Chapter 5: Air In The Face Shouldn't Be That Hard

"The Sanitary Appliance?" Trad was a bit confused, wondering why a place would have a name like that.

"Alright, you're here to do other things, not to learn new things."

"Hey, aren't you acting a bit too heartless now? You seemed more interested in things before."

"It's different..." Uwnrien picked up the body of the man who was on the floor. "If they find out I just took a human from Tarth to mess around without permission, they'll kill me!"

"Kill you?" Now that the light was hitting the Reaper, Trad could finally see him. He was a thin, white creature, his mouth completely black, with small eyes that had yellow sclera and blue pupils. His chin had some pointed shapes, as if his skull had teeth protruding from the bottom part beneath the skin. "You mean... even more?"

"Even more?"

"He's trying to say you already look like a corpse," the blue-skinned guy said with a tone of mild annoyance, as if tired of having to explain.

"Do I!?"

"You're really surprised about that, dude?" Trad was genuinely shocked by Uwnrien's reaction. "Anyway," Trad continued, grabbing the bag from the floor, "how were the bag and the guy intact after all that impact?"

"I just held 'em."

"Oh... that makes sense..."

"Now, let's go."

"Uh? Wait! You won't even say goodbye to your friend?" Trad asked with difficulty while trying to put the bag on without getting too far from Uwnrien. "See ya, blue guy," Trad said without looking back.

"Hmm... Uwnrien talking to a human he didn't kill, and even taking him to Garth?" The blue guy smirked. "That's so unexpected it doesn't even make sense..."

The place they were in looked like a mountain, completely surrounded by clouds. Trad was wondering if it was another crazy spatial thing or if they were just insanely high up in the sky. Looking at it, he was still surprised by the giant cube with the upside-down river, but he noticed that wasn't the only strange thing in the sky.

He saw some massive black globes scattered throughout it. But the space was just too cloudy, and he couldn't see much. If he stared at the clouds for too long, he could even spot some lightning.

"Well..." Trad just noticed the mountain didn't have any clear way down. "What do we do now?"

"Isn't that obvious? We're going to jump."

"Jump?"

Uwnrien picked Trad up under his arm. It looked like he was searching for a specific spot, even though Trad couldn't figure out why.

"This is it. Hold your bag."

"Wha—"

Uwnrien jumped and passed through the clouds, but it didn't take long for the fall to stop. When Trad opened his eyes, he realized they were on one of those black globes floating in the sky.

"Oh... as I thought, you weren't just gonna kill us, right..." Trad exhaled hard. "What are these?"

"They're floatways."

"Hm... a very suggestive na—"

Once again, without hesitation, Uwnrien jumped and landed on another floatway.

"Hey! You have to warn me when you're gonna do stuff like that!"

"Why?"

"I almost lost my bag!"

"But I told you to hold it well..."

"Well... just tell m—"

"Jump."

Once again, he jumped, cutting Trad off mid-sentence.

"Argh..." Trad was having a rough time with the dense air hitting his face. It was a different, worse feeling than when he ran marathons.

They continued going down the mountain that way, jumping from floatway to floatway. Their path was anything but straight, and they ended up getting pretty far from the mountain.

Trad noticed that the farther they got from the mountain, the clearer the vision became, and the air got less dense. At some point, he was finally able to keep his eyes open as Uwnrien jumped.

The first thing he realized was how far apart the globes actually were, making him understand just how strong the creature with him really was. Also, they were still very far from the ground, but Trad could already see what it looked like below—a rural zone with some wells of water.

Then, Uwnrien jumped directly toward the ground, even though it was still pretty far away. Trad figured it was probably because there were no more floatways, since he couldn't see any nearby.

When they finally set foot on solid ground, Trad was surprised. The wells of water he had noticed earlier weren't water. They were some kind of blue ore that seemed to hold a crystal liquid inside, partially buried in the uneven earth.

They had to walk a bit after landing. The trail was clear enough, even as they made their way through woods made of lighter trees with almost yellow leaves. And along the way, there was more of that ore with its unique liquid.

After some time walking, they arrived at a place with a cylindrical wall formed from something similar to the lighter wood from the trees. The place had a large entrance, completely unguarded.

"Look, human. This is the place where you'll either live... or die."