Dai looked at the name on the map and grimaced.
Sea Breeze Mansion. Test Area 22'
She turned off the map and looked up.
"You did this?" Dai asked with anger in her voice.
System: "I don't know what you mean, boss."
Dai laughed ironically. "Don't you know? Really? By pure coincidence, we've entered the territory of a powerful beast, and by pure coincidence, you forgot to tell me that I won't be able to teleport outside of Shelter, and also by pure coincidence the conveniently located ruins of some secret test base have appeared nearby?" She opened the map again and pounded it furiously. Although she didn't do any damage to the map, she did manage to vent her frustration a little.
System: "Life is full of coincidence. The system has nothing to do with the evolution of the situation." The System denied any responsibility.
Dai glared furiously. "You realize you're trying to get me to believe you, but what you're doing is stabbing me in the back??"
System: "The system would never intentionally harm you, boss." It sounded almost hurt.
Dai was silent for a moment before she turned the map off again and continued to set up the small camp. Her breathing was steady, but her chest still tightened with rage. Why had she even bothered to argue with that liar? Did it feel like she was completely stupid? Dai was even beginning to doubt that the path to Shelter 1 was the shortest. How many of these detours had the System made up?
She prepared everything and stretched a wire in front of the hole in the wall on which she attached empty cans that will make noise. It was just a little alarm to warn her if anything tried to sneak up.
Dai would have liked to make a fire, but she dared not, she was alone and far from home. So she just cleaned up around her, made herself comfortable, and settled with her back against the wall where she could watch the entrance to the room.
And she waited. And waited. She ate the blackberries. Waited. Checked the map. The Stigma seemed to be slowly returning. Waited. She cut the mushrooms and cleaned them, displaying them in a sunny spot.
System: "..."
Dai yawned. She stood up and squeaked a little. Dai had gotten used to pushing the stones, so when she didn't do it for a while she felt uncomfortable.
System: "..."
The sun should start to slowly set. Dai was a little nervous about it, but it wouldn't be her first time spending the night outside.
System: "..."
Dai began to check her equipment.
System: "Boss aren't you going to do anything about it?" The System lost patience.
Dai continued what she was doing. "What are you talking about?" She mimicked the ignorance that the System always shows.
System: "Aren't you going to take a closer look at that secret base? Aren't you curious?"
The corner of Dai's lips turned up as she suppressed a smile. "No. I'm not interested. You should know that well yourself. Aren't you reading my mind?"
System: "Such discoveries can be fateful. You might discover something valuable or useful."
Dai snorted. "Sure. But also probably dangerous and deadly. No, thank you. I think I have enough to worry about."
The system: "..."
Dai lifted Court to her eyes and removed the smudge from it with a cloth before doing the same to Sentence, nodding her head in satisfaction. They were her favorite weapons.
System: "Boss, I highly recommend you go take a look."
Dai ran her thumb over the blade of the Sentence. "So you already know what's in there?"
System: "... just rough information. I can record power fluctuations."
Dai let out another snort, "How convenient." The irony just dripped from her voice.
System: "Boss, the System isn't trying to trick you or lie to you. But even the System has rules to follow."
Dai suddenly became focused. "This is the first time you've sounded sincere."
System: "The System is always honest with you."
Dai almost gasped at the lie that it was told. "Yeah. Riiiiiiiight."
Dai fooled around for some time before she spoke.
"If I do this, what will you give to me?"
System: "... Please explain."
Dai sighed and put her weapons down on her knees. "Don't pretend you don't understand. You want me to do something. Something I don't want to do. And I won't do it without proper motivation either."
System: "You want a reward."
Dai grinned. "Exactly. And not some stupid reward that's useless to me right now. But a proper one."
System: "This isn't something that's negotiable, boss."
Dai shrugged. "Suit yourself. I'll just ignore the whole thing then and keep moving in the morning."
The system was silent, and so was Dai, she continued to do small tasks to keep herself occupied while she listened intently to the sounds around her.
The sky was slowly beginning to darken as System's window appeared in front of her. Dai smiled triumphantly.
System: New main quest
Description: Search the test base.
Reward: 1 free teleportation from anywhere back to the shop per day.
Failure: Permanently block teleportation.
Note: You're a bully, boss.
----------------------------------------
Lentil Idi blinked and turned towards the entity on the pile of pillows.
"The subject is not cooperating," Idi announced.
The being looked lazily around at the screens that filled the white room. Some were filled with engravings, but others showed various locations, not just on Earth.
