Nathan had been crawling his way through the cold, claustrophobic stone tunnels for about 10 minutes when he realized that this was the most awful thing that he’d ever experienced. Some of the choke points were so narrow that Nathan had been forced to contort his body like a twisty straw. At times, he’d felt his ribs flex in order to squeeze through.

  Then he came to the crossroads and promptly remembered that he had absolutely no idea where to go.

  “Okay. Paradise Regained or The Colonoscopy Crevice,” he said.

  But which was which?

  He didn’t know!

  With no other option, he made a right hand turn and hoped that it would lead him directly to the fishing hole.

  He went a little bit further, then came to another crossroads, this time with three exits. He picked one at random, then went into it. It wasn’t long before he hit a dead end.

  He groaned inside of his head. He’d have to go backward, now. He started to awkwardly shift his body weight before he paused and banged his head against a rock.

  “Why do I do this to myself?” he muttered.

  Oh wait, he can turn into water.

  His body disintegrated into water and the feeling of claustrophobia went away. He enclosed his clothing inside of a bubble of water and carried it behind him as he went back through the tunnel. When he came to the crossroads, he stopped.

  He didn’t know what direction he’d come from.

  In retrospect, I probably should have put up some sort of marker, he thought.

  This actually seemed like a good opportunity for an experiment. He sent a trickle of water going down one tunnel. His senses expanded with it, allowing him to make out the vague outlines of the tunnel that he was going through.

  Nathan split off another trickle of water and sent it into another cavern. Fatigue wore away at him like he was running a marathon. It was a bit hard to describe, or even conceptualize. After all, Nathan didn't have any muscles to exhaust in this form. But splitting his concentration between two separate movements like this felt sort of like rubbing your stomach while patting your head. The main difference was that he was manipulating blobs of water like limbs when he used to be 100% human about 48 hours ago.

  Nathan sent out a third tendril of water. His body rippled and his clothes nearly fell out of his grasp.

  He couldn't do any more—three separate actions was the extent of his concentration.

  The water made its way through the caves, mapping out each intersection and feeding the information back to Nathan. One of the tendrils that had been moving in a straight line weakened and fell to the ground. Nathan clicked his tongue.

  Well, he would have clicked his tongue if he had one, anyway.

  There was a hard limit on how far he could extend out his body. It was an unholy distance if he were in a fight—but for information gathering like this, it wouldn't be of much use.

  A few life forms flickered on the edge of his senses. One of his tendrils had picked something up. He rushed his body down through one of the caverns and followed after the sensation. Left, right, then down.

  He kept on having to backtrack due to the fact that he could feel that they were close, but they were hidden behind several feet of rock. But he was getting closer, and closer, until—

  Water. Not his own, but an external source.

  His body warped back into a human's and his barefoot feet touched the stone ground. He slipped his clothes back on, then reached into his inventory and pulled out his fishing rod.

  He cast his line, then sat down on the hard stone.

  It reminded him of his time in the Tutorial Circle.

  That hadn't been that long ago in the grand scheme of things. They hadn't even been in the apocalypse for a year, Nathan was pretty sure of that. Granted, he hadn't exactly been keeping time under the circumstances—there was always a bigger priority than doing something like that. But Nathan thought he would have noticed if an entire year had gone by.

  Nathan wondered how his sister was doing. She'd finally managed to overcome her personal issues and join him... then he goes and bails.

  Nathan didn't feel like torturing himself with guilt.

  He pushed aside his emotions and focused on his fishing rod. The cave pool was completely still, not a ripple or sensation to be seen. He knew that there were fish in the water. He could sense them moving down below.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  There was a section that they were avoiding, though.

  A tug.

  He pulled and his metal hook clanged against another metal object. Unable to stop the tug, his hook switched something under the water, creating a loud clicking noise. The ground rumbled and dust fell from the ceiling.

  "Oh, that's not good," Nathan muttered.

  The floor pressed against him from below. The walls were sliding down like he was on some sort of cargo elevator.

  They were going up.

  He managed to break his hook free and then chuck the line back in the water. He was going to get that rare fish no matter what happened.

  The fish were too busy panicking and running from left to right to notice Nathan's hook.

  Traces of sunlight hit Nathan's eyes. He looked up toward the direction of the rays. Dirt and stone rolled off the outside of a translucent dome. More and more of the sun came in. More and more of the dirt rolled off.

  The entire platform rose further and further and then shuddered to a stop.

  The dome shuddered backward and folded into itself, exposing Nathan to the outside world.

  He was on top of a raised pillar, not far from where he'd entered into the Cave of Wonders.

  Another shudder. Something moved from underneath the water.

  A huge hulking mass spilled out from under the surface of the underground lake. Water poured off the sides, spraying its surroundings in fine mist.

  It was a giant railgun, pointed directly at the castle at the center of the circle.

