Author's Note: Due to how I wrote this chapter, and the end of the one before it, I have decided to rate this fic T, because I'm unsure if K+ is appropriate anymore. I just wanted to inform you of this edit before you continue.
Chapter 3: The Nether
Well after chasing Konata up to the roof of her house, we ended up sitting up there for a bit. The view looks amazing up here, despite how low quality this game looks. I can see the forest we started in, the pyramids where those monsters attacked us, the ocean past it, and even some other types of land, like a portion made entirely of sand, and another that looked like the forest except with white scattered everywhere.
"Hey Kagami…?" She asked me, staring off into the distance.
"Yeah Konata…?" I asked. I was calmed down by now, especially after seeing the view up here.
"I'm wondering something…" She started, then turned to me with a serious look in her eyes, and asked, "How long have I been gone?"
"If you were taken after school, like you said, you've been here about a day," I replied.
She looked at me, seeming a bit worried but managing to keep calm, "A whole day, huh?"
"Yeah, what's wrong?" I asked. I've never seen Konata like this. It makes me worry about her.
"It's been over a month in game-time. I just wanted to know how fast time moves outside of here," She replied, clearly with something else on her mind.
"Konata…What's really the matter, you're usually not like this," I asked.
"It's just…I need to speed up my escape from here. More people will look for me if I waste any more time, and I don't want any more tragedies in here…"
"Konata…what happened…?" I asked, dreading the answer a bit.
"Well…around the 8th game day I found dad and Yu-chan in this world. They were under attack, but weren't as lucky as you…" She stated.
"Konata…did they…?" I started, but Konata interrupted.
"No…they didn't die. In fact, they're here in this house. They were attacked by something far worse than a skeleton, though…" She said, pointing out into a visible part of the forest.
At that point there was a very strange creature. It was green but with different randomized shades of it all around. It had a frowning face with eyes like the zombie from that night. It had no arms and, while it had a human head and torso, it had some weird four-legged lower half attached to it.
"What is that thing…?" I asked, half confused and half frightened.
"They're called Creepers. They like to walk up to you slowly, not making a sound, and when they get right up to you, they let out a hissssssss, and then," Konata took a pause, then finished, "they explode."
"Explode? Like a bomb?" I asked.
"Mhm…Around the 8th day, All I had was an iron sword and some leather armor. I couldn't stop it, and it blew them both to pieces…" Konata said.
"Blew them…to pieces…? But, Konata…aren't they still…?" I started, shocked by her statements. Konata stood up, opened the trapdoor we came in from (that's what she called it, anyway), and motioned me through it. We went to the third floor and were met with a wall. Konata broke the wall don to reveal a hidden room and we walked in. It seemed like the room we woke up in, except there were two beds and no windows. In the beds was something that nearly made me sick to my stomach.
There were two people, pixilated like us, but, like Konata said, torn to pieces. They seemed to be missing some limbs, but they weren't completely dismembered. Yutaka had her left leg and half of her right arm, but the half she had wasn't bleeding, it looked almost amputated. Konata's dad had two arm stubs, like Yutaka's right arm. They looked unconscious…or dead…
"Konata…this…" I started, but Konata turned to me.
"Look, I know it looks bad, but trust me, they're still alive," Konata said, motioning me to feel their chests. She was right, their hearts were still beating.
"But…they're mangled…" I said.
"But not completely. When I got them here, they had no limbs at all; they were just unconscious heads and torsos. I figured out a way to get them back to normal."
"And what could that possibly be?" I asked, to which Konata motioned me out of the room. I was thankful for that, seeing people I know like that is very upsetting. She boarded it back up, and held out a bottle to me filled with a red liquid.
"These are potions of regeneration. In-game they serve to speed recovery time. I guess because we have the real world factor, they can repair damaged or even missing limbs," She explained as I looked closely at the potion in my hands.
"That's very unlikely, but…after seeing that…I'm ready to believe anything…" I said, then asked, "Why not create a bunch of these, then?"
"It's not that simple…" She started, and then walked down the stairs. "There are two very important ingredients I need. Since they can't drink the potions, due to being unconscious, I need to make them splash potions," She walked down to the second floor, "To do that, I need to get gunpowder, and guess what drops gunpowder?" She asked.