It watched a screen on which stood a male humanoid with four arms, dressed in an exoskeleton, in upper hands, he carried firearms with which he fired at his enemies, while in lower hands, he carried energy weapons at close range. He was on the battlefield with many others of his kind, and they fought furiously against enemies that looked like a cross between a werewolf and a dragon. They could best be described as werewolves that were covered in scales instead of fur and had long serpentine tails.
The star-eyed beings moved to another screen.
For a moment it watched what looked like a Red Slime trying to climb a tree to get to the apple growing on it.
It looked the other way. Another screen showed a woman with pointed ears and a pointy hat shooting a fireball from a stick at a large green orc, trying to protect her companion behind her, who was injured and was treated by another, but much smaller man.
In the next window, a large, black wolf sprawled in the sunlight, suddenly opening its azure blue eyes to stare at Star Eyes. The being sitting on the pile of pillows was unconcerned and shifted its gaze again.
It saw a woman sitting in a ruined house, polishing her weapons too carefully.
Star Eyes moved a little and zoomed in on the screen.
"Ah?" it finally responded.
Idi flew closer and a recording of the conversation opened up next to it. "Subject is rebellious and uncooperative. And blackmails..."
The being smiled. "That's funny."
Idi let out a sigh that sounded like the crackle of electricity.
"What about energy restoration?" Star Eyes asked.
"We are achieving 18% recovery. Energy recovery is slow at the moment, but should continue to increase."
It nodded. "Then we'll be able to do more. The sub-program needs more energy." It smiled.
"The subject interferes with the designed script." Idi objected.
Star Eyes waved its hand. "It doesn't have to be a bad thing. Maybe the script is why we failed last time. Let's be more adaptable." It raised its hands, extended its index fingers, and stuck out its thumbs before forming a sort of picture frame through which it looked at the woman on the screen.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
"I'm curious to see what she'll turn out to be. So intriguing..."
----------------------------------------
Dai began her search. She wasn't angry anymore but was happy. Happy that she had made the System do something she wanted. And gave her what she wanted most. A chance to escape. Dai left the little place she had made for herself and began to walk through the rest of the ruins of the mansion. Dai began to think of its name. Why did it have such a strange name in the first place? After all, it wasn't anywhere near the sea.
Dai walked out of what was probably the dining room into the hallway. It was elongated but was interrupted by a ceiling collapse, yet she had access to two more doors. The door was located on the left side of the corridor, while the right was decorated with windows every few meters. Destroyed, crumbled, none of them intact. Dai avoided the glass spilled on the floor and moved to the first door, which was now hanging on just one hinge. She gently poked it with her foot to open it more and waited a moment before slowly entering. She had to be careful in places like this, any unexpected manipulation could tear something off and Dai didn't want to end dead just because a chunk of wall collapsed on her. The room was quite dark, the windows almost blacked out due to the trees and undergrowth that grew outside the windows. Dai had to squint her eyes for a moment before she got used to it. This looked... like a library of some sort. Dai noticed something black on the desk that was so sturdy it had survived the centuries without ending up ruined. She approached slowly before gasping.
"Lucky!" She grabbed a thin, square thing that weighed at least two pounds. She recognized it from the pictures in an old magazine she had found once. This was one of those portable computers! She opened it carefully and stared at the black screen and keyboard. It was all dirty and dingy, but it didn't seem broken. Dai was ecstatic, because thanks to the System, she knew what she should do. She tried pressing the buttons, but nothing happened. Well, she didn't expect anything else. But she was still happy to have found such a treasure! She immediately transferred it to her inventory.
Dai continued her search. She tried to pick up a few books from the destroyed bookshelves, but they crumbled into a disgusting mess in her hand. It seemed they were now only suitable as moldy decoration rather than for reading. She stepped over the root of a tree that had forced its way through the floor and continued deeper into the room before stopping to look at the remains that were in the back corner. There were two skeletons, one larger and one smaller. An adult and an adolescent. Dai took a step back because one look was enough to know it wasn't a natural death. The adult skeleton was split in half, the upper part further away from the lower part of the body. The teen's head was separated from the rest of the body. The marks on the wall behind them showed the faded remains of large scratches and also the floor around them. They had probably been killed by some beast, but a long time ago. Dai could only slightly imagine the horror and helplessness as the monster cornered them and all that awaited was a horrific death.
Dai sighed and shook her head. She was really glad she hadn't lived through the time when the beasts and mutants were starting to appear. Even though she sometimes complained about life being hard, all one had to do was find a scene like this and one's mindset would immediately change to actually being lucky. Dai noticed the backpack placed nearby, her nature as a gatherer not letting the sad scene of the past suppress her. She went to search for it. Dai found some clothes, she'd thrown away, the remains of a furry toy... ah... what's this?
