"Nothing's going to go wrong, right?"
Looking at the visibly distorted area before him, Ed still had just a tiny bit of concern.
After all, only after reading the panel had he learned that his current level was just 2. His combat power probably wasn't much better than a goose's.
Of course, that had to be a goose from back home, not one from here.
And Little Green was clearly rather incompetent as a system. A normal system should have provided a basic danger warning at a time like this, but this wretched sapling was the quiet type. As long as he didn't ask, it defaulted to slacking-off mode.
"It's fine."
Little Green's voice came:
"The rules here have been distorted, but not by anyone's actions. As long as you go along with them, nothing will happen."
"Go along with them?"
Ed pondered what that meant. Standing on the third marble step, he stepped forward into empty space.
The next moment, he felt an invisible force acting on his body. Both the strength and direction of gravity seemed to have changed, and the extent to which those changes took effect depended on his subjective will.
Ed chose to go along with it, and the world spun.
When the motion stopped, the ground that had just been beneath his feet was now in the upper left of his field of vision, and his feet rested on a step suspended in midair.
Ed immediately understood: only the outward appearance of things had changed here. The castle's underlying structure was still maintained by the distorted rules. In other words...
He closed his eyes and kept stepping forward, paying no attention to the alternating sensations of weightlessness and increased gravity.
After five steps, Ed opened his eyes. The castle's wooden doors were right in front of him.
"Little Green, are there any traps here?"
The situation before him felt like he was about to enter a dungeon, and Ed couldn't help following his instincts and asking his half-baked system.
"Would you install traps at your own front door?"
Little Green's voice carried a hint of exasperation.
"No, but that might also be because I don't own a castle."
Reassured, Ed pressed both hands against the dark brown wooden doors. They seemed to be several centuries old. All the patterns carved into them had rotted away, and the hinges connecting them to the frames were covered in rust.
But to his surprise, the doors swung straight back with the slightest push. The hinges moved so smoothly that resistance might as well not have existed, without making a sound.
Everywhere he looked inside the castle bore signs of decay. Clearly, before the mana tides appeared, wood and stone had still been this world's primary materials.
And now, after who knew how many years, all the wooden objects had inevitably rotted, adding a musty smell to the castle's gloom.
Across the entire hall, aside from decaying wooden furnishings and textiles, there were only two skeletons with their skulls separated from their bodies.
It was already dim outside, and even opening the doors hadn't made the castle's interior noticeably brighter.
Ed's destination was a room hidden in the deepest part of the castle. Generally, the object bearing the territorial pact would be kept there.
To reach his destination, he would have to pass through most of the castle.
Looking at the eerie surroundings inside the castle, then at the two skeletons that had been dead for who knew how many years, Ed felt it was a bit like a haunted house.
That sense of familiarity brought another question to mind. Before going any deeper into the castle, he tapped the sapling again and asked:
"Little Green, if I remember right, this world has ghosts, doesn't it?"
"Souls certainly exist. Your current state is irrefutable proof. Given the context, the 'ghosts' you mean should be entities such as evil spirits or phantoms."
"Right, right, those. Are there any around?"
"According to my observations, no."
"Good, then."
Ed immediately relaxed. It would be perfectly normal for a place this old to have monsters like phantoms or ghosts. Now that he had confirmed it was safe, there was no problem.
Two minutes later, Ed was sprinting with Little Green across the rotting carpet in the castle's corridor, with a monster whose legs were different lengths hot on his heels.
"What the fuck is that thing?"
"An alchemical golem."
"Didn't you say it was safe?"
"I didn't say it was safe. I only said there were no phantoms."
"(*Indescribable profanity from his hometown)!"
As expected, Ed had successfully found the secret chamber deep within the castle, but the alchemical golem inside seemed a little cranky about being woken up. The shattered human bones in the corridor attested to that as well.
Time had left particularly obvious marks on the alchemical golem. Its uneven legs were the result of corroded metal. Ed had a unique kiting technique for monsters like this.
On his third lap around the ground-floor corridor, the alchemical golem's decaying metal body could no longer hold up. It tripped over a wooden stick jutting diagonally from the floor at a corner and collapsed into a pile of scrap with a clatter. The glowing runes inside and outside its body went completely dark as well.
Looks like this world hasn't unlocked stainless steel technology yet...
Returning to the secret chamber, Ed turned his left hand into dead wood, then used his psychic compatibility attribute to gather a little fire element and ignite it, holding it up as a torch.
The burning portion was effectively dead skin, so it didn't hurt. As long as Ed's metabolism was fast enough, the torch could keep burning indefinitely.
Little Green felt it had never seen anything like this. Carefully drawing in the leaves that had nearly been singed, it spoke in Ed's mind:
"What an eye-opener for a tree."
"You flatter me, you flatter me."
Ed used his left hand to light the candles in the secret chamber that hadn't yet burned out, revealing a small table and... a skeleton.
The skeleton wore tattered but luxurious formal attire. Even after the ravages of time, the outfit's value was still apparent.
His bones seemed to have suffered multiple fractures and mutations, to the point that they didn't look like human remains.
On the small table, besides a candelabrum that was now glowing and the faintly shimmering object bearing the pact, there was a palm-sized piece of animal hide with several lines of writing on it.
The writing was divided into two sections. The first was fairly normal, while the second was an utter scrawl, as though it contained endless resentment.
Ed leaned closer to examine the hide and discovered, to his surprise-
What the hell does this say? I can't read!
Half of the soul that now made up Ed came from another world, while the other half had been a test subject since childhood. Between the two of them, they didn't recognize a single word.
This really was starting life in another world as an illiterate.
Fortunately, Ed still had his exclusive cheat. It was just that...
"Little Green? Translate this for me."
Ed pinned his hopes on the sapling. This fellow, who represented omniscience to a certain degree, could undoubtedly read this world's writing.
"You just singed my leaves yellow."
The sapling seemed rather unhappy. Ed pondered for a moment, then said quietly:
"Bro Tree, there were people around back there..."
Having watched countless films in his previous life, Ed quickly found a suitable scene to borrow and began using it to clear up the misunderstanding.