Chapter 13: Faded World

I sat there for a long time. My attention was still focused on the dim sight of the bedroom door in the distance. I don't know how much time has passed since I did that. Minutes? Hours? It felt like an eternity to me as I waited for the warm energy within me to fill up.

Why is it so slow!?

I constantly found myself complaining like that within my mind.

I simply sat there, forcing my heavy eyelids to open wide while concentrating on the door. My mind is in a mess. The only thing I can think about is the mysterious something within that bedroom and thoughts about my own survival.

Instantly, as I was just staring at the door, I felt it. The warm energy within me is filling me up to the brim.

I finally recovered, and my head, while still feeling lightheaded, doesn't feel sleepy at all.

I belatedly realized that I slept without me noticing.

"Oh no!" I immediately stood up and patted my whole body.

... Nothing is wrong with me. The door behind me is still intact. The moans of the zombies are still echoing below this floor. And I also notice that the slurping sound is gone.

I'm glad... I thought something happened while I was asleep.

I didn't notice at all. I just realized it was morning when I checked the time on my phone.

Thankfully, nothing happened, but it made me shudder at just how careless I was even in the middle of hostile territory.

If only I could jump into the alternate dimension and also see what's happening in the real world... Wait, maybe that's possible?

Right. Why didn't I try that when I was still in my room? Am I stupid?

Even as I am chiding myself like that, I know within myself why I didn't try it. I've been complacent after just learning some parts of my power. There is a thought in the back of my mind that says, "It's fine, they won't get to my room," even though I'm scared of going outside my room. I'm aware of my bad habit of just being satisfied after I secure what I think is a stable life for myself.

I have already secured food, water, and shelter for myself. I thought I could live in that room forever by just scaring the perceived threats outside.

Now that I have some sleep and have had a long time to contemplate it, I realize, why not experiment more with my powers?

I have recovered my mana. I just need to know what else I can do with my powers.

I have time. This room seems to be safe enough.

So I tried doing that by thinking about it. Instead of simply jumping into the mirror world without thinking anything, I whispered within my mind.

I want to go into a world where I can still see what's happening in the original world!

The instant I activated my power, a strong force pushed my body forward. I didn't really get pushed, but it felt like someone just abruptly pushed my back. In the blink of my eyes, the world suddenly looked... What was the word, faded?

The room suddenly had this grainy, monochromatic color around it when I came to. It made me a bit curious that my reluctance to leave this position vanished as I stood up. I walked around the room, trying to touch stuff while I did so.

"Woah!?"

When I tried touching the sofa, my hand just passed through as if it were air. I immediately withdrew my hand and looked at them, gasping when I realized that only my hands had color.

How? What is this world!?

Even while I'm thinking like that, I could still hear from this faded world. The moans of the zombies below the floor and the familiar caws of the bird monsters that I've seen at my former base.

"... Maybe...?"

This is just a conjecture, but if my assumption is right, maybe this world acted like my own alternate dimension, but with the added benefit of being able to see what was happening in the real world?

Eager to prove it, I immediately walked towards the bedroom door and reached out to the doorknob. It slightly surprised me when my hand passed through, but I quickly recovered my wits and walked straight from the door and into the room. It is a weird sensation seeing nothing as my eyes pass through the interior of the door before opening to find myself already inside it.

The room has more light coming from the balcony than the previous room. It's a bit hard to make out some details due to the black and white perspective of this world. I walk towards that porch, not feeling the shards of glass and splinters of wood below my feet as I walk past the broken glass doors, and then look around. The sight made me scream for a bit when I looked to the skies.

At the roof of some buildings were birds. Lots of them nesting on top of it. Below the broken railings, it almost made me faint when I saw the sight of a huge, flesh-like creature covering the entire street with its body. Tentacles oozing with some liquid I couldn't identify stretched towards the skies, waving like seaweed in the oceans.

I glanced at the other outside balconies on my side, and unlike this one with broken glass doors and broken railings, the others looked intact.

I stayed outside, verifying some stuff before I jumped back to my starting point in the real world after I was done checking things out.

Okay, this is a lot to unpack.

First of all, I just realized that I can actually do that. If I had this power, I wouldn't have to leave my first base!

Whatever, what's done is done.

