Although their shapes are simple, the entire town is a rainbow of color, with each building choosing a different, vibrant color to differentiate themselves from their neighbors. Walls are considered a public canvas, too, so you can see all kinds of art, from abstract, to geometric, to realism, to impressionism, to surrealism, to erotic, to historical, to landscapes, to far-eastern, to portraits, to even what I think are proto-billboards.

"A bit tiring for the eyes," Alissa comments.

"On Earth, we call that visual pollution," I say.

"Pollution…?" She repeats the word in English and cutely tilts her head.

I guess that's a rather modern use for the word.

"Is there a word for 'contaminating the environment with something bad for living beings'?"

"There's the 'corruption' that the undead cause."

"That sounds too extreme. What about the slums? They're dirty, and there's always a bad smell there from feces or trash. They can be 'cleaned' of their dirt, which could be said to be 'pollution.'"

She frowns. "Hm… can't you just use 'filth' or 'trash'?"

"Well, those words have specific connotations. 'Pollution' specifically means something that's dirtying the environment, but in a more abstract sense so that it includes something like this visual pollution or excessive, continuous noise that would disrupt daily life."

"What about 'contamination'?"

"Too much like a disease. You won't get sick from visual pollution, just a little annoyed."

"'Defiling'?"

"Too s.e.xual."

She smiles wryly. "'Soiling'?"

"I guess it could fit… but there's also the connotation about soiling your own pants."

"'Soiling your environment' does sound similar to 'soiling your pants,'" she says with a cheeky smile.

I shrug. "Heh, I guess this is the closest that we'll get."

--

The Hollys search the islands for living beings but don't find anything. The towns seem empty of anything interesting to us, too. They look like they've been abandoned for a while since all of their food stocks have rotted away, but there's no overgrowth present, so they feel more like ghost towns instead of abandoned ruins.

Suddenly, a Holly takes damage without anything physically touching her.

Argh… spirits…

I warn the girls and give everyone one point in [Spirit Magic] so that we can all cast [Spirit Eyes], but only Yunia can reliably fight them. I summon four spirit elementals to establish a perimeter, but I'm not confident in their combat capabilities.

It takes a good while, but we eventually start seeing spirits flying towards us. Their glowing light blue forms have odd shapes, vaguely resembling humanoids. I recognize wings and a goat head on one of them, so I think that they're actual Chimeras this time. We only see a few dozen of them, but their numbers are quickly increasing.

Yunia casts [Spirit Blade] and [Spirit s.h.i.+eld], then a spiritual arm holding a shortsword and another arm holding a large s.h.i.+eld grow out of her shoulders. The blade is the only way to safely harm another spirit without the danger of an instant counter, and the s.h.i.+eld actually repels spirits, so it's not as simple as it seems. It's possible to fight spirits without spells, but it's like getting into a knife fight, it'll be "b.l.o.o.d.y" for both sides.

The spirits start to intercept us, waiting for us in the middle of the Looping Winds, but the s.h.i.+p flies too fast for them to catch up to it, so we keep Yunia and the spirit elementals in the front. There, they can deal with any of the spirits that might get on a collision course with us. We have to protect the golems since they're the most vulnerable to spirit damage.

I una.s.sign some of my Physical skill points and put them in [Spirit Magic] instead so that I can use [Spirit Touch] and fend off the spirits that might come our way.

"They aren't humanoids, but they also aren't monsters," Alissa says.

"It would be very creepy if they were humanoids," I respond, and she nods.

--

After a few minutes, the spirits adapt and begin to accelerate along the sky road. They eventually catch up, and we have to resort to fighting them.

The Chimeras' bodies are a mix of body parts from different races, but there's always at least one part of them that's human, and the pairs of limbs always belong to the same race. Their heads, chests, arms, and legs are all a mix-and-match that seems rather random. I start to see a few patterns though, like: goat head, human torso, ape arms, and bull legs.

Yunia casts [Spirit Link] and starts "talking" with them as she fights. They might not fully comprehend her exact words, but with the spell, they'll at least understand what she means.

"If you want us gone, then let us pa.s.s!" She yells as her spirit arm cuts down a Chimeric spirit.

The other girls start randomly casting area spells, which cause a strong enough disturbance to block the spirits from approaching and lightly damage them.

An angry Chimera lion/zebra mix enters the left side of the bridge, his arms reaching out for Alissa's head. With my extra arm, I grab his wrist and throw him towards Yunia.

No touch! Those ears are mine!

My will overpowers the spirit's, and it flies away, then sinks past the s.h.i.+p's deck. Spirits can't be "thrown," but you can still "will" them to be thrown if you get a hold on them.

