also, no idea.”

“Does it actually matter, though?” Chloe looked at the two pearlescent clouds. “Okay, yes, it does, but we have no way of knowing because the next ten doors could all be the left one and we would be none the wiser. If we go with the right one and something changes, we still don't know whether it was the same room or just looked like it. Even if nothing changes, we’d still have no idea where we were before.”

“I’m confused.” Sophia and Steph had the same reaction. “Maya, take the right one!”

“Aye aye, sisters!” The cat-girl had definitely taken a liking to her new position.

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She steered them through the right cloud wall, and this time, things changed. Quite significantly at that.

“Woah!” Finally on the other side of the enormous cloud wall, everyone had the same reaction.

“Welcome to the Merid Archipelago.” Kel was also there already and greeted them. “You sure took your time.”

"Shush!" Anna, who had mostly been in charge of getting them to the other side, glared at the dragon. “It was super confusing! Wait, how did you get here so fast?!”

“I just swam under it~.” His voice became even smugger.

“Grr!”

“By the way, I still suggest not using detection magic.” Kel ignored the princess and focused on Sophia instead. “There’s still more to explore here.”

“What even is this place?!” The blonde wasn’t concerned with her magic usage right now as she took in the sight in front of them with wide-open eyes.

Everything in front of them was wrapped in a thin layer of cloud, but it was only a little misty, so all the details of the archipelago were still clearly visible. There were countless islands of varying sizes as far as the eye could see through the mist, all of them were filled with lush green flora, but that wasn’t the reason everyone looked so shocked.

Many dozens of islands were freely floating in the air at different heights. Each of them was suspended on a thick cloud that had the same pearlescent glow as the walls of the maze the group used to navigate to this place. The glow was just a lot more intense. They almost looked like the inside of a seashell. Some of the islands had cloud bridges connecting them, too.

Those floating islands also varied greatly in size. Some of them looked like they were under 100 meters in diameter, while others were many hundreds of meters large. In the very center of their view, however, there was an absolutely massive island that was many kilometers wide, easily exceeding ten kilometers, and connected with cloud bridges to various other floating places. Many of the islands, including the main one, had waterfalls that fell right into the ocean. Just like the regular islands at the bottom, all of the floating ones were filled with the same lush green plant life.

“How does that work?!” Steph pointed at the biggest floating island. “It reminds me of the small islands over Sophia’s cherry blossoms in her domain, but WAY bigger! Do they also float using magic?”

“Not quite.” The dragon shook his head. “As you may have already noticed in the maze, the clouds around here have some special properties. They are magical and can have different densities, even going as far as being able to lift entire islands.”

“Oh, is that where the pearlescent glow comes from?” Anna tilted her head while looking at the special clouds below the islands. “They look like that because there’s a lot of magic in them?”

“Mhm.” Kel paused for a moment. “Let’s go with yes on that.” It sounded like he was omitting some details there.

“I love it!” Steph energetically clapped her hands. “The fantasy is strong in this area!”

“Yeah!” Sophia agreed with her. “Though, why are we not supposed to use our detection magic yet? Is there another riddle to solve? Perhaps to get on top of the islands?”

“No, there’s just something I want to show you later.” The dragon sounded unusually playful. Though, he had been enjoying their struggles over the past hour, so there was an easy explanation for it. “As for getting up to the island, there is no secret. Personally, I can just swim up the main waterfall. For you land dwellers, well… I’m sure you’ll find a way.” Saying so, he disappeared into the ocean, and a few moments later, his massive body leaped out of the water right under the central island and snaked his way up the enormous waterfall.

“Portal stone?” Sophia looked at the others while tilting her head.

“Portal stone!” Everyone liked her suggestion. They have had enough of exploring things the hard way and wanted to cheese it instead.

The blonde took one of them out of her storage and casually flicked it towards the huge floating island a few kilometers away from them in the sky. A couple of seconds later, she opened a big portal right in front of them. Everyone stepped through it and suddenly found themselves inside a dense and overgrown forest. Once they managed to orient themselves, Sophia had a lot of help with that, the group started exploring to see if there were any more secrets.