Ch.418[Episode 418] Easter Egg – An Unexpected Voyage

Sir Dominic felt the surroundings gradually rising as he rode the ferry.

No, the surroundings weren’t rising.

“Is the… water level dropping?”

Sir Dominic discreetly looked around.

There were quite a few pillars and islands scattered as Easter eggs on the way to the center of the sea.

By looking at the wet portions of these pillars and islands, he could roughly determine how much the water level had dropped.

“…Good heavens.”

After checking the nearest pillar, Sir Dominic let out a troubled sigh.

The difference between the wet portion and the current sea level was almost 10-15 meters.

Even accounting for the waves, it was a serious difference.

“Perhaps I should go somewhere nearby and wait for a while…?”

Sir Dominic was momentarily confused by this inexplicable situation, but soon thought of docking at a nearby island to observe the situation.

He tried to row toward the closest island, but couldn’t reach it.

Rather, he was moving away from it.

“What’s happening?”

Sir Dominic was bewildered as he watched the island growing more distant.

Then, he suddenly noticed something strange about the flow around him.

He realized that the water around him was flowing fiercely toward one particular direction.

“Has the… ocean current changed?”

Sir Dominic stared blankly at the water flow for a moment before feeling a chill run down his spine.

This was an extremely ominous sign.

Sir Dominic didn’t know much about the sea.

He had spent most of his life on land, which meant he knew absolutely nothing about the ocean.

So the fact that even Sir Dominic could see the current meant the situation was becoming increasingly urgent.

He desperately rowed against the flow.

However, having no experience with such situations, he continued to be dragged along by the current.

“Whoa!”

Suddenly, Sir Dominic felt the ferry lift off.

No, it wasn’t just a feeling.

A wave, amplified by the current, had launched his ferry into the air.

Sir Dominic instantly let go of the oar and grabbed onto the ferry.

The ferry splashed back into the sea, but fortunately, it didn’t flip over.

The problem was…

“Oh no!”

The oar he had been using to move the ferry was now gone.

Sir Dominic had no choice but to surrender himself to the strong current.

And so, the ferry carrying Sir Dominic began to be pulled somewhere.

Along with several other floating objects.

…

“Good heavens.”

Sir Dominic suddenly noticed something falling from the sky.

At first, he thought it might be foam from breaking waves or perhaps rain.

But that was his misjudgment.

Or perhaps he was half right.

What was falling from the sky was actually the sky itself beginning to collapse.

Pieces of the sky fell into the sea creating white foam, so Sir Dominic’s guess wasn’t entirely wrong.

He held tightly onto the small ferry.

The current was growing stronger, and the path ahead had turned into a maze of reefs due to the collapsed sky.

The terrain was too treacherous for Sir Dominic to navigate, but fortunately, instead of having the ability to read currents or possessing excellent steering skills, he had something else to compensate.

It was [Cinematic].

Whenever Sir Dominic was about to collide with a reef, Cinematic would make him narrowly avoid it.

Of course, the ferry sustained some damage, but not enough to sink.

The current grew increasingly rapid, and the terrain became more treacherous.

He collided with reefs that even Cinematic couldn’t help him avoid, and the ferry rocked with the waves.

Even Sir Dominic felt a chill down his spine when the ferry, lifted by waves, charged directly toward a reef.

Fortunately, his high defense and health stats prevented him from being shattered to pieces, but he couldn’t endure like this forever.

Sir Dominic was now filled with the desire to escape this place.

“!”

Did the sky sense Sir Dominic’s feelings?

He finally escaped the reef maze formed by the collapsed sky.

However, Sir Dominic couldn’t rejoice about escaping the maze.

“Out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

This was because of the massive whirlpool swirling before his eyes.

The whirlpool was sucking water downward in a cone shape, and the current was so fast that the collapsed sky turned to powder the moment it touched the whirlpool.

“Good heavens.”

Sir Dominic lamented at the sight.

But there was nothing he could do.

There was nothing to control, and all he could do was surrender himself to the current.

“Hmph.”

In this frustratingly unreasonable situation… Sir Dominic laughed instead.

“If it’s an unexpected Easter egg like this, that’s fine. It has a thrilling feeling.”

With that thought, Sir Dominic began to be sucked into the whirlpool.

In fact, until just now, Sir Dominic had been moving around this place without even knowing what an Easter egg meant.

In other words, to Sir Dominic, this place had just been confusing and not fun.

But he really liked this Easter egg designed like an attraction.

It gave him a sense of tension that he rarely felt.

…Of course, this wasn’t an Easter egg or an attraction as Sir Dominic thought, but at least that’s what he believed.

He never imagined that this was happening due to a coder’s mistake.

“It’s fun, but… I don’t want to come here again.”

Sir Dominic said as he began to be sucked deeper into the whirlpool.

Like an ant falling into an antlion’s pit, he was gradually pulled toward the black hole formed in the center.

If there was a difference, it was that unlike an antlion’s pit, Sir Dominic was spinning violently.

And so, with his final dozens of rotations per second, Sir Dominic disappeared into the whirlpool.

Even after swallowing Sir Dominic, the whirlpool continued to suck in this world.

…

All coders create bypasses that only they can use.

Part of the reason is to respond quickly when something happens, but another reason is simply because it looks cool.

These bypasses usually exist in places that ordinary people can’t and don’t know about.

For example, inside a plug at the bottom of the sea.

“…Where am I?”

Sir Dominic couldn’t gather his thoughts due to the violent spinning he had just experienced in the whirlpool.

The rotation was so terrifying that even Sir Dominic, who had considerable resistance to status ailments, felt dizzy.

When he came to his senses, he was still on the ferry.

He didn’t know how the ferry had remained intact during that violent spinning, but Sir Dominic was grateful.

The surroundings looked extremely strange.

“This is… a mysterious place.”

Sir Dominic was in a place where fluorescent green letters glowed against a black background, stretching out like musical staves.

The ferry carrying Sir Dominic was drifting peacefully, and looking down, he suddenly realized that each line was a cluster of letters.

[Liquid_Water_Pour-Water]

[0.0.117]

Sir Dominic read these letters carefully to see if they were also Easter eggs, but he couldn’t understand them at all.

“Hmm. I don’t understand…”

Stroking his chin, Sir Dominic moved along the codes as the ferry drifted.

Just like riding a boat on a river.

He suddenly took out his phone.

He wanted to find out where he was.

However, this place was out of service range, making searches and calls impossible.

“…This is troublesome.”

Sir Dominic sighed.

A person who knew nothing was in a place he knew nothing about, knowing nothing.

He was at a loss for how to resolve this situation.

Just then, Sir Dominic suddenly realized his phone was vibrating.

“?”

He picked up his phone again.

The S.P.Y app opened by itself, and a black slime jumped out from it.

“A slime?”

The slime wiggled happily at Sir Dominic’s words, then suddenly dived under the ferry.

“!”

Sir Dominic saw a blue gate forming where the slime had jumped.

It seemed to have squeezed between the codes to connect to another place.

Well, the slime originally had the ability to connect from Sir Dominic’s phone to Sir Dominica’s phone, so this was probably simple for it.

Having completed its task, the slime returned to Sir Dominic’s phone.

When Sir Dominic nodded slightly in gratitude, the slime shook its body left and right as if to say, “You’re welcome.”

Sir Dominic, thinking that anything was better than staying here, threw himself into the spinning blue gate.

He thought it would be better than remaining where he was.

The spinning blue gate that Sir Dominic had jumped into closed again after a brief moment.

The codes continued to flow intact and peacefully.