Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 1130 - 243 The second camp

Chapter 1130: Chapter 243 The second camp

"There’s no need to waste Philarx’s potions; there’s no need for medication here," Pannis said, looking back at a few Twisted Souls slowly chasing the team like they were under a high-level Slow spell, he waved to stop Lina from casting Divine Spell and the girls from taking potions. "With Ava leading the way, these Twisted Souls won’t catch up to us in their lifetime. I even feel there’s no need to run; maintaining a normal walking pace is sufficient."

The team had already left the first campsite of the expedition forty years ago. The discoveries at the campsite had made the atmosphere amongst the team members depressingly heavy. Although Pannis had emphasized several times that he was prepared for the worst, the girls could still sense a profound loneliness and sorrow emanating from him, despite his belief that he had hidden his emotions well; but thinking he could fool the girls who lived with him every day was far too naïve. However, the girls could entirely understand Pannis’s feelings. Before this, no matter what conjectures he made or what preparations he braced for, it was all merely based on speculation without any factual basis. But now, things were different. The images of the past that Ava saw at the campsite almost definitively confirmed Nellie’s existence and clarified the purpose of their journey—to personally sever the only hope of Nellie’s return, although whether it would really be Nellie who returned was another matter. Faced with such a choice, the girls questioned if they could maintain their composure as well as Pannis if they were in his position, probably having already crumbled in despair; Pannis’s ability to remain calm was nothing short of a miracle.

However, as sufficiently intelligent women, the girls would never bring up Nellie’s name at this time, nor would they be foolish enough to pierce through Pannis’s emotional façade, even if it was to comfort him. That would be an exceedingly foolish act. The best option right now was to act as if they hadn’t noticed anything, because they knew that for a man like Pannis, giving him enough time to heal his wounds slowly in the depths of his heart was the best treatment.

"Yes, don’t trust your eyes in this area heavily laden with Spatial Fragments; all sense of visual distance is unreliable here," the girls didn’t discuss what to do but intuitively kept everything as usual. The only worrisome Ava, whether by unspoken understanding or her nature, continued to speak expressionlessly, "Perhaps you think it is right beside you, but in reality, there might be a distance of several kilometers between you due to the spatial layers. Maybe one step ago you couldn’t see its shadow, and the next step, you might have crossed the spatial boundary and appeared right next to it. Of course, I’ll try my best to avoid the latter possibility."

"Why is it like this?" Lina asked puzzled, "Even if the Spatial Fragments are piled up here, shouldn’t the visual effect be uniform? How could some be far and some near?"

"Because Spatial Fragments vary in size, the smaller ones are less than a hundred square meters, while the larger ones can be tens to hundreds of square kilometers." Ava replied mechanically, "When you stand in a Spatial Fragment that’s a hundred square meters and look around, beyond the boundary of the Fragment, you see the same scenery present outside the area—a completely normal view. You can see the dense forest behind you and even the distant mountains, even though you are standing right at the center of this area. However, if you are within a Spatial Fragment that spans over hundreds of square kilometers and you want to see beyond the Fragment, you first need to let your sight cross the boundary of the Fragment, which is very difficult to do. Therefore, all you end up seeing is an open grassland, nothing else."

"That’s really interesting, and such an apparent anomaly remains unnoticed by everyone unless pointed out," Lina teased Pannis, "Even you, Pannis, didn’t notice it."

"Which just highlights the mystery of this area even more," Pannis took a deep breath, displaying his usual lazy smile, unconcerned, "Ava mentioned earlier that this area itself comes with an autoregulating feature, which not only adjusts the boundaries of the Fragment to appear normal, but it seems it can also affect the cognition of those within it, making them perceive anomalies as normal. Hmm, this brings the mystery of this space to a whole new level, worthy of being one of the most mysterious elements alongside time. Look, they have stopped chasing us."

Turning back to look, just as Pannis had said, the Twisted Souls had stopped their pursuit, standing dumbly in place, resuming their aimless, regular wandering as if they had completely forgotten everything that had happened before. Of course, for the Twisted Souls, which lack normal memories, it isn’t that they seemed to forget the presence of normal souls sensed earlier; they simply don’t remember it.

