On some year, some month, some day, some hour, some minute, some second.
The world below was as it had always been. The observable area was clear, windless, with sparse clouds.
Gawain quietly gazed at the distant land from an absolute overhead perspective, quietly contemplating life—after all, there was nothing else he could do.
He could no longer remember how many years he had remained in this state, nor did he know what he even looked like now. Though he could roughly judge the passage of time by the changing of day and night, honestly—after hundreds of thousands of day-night cycles, he had stopped bothering to count.
So this counted as transmigration, right?
Honestly, Gawain took the whole "transmigration" thing rather well. It was not that he was so enlightened that he could treat life and death as nothing. Rather, when the plane had fallen from the sky in his previous life, he had realized that life was unpredictable and death lay in fate's hands. After all, in a situation where he was definitely going to die, getting a chance to transmigrate was better than actually becoming a splat on the ground. What he could not accept was why he had ended up floating in the sky after transmigrating...
And floating there for who knew how many tens of thousands of years at that.
Gawain had no idea what state he was currently in. He could not shift his viewpoint, nor could he feel the existence of his body. In fact, aside from vision, he had completely lost his ability to perceive the outside world. So he could not determine whether he was a lingering soul or a space corpse drifting in orbit. But one thing was certain: he definitely was not floating here in the state of a normal human being.
Because he was sure that the mental structure of a normal human could never remain as clear-minded and retain such complete memories as he did after floating alone in the sky for so many tens of thousands of years, much less still have the leisure to contemplate life.
A normal person would have gone insane long ago.
But he had not gone insane. Not only had he not gone insane, his memory was extraordinary.
The passage of tens of thousands of years had not affected Gawain's memory in the slightest. Even now, he could clearly recall everything he had experienced in the final moments of his previous life—the piercing screams, the alarms, the violently shaking cabin, the rolling sky and earth beyond the window, the oxygen mask his seatmate could not get on no matter what, and the deafening boom when the plane broke apart in midair.
Everything was as clear as if it had happened yesterday. He also clearly remembered how shocked he had been when, after that boom, he opened his eyes again and found himself floating above this unfamiliar planet.
From the moment he opened his eyes again, he knew that what he was looking at was definitely not Earth's land and oceans. So he took a little time to deduce and accept the fact that he had arrived in another world, then spent much longer trying to figure out how to stop floating like this.
Unfortunately, the second matter did not succeed.
He discovered that he had been "fixed" in place. Or rather, perhaps his current form simply had no ability to move at all. He had become a "fixed point of view" overlooking the land, firmly confined to his current position. He could observe the land, but only the land. He could even only observe a restricted area of it—an irregular continent surrounded by a ring of ocean, while his field of vision could not reach anything farther beyond it.
He could not turn his line of sight left or right, so he could not determine whether there was any other land beyond that ocean. For the same reason, he had yet to see what the starry sky of this world looked like.
He could not even be sure whether this world had other celestial bodies. Maybe if he could just turn his view and look up, he would see some white-bearded God holding a spotlight and shining it over all creation.
Damn it, I really want to float on my back...
Even if all he could see after floating on his back was a white-bearded old man holding a spotlight and illuminating all creation, that would be fine.
Yet it was all wishful thinking. This perspective overlooking the land could not change direction.
However, after trying for a long time, Gawain still found one part of this perspective that he could manipulate. Though he could not move left or right, he could zoom in and out within this field of vision—or rather, draw his perspective closer or farther away.
After discovering this, he was delighted for a long time. Then he tried zooming his view in all sorts of ways. Though even at its farthest he could not observe anything beyond that ring of ocean, at least he could zoom in and see what exactly existed on the continent.
It was lush and vibrant, clearly home to life.
It would be nice if he could watch the daily lives of people in another world. Though he could still only float here, at least seeing the local customs and scenery of another world could ease some of his boredom, right?
Then he pulled his view in closer and closer, until he could clearly observe every blade of grass and every tree on the ground.
That day, he despairingly discovered that the mammals on the land...
Had not yet produced a single species that could walk upright...
But that was fine. Gawain was very patient—perhaps his patience had been limited when he was alive as a human, but after transmigrating into an overhead perspective, he discovered that he truly possessed immense patience.
He waited until the day those monkeys learned to walk upright.
