Chapter 15: Confirmation of Alternate Dimension Hopping

In the following days, I spent my time hunting monsters on the floor below and doing scavenge runs on the other rooms within the Faded World. Then, a week has already passed. I've scavenged anything I felt useful in this entire floor, and they were now within my room. With some of my haul, I've used them to improve the fortifications around my room, even using some of them to block the entrance to the porch connected to my bedroom.

The situation outside was turning worse. I've seen a flesh mountain forming directly below me on the streets. I would normally try and burn it with my homemade molotov, but I felt incredibly paranoid these days. I still wondered how those zombies from my apartment reached me. Sometimes, I wonder whether it had something to do with me constantly throwing molotov to burn them that these zombies somehow learned where I'm located, even though logic dictated it should be impossible.

They're zombies! How could they learn something like that?

Imagining zombies having intelligence made me shudder. If they truly had the capacity to think, then just throwing a molotov at them with the expectation that they would just stupidly roam around without a care wouldn't be viable anymore. I'll have to think of other ways to hunt them safely!

Still, even if I'm in denial, I'm being cautious enough to just take note of that possibility and work on it. They've shown some manner of pattern recognition throughout the days I've been hunting them. More zombies have been gathering in places that I've already swept up on the lower floor. They weren't really doing anything special other than their usual shambling around, but they gave the impression that they were looking for someone. I assumed they were looking for the person killing their kin, which, in this case, is me!

So I really don't want to lead them to the fifth floor. Even if I barricaded the hallways and the stairs leading to my room, I didn't want to let them know that I'm living here. I preferred if they just ignored me forever and let me hunt them without any resistance. That will make my life easier!

There is also the problem with the monsters outside. Even if I'm just hallucinating the assumed intelligence of these zombies, there is a possibility that the other monsters have it. Those birds might realize someone is living here and attack me. There were other monsters who also arrived near here, like those giant worm-like creatures with some sort of hard exterior shell roaming around the streets. What if they were intelligent?

I also heard some rumbling in the distance and sometimes even heard sounds of demolition. Whatever it was, I didn't want to know and hoped that whoever was responsible would move away from the location. There is also that weird tentacle flesh thingy that is continuously spreading its goo-like body on the streets like they are overflowing liquid. It was slow, but I am seeing them in the periphery of this building from my vantage point on my balcony whenever I check through the Faded World. Unlike the flesh mountains, the birds were avoiding that flesh thingy goo like it's a plague, and one time, I saw its tentacles snatch up unfortunate zombies who got near its body in an instant and slurp them up with its tip until nothing was left of their bodies. So even these zombies couldn't deal with this tentacle goo.

I don't know each of these monsters and what they can do. I also don't know if they can recognize patterns or have some sort of intelligence that will make it possible for them to scheme against me.

Regardless, I chose to be more careful than ever. I don't want to hint to them that someone is living on this floor.

About my progress on my grind, it's a lot slower than I was expecting. Killing zombies is quite easy so long as I hit their head. My continuous zombie hunts made me quite proficient at swinging a golf club, and they also made me skilled at dealing with zombies. Because I kept hunting them, I learned that the heads of these zombies are quite literally softer than tofu, so even a full-powered punch by me will cave their faces without issue. It's as if these zombies didn't originate from humans but rather some sort of creature imitating humans only. It is very noticeable because, unlike their heads, any part of their body is tougher than a normal person's. I need more effort incapacitating them when hitting their limbs, and even other parts that are supposed to be soft, like their belly, feel like I'm hitting a wall.

With my continuous zombie hunts, I accumulated enough mana to stay in an alternate world for more than an hour. It's my first step for my penultimate goal of grinding enough mana to stay in a mirror world for a whole year.

Now, I'm just done with my grind and is currently in my room doing something. Originally, I planned to make some improvised weapons and tools with all of the stuff I have looted on this floor, but later realized that there was something more important I could spend my free time on.

Learning more stuff about my powers!

