Shadowy and flickering, it was like a mirage in the desert—it looked real, but it was just a phantom bubble.
Behind the original well was a lush green lawn, followed by a sparse forest on the mountain slope. In terms of height, those trees weren't even half the height of the Goshinboku.
Yet within this flickering bubble, Sū ěr and the others saw towering ancient trees. Though their trunks weren't as wide as the Goshinboku, they were trees that would be strictly protected in modern society.
"Shall we test it out?" Although it sounded like a question, Jibril was actually just giving notice. Even as she spoke, she raised a finger, gathering a brilliant white light at the tip.
Whoosh!!
She missed. The white ray shot straight into the sky. In a blink, Sū ěr even saw a small hole appear in the clouds above.
"Are you looking for a fight?!" Jibril turned furiously toward the woman who had lunged at the critical moment and slapped her arm upward. She bared her teeth threateningly.
"Are you an idiot? What if using an energy attack affects the stability? Can't you use your brain?!" Naturally, Think wasn't intimidated by the Flügel. She snapped back without hesitation.
"So what? If it appeared once, it'll appear twice. A weed is a weed; your heart just isn't broad enough," to Think surprise, Jibril actually seemed to have thought about it, but that shock was wiped clean in seconds by Jibril provocative gesture.
When mentioning "heart" [also used for chest/bosom], the pink-haired Flügel proudly puffed out her chest and lunged forward, slamming into Think bosom. As a translucent soul body, Think was inevitably knocked back quite a distance. Then—she exploded in rage!
"Haha! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!" Apparently not expecting her spontaneous action to have such a great effect, Jibril threw her head back and laughed like a true villain.
"…Wh-what is this?" For Kagome, who was still an innocent, kind junior high student, this scene was a bit too stimulating. Her face turned bright red as she stammered her question to Sū ěr.
"…Good kids shouldn't learn from them. Don't grow up to be adults like them," Sū ěr patted Kagome's head, whispering.
"Huh?!"
"Hmm?!"
It seemed whispering didn't work very well.
Although Jibril attack hadn't hit the bubble, everything happening on this side seemed visible to the world within it. Startled birds flapped their wings and flew up from the dense forest canopy.
Sū ěr even saw several panicked rabbits fleeing like little grey-white fur-balls—Wait?!
To the group's amazement, one rabbit, in its blind panic, ran straight toward the bubble. In the blink of an eye, it appeared before them and promptly fell into the ancient well.
They stared at each other. Sū ěr could still hear the rabbit scrambling and thumping around at the bottom of the well.
"Very well. It looks like we don't have to worry about it having harmful effects on life," Think unilaterally ended her fight with Jibril and made her judgment.
It wasn't a mirage. It was a real door—a door to the past.
It was much cooler than the modern city, which suffered from the heat island effect. The hot, humid wind from the sea still carried an inevitable heat wave, even filtered through the tree trunks.
It was filled with the primal scent of nature.
Sū ěr stomped firmly on the ground. It was soft; the forest floor, covered in leaves and grass, felt like stepping on a sponge. He tried a experimental hop, disappointed that the ground lacked the power to bounce him back.
He turned and met Think disdainful gaze. The Elf, who shared a connection with his mind, had already seen through his childish behavior.
"Let's look around for signs of human activity," Sū ěr laughed awkwardly to change the subject. "By the way, Kagome—uh, I'll just call you that—how does your body feel? Any difficulty breathing or anything?"
Think and Jibril went without saying, and his own body was now very strong, but Sū ěr remembered that Kagome's body was still that of an ordinary human.
"Ah? Oh, okay… Yes, I feel fine!" It had to be said that after this series of events—especially since her family shrine was saved by Sū ěr group—the upright Kagome had become much more polite.
"That's good. Although we haven't seen anything strange yet, based on our experience, we should be in the past. Be very careful," Sū ěr advised kindly.
"The past… Yes, I will! Thank you, Mr. Sū ěr!" Kagome nodded vigorously.
After the group crossed over, the bubble connecting the two eras remained. From this side, they could still see the dilapidated well and the blood-soaked ground around it.
Just in case, under Think direction, they set up concealment and defensive spells around the flickering bubble before choosing a direction to head down the mountain. However, the further they went, the more eerie it felt.
While they did encounter some yōkai, both their numbers and ferocity were a far cry from the ones that had swarmed out of the well. It didn't add up. More importantly, they had yet to find a single place that could have caused yōkai to crowd through the well opening like that.
There were no signs of mass slaughter or evidence of yōkai rushing toward a specific point. Think had begun to suspect whether this new time tunnel had dropped them far from their intended destination, much like when Jibril brought them back to the modern era.
In ancient times, living in the deep mountains was always difficult. Between gathering and storing food and the threat of wild animals, the danger was amplified tenfold in a world with man-eating yōkai.