Then many more years passed, and he personally witnessed the moment the first man-made flame was born.
It was made by striking flint.
The changes began after that flame was born.
Gawain did not know what had happened, but after the first flame appeared on the land, he felt that everything had suddenly "sped up." Or perhaps his own perception of time's passage had developed a problem. Events on the land began evolving rapidly, like a video fast-forwarded countless times. He saw those humanoid races swiftly build primitive tribes, then watched those tribes become early city-states. He saw them master inconceivable powers and use techniques that resembled magic to expand their territories. But before he could see clearly what was happening on the land, those early kingdoms turned into ruins one after another, and new humanoid creatures began multiplying anew from every corner of those ruins...
Humans and all manner of other races began fighting for living space on the continent. They established all kinds of kingdoms and beliefs, shouting the names of all kinds of gods as they warred against one another, before swiftly fading away again.
The process continued accelerating, and Gawain gradually became unable to process the enormous amount of information he saw. He watched dragon-like creatures suddenly enter his field of vision, yet did not know whether those "dragons" had evolved on the continent or come from beyond the ocean.
He saw war rise, flames of battle nearly burning away the entire land, yet in the blink of an eye, new civilizations had been established.
Only much later did he realize that it was not the process on the land that had sped up. Rather, he himself had "skipped" a vast amount of information.
His "observation" was becoming intermittent. What had begun as continuous observation turned into recording only a few images every few years, or even every decade or more. It was those images, separated by vast spans of time and linked together, that gave him the illusion that the process had accelerated.
He had been unable to realize this before because during the periods when his observational perspective was interrupted, his own thoughts were also frozen.
And when the observational perspective resumed, his thoughts continued as though seamlessly connected.
So he had been completely unable to notice the problem happening to himself.
This is bad.
Those three words flashed through Gawain's mind like lightning, but that lightning-fast thought had probably taken several hundred years.
Because he clearly saw the rise and fall of the world below—at the same time those three words surfaced in his mind, another kingdom had gone from prosperity to ruins.
Gawain did not know what was happening, but he knew this was definitely not normal. From those constantly flashing images, each spanning years, he realized that his thoughts were actually about to disappear.
Every hundred years, the total time he could think was probably less than a second.
And his "periods of interrupted thought" were still growing longer.
Because he realized that the leaps in the events below had reached an unbelievable level. Those rapidly changing "slides," flashing past like fleeting light, had nearly become completely incomprehensible.
If this continued, then after some moment, the mind known as "Gawain" would completely dissipate in this inexplicable place. He would sleep forever in that instant, with no chance to restart.
For the first time in who knew how many tens of thousands of years, Gawain felt urgency. He began frantically driving his thoughts, trying to break free from his current predicament. He felt as though his brain were spinning at incredible speed—if he still had such an organ. Countless thoughts erupted like a geyser, yet as he watched the constantly shifting "slides" below, he knew that his thoughts had actually slowed to the point of waiting a thousand years for a single frame.
Of course, that was a bit exaggerated, but the truth was not much better.
Break free from this. Break free from this. Break free from this. Break free from this...
No matter what method he used, no matter what form it took, he had to break free from this situation. Even if it meant returning to that plane about to crash, he could not die in this inexplicable place in such an inexplicable way!
Gawain felt his thoughts growing muddled and his consciousness gradually blurring. Even the previously "seamless" continuation of his thoughts seemed to be malfunctioning. He thought furiously and with all his strength, but having transmigrated into a fixed perspective, no amount of furious thinking could change the situation.
But just as he felt that his thoughts were about to completely dissipate or freeze, a voice suddenly came from nowhere:
"Energy failure. Host reboot failed. Escape procedure initiated."
In the next instant, that fixed perspective vanished—Gawain's vision went dark.
But his thoughts did not stop.
For the first time in countless years, he remained capable of thinking even with his "eyes closed."
He did not know how long he remained in that darkness. He felt as though he were tumbling, falling, entering somewhere cold and cramped. All kinds of sensations that had become unfamiliar came flooding in from every part of his body, throwing his mind into chaos. Amid that chaos, he vaguely heard a young woman's voice, sounding extremely panicked:
"Don't... don't kill me yet! More importantly, your ancestor's coffin lid is about to burst open!"
(Everyone! I'm back!)
Before you continue