  Electricity hummed and lines of light appeared along the side and edges of the railgun.

  A window popped up in front of Nathan's vision.

  [Main Quest Subobjective Complete]

  —Celestial Laser Beam Generator: 1/4

  Nathan squinted at the railgun, then back toward the Castle, then back at the railgun.

  "I sense," he said, "that I have made an unforced error."

  One of the fish jumped out of the water and landed next to Nathan. He picked it up and it dematerialized in his hand. Another window popped up.

  —Plains Biome Fish Caught: 1/53

  "Oh, nice."

  Nathan stood outside the tavern, his hand hovered over the handle.

  Right now, he was a little people-shy. See, back when he'd jumped off the pillar thing, a small crowd had formed and they were pointing up and looking at the railgun in amazement. Nathan had grimaced and walked off in the other direction.

  He'd already caught the rarest fish in the Plains Biome... at least he hoped so, so now his plan was to get the rest of them. It had been relatively easy to find a relatively large lake thanks to his ability to, you know, fly.

  Once he found it, he got to work. For the next day, he fished like a machine. One after another, Plains Biome fish were caught and used to fulfill his Quest Objective. By the time the sun rose, he was looking at his Quest Objective with satisfaction. It turned out that he'd been right about catching the rarest one in the biome.

  —Plains Biome Fish Caught: 53/53

  With that finished, Nathan ahd figured it was time for him to move on. The question was where he should head to next. There were other biomes, but he didn't know which was the closest and what would make the most amount of sense.

  He decided to stop by the tavern and talk to Harvester to get some advice.

  Nathan sighed and finally opened the door.

  The whole tavern went silent in that familiar way that it happened last time.

  Nathan had been expecting this.

  What he hadn't been expecting was for every person in the tavern to let out a cheer.

  "If it isn't the Fisher King himself!"

  "The savior of the Lillerds has arrived!"

  "Please marry me!" someone shouted.

  Harvester cut through the crowd and clapped his hands on Nathan's shoulder. "Nathaniel! It's good to see that your quest was successful."

  Nathan tilted his head. "My quest?"

  "Your quest to activate the Celestial Laser Beam Generator! Did you think I wouldn't have put two and two together after that thing rose out of the ground?"

  "I think there's been a serious miscommunication," Nathan said.

  "Nonsense, nonsense! It's obvious, you're the one that was spoken of in the Holy Patch Notes!" Harvester leaned in and dropped his tone. "I'll be honest, I was never one for religion. But after seeing a prophecy come true in my lifetime—I finally started going back to church! The wife and the kids are very happy about it."

  Nathan was now 99 percent sure that he'd made a very, very critical unforced error. He'd been pretty sure before, but now he was really, really sure.

  "I was hoping to ask for some help with something," he said.

  "Sure! Anything for you, Fisher King."

  "Don't call me that."

  The two made their way over to an unoccupied table. Each person that they passed raised a glass and a cheer to Nathan.

  They sat down at the table. Nathan ignored the way every single person was blatantly turning their ear in his direction.

  "I'm planning to head out," Nathan said. "Like I said, I'm on a mission to collect all the fish in the circle."

  Harvester nodded. "Makes sense. But what exactly can I do for you?"

  "I just wanted some directions. And maybe a travel route, if you have the knowledge to draw something like that up?"

  "You've come to the right place. I've traveled all across the circle. I can definitely direct you to where you want to go."

  Harvester looked up at the ceiling and rubbed his chin.

  "There are six major biomes in this circle," Harvester said. "The Forest Biome, the Plains Biome, the Hilly Biome, the Ocean Biome, the Swamp Biome, and the Volcano Biome."

  "I've already gotten everything in the Forest Biome and the Plains Biome."

  "That makes things easy. If you head to the Hilly Biome, you can head north, and then..."

  Nathan listened carefully as Harvester outlined a rough travel route. He pointed out major landmarks and towns that Nathan could stop by to resupply. He admitted that he wouldn't be able to help out with finding fishing holes, but that was what the townspeople in those regions would be for.

  "...And that's it."

  Harvester frowned and furrowed his eyebrows together. "By the way, are there fish in the Volcano Biome?"

  "Yes, apparently."

  Harvester hummed and opened his mouth to respond when—

  "Help!"

  It had been a feminine voice. High-pitched and young. Not a child, probably a very early twenty-something?

  Harvester looked at Nathan expectantly.

  Nathan looked off toward the wall.

  Around him, he could feel eyes drilling into the back of his head. And why had everybody stopped drinking and talking?

  Nathan stood up from the table and a cheer ripped through the tavern.

  "Go get them, Fisher King!"

  "Save the fair maiden!" The man who had said that fell asleep and hit his head on the counter.

  "Good luck, hero!"

  Nathan speed-walked out of the tavern and slammed the door shut behind him.