They reached the overwing exit and paused.
Eiji leaned forward to look outside.
His expression grew tense as he examined the ground below.
“The wing is close to the ground,” he said at last.
The wing was a few meters above the jungle floor.
The drop was still high, but the ground below looked stable.
Vines and low branches grew close enough to help them climb down.
Tsuchiya let out a quiet breath.
“That’s our best option.”
Eiji reached for the handle and pulled.
The hatch resisted at first, then gave way and swung open.
He climbed out first and stepped onto the wing.
After checking the trees and the area below, he looked back.
“I don’t see anything nearby.”
Tsuchiya followed him onto the wing.
“Let’s check the area around the aircraft.”
Yarai climbed out last.
They moved along the wing and used the vines and low branches to support themselves as they climbed down.
When Yarai reached the ground, the soil gave slightly beneath his weight.
It was soft and damp, covered by decaying leaves and plant matter.
The jungle looked like a thick wall of green, but as Yarai studied it more closely, something began to feel wrong.
He crouched and brushed aside the leaves.
Several plants grew from the same patch of soil, their roots spreading beneath one another.
The combination seemed familiar, although he could not remember where he had learned about it.
“That’s strange…”
Eiji looked back.
“What is?”
Yarai pointed toward a cycad growing beside a conifer.
“Those plants belong to different environments. Even the smaller plants beneath them don’t match.”
Eiji glanced around.
“It’s a jungle.”
“That’s why it’s strange. They shouldn’t be growing together like this.”
Tsuchiya pushed aside a broad leaf and looked deeper into the vegetation.
“Whatever the reason, we can barely move through this. We need to find a clearer route.”
Yarai glanced toward the trees on their right.
“Then we should look for an animal trail. I saw a clearing surrounded by trees through the windows on the right side of the aircraft.”
Eiji turned slightly.
“How are we supposed to find one?”
“The vegetation should be thinner where animals pass regularly. The ground may be softer and more worn down, making the path easier to move through,” Yarai said.
He glanced at the narrow gap between the plants..
“Something like this.”
Yarai stepped toward a section where the undergrowth looked slightly disturbed.
He followed the narrow trail through the vegetation, pushing aside low branches as the ground gradually sloped downward.
After several meters, the undergrowth began to thin, and the dense forest opened into a broad clearing below the aircraft.
Eiji and Tsuchiya followed, and a wave of clearer air hit their faces.
Tsuchiya walked to the edge of the clearing and looked around.
“This should be wide enough to gather the passengers.”
Eiji turned toward the aircraft.
“The right side faces the clearing. We can bring everyone down through those exits.”
They walked around briefly.
The clearing spread in a wide U-shape, surrounded by tall trees.
It was open enough for temporary gathering, but still surrounded by forest on all sides.
From here, the aircraft was clearly visible.
Yarai looked around more carefully.
The aircraft rested unevenly above the clearing, yet its fuselage and wings showed none of the damage Yarai would have expected from such a landing.
Even the sections pressed into the surrounding vegetation appeared largely intact.
The left side dropped into thick vegetation, making it difficult to access.
The front remained elevated and unstable due to the slope.
Only the right side connected naturally to the open area below.
Tsuchiya looked toward the aircraft.
“This will do. Eiji, open the right-side exits and deploy the slides.”
He glanced toward the clearing before continuing.
“Tell Towa to organize the passengers. Bring them down one at a time and keep them away from the exits until it’s their turn.”
Eiji nodded.
“Understood.”
As Tsuchiya and Eiji headed back toward the aircraft, Yarai remained in the clearing for a moment and studied the ground beneath his feet.
The soil was firmer and drier than the damp forest floor they had crossed.
Plant growth was sparse, leaving much of the clearing bare, and the vegetation at its edge did not gradually thin into the open ground.
It ended abruptly, as though the boundary between the two environments had been deliberately maintained.
He made a mental note of it.
Inside the aircraft, Tsuchiya addressed the passengers.
“Listen carefully. We’re using only the right-side exits. Move one at a time, and stay together once you’re on the ground.”
Near the middle rows, Towa helped an elderly passenger to his feet while Asami checked the remaining passengers for anyone who was too injured or disoriented to move on their own.
“Towa, take the forward section. Asami, help the passengers in the rear and keep the aisle clear,” Tsuchiya called.
Both flight attendants nodded and moved into position.
Passengers gathered near the exit, hesitating as they looked down at the clearing surrounded by dense jungle.
A man near the opening looked from the clearing to Tsuchiya.
“Where are we? What is this place?”
“We’ll figure that out. Right now, we need everyone off the aircraft safely,” Tsuchiya said.
After a moment, Tsuchiya guided one of the students toward the exit.
“Go slowly. Sit down at the edge and let the slide take you down.”
Eiji stood beside the open exit and helped the first student position himself at the top of the slide.
“Hold onto the sides and keep your legs forward. Don’t stop in the middle. Move away once you reach the ground.”
The student took a breath before sliding down.
A few seconds later, he reached the clearing safely.
