I'm Trapped in the Block

As the ghost slowly began to tell its tale, the story of the Natural Gas Race gradually came to light.

...

From a time long ago, the Natural Gas Race had lived inside a single pillar, which they called—the World Pillar.

Countless members of the Natural Gas Race would liquefy, living within the pores of this World Pillar.

Although it was a hard and dense stone pillar, its interior was filled with countless pores that crisscrossed in an intricate network, branching out like the limbs of a tree to every corner of the World Pillar.

In the middle of the World Pillar was a great fissure that ran from top to bottom—the Great Rift. Most of the Natural Gas Race lived within it.

But the concept of the World Pillar did not exist from the very beginning.

The Natural Gas Race was born inside the World Pillar, and they once believed that these pores constituted their entire world.

The Mineral Race within the Thorn Stone Forest all possessed innate wisdom, names, and a certain degree of knowledge. The Natural Gas Race was no exception.

However, this knowledge was completely irreconcilable with the environment they perceived.

’What is the world? Is it the space formed by these pores?’

’What is the sky? Is it the branches of pores that always lead upward?’

’What is the ground? Is it the rock walls one reaches by constantly going down?’

...

Although their minds were full of theories, they were constrained by their environment and lacked any real thirst for knowledge, making it impossible for them to reconcile theory with practice.

As new generations were born, their worldview became more and more distorted.

If the world was completely different from the perception in their minds, then by not exploring the world, no discrepancy would arise.

The Natural Gas Race, like the other members of the Mineral Race, possessed only a single emotion: fear.

Without curiosity, they had no desire to explore the world.

Ignorance was a blessing.

Within the pores, there was no sense of crisis, so they simply languished, drifting aimlessly. They would turn to liquid and sink to the bottom, only to turn back into gas and float to the top.

Their existence was even more tedious than that of the Mineral Race outside.

At the time, the Natural Gas Race was fully capable of exploring every pore in their world, but no one was willing to undertake such a task.

However, with a large enough population, there will always be a few outliers—like Shibeng—who get bored and go looking for something to do.

These outliers among the Natural Gas Race began to explore the pore space—what was, in their eyes, the "world."

Back then, the entire Natural Gas Race was concentrated in the Great Rift at the center of the pillar, drifting up and down within it as they shifted between their gas and liquid states.

One of these outliers, struck by a sudden whim born of boredom, decided he wanted to look around. And so, he set off.

Instead of exploring up and down the Great Rift like the rest of his kind, he found a tiny horizontal pore and squeezed his way through it.

He followed this pore, memorizing the route, and after a very long time, he unexpectedly hit a rock wall.

In those days, a rock wall represented the ground, a concept that clashed with the knowledge in his mind.

’Why is there ground everywhere?’

He felt a surge of fear. This was all too strange.

But he didn’t turn back. Instead, he followed the rock wall, moving continuously in one direction.

He continued until he had traced a full circle and returned to his starting point.

’The world is a circle?’

That strange sense of dissonance returned, and a fear that pierced him to his core flooded his mind.

’No! I have to find out what’s going on. I have to eliminate this fear!’

He set out again, filled with this sense of awe, and began exploring the entire pore space.

As he explored, that sense of awe slowly faded. After a great deal of time, he had finally committed the map of every pore in their world to memory.

During his travels, he returned to the Great Rift countless times to share his knowledge with his kin.

When he had traversed the very last corner of the pores, he stood before a rock wall and recalled the map of the entire world. The shape of their world materialized in his mind.

’The world... is a pillar?’

The moment this thought occurred to him, that immense sense of dissonance surged through his mind once more.

’No! That’s not right!’

’This is terrifying.’

The fear he thought had vanished came rushing back, an overwhelming terror born from the chasm between his innate knowledge and the reality of the world.

Driven to madness by his discovery, he returned to the Great Rift and shared his terrifying knowledge with his kin.

"The world is a pillar! The knowledge in our minds is false! There is no sky, no ground, no ocean! There is only a pillar!"

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! It’s all fake! I’m fake too!"

He finally succumbed to the immense terror weighing upon him and did something no member of the Mineral Race would ever do—he committed suicide.

There is nothing more terrifying than discovering that your own thoughts are a lie.

Driven by fear, the other members of the Natural Gas Race also began to explore the pores.

And to their astonishment, they discovered that what the outlier had said was true!

The world was a pillar!

Countless members of the Natural Gas Race began to follow the same path as the outlier, and they too descended into fear-fueled madness.

The emotion was contagious, and the entire race could no longer live the peaceful life they once had.

The more they knew, the deeper they understood the world, the more they were driven to madness by fear!

Finally, the Natural Gas Race decided to execute the members who had gone mad and were spreading the "World Pillar theory."

During a mass execution, something suddenly appeared at the site—a red cloth.

Before everyone’s eyes, the red cloth simply materialized out of thin air where the crazed members had died.

This was the origin of the red cloth.

The red cloth was quickly hidden away as a piece of forbidden knowledge.

As time passed, the Natural Gas Race slowly returned to their old ways of languishing and drifting aimlessly.

Fewer and fewer of them knew of the forbidden knowledge.

This continued until the war in the Thorn Stone Forest spread to the base of the pillar, breaking through and opening a path from the pores of the Natural Gas Race to the underground caverns. Only then did they come into contact with the outside world.

After making contact with the outside world, the Natural Gas Race began to interact with the other Mineral Races and gradually learned about the Thorn Stone Forest as a whole.

So, there was so much beyond the rock walls.

It was only then that the forbidden knowledge was brought up again, and they began to re-examine their understanding of the world.

The Natural Gas Race finally understood that the pores were not the world, nor was the world a pillar. Their innate knowledge was, in fact, reliable.

The outside world was vast and matched the knowledge in their minds perfectly. The place they lived was indeed a pillar, but it was only one part of the world.

The knowledge that once had the power to drive them mad with fear gradually became common sense.

Knowledge is like that; a slight deviation in perspective can lead one into an inescapable abyss.

Only then did the Natural Gas Race begin to call the stone pillar of their birth the World Pillar.

The name also represented them making peace with the fear that had once overshadowed them.

Because they had encountered the outside world so late, the Natural Gas Race had always maintained an aloof appearance, detached from worldly affairs.

They didn’t join any faction, nor did they dare to explore. Instead, they continued to hole up inside the World Pillar, observing everything within the Thorn Stone Forest.

Until the accident happened...