Chương 2: Wreckage

He was half tempted to still run away, but if what "Nothing" said was true, it would not actually matter whether he ran from the Mushki or not, he'd die to it no matter what. It was everything else that he had to worry about, so why not? Why not go look at whatever the Mushki had left behind? Slinking forward, the eerie silence once more began to unnerve him, but now, he was more cautious of it.

He thought others wouldn't be able to hear him, but he was able to hear the cannibals easily, so there was no real way to tell what the cutoff for the sound suppression was. As he grew closer, he was just barely able to make out the shape of one of the Mushki's feathers, and it was not tiny. {Oh-hoo? Perhaps all of your luck for the day was spent towards this one moment?} The Voice of Nothing said, and that only raised Aaron's excitement.

Wedged between rocks was a long orange and green feather covered in a familiar geometric square pattern. It was around five feet long, almost as tall as him, and shaped like a teardrop. When he drew closer, he felt his connection to the System and Underworld flare to life briefly, giving him one of the blue screens he'd seen in relation to his Primary as well.

'Oh, holy shit! Is this how I get Secondaries?' Reading it over, he saw that it was a bit different from what he expected. {Burgeoning Memorabilia The first feather of a Mushkhushshu lost to the Underworld.} He stared at it, confused, until Nothing elaborated slightly. {Claimed by the Underworld, this feather is functionally indestructible on this Floor, which is incredible considering its pristine condition. Mushki feathers tend to shatter easily, but they are utterly unmatched in sharpness, considering they are coated with diamond.}'What?!' he almost shouted, but stopped himself for fear of being heard. Instead, he whispered "Why diamond? And why is it indestructible? What does Burgeoning Memorabilia mean?" {Diamonds are plentiful on Ishtar, so them being coated is not unusual considering the mineral is a regular part of their diet.} Aaron noted that he ignored the second question, but could only shake his head.

He didn't know why he even asked about functions of the Underworld any more. If it was indestructible and absurdly sharp though, it would serve as a perfect weapon; he grabbed the central shaft and tried pulling it out, but frowned when it barely budged. Looking closely, he spotted how it was wedged into the stone archway, having been caught on the stone at an odd angle. Apparently, when the Mushki turned the corner too quickly, it'd accidentally torn its own feather out.

Bracing himself against the stone, he started wriggling it, straining his muscles for every centimeter.

'God, the Mushki itself ripped through this black rock with ease, my bones probably wouldn't even register against its claws.' It suddenly came free, making him stumble backwards, but he quickly regained his footing, holding it up. Despite its darker, faded colors, it really was a beautiful item. Unlike what he expected, it had zero give, as opposed to a regular feather that bent easily.

Not only that, but it it was shaped more like an elongated arrowhead than a teardrop, the edge of it abruptly ending in points on the base of both sides. It also didn't have any tiny hairs extending from it, but both sides were a single flap of leather.

"What is this made of?" he muttered. {Though it looks like one, it isn't a true feather. Mushki "Feather's" are completely opposable, all of them, and each has blood cells in it. If I had to describe it, I would say it's closer to a scale made of hardened leather, dipped in diamond, that the Mushki can wiggle, hence their ability to change the coloration. It likely felt the feather be ripped away.} He let out a shudder, "And you said there are no monsters in The Nothing. What the hell…"

{They aren't, Mushki are simply a biologically perfected lifeform, carved by generations of killing each other.} {I was not exaggerating when I say that they reign supreme with their every appearance into the Underworld, and it is no coincidence that you met one. Few things stop them when they appear. The first one that ever arrived slaughtered many settlements before it was worn down enough to be killed, and that was hundreds of thousands of years ago, when they were far weaker.} He could only shake his head.

Nothing's view of what was a monster differed greatly from Aaron's, but thinking about that wouldn't help him, he needed to start moving.

"Are they territorial?" he asked, looking towards the hole carved in the wall.

'I wonder why I haven't seen more openings if the lawless folks have the technology to break the walls, do the walls repair themselves?' {No, just hyper aggressive towards challengers first, and prey second.}"Okay… I'll strive to be neither."

'That rules out standing my ground to intimidate them at least.' He began to follow the path the cannibals had taken, his thought process being that if the Mushki had an incredible sense of smell, it might confuse his trail with the one the cannibals had taken and not follow him, believing it'd already come this way. Not only that, but if he could follow where they'd come, he might run into one of these "Settlements" the Voice of Nothing mentioned.

'Voice of Nothing is a bit long, I'll just call him VoN, an acronym for Voice of Nothing.

'He told me to call him Nothing though, so I'll do that verbally. He's been strangely helpful despite saying he was neutral to my survival, and I don't want to push that kindness.' * It was easy to follow where the cannibals had come from. Not only was the floor scratched to hell, but most of the walls were cut up from where the Mushki pressed against it, barely able to move through As he walked, he didn't hide his reverent nature towards the Mushki feather he held.

Considering it was diamond plated and almost as tall as him, it was astonishingly light- maybe two pounds. Scraping it against the ground in certain places, he found that it cut through the strange glassy rock with ease, and never grew dull. It was as VoN said, the sword was "Functionally" indestructible, his first stroke of good luck. He didn't doubt there would be ways for it to break on later floors but…

'Actually, how does VoN know ANYTHING about the other floors? I thought he could only read this one? Well, he could always be lying, I would not be surprised.' The voice was as much an enigma as everything else. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Focusing back on his sword, he smiled. It was more than just a weapon, it was Aaron's first glimpse into… something unique and special that wasn't an eerie setting, cannibals, or apex predators.