"Oh no…it isn't those, 'Creepers', is it…?" I asked, dreading the answer, which was a simple nod.
She nodded but then went to a nearby block that I can only guess is a treasure chest. She pulled out an object that looked like a gray dome and was holding it in her hand. "Gunpowder. it's what they drop. I have a good stockpile of it from my own adventure to get my current gear."
I nodded, "Then why don't we fix them up now?"
"Well...it's more complicated than just using gunpowder." She said as she bounded the stairs to the first floor, "There's something way worse than Creepers that floats around and fires exploding cannonballs at you. Those drop the other ingredient needed for the potions."
"Fires? Exploding cannonballs…Are you serious…" I asked in disbelief.
"Yeah. The third ingredient is just a plant I grow here, so that's not an issue, but that one from the Ghasts is hard to get. I've only been able to make six potions so far, three of which I used on Yuki-chan's, and Tsukasa-chan's, and your wounds." She said.
"So that's how our wounds healed so quickly…So that's the name of it...Ghasts?" I asked.
"Yeah, the Ghasts," She said, "luckily they only exist in the Nether," She finished, opening the door back into the main room where Tsukasa and Miyuki-san were now fully armored.
"And where is 'the Nether', exactly?" I asked, expecting it to be right nextdoor where those things could shoot at us through her windows. I was dead wrong. She pointed to the thing I almost walked into earlier, and my heart stopped.
"So…they could…come in here…from THAT!?" I asked in a mixture of shock disbelief and pure terror.
"No, they can't go through it, only we can," She said, which made me calm down, until I realized something.
"You want us to go in there with you, don't you?" I asked.
"Well how else are we going to make those potions, Kagamin?" Konata asked in her teasing tone, obviously over what she called me.
"Um, excuse me…? Go where…?" Tsukasa asked, both her and Miyuki-san with confused expressions.
"Ladies," Konata started, "We're going to Hell."
"Hell? What do you mean by that?" I asked not only confused, but also a little frightened. But it was too late she was already dragging me into the purple wall with her, Tsukasa and Miyuki-san following close behind.
The wall itself transporting us gave me such a nauseous feeling, but it passed quickly. I looked up, still holding my head. She was right, this is hell. Literally. The place was covered in reddish and yellowish liquid, with only a few visible red islands which were on fire, for the most part. Behind us was a giant wall of red. ON the ceiling was a bunch of red and a few blocks that glowed with a yellowish tint in clusters. Around us were some strange mixture of the zombie that attacked us and the pink box creature Tsukasa tripped over, but they were holding yellow swords.
"Konata, we're surrounded!" I shouted, pulling out my sword and readying for battle.
"No, don't! They're passive unless you hit them!" Konata shouted at me as I was about to attack one of them.
"Oh," I said, putting my sword away.
"You can unleash your tsun tsun rage soon, don't worry," Konata said, patting me on the back with her cat grin smile showing through her helmet.
"Hey, I was just protecting us! How was I supposed to know that they're passive!?" I asked angrily.
"Whoa, chill Kagami, like I said, unleash it later." Konata teased, which I ignored, and she went on to say, "Oh, I almost forgot," And handed us what looked like three bows and a set of arrows.
"These are the fastest way to kill the Ghasts." Konata said, then went on to say, "If they shoot anything at you, shoot it with an arrow and it will hit them instead of you." Hm, sounds simple enough, shoot them or their cannonballs.
"The trick, however, is to get them close enough to get their items. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's impossible, and you have to kill them and their item," Konata explained.
"How does their item die?" I asked.
"If it falls in the lava. Which reminds me, don't touch anything liquid in here, it's all lava," Konata warned.
"Lava!?" I asked, shocked, "That will kill us!"
"Yeah, it really sucks having the real life factor. Makes all the enemies so much more dangerous," Konata said.
"Don't I know it," I agreed, massaging my shoulder.
We were walking further away from the way we came in here from, when suddenly Konata held out her arm. "Wait."
We then pulled out our bows, which for some reason had an arrow attached to them, and readied up for the worst.
All we heard was a high pitched cry, then another, and then another. Konata lowered her arm and pulled out her bow, aiming it in every direction but down, looking for the source of the noise.