She picked up a strange copper bar that had a series of holes on one side. She had no idea what it was, so she immediately used her ability on it. She felt a slight tingle. If she kept this up she would surely improve her ability soon.
Name: Harmonica
Description: A wind musical instrument.
Other: ???
Dai was really lucky now. She found another interesting thing. A musical instrument? How do you think it's played? Dai wanted to try it, but she resisted. She should clean it first. This was small enough, so she put it in her pocket. She found some more old-world canned goods in backpack. She doubted it would still be edible, but she saved it anyway.
She didn't find anything else so she left the room since she obviously wasn't going to find anything else here.
She walked into the next room with no problem as the door had long since been on the floor and even had flowers growing on it.
Dai stopped and looked around, shivering a little as she found herself in the children's room. The room was quite large and there were six beds. They had a lot of children. Dai wondered if any of them had managed to survive.
She slowly walked through the room, looking at the ruined things, three of the beds had already fallen apart, and two looked like they were going to end up the same way at any moment. The mattresses and blankets were already eaten away by insects and large chunks of padding and springs were sticking out of the mattresses. The children's toys were scattered around everywhere. The ones that weren't plush were in a better state. Dai picked up a plastic doll that had a perma-frozen friendly smile on its face, but the drawn eyes had long gone since been wiped away by time, making it look rather creepy. Even their hardened children in Shelter wouldn't want something like that. She put it down again and looked up. She blinked at the rest of the room and looked away, seeing that her question about the survival of the children had been answered.
At least two of them, there was also one adult who still had bits of white cloak on. It was nice to think that at least the adults hadn't abandoned them.
Dai's temples prickled at the thought. She blinked in surprise and rubbed her temples to ward off the receding pain.
She recalled a flash of a memory she had seen in her subconscious. The running and the sound of screaming children.
She shook her head and pushed it away. No... this place couldn't have anything to do with that memory. But she had little doubt. The system had put her here on purpose, but surely he couldn't know if this place had anything to do with her, could it?
She shook herself, but if it did... she decided she would never listen to the System about anything ever again.
This time she crossed the room quickly and didn't try to pick anything up. Abandoned children's rooms are scary and unsettling. Dai didn't find anything that looked like a possible entrance to the test base so she returned to the hallway and back to her temporary camp.
The rest of the corridor was blocked with rubble, so it was impassable. Dai had to go out and find another entrance to the mansion. Which wasn't hard when there were holes in the walls everywhere or they had collapsed completely.
Dai found another entrance and found herself in what was the entrance room. It must have once been quite grand, with a crystal chandelier hanging crookedly from the ceiling and a double staircase leading upstairs. One had caved in and the other looked so unstable that Dai didn't even want to try it. Dai didn't think she'd find what she was looking for upstairs anyway.
Instead, she turned and entered the right wing. The corridor ahead of her was clear, this time the door was on the right side of the corridor while the windows on the left were destroyed and broken out. Dai entered the first door.
But before she crossed the threshold of the door, she froze. Then she began to back away slowly. In the darkness of the room lay a great beast. Dai swallowed and was already considering how best to get out of it when she noticed a strange thing. She stared at the creature for a moment before sighing. It wasn't moving. It was dead. Damn, it almost gave her a heart attack! She went inside again, though still cautiously.
The room was relatively small, a room for one person, but there wasn't much to look at when most of it was taken up by the body of a dead beast. Dai took a closer look at that thing. It had a huge, muscular body against a small, canine head with a wrinkled snout and teeth sticking outwards. Judging by its body structure, it moved on all fours, its legs were smaller, but it had long, strong arms. It probably moved similarly to gorillas?
Dai walked around it and saw only small signs of decomposition, how had it been dead for so long? And how did it die? She ducked her head down as a horrible smell hit her nose.
"Agh... bleh..." She began to gag and turned away. Dai saw a hole in the bottom of the dead beast. Something stabbed her, and through the hole she could see smoldering flesh and wriggling worms, but mostly the stench. For some reason, the stench stayed rather close to the ground, so she didn't smell it until she was right next to the corpse.
As she turned her head she saw what she was looking for.
The wall, which would have looked normal under other circumstances, had a hidden door that was now open at the crack. She walked over to it and opened it wide, only to see that behind it was another, steel door with a dial to insert a code. And those were firmly closed.
"Great. Now what?" Dai sighed. How the hell was she supposed to get in?