"Where is the pocket dimension hiding?"
Puzzled, the group of posthumans continued making a few rounds around the area. However, they were still unable to find any sign of the pocket dimension. The wild grass, gravel, and abandoned ruins were still exactly the same. No one spotted anything unusual.
Even though Faun was holding a pocket dimension detector, that had been mentioned by Reno and Rena, the small device remained silent throughout the journey. No matter how many times Faun restarted the device, it did make the beeping sounds which indicated that they were in a pocket dimension.
"Are we perhaps already in a pocket dimension? Maybe in this evolved version, the pocket dimension replicated the normal surroundings?"
After searching futilely for another 20 minutes, the man with half human skin and half tree bark finally raised a rather far-fetched possibility. His voice was as sonorous as before, it was so low that it made breathing a little harder for everyone.
"It isn't impossible," Faun muttered as he thought about the situation. Following which, he gestured to the team, "Let's try to see if we can walk out of this vacant land… If we can't, it will prove that we are already in a pocket dimension."
This seemed to be the only feasible method now. Once again, the group of posthumans followed him and headed in the direction from where they came.
Even though it should come as no surprise, the team was somewhat astonished by the outcome. They managed to walk out of the vast empty piece of land without any hassle. They even walked past the area where the battles were previously. Just when everyone was at a loss as to what to do next, a Smiling Mermaid member who was on guard duty peeked out and looked at them, surprised, "Why are all of you out so fast?"
Faun stopped walking. He was stumped and didn't know how he should answer that question.
He was not the only one, the team of posthumans behind him was also dumbstruck. After all, they were given a mission to explore a pocket dimension. Now that they couldn't even find the pocket dimension, would that mean that they wouldn't get the reward of 80 big crystals?
"Is it possible that the pocket dimension has disappeared?" Lin Sanjiu whispered to Mrs. Manas. She couldn't help thinking about the reward that she might lose soon. She sighed inwardly to herself and looked at the people around her. As expected, the others were also frowning and seemed dispirited.
However, her gaze froze when she saw someone.
The only person whose expression seemed out of place was that strange Sajee.
At that moment, the ragtag team of posthumans led by Faun was on the narrow road at the entrance of the battlegrounds. Following the road and passing a guard post on the way, they would reach the Smiling Mermaid base which was quite some distance away if they continued upward on the path. Whereas the other direction led to the vast piece of desolate land which supposedly housed the pocket dimension.
As Faun didn't know what he should do at the moment. Everyone stood silently behind him without moving. Sajee was the only one who ran up ahead, standing at a spot slightly ahead of Faun. She seemed a little anxious as she looked around her and shuffled her feet against the ground.
Her actions created a constant, annoying scraping sound as the gravel on the ground rubbed against each other. The old Paleoindian couldn't tolerate it anymore, though he held back his anger, he finally shouted, "Stop shuffling!"
After he re-adjusted his tone, he looked back at the pair of dilated black pupils eyeing him, "Did you discover something?"
Sajee stared at him for a while and looked at the ground without saying a word.
The smile which previously seemed plastered on her face had disappeared without a trace at some unknown time. Without that expression which made her seem a little more human, her eyes which looked like two black holes looked rather scary, as if two white eyeballs would just roll out from them.
No one knew if she was agitated or anxious, but Sajee firmly scrapped her shoes against the ground once more.
As the old Paleoindian scoffed angrily, Lin Sanjiu suddenly felt a chill down her spine.
Perhaps, the others didn't notice the minute detail, but she saw everything.
There was a thick layer of dirt covering the brick pavement that they were on. Each time Sajee shuffled her feet, the tips of her shoes would stir up some bits of dirt. There was indeed nothing unusual about this.
However, when those bits of dirt fell, they seemed to suddenly display the ability to defy the laws of gravity.
As a small bit of fine dirt left the tips of Sajee's shoes, they disappeared in midair without a trace, as if they had suddenly disintegrated. Lin Sanjiu suspected that her eyes were playing tricks on her. But after half a second, she noticed that the dirt landed at a spot about 10cm further from Sajee. It looked so natural that it was as if it should have landed there.
