"If you're watching this live, it means the satellite uplink is actually working at twenty-six thousand feet. Either that, or I've finally died and the reception in hell is surprisingly decent."
Kaito adjusted the lens of his action-cam, the wind howling against his thermal suit like a starving beast. He was perched on a ledge no wider than a surfboard, overlooking a sea of clouds that hid the rest of the world.
To the millions watching the 'Kaito-Quest' stream, he was a legend—a "Nutuber" who went where the maps stopped. To the authorities back home, he was a reckless nuisance. To himself? He was just bored.
The ordinary world was too small. Too calculated. Too known.
"The guides at base camp called this peak the 'Shattered Tooth,'" Kaito panted, his breath pluming in the thin air. "They said the ice-tracking here is impossible because the wind shifts the powder every ten minutes. But look at this."
He turned the camera toward the vertical wall of ice ahead. To his viewers, it was a blank white sheet. But Kaito's eyes narrowed. He wasn't just looking; he was tracking. He saw the slight discoloration where the ice was densest. He saw the way the snow settled in the microscopic grooves of the stone.
It was a talent that had made him famous—an uncanny ability to find the "path" where others saw a dead end.
"There," Kaito pointed. "A fracture line. It leads right to the summit. We're going for it."
The chat on his peripheral wrist-display scrolled at a blinding speed.
[User44]: Kaito stop! The storm is coming in!
[AdrenalineJunkie]: Do the jump! Do the jump!
[NoobSlayer]: He's actually gonna die this time.
Kaito ignored the warnings. He lived for the "climb." He lived for that split second where his life hung on the strength of a single carabiner.
He began the ascent. Every move was a gamble. His fingers ached, his lungs felt like they were filled with crushed glass, and the cold was a physical weight pressing against his soul. Yet, as he reached the final overhang, a grin split his frost-bitten lips.
"Almost... there..."
He pulled himself over the final ridge. He expected the summit. He expected the shot of a lifetime.
But as he stood, the mountain groaned. A sound like a tectonic plate snapping echoed through the valley. The "fracture line" he had been tracking hadn't just been a path—it was a warning. The entire shelf of ice beneath his feet gave way.
Kaito didn't scream. As gravity took hold and the world began to spin into a blur of white and grey, a strange, crystalline silence filled his mind.
He saw the camera fly out of his hand, tumbling into the abyss. His last "stream" was over.
Is this it? he thought as he plummeted through the clouds. I spent my whole life looking for something 'more.' I tracked every mountain, every cave, every forbidden zone... and it ends in a hole in the ground?
A profound, soul-aching regret washed over him. He wasn't afraid of death; he was angry at the limitation. He wanted to see a world that didn't have a map. A world that wasn't ordinary.
As the darkness of the abyss rushed up to meet him, a faint, rhythmic pulse echoed in his ears. It wasn't the beating of his heart. It was the sound of a Seed cracking open.
The last thing Kaito saw wasn't the snow of his home world. It was a blinding, ethereal white light—and the silhouette of a massive, glowing tree.