"We're not here to loot anything!" Yunia lies.

The spirit elementals are doing pretty well. The hostile spirits aren't fighting very hard, they're almost like zombies, just trying to grasp and harm our souls. Lina's [Befuddle] and [Demoralize] make them even dumber and slower.

The number of spirits keeps increasing, so we start maneuvering to avoid them because of how slow they are to adapt. The spirits can catch up to us, but they don't last long, and eventually tire out.

"We'll be gone if you let us pa.s.s!" Yunia continues trying to reason with them.

As we get more competent in dealing with them, they change their tactics. A glowing, light blue tunnel forms as the spirits start to surround us.

I cast [Discharge] ahead of us, and Yunia raises her sword into the tunnel's ceiling while she charges up her [Spirit s.h.i.+eld]. The spirits are stunned for a second, then they get ripped apart by her sword and blown away by the s.h.i.+eld, opening up a hole out of the tunnel.

A spirit comes from below and clutches my right foot. I feel like my skin is getting burned and my bones are getting crushed at the same time from its ethereal grip.

I force my spirit arm down, and a naked, spirit "me" bends down to grab the spirit's arm. It's a very odd sensation to have so much of my spirit actually "detach" from me. I feel like my upper body is naked while getting bitten by the winter wind.

My spirit "me" grabs the arm of the spirit, and I squeeze it with all of my strength. The spirit yells in anger and pain as its arm becomes blurry and loses cohesion, releasing my foot.

Now free from the spirit's grip, I throw it to Yunia again, and she cuts it in half with her [Spirit Blade]. I immediately use my spirit arm to grab my wounded leg and gently ma.s.sage it, helping it heal.

"f.u.c.k this!" I yell, then we pull the s.h.i.+p up out of the Looping Winds and quickly fly upwards.

The spirits all continue forward and slowly try to stop, bunching up into a sea of blue far ahead of us. The spirits that were getting left behind have enough time to veer upwards, but they're already exhausted and don't manage to get close enough to us to matter.

Then we slowly level off the s.h.i.+p a few hundred meters above the Looping Winds.

Once the glowing blue sea below us is left behind, we point the s.h.i.+p down, straighten out the wings, and fly downwards.

We quickly reach terminal velocity, so I deactivate the s.h.i.+p's power.

Then [Piloting] triggers, so we slowly level off the s.h.i.+p again, gliding forward at full speed. We level out when we enter the Looping Winds, so I tilt the wings downwards again, using the sky river to push us forward.

The sea of spirits resumes chasing after us, and when they start to encircle us again, I repeat the maneuver.

"Deal with this, suckers!" I cheer and laugh.

After a few of these maneuvers, we spot the largest urban island that we've ever seen ahead of us. It's a huge and imposing conical hill, entirely covered with colorful square house after colorful square house.

At various parts of the town, the Holly scouting it sees hanging piers where small delta wing aircraft are parked. There's even a large blimp.

"That looks ominous," Roxanne says through [Bind].

"If you have the time to admire the environment, then you can fight harder," Alissa chastises her.

"He~y…! I'm just firing [Firestorm] at random, I don't even need to aim!" Roxanne moans in response.

"Hmph…"

A few minutes later, Roxanne's words echo in my mind as the Holly scouting ahead sees movement on the huge island, but this time, they aren't spirits, they're real Chimeras.

She sees the usual bustle of everyday life inside a town. The Chimeras seem to have an aversion to clothing, preferring to leave their large, toned, delicious bodies exposed for all to see.

In a small green s.p.a.ce, a couple of male Chimeras enjoy jerking each other off in public, and a group of young-looking female Chimeras watches them intently while giggling. In another green s.p.a.ce, the Holly finds a bull-horse man with a huge horse c.o.c.k pounding the s.h.i.+t out of a small, cat-bird woman, also in public, and then the inverse pairing is seen a few meters away from them.

It seems that the Chimeras enjoy exposing themselves more than the elves, and have s.e.x in public more than the beastfolk. This could be an interesting town.

Soon after, a Holly scouting down the Looping Winds detects twenty unidentified bogies flying towards us. Suddenly, multiple blue beams of light burst out from them and hit the spirits behind us. From the mana signature of the spell, I think that it's probably a spirit version of [Beam].

The super-long beams of light last for around twenty seconds, and when they snuff out, huge holes are left in the sea of spirits chasing behind us. The girls look warily towards the source of the beams. They fired towards us from such a long distance that even I didn't see it coming.

Then the Holly finally identifies them. The twenty bogies are Chimeras clad in glowing white armor and armed with golden spears just like Ciel's. With their white wings, they look like angels that came to save us.

