Solaena's [Guided] Journey (Fantasy LitRPG)

I had to face reality: after being subjected to the unknown disaster, the tower wasn't the same tower I once treated as my second refuge.

It was too wrecked and deformed, pretty much a new world to get acquainted with.

A world ruled by darkness, silence, and the putrid scent of rotting giants.

Yet, strangely enough, it had also become a world where I could spread my wings without fear.

I was alone, surrounded solely by comfortable darkness, and this was exactly what I never knew I desired.

"Woooh!" I ran freely through the familiar corridor strewn with decaying corpses, feeling the air opposing me as I endeavored to go faster and faster.

My two legs were what I primarily used to propel myself forward, but whenever I needed to, I knew to employ both of my arms to deftly redirect my momentum or beat my flourishing wings to stabilize myself through tight turns.

This was absolutely thrilling.

This was... true, unrestrained freedom.

No one to be wary of, no hunger to worry about, no encroaching cold to be concerned about.

Just [Guided] and me, a world filled with treasures to uncover, and a fundamental truth of [Exertion] to exercise.

If I were short-sighted enough not to see the need to prepare myself for a future disaster, this whole situation would feel utterly perfect.

A shame I wasn't, or that [Guided] would never allow me to be, even for a fleeting instant.

There were always more corridors to explore, more doors to force open, more boxes to open, more corpses to strip of their belongings, more foul elements to pull into my [Cycle], more extreme [Exertion]s to realize now that I didn't have to worry about being seen or heard...

In odd ways, this situation truly was perfect.

Simply not from the perspective of enjoying being lazy.

Perfect for me.

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With one final loud clang, the warped wall of metal finally gave in and collapsed under its own weight, crashing heavily against the surrounding walls, scraping off rust all the way until it impacted the floor with a resounding boom.

Striding onwards, I uncaringly let go of my pickaxe, its sweaty handle naturally sliding from my hands.

I had too many of them anyway; I could lose all of them and still find too many new ones to count if I wanted to.

With one light flutter of my wings and a slight impulse from my legs, I smoothly jumped and grabbed the entry to a pipe network that should take me directly back to the surface.

If it hadn't been blocked off like all my latest attempts, that was.

With some degree of difficulty due to my physical growth—I had outgrown two sets of clothes in the time it took me to clamber back to this floor—I had to twist a bit here and there to gain entry through the increasingly tight circumference of the pipe.

It was still a reasonable fit, though. It was just that I still remembered a time when worrying about being unable to fit through any sort of pipe was so... nonexistent that I had difficulty adjusting myself to the changing reality that was my size.

To think that one day, I would wake up and no longer fit...

Sure, that time was still so far away as to be irrelevant for me in the short and medium term, but it would inevitably come to pass.

Not that I was as unenthused by all the benefits I gained from growing up as I made it sound.

I particularly liked how my strength was shooting up.

I also liked my wings, and often found myself astonished by how habitual their use had become over time without me noticing.

My wings had essentially grown into limbs on the same level as my two legs and arms, and they were still not finished developing.

At least I believed so.

My teeth were such a bother, though...

While contemplating all my growing-up issues, I continued to crawl without difficulty through the twists and bends of this pipe network, my body having not forgotten its layout despite how long it had taken me to get back so close to the surface.

One ascent after another, I increasingly neared the surface, slowly growing dumbfounded at the ease with which I was doing so compared to the other paths I had previously attempted.

And then I sighted it.

Not an unmanageable chasm.

Not a solid wall that didn't echo my blow at all.

Not a pipe so twisted in on itself I could not imagine what sort of force had caused it to become so.

A flicker of deep red.

A repeated flicker of deep red.

One I couldn't be more familiar with, it having been part of my first unforgettable experience when looking up at the ceiling of the outside world after taking my first step outside the refuge.

I crawled a bit further, and...

I was out.

Out, and overlooking the unfamiliar scenery of a town split apart by gigantic panes of metal.

As for the origin of those panes, a glance upwards was all it took me to conclude the most likely cause of the disaster that killed so many.

The ceiling had collapsed on the town.

Which brought me to the question...

What should I do now?

Well, apart from dealing with the imminent advancement of one of my Aspects, as I could tell from the mounting pressure within, that was.

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I had hoped it would be [Insight], one of the earliest Aspects I formed, before I even became aware of what Aspects were, but one that now lagged behind for reasons that were difficult to grasp.

It swiftly became evident that it wasn't meant to be.

Not yet, at least.

It was bound to advance sometime, of course. [Guided] and I would make certain of it.

Just not now.

For right now, I was inferring the real impact and reach of [Tempering], something I never truly apprehended, by going through a series of extreme [Exertion]s.

