"Ugh..."
Wiping the blood from my face, I stared at the Concierge's corpse that had all of its armor turned into something akin to swiss cheese.
With the addition of a large gash running straight through his rib cage and exposing his insides, the Concierge looked drastically different from what I had initially seen.
Dragging my partially healed body past the vast extent of the black bridge, it was incredibly clear save the numerous scorch marks and destroyed portions.
But even those parts were repairing themselves in real time, granting me the surreal experience of dragging my wounded body across a bridge that levitated pieces of stone back to their original position as if magnetized.
And as I chipped off a piece of the nearby floating stone out of curiosity, the black stone instantly lost its levitation, crashing against the ground and startling me.
It soon returned to what it was previously doing when one minute had just passed though.
Curiously though, I wasn't able to place the black stone fragment in my inventory.
Much like living beings, my inventory just phased out of existence the very moment I attempted the experiment.
'That reminds me, I should probably test if I can take other peoples weapons with my inventory.'
Playing around with the semi transparent screen in my hands, I felt a tremble in my left hand.
This trembling got stronger and stronger as I continued to limp across the bridge until it forced itself out of my fingers in several fragments and darted back to the portion of the bridge that needed fixing.
It was like trying to keep two magnets close enough that you could feel the pull but not close enough that they would instantly connect to each other.
Or at least that was the sensation I got from the Black bridge fragment I had briefly held in my hands.
'I wonder if that girl rubbed off of me in some way?' Recalling a friend that had taken a nap that would continue on for eternity, I vaguely recalled their face and the white robe that they always wore as if a disease.
'She'll probably be nagging at me to keep myself healthy.'
Glancing at my body covered in blood, both mine and the Concierge's I shook my head.
'I don't think that'll be possible here though.'
For hell's sake, there was a virus going around granting people superpowers at the cost of an excessive tendency of cannibalism.
Thankfully I hadn't caught the disease yet, but it didn't hurt to be a bit more careful around corpses.
Diseased corpses turned monsters then corpses again more specifically.
Making a consistent effort to heal my body with what remained of the potion and the Tonic as my thoughts ping ponged between the past and the present.
Since the Tonic was a replenishable, the healing effect was miles below that of the potion, but hey, any little bit counts.
Feeling some feeling return to my lower half that had remained incredibly numb until now I steadied myself while glancing at the floating islands.
Since it still was a ways away, I looked through my inventory to appraise the items that I had taken from the Concierge's corpse.
Besides the cell count that had been sucked into the little blue skull like vial, there was the addition of several small gold nuggets and a few gold coins.
Taking out one of the gold coins, it's surface was embossed with the insignia of the kingdom which remained to be three slashes formed arranged like a claw strike.
Additionally embossed with a few other details like the words Sevallia, that was the extent of which I could observe.
It could serve as a collector's item.
Flicking the coin back into my inventory, I sifted through the inventory screen rearranging its insides so that I could swiftly identify what else I had gained.
Throwing away a few items that were either broken or useless now I paused when seeing the organs I had taken from the Concierge.
'...Your going over here.'
Moving them to the combat inventory far from the one saved for resources so that I wouldn't have to be greeted with the sight of organs everytime I needed access to it, I continued to identify the items.
'Another rune, I'll use you later.'
'I guess it doesn't hurt to have another blood sword.'
'Is this one of the blueprints that the Collector was talking about?'
Spotting a white piece of paper curled up into the form of a scroll, I briefly skimmed over the Power scrolls I would later use and picked out the Blueprint.
Unfurling the yellowed parchment, I stared at its surface.
With a sketch depicting what it was supposed to look like, I noted that it had a materials list set besides it alongside various other terms that I couldn't understand.
Also detailing what it should be able to do I raised an eyebrow at the sight and made a mental note to copy this down if given the time.
'I wonder if I should start bringing a diary with me.'
Wondering where I would be able to find a clean and relatively untouched diary on the island, I soon reached the end of the black bridge.
Glancing backwards, the bridge was back to pristine condition.
With no signs of any sort of battle save the corpse in the middle, many of the carriages had disintegrated into a fine dust that covered the bridge, making it look brown
'It'll probably disappear when I come back here though.'
Feeling the wind hit my hair, I shoved the few strands that got into my eyes away while looking at the destination ahead.
And lo and behold, it was a giant gate that was similar in structure to the one in the Ramparts.
Moving past the broken down gate that had already began to rot, I snuck between the gaps, wriggling here and there while making my way forwards.
Checking the map every so often, my eyes lit up as they stared at the gated pathway that had suddenly emerged before me.
'Bingo.'
Confidently striding forwards, a gate smaller than the one set at the edge of the bridge stood.
With a more open design, I was able to peek through the gaps and see the dirt path beyond it that led straight to the insides of a village.
'Not bingo.'
Not seeing any connection to the floating islands I wanted to go to, my eyebrows furrowed together as I moved away from the gate.
Wandering the open space with the sunlight streaming through the little windows, I began searching for any other exits that I may have missed.
And I found one, but it may as well have not been an exit in the first place.
'Why does this place like this wall placement so much?'
Craning my neck upwards to look at the tall wall with a path that continued beyond it, I wondered what possessed the creators of this place to make so many unaccessible pathways.
'And there isn't a lot of wood nearby that can be used to pull myself up.'
Abandoning the idea of exploring that particular path, I continued to explore
And besides the one entrance I had initially seen, there were no other exits to this place.
Well maybe there were a few beyond the other path, but since it pointed directly opposite from my desired destination, I wasn't going to be breaking my back trying to climb a smooth wall.
I have noticed that this place has a tendency to mess with space and time a lot.
'In hindsight, that wall placement might be because of this island's weird spatial structure.'
Glancing back at the wall, temptation slowly grew in my heart as I rummaged through my inventory for a few of the lesser used weapons I could use as makeshift climbing picks.
That was until something suddenly hit me on the head.
"What the!?"
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Tree