The [Spirit Beam]s fire off a few more times, leaving only a handful of light blue clumps of spirits.

"Actual Chimeras are coming!" I yell.

"What?! Humanoids?!" Ciel exclaims, confused.

"I don't think so. They could be monsters, or they might be constructs of the dungeon," Yunia says.

"Using a part of the Core is one thing, but how can it make so many Chimeras?" I question.

Ciel's expression becomes somber, and she shares a look with Yunia, who sighs and nods. "[Trap Soul]," Ciel says.

Lina's Trivia: One of the few system spells banned by the temple, this level seventy spell traps a soul inside something, generally a gem. This prevents a spirit from reincarnating, so it's considered a Wicked thing to do, leading to its ban, but even before the empire, using this spell was frowned upon.

"But they look like they're made of flesh," I say.

"Your custom [Materialization] spell isn't exactly novel," Yunia says.

"Gih!" Gify agrees.

"Well, then… we'll see what Alissa's senses say once they get closer," I say, and Alissa nods.

The girls get ready on the deck to receive our winged guests, forming a line in front of the bridge's tower. I unsummon the spirit elementals and summon five wind elementals. The nearly naked green Alissas blow me kisses, then turn serious and glare at the glowing angels coming our way.

With our preparations complete, we all bite the bullet and use [Redirect Mana] to top off our MP.

I pull us out of the Looping Winds and park the s.h.i.+p in the sky. The Chimeras lower their glaives, pointing their blades downwards, in what I a.s.sume is a non-aggression gesture.

A minute or so later, five armored Chimeras stop in front of the s.h.i.+p while the rest of them surround us.

They're each over two meters tall and as buff as a bull. Their long, vertical horns peek out from under their closed helmets, leading me to believe that they're all either a bull or a goat mix. Those horns look a bit impractical, though.

The one in the middle has a long golden plume affixed to their helmet, so I a.s.sume that they're the leader.

"They aren't humanoids or monsters," Alissa says through [Bind].

"Their Threads of Fate have been cut, they aren't alive. They're some sort of spirit," Yunia whispers to Hana, who relays the information to the others and Ciel.

So, it is [Trap Soul], then.

They slowly float down to the deck, their large wings spread wide and their glaives still pointing down. Their glowing white armor makes them look truly divine. Then they land, and the plumed Chimera lifts their visor.

I see a long face of a black bull staring at us intently with its blood-red eyes, then they say in a strong, female voice that resounds through the air, "Tonu kia rere whakamua."

"Uh… we don't speak your language," Yunia says, then repeats it in Ingua.

"Go, fly," The horned cow lady says in Andraste, with a heavy accent.

I hurriedly put on some points in [Reo Language].

"Sorry, can you repeat that?" I ask in Reo.

The leader snorts, then says, "E rere tonu."

"I think she wants us to keep flying forward," I say through [Bind].

"Let's do it slowly," Alissa suggests.

We gently push the levers again and aim the s.h.i.+p towards the Looping Winds.

"Tere! Tere!" The leader yells in an impatient tone.

She wants us to go faster.

We re-enter the sky river and increase our speed to the max. The leader looks at the wings tilting down, then smiles in satisfaction, showing pearly white teeth. Her four bodyguards remain unmoving, and the Chimeras surrounding us follow the s.h.i.+p.

I look back and understand why she wanted us to fly: the spirits were catching up.

I finish putting enough points in Reo just as the cow lady speaks again.

"Who are you guys?" She asks in a demanding tone.

"We are adventurers, explorers," I reply.

She narrows her eyes in confusion and chews on something as she thinks. "Why would you come here?" She questions.

"What's the problem?" I return the question.

"Pa.s.sing through wild Looping Winds with a cargo s.h.i.+p is insanity!"

"So, they don't know that they're inside a dungeon," I say to the girls.

"Somehow, the Dungeon Master trapped these spirits here," Alissa says.

"Well, we did go through quite a lot," I say and give the cow woman a stiff smile.

"Lina, tell me everything you know about the Broken Skies," I hurriedly say through [Bind].

The woman stares at me in disbelief, then she sighs and facepalms. She quickly regains her composure, and her expression becomes stern. "What's your name, human pilot?"

"Wolf Ryder, and these are all my wives," I respond with a proud smile.

She eyes Aoi, who's gripping her metal halberd and s.h.i.+eld, and the golems in confusion, then her mask almost slips. "I'm Oritiki, platoon commander of the Celestial Horns," she says, managing to keep a serious tone.

The girls also introduce themselves, but the bodyguards don't say a word.

"'Celestial' was commonly used before the first emperor Ascended. They must be from before the empire," Lina says.