That black and white world lets me pass through obstacles as if they are illusions, and the monsters outside don't see me. I already tried shouting while I was outside, and not once did any of the monsters outside look at me. I don't have to assume. It's easy to understand that, while I can see them, they can't see or even hear me!

There is another issue, though.

The mana consumption of this aspect of my power is a lot more than my usual hopping on dead mirror versions of the original world. I feel it. The subtle pressure within my head is already making itself known in the short time I've been using it.

If I have to estimate, I think it drains twice the amount of mana than when I stay in an empty alternate world.

Even with that issue, this is still very useful!

In fact, if I manage to grind more mana, I can just use this to check things around my base.

With the discovery of this power aspect, it made me curious about something.

Can I do something else?

I'm curious but decided to shelve that thought for now. Right now, I have to do something.

This condominium looks more dangerous than my former base, but I think I can use this as my base. Specifically, I want to use this place just to grind more mana.

With more mana, I can do more stuff with my powers. The only limit with my power is my lack of mana. One hour is not enough for me anymore!

I need at least enough mana that will let me stay in a dead alternate world for a year. That is a large amount of mana, but I want to reach that as my long-term goal.

If I have that amount of mana, I think I will feel a lot safer. Just having this meager amount of mana doesn't satisfy me anymore.

I don't want to feel that sense of crisis again!

If I have to wipe out the entire monster population in this city, then so be it.

For my survival!

____________________

With my decision made, I decided to leave this room and go to another room that looks a lot more secure and has nothing strange in it. I used the new aspect of my power, Faded World, to check this room for anything weird in it, and after confirming that it was safe, I decided to block the entrance with copies of cabinets and wardrobes on it.

I decided to name this new aspect of my power the Faded World. I felt like it was cool, and it felt easier in my mind to use the power if I could refer to it as something than simply calling it another aspect of dimension hopping.

After that, I started duplicating my water bottles and canned tuna to eat and then took a rest in the bedroom. I didn't bother opening the glass doors on my balcony and simply closed everything in there. I chose a room that doesn't face that weird tentacle flesh monster on the street. This condominium was shaped like an L, and the longer part of this condominium faced the entire length of that tentacle flesh monster, so I chose a room on the other, shorter side of this condominium, at the edge of the room near the staircase.

There were two staircases in this condominium. Both were at the edge of each floor. There were also elevators in the middle of both lines of this condominium, but they were inoperable, which was obvious because there was no electricity in this place.

There were still the bird monsters on the rooftops, so I decided not to open the curtains of this room's porch. I have to be cautious.

After I was done resting on the bed and recovering my mana, I started experimenting with the Faded World. First, I tried whether I could affect the original world while I was in the Faded World.

The answer was yes. I could do it!

The only problem is that it drains more mana when I try doing so!

I tried touching my backpack while I was in the Faded World, and after concentrating for some time, I managed to do so. The black and white bag gained its colors back, and it left an identical backpack on the floor, with its color drained like the monochrome world around it. This let me discover that I could also duplicate items within the Faded World, though it costs mana.

A few more tests, and after an hour, I confirmed more things before I exhausted my mana and had to rest on the bed due to the throbbing headache it inflicted on me.

The Faded World is a lot more amazing than I thought!

It doesn't just let me see what is happening in the original world; it also lets me influence it by manifesting duplicated items in that Faded World by using mana. To simplify things, I can essentially just throw something and let it manifest in the real world by using some of my mana. Not just that, I can choose how I can influence the world with my actions!

If I focus harder, I can't just duplicate an object. I can push an object in the real world even if I'm in the Faded World. If I kick something, even if I don't feel it, the force of my kick will still occur in the original world.

Again, this used some mana whenever I did that.

But regardless, it made me realize just how underutilized my powers were. I don't even know if I discovered everything my powers could do or if there were more hidden aspects within it that I didn't know yet.

Regardless, I'll have to be satisfied with the discovery of the Faded World and its functions. My mana is insufficient to fully exploit it.

If I am going to use it to hunt monsters, I estimate I will only be able to stay within the Faded World for ten minutes. All actions that let me influence the real world while I'm in the Faded World drained mana, so it shortened my stay within the Faded World.

But it doesn't matter. With this power, I'll be wiping out the monsters in this building.

And later, I'll take care of that tentacle monster.

Starting right now, this place will be my new base!