Shikkotsu Forest was an exceptionally damp place, shrouded year-round in highly acidic mist. Any creature that wandered in would have its flesh rapidly corroded away, leaving only bones too difficult to dissolve. Those bones remained perpetually wet, giving the place its name: "Wet Bone Forest."
Like the other two of the Three Great Sage Lands, Shikkotsu Forest physically existed in the Shinobi World. But its extreme concealment and supernatural barrier made it so difficult to reach that it might as well have occupied another dimension. In a sense, the Three Great Sage Lands were secluded realms set apart from the rest of the world.
Aside from contractors arriving directly through the Reverse Summoning Technique, the only way in was sheer luck. Trying to find any of the Three Great Sage Lands on foot or by air was all but impossible.
Shinichi, naturally, had come by way of the Reverse Summoning Technique. After a brief distortion of space and time, the scene before him came into focus.
He stood in a dense, untamed primeval forest. The air was thick with the smell of soil and rotting leaves, mixed with a sharp, sour tang.
That tang came from Shikkotsu Forest's Highly Acidic Mist. An ordinary person standing here would have their organs destroyed and their insides eaten away within a few breaths.
Only Shinichi's now-superhuman constitution allowed him to stand unharmed in the deadly mist. Even so, each breath brought a faint, prickling pain deep in his chest and lungs, as though countless fine needles were lightly jabbing him.
Even he could not stay here long.
No wonder little Katsuyu had hesitated for so long before agreeing when he asked to visit Shikkotsu Forest.
For an ordinary contractor, coming to a place like this would be a death wish.
Shinichi looked around.