Sitting outside of the room is a belt with a side pouch. I pick it up and go back inside. The unnamed agent whistles as he sees what I'm holding.

"I asked for the best for our VIP, but I didn't expect them to send that baby."

"What is it?" I ask while also using [Scientific Insight+].

[Bag of Conflicting Weight B

-Anything stored in this bag will be shrunken and weigh considerably less. The item the user wishes to be at the top will be at the top.

-The bag is a prototype.

-The maximum it can carry is unknown, but it is estimated to be able to carry a maximum of 50k pounds.

-Cannot store individual items over 500 pounds.]

"It's a decent bag."

"I meant the belt. That fucker makes any storage bag ten times better... not literally."

[Belt of Bags A (1/5)

The user can attach bag-type items to the belt, turning them into a side pouch. The enchantments of the bags are kept, and physical characteristics are kept as much as possible.

Attached bags gain an increase in durability and storage space by 30%

90% weight reduction for any bag while being worn on the belt.

The bags can turn invisible as an anti-theft measure.

Increase Vigor and Might by +50]

I'm stealing this when no one is looking. I put on the belt and clip my backpack onto it. My backpack is technically a storage bag with an enchantment to transfer the items to and from my hand. It shifts and forms into a side pouch on my other hip.

Also, my health is now just over 9k due to the belt.

Inside the bag are two potions, a weird crystal, and a dozen sticks.

"The meat sticks are very dense nutrition-wise. The potions increase your stats by ten for an hour - effects don't stack - and the crystal is a portable escape tool."

"Explain."

"If that crystal stays in a fracture long enough, it can force open a fracture's exit when broken. It starts glowing when it's ready."

"How long does it take to charge?"

"Averages a week. That's why there are nutrition sticks. The Department head allowing you to acquire one is a sign of good faith. One of those is roughly 10% of the annual budget of the entire containment branch."

"Cool. I hope I don't need to use it so I can just keep it or sell it."

"Hahaha, yeah. Find a good black market."

"Are there cameras in here?"

"No. Classified room and all."

"Can you leave the room really quick?"

"...sure? Don't go in the fracture without my supervision, or I'll have to lie on my reports."

After the agent leaves the room, I put my tamed beasts in my mansion before calling him back in. He seems confused but doesn't ask any questions.

I look at him, and he looks back. I jump into the fracture.

The vertigo I experienced is similar to the first time I entered a fracture, except it occurs back to back multiple times before I find myself sprawled on the ground. My vision is swimming, and bile is building at the back of my throat. The feeling is constant, but the burden lessons as it goes on.

[Congratulations! The user has been given the [Journeyman Traveller] title.

[Journeyman Traveller F

The user has traveled to ten different pieces of the shattered world.]

I feel like all my tendons are weak and stiff. I forcefully stretch my body and look around. And what I see is... confusing.

It looks like I'm entering and exiting various fractures with wildly different terrain, but the scenery changes before I can pinpoint any exact details. It hurts my eyes to look at it. But eventually, my body felt fine, even with the motion blur and rapid shuffling. It feels... familiar, but not in a nostalgic way.

Like a roulette wheel, the constant changes slowly wind down until I'm left in complete darkness. I can feel the floor and the air around me, but I'm blind.

I pull out my phone and turn on the flashlight, and the room illuminates.

It's black. Everything is black. Floor, ceiling, and walls. Fucking everything. Four walls surround me. There's nowhere to go.

There isn't enough room for Khan, so I pull out my tamed beasts except for him. Duchess lights up the room without issue, and I can see everything, or rather the lack of anything.

No windows, no door, absolutely nothing. I'm honestly confused.

Rob points at a wall and looks at me for permission. I nod, and he prepares his tools. After some demolition work, the ebony bricks shatter and reveal the gloomy sky.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

A realm of dead trees and tombstones filled with inky sky and dark soil, the monotony only separated by a far-off mausoleum and brick-and-mortar walls encapsulates my vision. The chattering of the undead and the light fog covering the ground is everpresent.

The stench of miasma permeates my sinuses. I quickly check if my tamed beasts are in danger from it.

Flash Gordon and Prometheus aren't made from living tissue, Rob is undead, and Duchess has the [Holy Body] skill. I think Khan would have an issue...

Why am I back here? Am I back anywhere, or is this a perfect reconstruction of my first fracture? I'm glad I wasn't dropped in the middle of a desert, but this isn't much better. The title I got insinuates that this is a new fracture, but with all that mind-rattling vertigo, did I travel to one fracture, or is something else at play here? What was that slide show?

I look behind me at the place I was entombed. It looks like a simple mausoleum, but something is off about it. It seems... new, for lack of a better word. Plus, I don't recall this place having any buildings except for the ebony mausoleum from where I exited this place initially. [Scientific Insight+] doesn't gleam me any information.

"Does anyone have any ideas?"

Rob raises his hand and runs off in what seems to be a random direction. I follow him as he smacks the shit out of a level 5 skeleton from behind with a shovel, snatches a bone from the shattered remains, and continues running.

