Feeling a hit in his body as if he had fallen out of bed in a dream, Nathan woke up and then turned his head to vomit.
After he emptied the contents of his stomach, Nathan clutched his head in discomfort as the pain in his head invaded him.
'Ugh... What happened?'
Nathan felt terrible, like a really bad hangover... even though he'd never been drunk before. Usually, the bounce upon entering a realm wasn't this bad, at least not the last few times he'd entered one, but this one was particularly bad.
He looked around in confusion, trying to figure out what kind of realm he had entered.
He noticed that there was nothing around him, but he seemed to be in some kind of room. The floor had strangely luxurious and elegant carvings that reminded him of the ceiling of an ancient castle room.
Just as he thought that, he began to feel sick again, but this time he actually felt like he was starting to float.
"Huh?"
Unable to understand what was happening, his world turned upside down, and then he began to fall... upwards?
His sense of balance was directly attacked, for a moment he couldn't tell where was up and where was down.
Suddenly Nathan landed on something soft and looked around him, which was different from before.
"A room?"
A large bed with posts in each corner holding up a thin transparent curtain. Several pieces of luxurious antique wooden furniture and a large empty bathtub.
Nathan looked up and saw the floor he had been standing on before... Or was it the ceiling?
Somehow the room had turned around and he was now standing normally. Still, it took him a good moment to process what had just happened as he got out of bed.
"How did the gravity change?"
As his headache began to subside, Nathan scanned the room carefully, but after a minute of opening drawers, he realized that everything was empty.
Nathan sighed and sat down wearily on the bed, he hadn't planned to enter a realm, but he had been thrown into one without his consent.
'Tch... how annoying'
Now he would have to find a way out, but remembering what happened the last time he entered a realm, he felt like avoiding unnecessary confrontation.
Besides, Nathan didn't have his sword with him, so he had no choice but to defend himself with his fists. So, after thinking about it for a while, Nathan closed his eyes and tried to sense what was outside the room.
He concentrated for almost a minute, but gave up when he felt nothing, no living thing near him. Knowing that he was relatively safe for the moment, Nathan approached the door of the room and opened it slightly, peering out to see what was outside.
He found a hallway just as luxurious as the room he was in and saw more doors adjacent to the room, which he assumed were other rooms.
Cautiously, Nathan left his room and began to investigate the other rooms nearby. But after nearly 20 minutes he found nothing. No people and no disaster.
The realm was strangely quiet and peaceful, unlike the ambush he had suffered when he had entered the swamp.
Nathan walked back out into the corridor and approached a window on the other side, but frowned as he looked out.
The castle was in the middle of a forest, so he could see hundreds of trees for miles around. Nathan seemed to be on a high floor of the castle, for he could see the tops of the tree's tens of meters high.
But that was not all, for beyond the forest rose a great snow-capped mountain range, glowing a sickly red... mainly because the sky was not blue, but red. In the middle of the range was a huge hole, as if a whole mountain had disappeared.
Nathan held his head in annoyance.
'What kind of realm had I gotten myself into?'
Just then Nathan felt his world turn upside down again.
This time he was prepared, and as soon as he felt the gravity shift completely, he landed on the roof with both feet and looked around.
'…Again?'
Standing on the roof of the corridor once more, Nathan looked out and felt a little dizzy.
The forest was where the sky should be, and the sky was beneath his feet. It was an extraordinary sight, but at the same time quite unsettling.
'What would happen if I fell into the sky...'
Nathan tilted his head in confusion at his own question.
'What was I just thinking...? Falling into the sky... wow'
Sighing, Nathan stopped looking out the window. He hadn't counted the exact time the gravity had changed, but it must have been about half an hour.
As he pondered this, Nathan, who had kept his hatred boosted with essence so that he could hear anything approaching, faintly heard the sound of something approaching down the corridor a few dozen meters from him.
He debated whether to wait and see what was coming or to retreat quickly, but there was no time for that when a person emerged from the corridor, turned, and ran in his direction.
'She is...'
A young black-haired girl ran towards him, as if running from something, though there was nothing behind her. But Nathan heard it, something else was coming down the corridor.
The young woman, Lynn, was the government agent who had helped him a week ago, the young woman was disheveled and had a somewhat comical expression of fear with slightly teary eyes. As she saw him, Lynn's eyes widened in surprise and screamed:
"Run!"
Nathan frowned and seconds later something appeared from the corridor... well, a lot of things, actually.
Dozens of people were running towards them, shouting, or making meaningless grunts. Nathan could tell from their clothing that they must be some of the people from the outskirts of the city who had been sucked into the rift.
But from their strangely red pupils, their pale skin and the strange sharp teeth protruding from their mouths, Nathan could tell that nothing good would happen if he were captured by these people... or creatures.
Without a second's thought, Nathan started to run. When Lynn saw him, she followed him, running as fast as she could to get away from the creatures.