Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 1121 - 234: The Extra 22 Steps

Chapter 1121: Chapter 234: The Extra 22 Steps

"Timer." Everyone formed a circle and sat on the lawn, which looked like a green carpet. Pannis lay on his back, his head resting on his hands, one leg crossed over the other, a blade of grass dangling from his mouth. He seemed to be leisurely enjoying the verdure that perhaps had not been trodden by life for hundreds of years. However, not long after, he suddenly sat up and asked Vivian with a sharp gaze, "How long has it been?"

"Four minutes and thirty-nine seconds," Vivian said with a rattle as she closed the timer in her hand. There seemed to be a hint of relief in her expression, "You’re testing for five minutes, right? It seems that there is no problem with the perception of time."

"Hmm, five minutes," Pannis nodded, stroking his chin, "If the perception of time got distorted, it would be very troublesome. It’d be best if we could rule it out. But we can’t completely exclude this possibility now because, first, we were just sitting and didn’t move around like before, and second, if this distortion and interference are periodic, like every few minutes or every couple of hours, then our experiment would be invalid."

"It’s possible, but the likelihood that we just happened to start our experiment during a blank period isn’t high," Vivian said, her head bowed, three pens under the control of mana threads, recording different data in three different notebooks. Those who didn’t know her past might find it hard to understand how she could accurately record every piece of information with such divided attention. However, her teammates knew that her multitasking was the result of over a decade of suffering. Controlling her body to perform various actions was far more difficult than controlling three pens at the same time. The Mage girl continuously recorded with the three pens while finding the leisure to ask, "Should we ignore this possibility for now and start the next experiment?"

"The next experiment is simpler, who has the tape measure? Oh, Freya, take it out and set it aside for now. We’ll use it later," Pannis said as he took out a climbing rope and placed it aside, took off his bow and arrow, took a deep breath, and after a moment’s contemplation, suggested. "For the first test, let’s start with a thirty-meter distance. You all help to estimate about where that would be."

With a "whoosh", an arrow with a sharp whooshing sound shot into the sky, tracing a standard parabola, and precisely hitting the spot Pannis had estimated. Pannis looked around at the others, who all nodded in response. It was clear that the arrow’s landing spot was not very different from where everyone had estimated thirty meters to be.

"It seems that even if our sense of distance is being interfered with, we are affected together, at least our perceptions among each other are not too different. If one person thought it was only five meters while another insisted it was seventy or eighty, that would be a headache," Pannis joked, but no one seemed to find the humor in his remark. With a resigned sigh, Pannis got up, picked up one end of the climbing rope, and walked towards the location of the arrow.

"Wait," Catherine interrupted Pannis instinctively, "You just said that moving around randomly is very dangerous."

"Don’t worry, it’s only thirty meters," Pannis said nonchalantly, waving his hand, "I’m just going over to measure it, I’ll be right back. Don’t worry, such a short distance won’t present any danger."

"Usually, people who say that sentence never come back," Dillie remarked sarcastically from the side, "Have a good journey, idiot Kyle. Next year, I’ll sweep your grave for you. Hey, shooting arrows randomly is dangerous, and we still haven’t found the problem. What if you really hit me because your sense of space is misplaced?"

"Tsk, missed the shot," Pannis said with a face full of regret, quickly darting forward, and within seconds, he was at the arrow’s location. Catherine marked the climbing rope from where she stood before gesturing to Pannis, who hurried back to the team a few steps later, but with a puzzled look on his face.

"What’s up?" Lina asked curiously, "By the look on your face, it seems like you’ve found some problem."

"I’m four steps short," Pannis frowned, hesitant, "I took four steps less coming back than going there, that’s about five to six meters. I tried my best to keep the steps the same size, and even with slight differences, the distance shouldn’t be off by so much over such a short span. There’s definitely a problem here."

"The distance itself is not an issue," Vivian had already swiftly measured the length of the climbing rope, recording while saying, "The distance is thirty-one and a half meters. Since it’s an estimate, being a meter and a half off is still within an acceptable range."

"It shouldn’t be a problem with the sense of distance," Pannis shook his head, "I definitely took an extra four steps, the problem must be with those extra four steps. Wait for me, I’ll go a bit farther and try it out, to see if it becomes more obvious."

"Don’t go too far, be careful not to be able to come back," Catherine cautioned, "Don’t go beyond a hundred meters, and hurry back. Any further and there might indeed be a danger."

"I got it," this time Pannis didn’t say anything that would prompt Dillie to tease him, he just smiled and nodded, once more leaving the team. This time he walked noticeably farther than before, with the girls watching from a distance. After around a hundred meters, he began to head back. Those who had been watching him finally noticed the problem. His speed was nearly constant, and the distances between his steps were almost equal, but the time it took for him to return was at least ten seconds longer than the time it took for him to go. It was a very eerie feeling, as if the speed and distance remained the same, yet the time inexplicably changed.

"You noticed it too, didn’t you?" Pannis started upon his return, "This time I took twenty-two extra steps. It seems like the distance was indeed lengthened. Strange, it doesn’t make sense, how could twenty-two extra steps just appear out of nowhere?"

"Indeed, we all saw it," Catherine also was full of confusion, "Even if we don’t measure it, if it was just a problem with the perception of distance, the time it took to go and return should be the same since you started from a point and returned to it. It’s illogical for there to be a discrepancy in the distance when returning on a straight path between two points. It feels as if this stretch of distance is filled with elasticity, stretching and contracting at times, and it is puzzling."

"Anyway, since it’s not our perception that’s the issue, we shouldn’t encounter what I just mentioned about walking and bumping into Twisted Souls," Pannis said, "If push comes to shove, we’ll just keep walking forward. We move quickly anyway, and once we reach somewhere normal, it’ll be fine. The only regret is that we can’t figure out what’s going on here."

"Because this space, it’s made up of fragments," Dee interjected.