CHAPTER 419: COMMUNICATION EFFORTS

It concerned the special high-ranking dungeon that Lane, together with many other Association’s Field Agents, had explored almost a year prior, when Lane had still been living as ’Xavier’. That is, the stinky dungeon with the teddy bear monsters that possessed some intelligence and had their own civilization developed...

To be honest, Lane had completely forgotten about this dungeon. And, in his defense, he wasn’t the only one - although the dungeon had initially had a ’dungeon break’ shortly after the Gate had appeared, so many things had happened since then, that the media had long moved on. The Gate was located so close to an already existing Restricted Zone that the Zone had just been expanded to include it, and right now, most people viewed it as just another Gate existing in the city, one of many. Its rank might have been high, and it was very special due to the existence of the intelligent creatures, but... Compared to the Gates like the one in the Lapis Lake that had monsters with S-rank hypnotic abilities, or the one with the parasite monsters, it wasn’t all that scary!

But it was still there, still uncleared. It was guarded to ensure that no monsters crossed over into the city, but neither the Association nor the Guilds made any moves to clear it. Instead, they send a team of experts in an attempt to establish communication with those teddy bear monsters...

And those experts started a ViTube channel to document their progress, it seems.

Lane scrolled through the list of videos. It was pretty long, as it included almost a year’s worth of efforts, and whoever was responsible for documenting it wasn’t shying away from recording everything they could. Perhaps they found it all important or interesting, who knows. Scientists and researchers were sometimes hard to understand for normal people... Lane was besties with one, so he knew it personally.

Either way, it was a lot. Way too much. There was no way Lane was going to drag himself through all of it, as he had neither the patience nor the time... But the report he had received, which had urged him to check it out, was rather convincing, so Lane was going to at least watch a few.

Starting from the oldest ones. They had by far the most views... Likely because people were curious what the dungeons were like from the inside. Not many could afford to go on dungeon tours, and even fewer had seen uncleared dungeons, as only the Awakened were legally allowed to enter active Gates. Since there were recordings of INTELLIGENT monsters inhabiting a high-ranking dungeon, it naturally attracted a lot of watchers...

...At least at first. After the first few videos, there was a steep decline in views, and Lane could tell exactly why!

It was just so boring! The first video, showing people around the teddy monsters’ village, how they were similar but different to how humans used to live, back in the early days, was still somewhat entertaining. But after that... The experts trying to establish communication, learn words and so on...

It got old really fast. Lane watched it on double speed, and still felt himself dozing off. It was like watching someone doing a jigsaw puzzle from a few thousand pieces. Or more like from a billion pieces. The progress was so slow, that it wasn’t enjoyable to watch at all!

Lane skipped through the timeline, checking the videos at a few points, but it was all the same. Not worth watching, unless perhaps someone had a particular interest in how establishing communication worked.

Most of the videos were not much different. There were a few that could be mildly entertaining, where the teddy bear monsters showed their crafts. How they built their homes, sewed their clothes, created their weapons... A few even piqued Lane’s interest, as the monsters displayed their own unique abilities - unlike other monsters, the teddy bear monsters all had their own abilities, just like humans did. Perhaps because they possessed intelligence? At least that’s what the experts in the videos suggested. None of those videos had gathered many views, though, since most of the watchers had long abandoned the channel at that point.

Until recently, that is. The last few videos had seen a spike in views. Perhaps still not gathering as much attention as the initial videos, but compared to the rest of the channel, they were doing well.

So, Lane clicked.

And from the very start, he noticed the difference.

First of all, the experts were no longer trying to learn how to call a ’house’ or a ’spear’. Instead, they were having a conversation... Not a fluent one, but there was a certain level of established communication. Like perhaps a person who knows a foreign language at an elementary level might have, when trying to discuss topics that went above their abilities. Struggling, but somehow moving on...

They were sitting in a large cave, with paintings on the walls. They represented the ancient legends passed down from the teddy bear monsters’ ancestors or something, so the experts claimed. And what they had presented was...

A world where Gates started popping out. Where the monsters flooded the teddy bears’ world, while their people started awakening ’magical’ abilities. Fighting the monsters, as the world around them started changing.

In other words... Exactly what the people on Earth were currently experiencing. Although the teddy bear monsters didn’t explain it well - or, to be precise, the experts couldn’t understand it well, due to the language barrier - it wasn’t difficult to make the connection.

And it didn’t end there.

"According to our friends, the process cannot be stopped," one of the experts explained to the camera. ’Our friends’ was naturally referring to the teddy bear monsters. Out of respect for intelligent beings, the researchers didn’t call them ’monsters’, nor did they come up with a name for them, as the teddy bears might potentially dislike it. "The Gates will keep on appearing until the whole world is Manaformed... They believe that is the gods’ design. Trying to resist the changes is a futile act..."

Lane paused the video, leaning back on the couch.