"Now, that’s strange," Vivian, holding onto Pannis’s sleeve to ensure she wouldn’t get lost, one hand holding a notebook, her fountain pen writing strange Magic Ciphers under the control of mana threads, suddenly looked up and asked, "Ava, according to your theory just now, visually, we can only see the space we’re in, and beyond that range, it appears normal, right? But if we change the perspective to that of the Twisted Souls, in their view, we are just moving normally, yet they can’t catch up no matter what, even if we traverse through several Spatial Fragments and true distances become significantly larger, to them, it would seem like we’ve only moved a few steps. Then why have they stopped chasing us? It can’t be such a coincidence that just the last few steps took us out of their perception range."

"You forgot one important factor," Pannis seemed to be trying hard to act normal, as if he had recovered from a setback, but whether it was Catherine, who was good at discerning people’s hearts like a noble, Vivian, who was accustomed to observing emotions, Lina, who possessed animal-like intuition about the people around her, or Freya, who had seen the darker side of human nature, could all read the forced strength in his facial details and actions. However, this was also a good sign, the fact that he was willing to feign strength meant he still cared about the girls and didn’t want them to worry on his behalf. This showed that he hadn’t submerged himself in his own world as he had when they first met. As long as he was willing to interact with the outside world, there was enough opportunity to gradually soothe his soul. Therefore, the girls finally sighed with relief in their hearts, smiling as they listened to him continue his pretense, "Didn’t you forget that the Twisted Souls don’t hunt enemies through sight? Their only perception of the outside world is the aura of the soul. They only pursue once they sense the aura of a normal soul. Ava, visual perception doesn’t allow us to see the specifics inside other Spatial Fragments, but what about the perception of soul aura?"

"Sorry, there are no detailed explanations about the soul’s aura in the records." Ava paused for a few seconds, then shook her head vigorously, her long blond hair flying behind her. "Therefore, I can’t answer this question."

"That’s alright, even though there’s no theoretical answer, reality has already confirmed it." Pannis rubbed Ava’s head while the girl squinted comfortably like a cat and said, "Judging from our recent encounters with Twisted Souls, the perception of the soul’s aura seems to be based on the actual distance between each other, meaning the distance within every space adds up together in the calculation, unlike sight, hearing, and smell, which are confined only within the space we’re in and normal spatial range."

"Is it the same with smell?" Catherine instinctively sniffed the air. "How did you conclude this? Did you leave some strangely scented marker earlier?"

"No, it’s just a pure speculation," Pannis shook his head. "It’s actually quite simple; look, there are a lot of wildflowers around us, right?"

"Of course, there are a lot." Catherine couldn’t help but roll her eyes. "Did you go smell a particular wildflower and then, from a great distance, distinguish that flower from the others? I don’t believe it."

"I wouldn’t believe it either, unless there is a unique scent; even a dog couldn’t do that." Catherine’s response elicited a wry smile from Pannis, the first smile that wasn’t a façade since then, though he didn’t realize it himself and merely answered helplessly, "This meadow, or rather, this prairie as Ava says, spans tens of thousands of square kilometers, and these wildflowers are real. If you think about concentrating flowers from tens of thousands of square kilometers into a few hundred kilometers, how dense they would be, do you remember the floral path in the Whispering Swamp? If smell could penetrate through other spaces, the effect would be similar to the floral path. However, we didn’t smell such an intense fragrance, which means smell, like sight and hearing, is blocked by space. But that’s normal; the mystery of the soul is no less than that of space, and it’s completely logical that spatial laws can’t block the perception of the soul."

"Pay attention," Ava suddenly interrupted Pannis, saying blankly, "We’re approaching the second campsite."

"So soon?" Catherine asked in surprise, "Didn’t it take them four days total, and aren’t there supposed to be three campsites? Why is the distance between the first and second so short? Even with Spatial Fragments..."

"The actual distance between the two campsites is one hundred seventy-three kilometers," Ava said expressionlessly. "It completely matches their pace, not too fast."

"We’ve come that far already, huh?" As she stepped forward, Catherine exclaimed in surprise, noticing that not far ahead, a campsite had already appeared.