"From the same time as G.o.d-King Arreira," I respond, and feel her nod.

"So, Dame Oritiki, I a.s.sume that that island is your home?" I ask and point to the huge island ahead of us.

She nods solemnly. "Exactly. That's our home, Whakamutu Mutu. I firmly request that you land there and wait in port while I talk to High Command. I apologize if we seem rude, but it's been such a long time since we've had any visitors that we've never been trained in how to treat you."

"How about with love and perhaps some snu snu?" I joke in my soul s.p.a.ce and get a few chuckles in response.

"I can understand your references better through [Bind]," Alissa says.

"Well, in any case, we're just travelers, and we have our own supplies. We won't bother anyone if you prefer that we continue on our journey," I say with a cordial tone.

She shakes her head, "We've been isolated from the rest of our nation for a generation already. It'd be foolish of us to send away the first visitor we receive with news from the outside."

She makes a signal with her hand, and her bodyguards store their glaives inside their [Item Box]es, then they all take off their helmets. We see three cows/bulls and two goats. Their fur colors and patterns are quite varied. I see Oritiki's pure black, a brown bovine, a white goat, a blue goat, and a white bovine with black spots.

With a nod from me, the girls also relax and store their weapons, then we all remove our helmets. The elementals relax and start to curiously look around, drawn to the glowing angels flying around us.

"I'll give everyone a few points in [Reo Language] so that we can understand each other a little better," I say to the girls. Hana and Yunia don't have enough spare points to fully learn Reo, so they'll talk through the others.

"Why are you isolated?" Lina asks.

Oritiki frowns, and the faces of her bodyguards twitch. Her voice softens a little as it gains a note of sadness, "Ever since the Petrification Calamity, the Looping Winds have gone out of control and the islands all around us have been overrun with monsters and elementals. We've gathered a few farm islands, but we still don't have the population to reclaim any more of them."

"Petrification Event?" Ciel asks.

Oritiki is taken aback, and her voice gains a tinge of bewilderment as she asks, "Haven't you land-dwellers ever heard about our nation? Has the tragedy of the death of millions gone unnoticed by the rest of the realm?"

"apologies," Lina immediately responds and hastily bows. "W-we aren't scholars, but by nation, do you mean the Ranta… gauhina… nation?"

"Rangatuhinga o mua Hauhuri," a brown bull bodyguard corrects her, a little offended that she butchered the name so badly.

"So you've heard of us?" Oritiki solemnly asks.

"That's the nation that fell to the Symbol of Envy," Lina says in my soul s.p.a.ce.

"Oh, right!" I exclaim, taking the intense gaze of the Chimeras away from my shy little Lina. "We've heard about your nation. We just didn't know what exactly happened to it."

"Neither do we…" Oritiki admits, and the Chimeras all look down in sadness.

"We've heard that the High Forest aids the Sky Lands with expeditions to Ranga, but we don't know much else," Ciel tactfully relays Yunia's words.

"Sky Lands?" Oritiki questions.

"The Chimeric lands closest to the Gillios Continent," Lina answers.

"Ah, you mean the Lower Frontier… Well, at least something survived, and yet, a merchant s.h.i.+p is the first to find us…" Oritiki comments with a little suspicion.

"We've had a lot of luck in getting through the storms, then we found a Looping Winds Station and managed to get it running again," I say.

"So, you're the ones who reactivated this Looping Winds?"

We all nod.

"Where does it lead?"

"Ozymandias. We saw numerous references to it within the surviving records at the Station, so we chose that as the next target for our expedition," I answer.

She holds her chin and nods in thought as she looks away. "That's a town beyond Void's End…"-

Wait, town? All we saw in the Scanner was a vertical disk.

-"but now that the Looping Winds is active, you have a chance of crossing it if you've set the anchors correctly. Your only problem will be getting past the Gaping Maw." She returns her gaze to us and pays attention to our reactions.

"Gaping Maw…? You mean the ginormous sky serpent that makes this boat look like an ant?" I question.

She nods, seeming rather amused by my description. "Exactly. The Symbol of Gluttony, the Gaping Maw. An Aberrant Cloud Snake that eats islands."

We go quiet, feeling a little apprehensive at the name of the monster. Our encounters with anything named as a Symbol have never been easy. Even Yunia, who's never met any wild Symbols or Aberrants, knows what these two words combined must represent.

Oritiki chuckles, then she smiles at us as she says, "Well, you've traversed the wild Looping Winds in a cargo s.h.i.+p, reclaimed an abandoned Station, and managed to outrun the Vengeful Spirits. I'll be eagerly waiting to see how you deal with that one."

--

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