Again the three cries sounded. This time, though, we found the source. I neglected to see that part of the ceiling of red was deeper than the rest. A lot deeper. Deep enough to have another level of this world inside of it. Inside it, however, was a giant white box with tentacles coming off the base. There was more than one, which I could see by the fact that they were trying to get through all at once.
Oh yeah, one more thing: they were right above us.
Konata motioned us to fall back and we stood by the entrance. She fired an arrow straight up and moved a bit out of the way. The arrow surprisingly hit them, but didn't kill them, and came whirling down back at the exact spot where Konata was standing.
She fired another shot, this one killing them. They turned gray and tipped sideways, but at different intervals so I could see that there were two of them up there. They dropped three things. One item, that was only one item, looked like a pile of gray. The second looked like two specks of white. The third was a mass of glowing yellow-and-green orbs.
"Well…that was easy," Konata said.
"They don't seem nearly as tough as you led on," I said.
"Well that's because they got stuck up there. We got lucky," Konata said, but then jumped and looked around, bow at the ready. There was another cry, but it sounded much closer than the last one.
One of those giant white boxes emerged from inside of the lava in front of us. I jumped back and aimed my bow
"Wait! Don't!" Konata shouted to me, then added, "We need its items!"
That's true, so I waited for him to be out of the lava. It floated towards us, making its cry, and appeared to be on fire from the lava. Maybe that will kill it for us. Its face looked either bored or annoyed, being three slits on its white face. Although, when I looked at it closer, it had a strange texture pattern under its eye slits, almost like it was…crying. Suddenly it let out a different sound than before, opened its mouth and eyes, and shot a cannonball right at the three of us from its mouth.
Miyuki-san dove out of the way onto the ground. I dove the opposite way. Tsukasa dove the same way as Miyuki-san, except it looked like she fell past the line of lava.
"Tsukasa!" I screamed, fearing the worst. The monster looked straight at me and opened its reddened eyes, firing a shot at my face. Konata stepped in front of me, and pulled out a glowing blue sword from her shoulderbag. She let out a war cry as she swung at the cannonball, hitting the Ghast right between the eyes. He tilted, went gray, and disappeared.
I lay there shaking, freaked out from the fact that I almost died. Konata put a hand out to me, and I accepted it, standing up with her help. Then I remembered Tsukasa, and rushed over to where Miyuki-san was. I looked down at where Tsukasa fell. It was a deep hole, but not one that could hurt from a fall. It appeared to turn into a cave that went to the left, under the portal. The strange thing was: no Tsukasa.
"Tsukasa!?" I screamed hoping she would hear me.
"Onee-chan?" I heard back from inside the cave, "It's dark in here…Ah!"
"Tsukasa what happened!?" I asked, deeply worried about my sister.
"I broke something again…" She said with a nervous laugh. I was able to see her now. She had a tiny dent in her helmet, which means she hit her head. She also had something strange in her hand. It was brown, tiny, and dome-shaped.
Konata pulled out a blue pickaxe and began erasing blocks to make stairs. Tsukasa climbed up to us, and Konata looked at her in amazement, asking, "Where did you find that?"
"Um…down here…I broke something falling on it and it was a big pile of these, why…?" Tsukasa asked taken aback by Konata's enthusiasm.
"Those are very useful, Tsukasa. Good job finding 'em!" Konata said, giving her a thumbs-up.
"Um…all I did was fall on my head…" Tsukasa said in confusion.
"So Konata, did we get enough of them?" I asked.
"Yeah, I should be able to make more than enough potions with these." She said, holding out three of the white specs to me.
We got back to the entrance only to find the purple inside it completely gone. Konata said, "No worries, I planned for this," and pulled out an item that looked like a sickle and a black rock.
She placed the sickle-looking object on the black blocks that form the base of the doorway and rubbed the black rock furiously on the sickle. Meanwhile I heard about four of those cries from the distance.
"Hurry Konata, I hear more of them!" I shouted, frantic that we might not be able to evade them again.
"I'm trying…rrugh, this is more difficult than those interactive online eroges," Konata said.
"Now really isn't the time for jokes like that, Konata…" I said, shaking a little bit. I really don't want to end up like Yutaka, and Konata's dad…
"Just a little more…and….Got it!" Konata said, as a spark flew and the purple wall reappeared. I burst through it, looking back one more time to see four cannonballs being fired in our direction, which faded away to the tan wall of the house.