I [Cycle]d huge amounts of harmful elements through my body.

I sprinted until it felt like my legs were falling off, that I couldn't breathe anymore, and that my heartbeat seemed to merge into one continuous beat.

And whenever the opportunity arose, I stopped to lift huge boxes weighing, at least, multiple times my own weight.

All of that simultaneously.

Aspect Advanced: [Tempering] (Tier 0) ➞ [Tempering] (Tier 1)

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Until something gave and the strain noticeably lessened, confirming for a final time that the [Tempering] Aspect had some manner of overlap with [Exertion] when it came to enduring extreme efforts and recovering from them afterwards.

Not that I was misguided enough to believe that was it, period.

I had spent too much time visiting that truest embodiment of my existence residing in my deepest part while my body lay on the floor as a broken wreck to be so simply misled and deceived.

[Guided] (Origin)

[Exertion] (Tier 1)

[Cycle] (Tier 1)

[Insight] (Tier 0)

[Perception] (Tier 1)

[Tempering] (Tier 1)

[Darkness] (Tier 0)

[Will] (Tier 0)

Beyond that, once accessing that part of my being became something I could effortlessly achieve before even realizing it, I only grew more reverent.

Every Aspect was a corner of reality unto itself that I had made part of my being.

Such was what I unavoidably came to recognize after prodding every facet of each of my Aspects.

[Exertion] embodied all the ways one could exert oneself, be it physically or mentally, be it in short bursts or in sustained efforts.

[Tempering], in turn, touched upon the difficulties one faced when measuring themselves against things bigger than themselves.

And I fully believed that I was only scratching the surface of how potent Aspects truly were.

Unfortunately, I lacked knowledge and could only figure everything out as I went...

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As I took in the spectacle of devastation resulting from the collapse of the ceiling from atop the miraculously still-standing tower, I truly realized how lucky I was to still be alive.

How lucky I was that not one of the many panes of metal, each more massive than the whole tower, had ended up crashing on top of it, making it collapse on me without so much as giving me a chance.

How lucky I was to have advanced my [Cycle] Aspect preemptively, removing any worries of starving to death while I was trapped underground despite the paste furnaces shutting down.

How lucky I was that [Guided] had always been by my side, spurring me forward even when all hope seemed lost...

Now, whereas everything else I had ever known lay in ruin, I was still there and, against all odds, in a better position than ever before.

Lost in thought, contemplating my future as I stared into the distance, waiting for anything to happen and give [Guided] something to play with, I suddenly caught sight of the slightest movement and turned my head towards it in surprise.

My first thought was that I had finally found other survivors, leading me to focus much more attentively on the place where I trusted my [Perception] to have captured a real movement.

And there I beheld it, skulking through the rusted remains of various buildings blown away by the disaster, believing itself to be one with the [Darkness].

From a distance, it looked just like I had imagined from hearing so many giants describe one in varying levels of detail.

A heap of rust that slowly dragged itself forward, every one of its uneven shifts splitting the bits and pieces of corroded metal making up its carapace, exposing something darker and more twisted beneath.

If those descriptions were to be believed, a rust abomination could smell anything that wasn't rust and would relentlessly hunt that smell down until it ate it or died of exhaustion.

Not that it was relevant to me.

Not when killing just a single one of these abominations supposedly took entire teams of hunters, with a non-negligible failure rate resulting in everyone's death.

Again... from what I had overheard the giants say.

Now that I had the chance to behold one with my own two eyes, it sure looked sluggish and slow.

And how could it chase me down if I ever escaped upwards?

If they were as relentless as the giants made them out to be, however, I could see how they would be a gargantuan issue out in the rust wastes...

Because from where I stood, I could observe the rust wastes, and to say they were flat was an understatement.

"Yeah, alright, big problem..." I ultimately muttered to myself, discovering a massive issue I would encounter if I ever wanted to leave the town to journey somewhere beyond.

Could I possibly bring an unbreakable box along with me and take refuge inside whenever I needed to?

I was still small enough to fit inside one, wasn't I?

What would happen to the stuff I left outside, though...

And what if a rust abomination opted to simply gobble up the whole box...

Was a rust abomination easier to kill from the inside?

So many unanswered questions caused me to shake my head in dismay.

I guessed I would have to add even more [Exertion]s to my schedule...

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Everything was ready.

An unbreakable box to take refuge in.

Emergency paste in case my [Cycle] ever failed to sustain me.

A plethora of tools and weapons for any strange situation I stumbled into.

Multiple sets of the best clothes I had collected, serving the triple purpose of keeping me warm, keeping me protected, and making it look like I was either too poor to bother with or too rich to bother with.

