Discoveries in a new perspective || 1-1

Discoveries in a new perspective || 新発見のための新たな視点

Chapter 1 part 1

For the past few months, the people of Hyrule have once again remembered what it is like to live in peace, as the Demon King has been slain, and the kingdom’s face and shining ray of hope has returned— Princess Zelda. While Hyrule was left in ruin due to the events of the Upheaval , there is a silver lining nonetheless, as passageways to a sprawling underground world known as the “Depths” have been discovered.

Exploration into the Depths is only in its infancy, but the naturally curious Zelda is hard at work gathering resources to further explore this strange realm.

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Light is scarce in the Depths, and mere torches are far too dim to truly illuminate the surroundings, therefore Zelda and the Depths exploration team have been searching for alternative forms of lighting up their paths..

Of all such ways, none are more useful than the Brightbloom Flower, the seeds of which can only be found in various caves across Hyrule.

The flowers themselves grow very quickly when the seeds are struck, where they then emit a bright white light over their immediate surroundings which provides light for paths and camps for a significant amount of time. While they are incredibly easy to find, many caves have already been harvested for them, leaving only a few hard-to-reach caves with a plentiful supply of them.

While once dangerous, there have not been any recent monster sightings in Faron, which led Zelda to believe that it would be safe to trek to one of the caves at the northern end of the region to retrieve some untouched resources left by the fleeing monsters to aid with her own research into the depths.

While the brightbloom seeds are her main objective, she figured she may as well find additional luminous materials, such as mushrooms or fish, to concoct elixirs which make people glow.

Meanwhile, Link, her faithful friend and knight, would help the raiding parties take care of some lingering pirate monsters on Eventide Island; a small, isolated island to the southeastern borders of Hyrule’s seas, cut off from the mainland. This, as a result, would leave her completely alone for the first time in what felt like forever, without Link there to protect her if necessary…

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“Don’t worry!” Zelda thought to herself as she made her way towards a cave, “I’ll only be away for a little while, and it’s nice to be alone for once.”

“I just need to get a few flower seeds, and perhaps catch a few fish when I can. It’s as easy as pie!” With her worries eased, she entered the gaping mouth of the first cave that she saw, hoping that her quest would take only a few moments.

The first step she took was the most dangerous, as she failed to notice the steep slope which led down into the maw of the cave.

She noticed a few glowing objects down below though, and she leaned in a little further to get a closer look.

Suddenly, the aggressive climate of the Faron region kicked up a rough gust of wind, pushing her deeper into the cave. She tumbled down, half rolling and half sliding, and found herself at the bottom of the cave when she finally came to rest.

Though she brought a torch, some flint, and a little knife to light it in case she needed it, the natural sunlight from the cave’s entrance illuminated just enough of the surroundings to allow her to see some vague shapes in the cave. After standing up and shrugging off some dirt from her clothes, she marveled at the sheer amount of resources here, and took in every detail of the cave.

There was a small pond of what she presumed was rainwater to her left, with a few fish swimming inside. There were a few naturally formed pillars at the center and at the edges, and some familiar sightings of a few Brightcap mushrooms lining the walls, with a few Sticky Lizards scurrying away from the sound of her falling down into the cave. She noticed another hole in the back too, leading to an extended part of the cave.

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“Perhaps there’s a rare geode back there”, she thought. “It would be nice if I could give Link a gemstone as a surprise when he returns”

After entering the extended bit of the cave, she surveyed for a moment for any potential deposits of minerals.

This deeper part of the cave made it harder for the natural light to reach, and the fewer luminous materials resulted in less illumination, thus, poorer visibility;

she could only barely make out the outline of what she thought was a mineral deposit hanging from the ceiling.

Zelda noted how oddly shaped it was, however, making her lightly smile at the thought of perhaps coming across an exceptionally rare mineral deposit.

“I’ve never seen something shaped like this before. Not even the Zonaite deposits look like this. It must contain an exceptionally rare gemstone or something, how exciting!”

She walked forward until she was below the deposit, when the deposit she was looking at moved itself awake. The upper part of whatever Zelda was staring at coiled out in a slow, methodical manner, as the part that was hanging closest to her extended while waving from left to right.

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It appeared to be looking, or perhaps even smelling for something— Whatever it was doing, it finally sensed a prey.

The round part that faced her opened up to reveal a giant, slimy mouth, which instantly jumped, aiming for Zelda. She managed to dive out of the way of its initial lunge, but it still managed to grab a hold of her legs during her dive, and started pulling her towards itself.

“Let me go!”

Zelda exclaimed as the monster gained a firm grip on her, ignoring her request. As the monster continued its attack on Zelda, she recognised the monster as a “like-like”.

She remembered that this creature lurks in caves, and often spit projectiles at things they considered to be threats, while feeding off of small critters as food. They have been getting hunted out of Hyrule for some time, and are very nearly extinct, yet still, some remain in remote locations, such as those that Zelda now found herself in. This like-like in particular, however, looked… very strange, having slight aesthetic differences to others like it, as well as a particular aggression towards humans.

Recognising this, she tried to pull the knife she had stashed away behind her belt, to try and cut herself free from this creature’s grasp. But, just as she reached her knife, the monster suddenly pulled her further in, pinning her arms to her back.

Its hold had now extended far up to her waist, only climbing further upwards with every passing moment. Zelda tried to struggle free, but she could only feel the monster pinning her arms against her back even further, making her unable to fight back..

As it worked its way up to her neck, she cried out “Please, anyone, help!” one final time, before being entirely sucked into the slimy beast’s belly, experiencing what she assumed would be her final moments.

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Having been fully consumed, Zelda could see nothing, and hear nothing, other than the grotesque noises of the creature moving around to hold its prey.

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It was dark, tight, and very moist inside- the cramped space made it hard for her to breathe, or even move at all.

She was suspended in an upside-down position, causing all the blood in her body to flow to her head, thus allowing her to hear her own heart quickly beating.

Her loss of freedom made her incapable of stopping what the monster had in store for her next.

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Soon, glowing liquid started pouring down all over her body, completely soaking her clothes.

The sour scent gave Zelda the confirmation about the nature of the liquid: stomach acid! She is about to be digested!

In a burst of panic and desperation, Zelda screamed, kicked, and thrashed around as hard as she could to try and escape her fate, which only served to accelerate the spread of the digestive acid.

Now fully covered in acid, Zelda braced for what she could only imagine to be a very painful experience, expecting to slowly melt away inside of this monster.

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Instead, she was somewhat relieved to find that she wasn’t feeling anything burning at all.

Rather, she just felt slightly cold, as she looked to discover that the acid was not eating through her body at all.

The mutated stomach acid only bit through every fiber of the exploring clothes she loved so much, even her jewelry and the equipment she was carrying started slowly melting away into a bright yellow heap of liquid, before getting washed away.

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Zelda put all of her strength into one big kick against the monster’s insides, only to be twisted into an upright position, but not much more.

Continuing her desperate thrashing, She managed to free her arms again for a split second, before the fleshy interior of the monster sucked and absorbed Zelda’s arms and legs into its body.

The tightening flesh extended all the way up to her shoulders, as well as her feet.

This ultimately pinned her in place without any hope of escape.

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Exposed, and fully laid bare for whatever the creature had in store for her, she realized that she wasn’t dealing with a normal like-like.

They were never known to capture any people, only to then melt away their clothes. These actions felt way too meticulous…,

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…as if it had greater designs for her other than to simply eat her alive.

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The compilation of illustrations and a text file of the story will be available for download once a chapter is concluded.