Eiji looked down and signaled for the next passenger to come forward.
Several people began gathering near the aisle.
“Please, don’t push. Stay in line and wait until the person ahead reaches the ground,” Asami said.
“I don’t want to go down there,” a woman said, staring at the jungle below.
Towa stepped beside her.
“You don’t have to look. Just sit down and let the slide carry you. I’ll be right behind you.”
The woman hesitated before giving a small nod.
A few passengers later, another woman stopped at the exit.
She gripped the door frame tightly and began to cry as she looked down at the slide below.
“It’s all right. Just sit down slowly. You’re almost there,” the passenger behind her said.
As more passengers gathered in the clearing, several took out their phones and tried to contact their families or emergency services.
“There’s still no signal,” someone said.
A woman stared at her phone and tapped the screen several times before frowning.
“The map won’t load.”
Nearby, a young man removed a small compass from his keychain and held it flat in his palm.
“Is this broken?”
The needle trembled, shifted to one side, and then drifted back without settling.
“It’s probably interference,” someone said.
“We’re surrounded by dense forest.”
The man looked down at the compass again as the needle continued to drift without settling.
Slowly, the passengers began to calm down.
Some sat down, while others moved to help the injured, tearing cloth and using it to bind wounds as best they could.
The air filled with low voices as everyone tried to stay calm.
Yarai moved closer to one of the trees and ran his fingers over its bark before crouching to examine the soil around its roots.
The ground beneath the trees felt different from both the dense vegetation near the aircraft and the open ground where the passengers had gathered.
It was neither packed and bare like the clearing nor damp and crowded with roots like the jungle behind them.
He pulled his hand back and looked around again.
The trees stood farther apart, their lower branches spreading outward and leaving enough space to move between them without forcing through the vegetation.
Above, the canopy remained partially open, allowing broken patches of sunlight to reach the ground.
This felt like another environment entirely.
Yarai exhaled slowly, his attention drifting toward a small patch of ground where movement had caught his eye earlier.
A small animal moved between the exposed roots.
It was no bigger than a rat, with a compact body, a short snout, and long back legs.
It stopped for only a moment before disappearing under the leaves.
A name surfaced in Yarai’s mind.
Ptilodus…?
Another creature moved beneath the trees.
It was much larger, with a heavy body, a wide shape, and strong claws made for digging through the forest floor.
It disappeared into the thick plants a moment later..
Eumegamys…?
His eyes narrowed.
“I shouldn’t know this… but I do.”
The thought stayed for a moment longer than it should have.
Yarai looked at the spot again, as if the answer might change if he observed it differently.
The name remained in his mind with certainty, familiar in a way that did not feel like a memory, yet did not feel new either.
He clicked his tongue softly and looked away.
The two animals should not have existed in the same environment.
Ptilodus existed near the end of the dinosaurs, around the Paleocene transition, while Eumegamys came much later.
Could this place have preserved fragments from different eras?
He looked up, observing the trees, the layers of vegetation, and the way everything grew densely together without any clear pattern.
Three different environments… mixed together?
But how…?
Around him, no one else seemed to notice.
To them, it was just a strange jungle.
Dense, noisy and unfamiliar.
But to him, it was wrong.
He exhaled slowly, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, but nothing lined up properly.
“…This doesn’t look like a natural ecosystem. Nothing here fits together,” he murmured.
As he was thinking, a voice broke his focus.
He realized he had been staring too long.
“Yarai-kun, what are you doing there? Don’t go too deep into the jungle.”
He paused and looked back.
Kurusu Makoto stood there, steady despite having been unconscious not long ago.
Her glasses were slightly out of place, and her short hair was still messy, but her attention was fixed entirely on him.
Yarai studied her quietly.
She wasn’t afraid.
If anything, she looked genuinely concerned.
“…Nowhere, sensei. Just looking around.”
Kurusu blinked, caught off guard by the response.
He didn’t realize it himself.
Before, he would have ignored her.
Not because he didn’t care, but because he had never known how to show it in a way others could understand.
“I… I see. Then come back. We should stay together with the class.”
“I’ll be there in a bit. Don’t wander off. Stay with the group,” Yarai said.
She pouted, then nodded.
“I should be the one saying that to you, Yarai-kun….come back soon.”
Yarai nodded and he let the thought drop and started walking back.
His thoughts drifted, and in that brief lapse, he walked straight into someone.
“Hey, watch where you’re going…”
Mikoshiba snapped without looking.
Beside him, Ono immediately smacked him on the back of the head.
“Idiot. Look first.”
Mikoshiba turned, irritation still on his face, but the moment he saw Yarai, it disappeared.
“…Y-Yarai-kun… I didn’t know it was you.”
Yarai glanced at him briefly, then walked past without a word.
A cold sweat broke out on Mikoshiba’s face as he watched him leave.
Ono let out a quiet sigh of relief.
Yarai had barely taken a few steps when a panicked voice cut through the air.
“I can’t find Akira-kun and Mariya-kun anywhere!”