Yup, the two sides resulted in the same thing, as stupid as it was logically sound.

Bringing all those supplies back to the surface had been a massive pain in the ass, most of all the box, which I had to unearth a new path to the surface for, but I made it work.

Now, I was fully ready for the next disaster to descend and strike me, and only needed to wait until the burgeoning pressure of an imminent Aspect advancement abated before I started exploring the desolate town blocking my path to the rust wastes.

Not that this timing was an accident.

No, it was exactly what [Guided] had planned for me by having me practice making absolutely no sounds while accomplishing all sorts of noisy [Exertion]s.

In terms of bizarreness, practicing my [Darkness] Aspect really topped all else, but as my sole semi-reliable solution to the rust abomination plus rust wastes combination challenge, I did what had to be done.

Aspect Advanced: [Darkness] (Tier 0) ➞ [Darkness] (Tier 1)

And with a far-reaching burst suffusing my whole being in an instant, only to dissolve just as quickly and allow the all-encompassing [Darkness] to suffuse my everything again and hide me from the perilous world outside, I felt ready.

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With every step I took towards the motionless form of the rust abomination, whose stillness was disturbed solely by the slightest up-and-down motion accompanying its breathing, my fear and apprehension of what I was doing only grew.

Still, I had stalked this abomination for so long because it was much better to ascertain my furtiveness and escape capabilities when I was in a familiar location and had already thoroughly prepared my escape than when I least expected it once out in the middle of nowhere.

Thus, I took another completely silent step forward, being all the more careful not to disturb a single piece of metal.

I stopped thinking.

I silenced my [Cycle].

I [Will]ed for not a wisp of my smell to leave me.

Not until I carried out all those steps together did I truly feel as though I had become one with the [Darkness].

It accepted me; I accepted it in turn, and in the blink of an eye, the [Darkness] surrounding me thickened, further concealing my approach.

Until I was within hand's reach of touching the haphazard mix of scrapped and rusted metal it used as a carapace.

Undetected.

Success.

I silently unsheathed the long, pointy spike I had chosen to accompany me on this risky excursion, then inaudibly positioned myself where I had learned whatever this abomination used to sense the world was located.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

I raised my right arm and angled my weapon so that it was perfectly targeted at the smallest gap caused by its breathing pattern.

I struck, the entire length of my spike sliding effortlessly through the carapace of the abomination.

The reaction was instant, and it began to thrash violently.

If it were capable of producing sound, I was certain it would have been cursing me to death.

A shame I had already retreated by then and didn't look back, not giving it even the remotest chance of chasing me down before I gained sufficient height to take advantage of my wings and light weight to truly escape it.

In all honesty, bearing in mind how many more similar attempts I presumed [Guided] intended to have me perform, it might have been better for it to die painlessly from this first strike...

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The time had come.

That's what I concluded when a huge boom woke me and I exited the safety of the tower's [Darkness] to witness a massive cloud of dust and rust surrounding a massive pane of metal from the ceiling that had crashed down not far away.

Without so much as a sigh, I turned back and started preparing myself.

I gave myself the best wipe, changed my clothes to my finest set, filled my stomach with paste I would be leaving behind anyway, equipped myself with my foremost pointy stick, and tightened the straps of my essential backpack one last time before lifting it.

Its weight was arguably perfect for both sustained travel and running away. Despite being easily as tall as I was when standing, its frame was parted down the center, allowing my wings to pass through semi-unobstructed, with the shoulder straps adjusted to sit clear of their joints.

Before leaving, I sent one last longing glance at all the unbreakable boxes I had ended up gathering and eventually physically outgrown, then grabbed one of the most precious treasures I had uncovered from the devastated town.

A map.

A map I was still studying by comparing each of its features and characteristics with other maps I had found, being unable to decipher the meanings behind what the giants called "writing".

Finally ready, [Guided] pointed me towards the outside, but I still paused when I passed by an innocuous wall that I knew contained all the coins I had collected from both inside the tower and throughout the town.

I had gathered so many coins that they ended up forming a pile higher than me...

"Hah..."

This, more than the gigantic pane of metal crashing down close by, finally caused me to sigh.

In the end, keeping only a small quantity of the shiniest coins I had unearthed and sealed tightly in a small purse contained in my backpack, I reluctantly turned my back on this wall and left.

If the opportunity arose and it wasn't too inconvenient, I would come back.

In the meantime...

I had the famous Red Sand Rift City I had heard so many giants call their ideal future destination to journey towards.

I really hoped the drawing of a huge jagged red line surrounded by lots of small buildings I found on various maps referred to it...

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