The hopes and calamities known to humanity all came from New Continent Travelogue: East, written by Don Freecss, while its companion volume, "West," had remained missing.
Now—
Moyu and his companions had met Don Freecss, who was still alive.
That alone showed that New Continent Travelogue: West was not missing, but still being written. Or rather, Don Freecss had yet to finish exploring the coastline on the other side of the Dark Continent.
So when Don Freecss said they were "heading in the wrong direction," Moyu's heart sank. This was precisely the outcome he had least wanted to see.
But the words that followed brought a gleam to his eyes.
A pipeline that could take them straight to the swamp where the nitro rice grew...
That would spare them wasting too much time on a long journey.
With his back to the group, Don Freecss collected the faintly glowing sand dropped by the unidentified pendulum-clock creature into a small, exquisite glass bottle.
The glass bottle was not man-made, but a naturally formed crystalline object.
The faintly glowing sand settled at the bottom, and Don Freecss took out a stopper and sealed the bottle.
Once the stopper sealed the opening tightly, the sand at the bottom suddenly began to move slowly, rising to float inside the bottle.
Holding the bottle between his thumb and forefinger at its top and bottom, Don Freecss gazed closely at the faintly glowing, starlike grains inside.
When he had regained consciousness upside down, he had already understood what had happened.
Now, seeing the clock's remains and the starlike sand inside the bottle, he found himself curious instead...
How exactly had the young man who had come to the Dark Continent in search of nitro rice resisted the Wayward Clock's mind-control ability?
After all—
Although the Wayward