I fell over backwards, heart beating out of my chest as I lay on the floor. Tsukasa and Miyuki-san, looking confused and worried, looked at me and asked if I was alright.
"I'm okay…just out of breath," I replied, getting up to one knee. Thankfully, they don't know why I was so terrified of those monsters.
"Hey Kagami, could you follow me for a second?" Konata asked, and I stood fully up and walked over to the stairwell.
"What is it, Konata?" I asked.
"I just need you to pull this lever, and make sure it stays where you put it," She said, pointing to what looked like a stick with a rocky base protruding from the wall.
"Um…sure?" I said, grabbing it and pulling it downwards. Suddenly, the wall under the stairs moved backwards to reveal a secret basement area. Konata went down into it. I don't know what she was doing down there or for how long, but all I heard was glass being moved around and what sounded like a theme song being hummed. Konata climbed back up, her shoulderbag now filled to the top with potions.
"How many did you make?" I asked in slight astonishment at the amount she had in her bag that I could see.
"As many as I could make…" She said, climbing up to where I was.
"And how many is that?" I asked, pushing the lever back up to hide the basement again.
"Nine." Konata replied.
"Nine!? From those little things!?" I asked in astonishment. This game makes no sense most of the time. I don't see why Konata enjoyed it so much to know everything about it.
"Yeah, well, it's weird, but it helps us out a lot," Konata said. Well, that's true.
We went to the secret room on the third floor, and Konata broke down the wall again to let us in. She then walked over to the bed, and instructed me to stand back.
"Now, since last time I gave Yu-chan one more than my dad, this time I'll switch it. 5 for him, 4 for her," Konata said, putting the potions gently on the beds in the numbers she stated.
"Why'd you give Yutaka more the first time, if you don't mind me asking?" I asked.
"Well, you see, I figured Yu-chan, with her frailty, had suffered worse from the blast, when it turns out they suffered equally," Konata said, "It's weird, but normal ailments don't enter this world with us."
"That is weird." I said in agreement, as Konata picked up the first potions and threw it in their faces.
"Now we just have to wait a bit for them to wear off," Konata said.
"So potions run on time duration here?" I asked, being knowledgeable enough in RPG's to know of such things.
"Some do, some don't, this one does," Konata said, "And if we throw them all at once, only one potion will take effect."
"So how long do we wait…?" I asked.
"Well…I put Redstone in them…" Konata said, with her finger to her chin.
"I don't know what that means…" I replied in an annoyed tone.
"If I remember right, it will take about 2 minutes," Konata said.
"Well, that's not so bad, if a day equates to over a month of game time," I replied.
"Oh no…2 minutes of real-time." Konata said. Well that makes sense. It's annoying but makes sense.
"So how long is 2 minutes in game-time?" I asked. Konata started doing the math. If only she could think this hard when it came to her homework.
"A little under two hours," Konata said.
"Two hours!?" I asked.
"Hey, it's not that bad. Trust me, it'll feel like two minutes," Konata said. We waited the time and Konata threw potion after potion. At the end of it all, they were both completely whole again. Strangely, even their clothing regenerated.
They both opened their eyes, but Yutaka was the first to get up. She looked around the room and then at Konata, and hugged her tightly.
"Oh, Onee-chan! I was so scared back there with that weird creature coming close to us and hurting me and Oji…but you saved us and…Thank you Onee-chan…thank you so much!" Yutaka said through tears and held Konata closer and closer. I just smiled, glad I could witness this moment.
"Hey, why am I left out of the hug…?" Konata's dad asked, slowly getting up.
"Oji!" Yutaka said, letting go of Konata and nearly knocked him off of his bed by hugging him, "I'm so glad you're okay, too!"
Then Konata went over and softly hugged her father, saying, "I'm glad you pulled through…I was worried…I don't know what I'd do without you, Otōsan…" I've never seen Konata show this kind of affection. Maybe she isn't just some annoying little otaku after all. Maybe she's sweet and kind-hearted too. My mind flashed back to when she saved us and when she protected me from that monster in that evil place through the doorway.
Yeah, Konata's very kind to those close to her.