It's been five days. Not once did those monsters detect my presence here. That meant this place was safe enough to conduct my experiments. I'm already done looting anything useful on this floor, and with Faded World, I could only roam this place unperturbed for half an hour. Even if I could just ignore the monsters roaming on the lower floor due to being technically not in the original world, it was hard to see because the whole world itself was monochrome, and it was hard to focus on looting when there were zombies roaming on it. In fact, I just tried yesterday, and instead of looting, I became more distracted at killing more zombies because they kept walking past me and startling me!

Using Invisible Strike costs mana, so my time in the Faded World further shortens whenever I kill zombies. It couldn't be helped that I wouldn't try it anymore, well, unless I managed to wipe out all the zombies roaming below the floor.

Anyway, I wanted to experiment. This place is safe enough. I checked the outside through the balcony in this room, and there wasn't anything happening that would threaten my life hiding in this room. I could spare some time testing my powers.

I kept calling my power as Dimension Hopping. Though I haven't really done any dimension hopping at all. At most, I'm only stepping on a perfect replica of my reality. There might be a chance it's not really dimension hopping but some sort of pocket dimension creation where I just make a copy of my world, and it lets me interfere with it whenever I want. It keeps draining my mana, so I think it means that the pocket dimension is being anchored by my mana. I don't know what happens when I leave those worlds. Do they collapse on their own? Or maybe I just leave them just like that?

I don't know, so I want to know more!

Does it truly need to be a replica of my world? If my power is truly jumping from dimensions, then theoretically, I can just go to a parallel world!

Like, say, go to a typical Isekai setting? The one with dragons, magicians, kingdoms, and the like!

Learning what I can actually do is important for my survival. What if I can just leave this world and go to another, more peaceful world? Wouldn't that be more preferable than fighting for my life here?

So here I am. Trying to prove whether I can truly do it or not.

First of all, I'm going to jump into the peaceful version of this destroyed world. What I meant is that I want to go to another dimension where this apocalypse didn't happen.

Why did I choose to do that?

Well, it's because of the mana cost. Faded World costs twice the amount of mana as when I'm just staying in an empty mirror world. What if going to a parallel world costs a thousand times more, or even a million times? I might just drop dead!

I'll try doing something that is close to my reality. Let's shelve that thought about jumping into parallel dimensions until I learn just how much mana I need to do it.

"Okay... here we go."

I tried activating my power while wishing within myself to go to that world. To a version of this world where the apocalypse didn't happen. My heart leaps in joy when I feel the usual sensation of weightlessness while being yanked forward...

And then I only felt pain...

_____________________

"Ah!"

What the!? What happened!?

Ugh, my head! It hurts so much!

I looked around and saw that I was sprawled on the floor. My body felt so sore, and the pain in my head kept throbbing! It hurts so much!

I forced myself to stand up and go to my bed while nursing my head. Then I rested my head when I got there.

After some time of just pressing my head on the pillow and rolling around the bed in discomfort, I finally recovered enough to think coherently once more.

... Right, I tried going to the peaceful version of my reality.

My mana... I have half of it now. That meant I'd been incapacitated for a few hours.

That's bad. If that happened to me while I'm outside, I wouldn't even know how I died!

But anyway, it made me confirm my theory.

I can do it!

I can go to an actual alternate dimension!

I remember it before I got knocked out. In the brief time my vision flickered into a new scenery, I recalled the light that flashed in my eyes, the smell of cooked rice, meat, and egg, and the brief sight of a couple gazing at me with their eyes wide. I'm in the dining room at that time, and if I remember correctly, I did my experiment at noon. So they might be doing a late morning lunch or something.

Whatever. The important thing is the confirmation that I can go to another world!

That alone is great information!

The only downside is the mana cost. This experiment lets me know that using too much of it will knock me out. Running out of mana will also force me back to my starting point in the original world. I'll have to be careful not to use up all of my mana when I go out.

It's a shame that I can't use it right now and leave this hell behind, but it's fine. Even with that disappointment, just the confirmation is enough to give me hope!

Now, I just need to think about how I can use this knowledge to my advantage. Just an alternate version of this world costs so much it knocks me out. What else can I do with my powers?

... I'll think about that next time when I have more mana. For now, I'll eat and then take some rest. My head still hurts even when I recover enough to think properly.