My [Scientific Insight+] isn't giving different information than my first time in this [Endless Graveyard]—the same type of soil, trees, and skeletons. I recall I only explored roughly 1% of the fracture, which is concerning.

Rob leads us to a familiar place. The aforementioned only building. Inside this mausoleum is a stairway into a series of maze-like crypts that ultimately opens into an underground arena.

It's the exact same. The journal I couldn't read from a secret compartment in one of the rooms wasn't there. The compartment is open and empty, exactly how I left it.

I follow Rob down the stairs and through the maze before ending at the arena's entrance. The stands are packed full as skeletons fight it out in single combat. When one falls, another takes its place. One skeleton seems to be dominating the others reminds me of the [Skeleton Champion] that caused me issues my first time here.

I'm about to fling Flash Gordon at it, but Rob places a hand on my arm. Rob steps back and leans his entire body backward as he grips his shovel like a javelin. He throws it straight at the champion's head, and it instantly dies. The armored body collapses in a heap as the skull explodes from Rob's attack. The other skeleton turns to look at me. The crowd of skeletons turns to look at me.

Hey, I'm not the one who threw that!

The skeletons scramble out of the stands chattering their teeth. Duchess castes a single [Radiant] spell, and 80% of the skeletons turn to ash with a flash of light. The rest don't back down.

They scrape me with their knuckles, shank me with their weapons, and bite my exposed flesh. They don't do anything to me. They actively start dying thanks to thorn damage.

Prometheus stops containing his passive heat generation, and the skeletons ignite like tinder and crumple into charred bones around me.

Not a single point of experience was gained.

Rob kicks the corpse of the newbie champion across the arena and starts to gloat and run around in front of the stands like a victor.

I recall that before I tamed Rob, he was the underling of that [Skeleton Champion]. I guess he had frustrations he finally managed to vent.

[The User's tamed [Skeleton Gravelord] is attempting to take over this [Necropolis].]

[Sector One of the [Endless Graveyard] has a new lord. This ripple is felt across the fracture.]

I look at Rob, but he seems lost in thought. Even though the fracture's exit is open, I ask him if he has unfinished business here. This is technically his birthplace, after all. He slowly nods and leaves the arena.

We go quite a distance to somewhere I've probably walked past the first time I was here. Rob stops in front of an open unmarked grave the size of a child. With dead eyes, he stares at the ground. The shadows and darkness give it the illusion that it's endless, even though the grave is shallow.

"Was it yours?" Rob nods. "Do you remember anything? Were you alive before?"

He gestures that he doesn't know. Undead can be born from heavy miasma, a corpse is not required, but it makes the process easier.

Rob lays down in his little hole. His limbs and head can't fit, so he looks comical as he lies there. He's almost three times bigger than when I initially tamed him.

Rob stands back up and takes out a shovel. As a lord, he can manipulate his land as he sees fit, but he manually fills his grave before leaving the shovel sticking straight up in the mound.

"Do you feel better?"

Rob gestures that he doesn't know. I hold his hand and walk him back to the fracture's exit. He obediently follows me.

I wonder how old Rob is, how long he was a low-ranking skeleton, what this place was before it became a fracture, and how Rob was buried here if he was. He's too expressive and emotional to be a simple amalgamation of deathly miasma.

He was buried, but I don't know if that's just how skeletons are made here, so that doesn't confirm anything. I wonder if someone out there is looking for a lost child, unknowing that they've been buried in an endless graveyard.

Our journey back is met with no aggression. The resident undead wouldn't dare attack us as the lord is right there.

The arena is empty. The exit is gone. That's fine. We'll find another one.

We hop the nearest brick wall and continue deeper into the monotomous landscape. More grave dust, more dead trees... stronger undead? That's different.

Before, there wasn't a single undead above level 10. Now there isn't a single undead above level 20—most of the undead hover around level 15+.

[The User's tamed [Skeleton Gravelord] is attempting to take over this [Necropolis].]

[Sector Two of the [Endless Graveyard] is under invasion. The Lord of Sector Two contests!]

I wonder how many sectors this seemingly endless place has. If it jumps in increments by ten with every sector, wouldn't that sector 10 would have level 100, and sector 100 would have level 1,000s?

I really want to see what a level 1000 looks like. Too bad I'd probably die before I could even get close enough to see it.

The undead attack with fervor. This entire section seemingly knows where we are, regardless of how far away the undead is.

I can hear them coming. The chattering of teeth, their feet digging into the soft ground as they kick themselves forward.

Too bad they are all scrubs. They die before their dust can coat my boots. My tamed beasts make quick work of the attacking hoard, regardless of how many there are.

We make a loud enough noise and cause enough destruction to where the lord appears before we can enter their mausoleum. I'm assuming they have one.

[Big Chattering Skeleton D lv.35]

A skeleton that towers over all the others, roughly 15 feet tall, stands in front of Rob. This skeleton has no eye holes or nostrils. Instead, a single large mouth filled with giant gnashing teeth takes up the entire skull.

The chattering is deafening... not that it hurts.

Rob smacks it with the blunt end of his shovel, and it dies.