Ch. 254: Conservation of Color

Seeing that he wasn't saying anything, Adai edged closer.

"I know you've been busy lately, but they're waiting on this medicine over there. This whole bundle is too much for me to carry that far alone."

Mo Fei glanced at the huge bundle by the door. Still no way in on Chimimi. Might as well help him with this trip.

"Fine. I'll give you a ride."

"Thanks. I'll pay you the fare as soon as I collect my pay at the Guild."

Mo Fei took out the simple mobile device. Adai shouldered the medicine bundle and was about to step onto the footboard at the back when Mo Fei spoke up.

"One question first. Did you eat your clover?"

"I did." Adai climbed on as he answered. "Even if something goes wrong, it'll have gone wrong after I ate it."

"...That doesn't reassure me one bit."

---

All the way there, Mo Fei gripped the handlebars as tightly as ever, and other than the bumps, nothing happened.

As they got close, his fingertips went cold, and then came the chill spreading through his chest and stomach.

Mo Fei looked around.

Isn't this... short of where we stopped last time?

The grass along the road ahead had faded to gray-white. The expedition team was gathered in a clearing at the edge of that gray-white, even farther back than last time.

Mo Fei parked at the edge of the crowd, but his gaze passed over the people and landed on something farther off.

Deep in the gray-white woods lay a stretch of black.

There was no transition at all between that black and the gray-white, as if someone had smeared a patch of ink across a painting. The tree trunks simply ended there, and nothing could be seen beyond.

Adai got off and looked over too. The two of them stared at the black for a good while.

This wasn't here last time...

Mo Fei looked away, and his eyes caught the containment cage a little farther off. Its door stood open, and the panda sat on a tree root outside it, gnawing on a stalk of bamboo.

"Mo Fei, Adai."

The dean came over from the crowd, with Brando behind him.

Adai took off the medicine bundle and handed it to a team member. The dean looked at it and pushed up his glasses.

"Usage has gone up again lately. Can you make a bit more?"

"I'll try my best." Adai gave a wry smile.

Mo Fei looked into the distance again. "Dean, what's that black patch in there?"

The dean followed his gaze.

"We found it a while ago. You can walk in, but once you're inside you can't see anything or hear anything." He paused. "The whole anomalous area has expanded again recently. All we can do is keep pulling back, and it's only getting harder to go in and investigate."

So this is what Adai meant when he said the expedition team had found something.

"Has anyone been in?" Mo Fei asked.

The dean turned to look at someone in the crowd.

The man had measuring instruments hanging off his belt and shoulder straps, and a notebook clutched to his chest. The moment he heard the question, he hurried over in a few strides.

"I have—I just got out! Let me tell you, it's a completely different world in there. The second you step in, everything goes black. You can't see your hand even when it's right in front of your nose. Shouting is useless, too. The sound is swallowed up as soon as it leaves your mouth. I had to walk out backward."

He flipped open the notebook and pointed to a densely written page.

"So my conclusion is that this is conservation of color. The color that fades from the outer area hasn't disappeared. It's been squeezed into the center, and the more is squeezed in, the denser it gets, until it's so dense it turns black. The area keeps expanding precisely because more and more color is piling up in the center."

He pointed at the black-and-white shape beside the cage. "And there's the proof! That creature walked out of the gray-white zone with its color drained until only black and white were left!"

Mo Fei glanced at the panda, still chewing bamboo. No, it was born like that.

The team members around them kept hauling medicine and taking notes. Not one of them looked up.

Only Adai listened with full attention, even nodding along.

The man grew more and more animated. "Based on this density gradient, the color concentration at the center is at least..."

"Absurd."

An aged voice came from Adai's hand.

"Color is not quicksilver. How can it be squeezed about?"

The man didn't even turn around. "That's because you don't understand. Color is fundamentally a transferable property, and under a pressure differential..."

Several team members nearby stopped what they were doing and turned to look at Adai.

A layer of sweat broke out on Mo Fei's back. Ring Grandpa, if you're going to snipe, pick your moment...

Adai didn't even blink. "It's a speaking rune. There's an old scholar on the other end."

The dean's gaze lingered on Adai's ring a moment longer, and Brando studied Adai as if lost in thought.

Ring Grandpa went on regardless. "If it is a gradient, the edge should run from light to dark. Yet between that black and the gray-white, there is no transition whatsoever."

"That's because when it reaches the critical point, the concentration suddenly..."

"Furthermore," Ring Grandpa cut in, "by your account, color can be transferred. Then why were you not stained black after walking about in there?"

The man opened his mouth, then looked down at his sleeve.

"...Well, about that."

He faltered for only a moment before raising his head again.

"Then it's not conservation, it's absorption! This area used to be covered by the Gray Mist, right? The Gray Mist acted like a sponge and soaked up all the color. When the mist withdrew, it was like wringing out the sponge, and everything it had absorbed was squeezed out. The black area is the dregs left over from the wringing, which is why the more it's squeezed, the more of it there is!"

A cold snort came from the ring, and then it fell silent.

The man bent over his notebook, writing without pause and muttering, "Next time I go in, I'll have to find a way to confirm this..."

Conservation gets torn down, so he switches to a sponge. That's quicker than me, back when readers caught a bug and I rewrote my worldbuilding overnight.

The dean turned to Mo Fei. "I've read the Academy's report. You were there for the Owen incident."

"Yes."

"That can't have been easy," the dean said. "What happened?"

Mo Fei gave the same story he'd told the Proctor.

When he reached the seed the black-robed figure had taken, the name Seed of the Fallen God crossed his mind, along with the box tucked away in his Storage Space, but he swallowed the words just as they reached his lips.

After hearing him out, the dean sighed softly. "The Academy failed to look after its students, and now we've caused you trouble again."

Mo Fei looked at the black stretch once more.

With something this big happening at the Academy, the dean is still stuck out here... It must be even more urgent on this side than at the Academy. He can't leave.

Brando spoke slowly from the side.

"I heard you and Barney took the boys to the abandoned mine and caused quite a ruckus?"

Mo Fei laughed dryly. "We just... helped Barney clear out a nest of rats."

Brando looked at him, and after two seconds said, "Is that so? Apparently the whole mine caved in."

"I-it did get a little loud, yes. Well... the delivery's done, and we should be heading out."

With that, Mo Fei called Adai onto the device and left in a hurry.

---

Not long after entering the Lower City, Mo Fei saw a few people gathered ahead.

They held long-handled nets, and a cart by the roadside was stacked with several cages holding both cats and dogs. A wooden sign hung on the side of the cart: Chimimi Stray Animal Home.

A net came down over a yellow dog's head. It struggled a few times and was dragged into a cage.

The man with the net straightened up. It was the young volunteer who had given Mo Fei the ribbons.

Mo Fei pulled over to the roadside, told Adai over his shoulder, "Wait for me a moment," and walked toward the group.

The young volunteer was busy tidying up. He looked up and saw Mo Fei, and his hands stopped moving.

"You're... the one from the shelter that day..."

"Got a minute? I'd like to talk to you."