Lin Sanjiu wouldn't have noticed that slight abnormality if she didn't keep her eyes on Sajee as she had been guarding against that girl. Even now, the other people around her had not detected that aberration and were still having a discussion on the 80 big crystals.
Lin Sanjiu looked up and happened to find herself staring at a pair of tar-black pupils that were about to overtake the sclera around them.
"Do you know what's wrong here?" Lin Sanjiu asked with a serious tone after composing herself.
The old Paleoindian had asked a similar question just moments ago. Sajee suddenly laughed cheerfully. She didn't say anything but she stopped shuffling.
"I think there's something wrong with her," the old Paleoindian tapped his temple. "You probably won't get anything out of her," he said with a tone as if he shared the same adversary as Lin Sanjiu.
Sajee laughed again but she did not give Lin Sanjiu a reply. Instead, she turned to Faun and smiled, "Why don't you ask the guard if he noticed anything unusual?"
As she spoke, she gestured at the upslope path before them. However, her gesture was very strange. She did not stretch her arms, but she withdrew her elbow, like a chicken wing, and pointed at the guard post up ahead. Lin Sanjiu instantly realized that the girl intentionally avoided reaching out to the spot where the dirt had landed.
When Lin Sanjiu saw Faun nodding his head, and raising one of his hoofs to take a step forward, she got anxious. She shouted and grabbed Faun's cape. As the warning sign fell from her shoulder, Faun's hood was partially pulled down, revealing a delicate, handsome face with a puzzled expression.
"What... what's the matter?" He seemed very uncomfortable that people were looking at him. His fair skin rapidly turned red. He quickly put his hood back on, "Don't randomly grab my clothes!"
Evidently, he did not notice the abnormality.
Lin Sanjiu shot a glance at Sajee who was beaming, feeling an inexplicable bout of anger. Just when she was about to interrogate the girl in front of everyone, something caught her gaze. She gasped quietly along with the other people around her.
The yellow warning sign which had slipped off her shoulder landed on the ground, incidentally, at the boundary where the dirt disappeared. The yellow sign suddenly dissolved in mid-air. After half a second, it appeared at a spot half a meter away. However, there was an unfathomable gap between the warning sign's board and its handle. Yet, in a blink of an eye, the handle had reattached itself to the board, as if what everybody saw was just an illusion.
"What... what's going on?" Faun asked in confusion before looking at Lin Sanjiu. After two seconds, he quickly turned his head to Sajee as if he had also caught the gist of the matter.
"Miss Sajee, shouldn't you tell us what you know?" Lin Sanjiu asked coldly.
After she said that, other members of the team stepped forward surrounding Sajee, who started looking left and right at the people around her.
"Hey, why are all of you so serious?" Sajee looked at the posthumans surrounding her. Then, she looked behind. She scratched her hair and said, "I didn't expect this either. I mean, I heard a rumor once and now it seems like it is true."
She stuck her tongue out. The tip of her tongue was white and not pink. "Alright. Alright. I'll tell you guys. Let me ask you a question. What is a pocket dimension?" Sajee smiled.
There was total silence for one second. The young man, in a Zhongshan suit who looked the most normal among them, answered, "From what we currently know, it is a sort of apocalyptic world that failed to develop fully. For some unknown reasons, quite a few pocket dimensions adhere themselves to fully formed apocalyptic worlds, existing within them."
"That's right," Sajee opened up her arms as if she had already given them the answer, "See, you guys know this. Imagine a fetus that can't grow up. As it watches its brother grow up into a tall, strong youth, how could it simply accept its fate? Even if they don't want to resign to their fate, most of these 'fetus' can't do anything. However, this particular pocket dimension we found happens to be a little different. It is trying to imitate its 'brother', and it is slowly taking over its brother's territories…"
Ignoring the shell-shocked expressions of her listeners, Sajee continued with a grin, "We can consider ourselves lucky. The pocket dimension we entered is a Growth-type pocket dimension which had just awoken. Once it starts to supersede Red Nautilus, I really have no idea how it would impact the people affected by it… Huh? Why are you looking at me like that? Since there are Growth-type posthumans, naturally, there are also Growth-type apocalyptic worlds."