The painting showed figures that looked like mermaids, but the figures were not the kind of mermaids that Angor saw at Twilight Auction.
These “mermaids” shown on the wall all had freakish looks. There were deformed scales all over their bodies, and other than their tails, they had different body parts that resembled fish.
One grew a fish head, while another looked like a fish but only on his left side. There was also an entire fish with human limbs. Angor didn’t know if such creatures existed in this world. For now, he would consider them a sub-species of the well-known mermaids.
The paintings described how the mermaids morphed into “Toad Skins”, who were then performing a series of strange rituals by kneeling, carrying strange payloads or wielding harpoons.
At the end of the “story”, the previous strange mermaids showed up again and took the Toad Skins to a bright place.
The Toad Skins praised and danced before the mermaids disappeared again.
Angor assumed that the art was used by Toad Skins to worship their god, the mermaid.
There were other elements shown here such as the daily lives, hunting tradition, and the beginning of the civilization of the Toad Skins. Each painting was accompanied by characters that consisted of dots, lines, and pictures as if a kid were drawing stick figures. Angor could not read them though.
He tried, but he still couldn’t understand a thing from the clues. In the end, he gave up.
His instinct told him that there was an important message hidden behind the illustrations, but there was nothing he could do now. The level-2 cantrip “Discern Letters” would help with such a case, but he had not learned it yet.
The cantrip wasn’t something he could grasp overnight. Such cantrips like “Discern Letters” and “Discern Language” required huge amount of knowledge achievement and the ability to comprehend ideograph, phonogram, and pictorial logic.
This was one great setback for Angor as he gained levels too fast. For common level-2 apprentices, these basic subjects should be something that they already mastered. Wilderness survival, exploration, plane expedition... All these required someone to be able to read foreign letters.
Angor decided to note down the pictures and characters for now. Maybe he could find someone and ask about them later.
He searched around, but he didn’t find a secret compartment or something alike. The fortress only had two rooms with simple furniture. Also, he found no food.
Since there was nothing else to gain, Angor simply left the building. He believed that if he could manage to find the gathering spot of Toad Skins, he would be able to learn something useful.
But where to find them?
The end of the paintings showed how the Toad Skins were led to somewhere bright with sunlight.
So they went to the surface? But why did that single one stay in the sea?
For now, he would keep exploring the surroundings. Something told him that there were more secrets to see here.
He remembered hearing the captured city apprentice mentioning “to fight for our chance from the worst danger”.
The peaceful surface above the sea didn’t seem dangerous... unless all Toad Skins gathered there and that these strange creatures were as deadly as the monster fishes.
But Angor didn’t know where to find them yet. The one he just killed was his only clue right now. He decided to keep looking underwater.
With that great ambition in mind, he kept swimming deeper.
...
While Angor went through his deep, lonely, and dark adventure, the garden world occupied by flying fish had taken on a completely different look.
Nausica was injured during a battle—badly. She was now leaning against a tree, sulking over her failure.
She looked at the timer in the sky and huffed. There was only one hour left, and she had no idea where to find the “Sea of Purification”.
She already guessed that it was up in the sky. Yet she couldn’t fly. The best thing she could do was to use wind tornadoes to jump higher.
Besides, she was wounded.
Just now, she unleashed a “spinning wind cannon” despite the lack of mana to fend off attackers, and a small magic backfire hit her hard. Her potions could heal her, but before she was completely healed, she couldn’t move around freely.
Even if the goal weren’t on the sky, she didn’t have the mobility to look for it.
She chuckled helplessly for being a burden to her team.
She felt the ground shaking a little as if something big was walking nearby.
Must be Gank coming.
As expected, a giant figure blocked her view.
“What happened, Nausica?” Shan jumped to the ground anxiously. Nausica told them that she would go ahead and look for the Sea of Purification. But she had not returned in a long time. Shan decided to go look for her and was terrified to see Nausica in such bad shape.
“Someone... got me,” Nausica smiled and shook her head.
“Who is it?!” Shan hopped in place in rage. “And where did he go?”
“I chased her away. I said someone’s watching me before entering the garden, right? Someone not friendly.”
“The same a*shole came just now?”
Nausica nodded. She still didn’t know who the woman with a large rain hat and a well-developed body carve was, or why someone like that hated her so much and followed her all the way here.
“Damn it. Hey, tell me how she looks and I’ll kill her the moment I find her!” Shan moved to carry Nausica onto Gank’s shoulder.
Nausica pushed her away. “Just leave me. Take Shiliew with you. I can’t... keep up...”
Shiliew suddenly interrupted her by yawning loudly on Gank’s shoulder.
She looked down and saw both Nausica and Shan giving her strange looks.
“Um... Good morning?”
...
The horizon was brightly lit by a new dawn. Yet this beautiful sight might as well be the last dawn this world had to offer.
Only 30 minutes left. The simple numbers in the sky were changing slowly but surely like Death itself was warning people to welcome its embrace.
As the countdown got nearer to its end, the apprentices who had yet to find the exit were panicking.
People who were determined but not smart enough would tread in one place and welcome their doom, while those who could read the situation clearly were all attempting to figure out how to ascend to the sky unharmed. And most of them weren’t courageous enough to advance first.
A good number of apprentices chose to vent out their final dread by using violence on whatever they could catch.
The ground trembled, shattered, and gave way to lava, which hastened the destruction of what remained.
Flames, hurricane, storms, maddened apprentices, and monster fishes all took part in the final symphony of the massacre.
A single blue whale was floating in the sky, and a man with a scale-like tattoo on his forehead watched the terrible bout joyfully.
A woman in a large blue robe moved to him, and in a charming voice, she asked, “Not leaving yet, Jebra?”
“Heh. This is such a rare sight to behold. I can’t afford to miss the fun.”
The woman moved to the whale’s head and took off a red whelk-like object from the creature’s horn. “I’ve recorded everything. You can always watch it again later.”
“Nah. I love being INSIDE while watching them suffer. This is the best. But... you’re probably right. This isn’t worth any more of my time.” Jebra turned around and said, “Let’s go, it’s almost time. Soon, something bigger will come and bathe the entire southern region in terror.”
The robed woman raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“You know the calamity from ten thousand years ago, em?” Jebra chuckled and ordered his whale to fly away.
Occasionally, there would be apprentices or more flying fishes entering the dimension barrier.
When Jebra arrived, there was a giant ray trying to get inside. Jebra’s whale discouraged all monster fishes from bothering him, but that particular ray ignored such convention and casually floated into the barrier while completely ignoring Jebra.
“Did you see something?” the woman accompanying Jebra asked when she saw the man glancing at the disappearing ray.
“Huh... A dude was sitting on that thing... But he doesn’t have any arms or legs. Interesting.”