Chapter 159 30.3 Backtracking?

The journey had been relatively smooth. Granted, we were moving as slow as molasses, but with our engines almost dying on us for the entire duration of the trip back, I could only sigh in relief as soon as our anchor finally fell from behind us.

"Ugh... Back here again," Shen groaned. "I really thought I won't be back here for a long while."

"Well, that's just the breaks of it," I chuckled. "We went through an emergency and it's better for us to make the return trip now than to say, us sinking out there."

I let out a small smile at Shen's grumpiness. It was kind of hard to remember that she was just a kid when she was just barking at us to stop stressing the engine a while ago. Heh, that was a trip and a half.

Stepping foot back on solid ground, I let in a sharp inhale as the lack of the ocean waves almost felt off to me now. Even if it had barely been over a day, I guess I already earned my sea legs that way.

"Back home again," Shizu smiled, taking in the sights around her with a solid grin. "Can we stock up on food before we leave again?"

"We can do that easily enough," Guidance scoffed. "Right after we get rid of our captives, of course."

And with that, I found myself looking at the line of prisoners that were currently being ferried out by Maruki. Our tank was borderline gleeful as he herded them all out of their [Rig], us of course also being on standby as we made sure to visibly flash our weapons.

"I could only assume that the authorities will get to them quickly enough," I sighed, spotting Shade alongside Maruki as his [Manifest] glowed with its power. "We can't exactly leave them out here and risk them rampaging through the Port."

"I'm sure the local authorities have things handled," Shizu smugly smiled. "The Kattleynan Militia will all get them processed and shipped to the capital."

Letting out a shrug, I casually crossed my arms as we walked through the port. Shizu was leading out front, with Guidance and I flanking her from each side. Shen was predictably attached by the hip to the princess, obviously not enjoying seeing the familiar sights around us. And- wait... Am I seeing things correctly?

"What the hell..."

Hearing Guidance mutter under her breath, I could only assume that she was seeing what I just noticed. Shizu and Shen hadn't noticed it yet, but the fact that the Portmaster's office was glitching out ever so slightly was kind of disconcerting.

"You're seeing it too then, Guidance?" I quietly asked.

​ "It's horrible," she ground out in annoyance. "I'm pretty sure this wasn't like this back when we first got here. Why the hell are the damn textures glitching out now?"

I almost let out a chuckle. Sure enough, what was once the dingy and dilapidated office was now kind of hovering between that and red error words plastered all over its roof. It wasn't that it was unusable, but it was kind of off-putting, especially if you're used to seeing it.

"Uhh... Guidance?"

Well, Shizu finally noticed it at least.

"If you're asking if we should fix it, depending on how annoying it is, we probably shouldn't bother," Guidance sighed through her teeth. "As much as I'd like to, it's not worth the effort."

"Huh? What's wrong? I'm not seeing anything?"

Shizu let out a pained smile as she answered Shen's confusion. "It's nothing that you shouldn't worry too much about, Shen. Don't worry."

"But I should worry if it needs fixing!" the girl angrily shouted out. "If I can fix it, then it shouldn't be a problem, right?!"

I winced at the unwarranted worry coming from our mechanic. If she couldn't even see the problem, then what hope did she have on-

"What in the hell?!" Guidance?!

The source of this content is nov/el/bin[./]net'

All of us quickly turned in the dev's direction, following her gaze to what looked like... wait... Was that a gaping hole right in the middle of the road?

"That's.... is that safe?" Shizu cautiously asked.

"I don't know," I hesitantly answered.

"What?! What am I not seeing here?!" Shen protested. "Is it that black square thing on the ground?!"

"Yeah," Shizu weakly chuckled. "I haven't seen anything like it before, and I've been looking for stuff like this in the capital for a good while."

Beside me, Guidance was staring dumbfounded at the anomaly before us. It was clearly a glitch of some kind. Probably a missing texture issue again? But wouldn't that be shown with errors instead of it being an unnatural gaping dark void that somehow looked like it had volume to it?

"Guidance?" I asked out. "Any idea on what this thing is?"

The silence from the dev's part was telling as she slowly approached the anomaly. Kneeling down, she waved her hand towards it, and to my surprise, her hand went through the ground as if it was an actual hole.

"This is.... This is beyond a texture glitch," Guidance ground out, her anger rising by the second as she spoke. "This is straight up a missing hitbox on the ground. The collision texture's just gone, and that's what's underneath the world."

"W-What? Y-you mean Kattleyna has this... thing just waiting below us?" Shizu fearfully asked. "C-Can we fix it?!"

"I mean, I can try, but your sight isn't giving me something I can work with," Guidance sighed. "At best, I can maybe put a cover over it, but it might just glitch back into being a problem again."

"Maybe I can try?!"

Without even prompting, Shen moved forward and rose her [Manifest] up in the air, slamming it towards the void, the smile on her face quickly disappeared as a whole lot of nothing happened.

"W-Wha- Nothing happened?!"

"That's to be expected," I sighed. "You can't fix something that's inherently a problem for the very fabric of reality."

"B-But..."

"It's okay, Shen," Shizu smiled. "Let's see if we can fix it anyway. [Code Watcher]"

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