The pulse of the system echoed softly across dimensions —
only for their eyes.
Long story short —
TIS and Camera returned to Sea Breeze Inn like they just came back from a grocery trip.
The chaos they left behind?
Already self-corrected by the world system — as if none of it ever happened.
The morning sun shone through the windows.
The kettle was boiling like always.
The sea breeze carried its usual calm whisper.
TIS stretched his arms, plopped down into his usual chair, and pulled out another bag of chips.
"Alrighty, Camera… see?"
He crunched a chip.
"The HR is directly triggered if we do it that way."
Camera hovered in front of him, its lens spinning slightly with annoyance.
'Shut it…' Camera replied.
Its voice sounded both exhausted and impressed at the same time.
'Anyway—'
The holographic projection pulsed softly in front of them, revealing a glowing route tree with one major branch flashing red.
'The HR is none other than… Mizuhara.'
TIS raised his eyebrows slightly, leaning forward.
"Mizuhara, eh… What happened to her?"
Camera's lens dimmed slightly, spinning slower.
'I don't know.
Can't really read it.'
TIS leaned back, taking another calm bite of his chips.
"Non-infectious Hidden Route then," he muttered almost like talking to himself.
Camera paused, floating a bit closer.
'Wait… what?'
TIS pointed at the floating holographic Route Map, where multiple faint glowing branches split off and curved in various directions — some cutting through others, some forming intricate tangles.
"Some of the HR are readable," he explained calmly.
"Which usually means they intersect or interact directly with the Main Route or other subroutes."
He gestured toward a few strands highlighted in pale light.
"See here? Some HRs cut directly across other routes — severing them entirely.
Others cross multiple points and create temporary connections — like…"
He paused for dramatic effect,
"...fistula-like connections."
Camera buzzed slightly, processing.
'Like abnormal narrative tunnels?'
"Exactly," TIS nodded.
"And some, like this one," — he traced one Route looping around itself —
"reconnect to their own origin, forming isolated circular structures."
Camera's lens pulsed.
'...Self-looping HRs.'
"Correct. We call those Isolated Circular Looping Hidden Routes."
TIS tapped the screen lightly.
"ICLHR for short."
Camera vibrated a little, recording the new term into its internal lexicon.
'oh dear... then there is a WHOLE LOT OF HR in this verse'
"not quite... some of the HR happened because of other HR, simply said, there is a core of these HR"
'The main problem...'
"Correct."
'How do we determine the main HR then ?'
"if you look at the white light colored which are the Main Routes and the Alternate routes, not HR that is colored Red"
'I know, why do you repeat that ?'
"In case my kind didn't understand, i mean took me a while to understand it as well"
'Ohh...'
"anyhow, the main HR, usually located inside the main route"
'Hold on... which one is the main route ? we can't really determine it...'
"Ever heard of CT angiography ?"
'One where you inject a contrast and look it at the CT scan ?'
"Exactly, but in fiction... in route... we go... OUTSIDE !"
'Wha....'
With a single leap, gravity itself no longer mattered.
The inn beneath them vanished instantly.
In less than a heartbeat, their surroundings began to collapse into themselves:
The Inn folded into nothingness.The Island compressed into a single dot.The Continent twisted like thin fabric.The entire Planet shrunk into a tiny fragment.Solar systems collapsed like collapsing marble clusters.Galaxies spiraled inward and shattered.Universes snapped like sheets of glass falling into void.Multiverses unraveled into countless shimmering threads.Metaverses spun like gigantic interlinked webs of reality.Hyperverses folded like infinite multidimensional organisms wrapping upon themselves.Omniverses compressed into unfathomable information clouds.Outerverse melted into pure undefined existence.
And then — they reached the final stage:
Completely Beyond.
A place where even logic, narrative, and dimensionality itself held no claim.
'What the…'
"Welcome to the place between the Verse"
"alright now Camera, before you look away, turn off every system that could cause your data to be override as the amount of information is insane" 'Okay..' "and now... have a look !"
The Routes now unfolded across my entire field of vision.
Some twisted.
Some merged together.
Others branched wildly in countless directions.
Among the oddly colored Routes, I noticed two smaller vessels winding alongside them — twisting from one Route to another.
Though thinner, their branches were clearly connected and fused directly into the larger Routes.
They pulsed faintly with unstable colors — neither part of the Route system nor completely detached.
In between all that, there was another —
A single strange yellow vessel.
Unlike the others, it followed its own distinct path — separate, unmerged, and untouched by surrounding Routes.
As my perceptodetic system refreshed and recalibrated the data, the space itself reorganized — forming an entirely new visual structure.
Then it appeared.
An enormous central construct —
A swirling, ever-shifting pump-like formation, its shape constantly deforming and evolving beyond conventional comprehension.
Surrounding it, countless expanding-contracting organic structures, resembling living organs, breathing and morphing into shapes no normal mind could process.
And at the very core —
deep within everything —
I saw it.
A massive pipe…
Or perhaps, a ribbon?
I couldn't tell.
But I knew one thing:
Every single Route branched out from it.
That ribbon extended endlessly forward.
And as it extended, so too did every structure attached to it — constantly growing, evolving alongside its segments.
"And that one..."
TIS pointed forward with a casual motion of his finger,
"Is the Main Route."
Camera hovered, its lens still spinning as it tried to absorb the unimaginable complexity of what it was seeing.
'Fascinating…'
Camera's voice was softer, almost awed.
'This is the real shape of the Verse?'
"Technically, yes."
TIS gestured behind him.
"But it's always changing. Like that one right now behind me—"
He motioned toward a distant section where the structures danced wildly.
"That's the Gint*** Verse. It has a completely different Route setting."
'I see… I am not describing that.'
Camera shook slightly, overwhelmed even trying to calculate it.
"No need to."
TIS smiled faintly.
"Anyhow— look closely at the Main Route.
Do you see those scarrings?
The red scar-like dots scattered along its path?"
Camera zoomed in, its data stream refreshing.
The Main Route Ribbon, so massive and complex, had scattered glowing red points — like wounds barely sealed, quietly pulsating across its endless length.
They were back.
The familiar warmth of the morning sun filtered gently through the window.
The faint smell of tea and the sea breeze returned as if nothing had happened.
Camera floated there, slightly vibrating.
'Oh ma— WTF.'
TIS simply chuckled.
"Yeah... Mizuhara, right? It was dotted, so yeah. Let's go."
Camera's voice lowered, almost reflecting.
'I… I was never able to go beyond my world, TIS.
I didn't even know things existed outside the Outerverse…'
TIS placed a hand lightly on Camera's side, like a teacher comforting a student.
"Hahaha. New new experience."
He stood up, stretching his back.
"Since it's morning again," he added with a smile,
"I'll go pray. After that, we'll approach Mizuhara."
Camera's lens narrowed slightly.
'Understood… and I won't scan the world too much now.
Since after the HR is triggered… it's very fragile.'
"Exactly."