One World Apart

Following Momo for quite some time, I finally began to see new terrain expand in my vision. Looking forward, I see these massive mountains, their tips protruding through the clouds, a layer of pristine snow on the top of these mountains. But looking downwards, the feet of the mountains are covered by yellow grass, and not much vibrant life could be seen. This new biome gave me a sense of foreboding, as if something was slowly sapping the life out of this landscape. 

As we approach the edge of the tutorial land, I encountered a slight issue.

There was a 1000 foot wide chasm wrapped around the main land, and looking down, it was all just void.

As I was pondering about how to get across this gap, Ranko woke up and yawned. I look away, telling myself to stay calm before looking back towards her. I hear her small voice say, 

"S-Sir, do you need any help?"

"Uh--N-no...I-I mea--y-yeah--no...?"

 MAN, I'm only thirteen years old, how could you attack me like this? I say silently to the world. 

Unable to string together a full sentence, I look away, and just point towards the canyon, and she seems to understand. 

"D-Don't worry, I-I can fly you o-over..."

With that, she starts glowing, and slowly, she begins to take the shape of that orchid mantis boss, except a lot smaller and cuter. I was able to speak a lot better to her in this form, and I asked,

"Can we climb on your back?"

The mantis nods its head, and with that confirmation, I climb onto her back. 

Surprisingly, it was very comfortable sitting on the mantis. I got prepared and grabbed onto small hedges to keep my grip, and we began to rise.

The wings beside me fluttered quickly, and the speed of ascent rapidly increased. Ranko starts to glide forward, and we begin traversing across the chasm. While crossing the chasm, I begin to hear sharp rasps, and looking around me, I discover that we are surrounded by some birds. 

I grab out my pistol, and begin shooting the birds one-by-one, eventually knocking all of them into the chasm. My menu recognized the birds as , which is the scientific name of a Northern Mockingbird. These birds are known to be aggressive, but they don't really cause much danger. At least that what I thought, until I was faced with a group of these mockingbirds that looked a lot more dangerous. Quickly analyzing these birds, they turned out to be , which were poisonous and also camouflaged themselves to its surroundings. Looking at the birds, their weak points seem to be some sacks hanging from their stomachs, but hitting these were very difficult if faced right-side up. 

How to kill them?

Face upside down. 

I tell Ranko to turn 180 degrees, and I start hanging from Ranko, with one hand grabbing onto her back and another hand holding my pistol. 

Ranko also seems to notice the danger, and slices some mockingbirds herself with those bladed forelegs. 

I shoot one of the sacks hanging from the birds, and sure enough, the birds explode, leaving behind purple feathers gliding into the chasm. Ranko and I glide down to catch these remains, and they turned out to be . I had no idea what that means, but I still collected all the feathers from the dying birds. Soon enough, all the birds were dead, and Ranko flipped back right-side up with me safely landing on her back. 

It was quite the exercise, but definitely not as bad as the tutorial boss fight. I see the edge of the main land come into sight, and prepare to jump onto land, but was blocked by a sudden gust of wind. Ranko lost some control over her flight and flew backwards, but quickly regained control and prepared for a fight. Looking up, I see a shadow fly downwards, and a much larger animal glide downwards. 

Is this another boss fight?!

I compose myself, dejected by the fact that another boss fight was incoming, but just as the animal was about to break through the clouds, it disappeared, and I only caught a glimpse of its figure. That one glimpse shocked me to the core, as the creature emitted a chilling presence that caused me to break into cold sweat. My hands were shaking, but frozen by my side, and my body would not listen to me. It was only after a couple minutes that I regained back my control, but that feeling of intimidation still held strong in my heart.

Ranko tries the fly back onto the mainland, and this time, was not blocked by any wind. We landed safely, and I climbed off her back, finally touching land with my feet. The landscape was just as I saw, alive, but somewhat in a dejected state, with little signs of life. 

Momo continues forward, and eventually reaches a mountain with a hole carved into it. It seemed to be a cave going downwards into the center of the land, with railroad tracks running on the ground. I walk into the cave, and notice that the cave goes a lot deeper than I initially thought, so I try to find a quick way to travel down the cave. Conveniently, an old minecart was lying against the wall of the cave, so I brought it out and placed it on the track, ready to get into it. Momo disappears, but I had to carry Ranko on the minecart, since there was only one. 

My chest was in pain, but luckily, Ranko fell asleep, allowing me to move more fluently and quickly. I push the minecart and hop into it right as it gains momentum, and I began to speed down the tracks. Using lumus bullets on the way, the only thing that surrounded us were rocks and old wooden structures scattered in the cave. After waiting for a couple minutes, a light started to shine at the end of the tunnel. A notification appeared,

Looking out, a massive hole appeared, but the hole was not empty. Buildings were attached to the walls of the hole, pathways were built across the hole, with stores lined up everywhere. Pulleys and elevators can be seen everywhere, with people bustling around lively in the whole city. There were farms, domesticated animals, and even mines everywhere, showing how self-sustainable this town was. The people seemed to have lived down here for a while, but when I was looking at this underground city, the railroad tracks stopped.

Eh?

I was flying out of the cart with Ranko in my hands, and landed in a net. As I landed in the net, I fell unconscious, and the last thing that I saw, were people hoisting the net upwards.