Verifiable proof that not only was magic real, but he was holding some in his hands. It was his. He continued to occasionally swing the sparkling blade, not noticing the faint smile on his face. * Alternating between jogging and walking, it took him an hour before he arrived at the scene of where the cannibals and the Mushki met. Blood… everywhere. And no bodies. He'd naively thought that perhaps the cannibals only had a single vehicle, that perhaps there weren't that many, Foolish…

there were at least eight here, most of them broken beyond recognition. He didn't know how many people each had carried originally, but there was a lot of blood. Not just that, but he could see at least four other sets of treadmarks leaving the scene, two of them that had scratches along the walls. Altogether, it appeared that there'd originally been thirteen vehicles, two had already been eaten, and one was being chased away.

But that also meant the Mushki had come back to this hub after eating the other two groups of people.

"Nothing, I thought you said the Mushki wouldn't return here?" {Wrong, I informed you they were not territorial. You falsely assumed that meant it would not return to the same area under any circumstance. I would not yet worry though, the vehicle the Mushki was chasing last was the most likely to get away, so the chances of it returning soon are minimal, as it will be too distracted.} He sighed in relief. {Not impossible though.} He tensed again"Then I better hurry."

These were people that'd been living in the Underworld for an unknown amount of time, they had to know how to do it right, and how to succeed in a resource-scarce place. They'd have the tools for survival here, so if he could take those tools, then he, too could survive. He ran from one wreck to the other, studying what each had, what was destroyed in them, and what he might be able to loot.

* It took five minutes for him to give a cursory glance to the vehicles and see that the cannibals had to somehow also be geniuses; they were of no model he'd ever seen, instead composed of a mish-mash of parts, some of which had obviously been reshaped into something new. All of them were lifted (of course) and had six to eight wheels, some of the vehicles sat on tractor tires and were huge, while others appeared much smaller. None of them had a roof, and all of them had raised walls.

They were just a platform with walls on wheels. Not the most ingenious, but considering they were made from spare parts? He could only be impressed. It would be even better if any of them worked, but they'd all been broken beyond recognition, some of them split down the middle. He kept digging through everything as quickly as he could and, despite the state of the vehicles, it wasn't an entirely useless endeavor.

He found a few "Drawstring bags" made of a shirt with the arms and neck stitched up, each with some interesting things in them, such as jerky. He would not be eating the cannibal jerky.

Past that, he found a few swiss army knives that he put in his pockets, a first-aid kit, several rolls of toilet paper, a wind-up flashlight that couldn't hold a charge and had to actively be wound for it to shine, and some things like nuts, raisins, and metal water bottles that'd been hammered into shape which he kept but wouldn't eat or drink from if he had the chance. These people could not be clean at all, and he didn't want to eat leftover human particles either.

He did find a plastic water bottle with its seal still on it, so he cracked it open and chugged it. He'd been jogging for hours, he needed a drink. He sighed in relief as he finished the last of it, and screwed the cap back on, keeping it for later. That was the only one in the wreckage, so he wouldn't be surprised if he had to drink whatever disgusting water was in the metal bottles, but not yet.

Something incredibly funny he found was that their gas tanks were jerry cans that simply screwed into place, and could easily be removed, but without a vehicle, they would just be dead weight to him, so he had to leave them behind. By the end of the fifteen minute mark, he was a bit exhausted from running around, but had a lot of tools he could use and a patchwork change of clothes in his size that he'd only use in the most dire of circumstances.

He had only checked around the area of four of the cars, but he truly couldn't take any more stuff, so he'd just glance through to see if there was anything of incredible importance then-"Bzzt. Bzzt Bzzt." Hearing that, he immediately ducked behind one of the broken and bloodied "Cars," keeping his head low. From a side tunnel, he quickly heard the approach of something loud and unfamiliar- his first hint that he was dealing with an alien.

'Man why can't I get like an Earth animal or something? I know what to do with a black bear! Oh, God, I hope this isn't another creature from Ishtar.' Based on noise alone, he just knew it was giant bugs. They entered his tunnel seconds later, and he heard them quiet down and begin making a low squelching noise. Peeking out from behind his car slowly, he saw exactly as he expected- eight giant bugs, each with what he counted as sixteen legs, eight on each side.

Covered in dark chitin and dull spikes, he watched a proboscis that ended in a sucker extend down to the puddles of blood as the eight of them began drinking the remains. Each of them were also as large as a horse, easily towering over Aaron, and he could say that he was thoroughly intimidated. He was already close to one of the hallways the other vehicles went down, so he began to slink away, keeping the car between him and the swarm when a commotion sounded from around the bugs.

Over the lip of the car, he watched a pale figure come flying erratically from the top of the 0-shaped tunnel, aimlessly jerking from side to side in a display that-'Wait, 0 shaped tunnel, is that why they're shaped like that?! It's floor zero so all the tunnels are zeros? That's stupid.' -told him it was either concussed or injured. The bugs beneath it started buzzing loudly in what he assumed was an aggressive manner and, worse, he heard more coming from the same tunnel the pale figure had come.

He was so close- so close to the entrance of the tunnel, and finally turned away, breaking into a sprint. Behind him, either from intention or bad luck, he heard the aggressive flapping of wings soar by overhead. Ducking down, he barely dodged as the flying creature crashed into the ground in front of him, bouncing across the ground like a skipping stone as their momentum pulled it down the tunnel. Strangely, it had a very…

airy quality to it, falling much slower than he would have expected, as if gravity acted weaker on it. He froze as it gently hit the wall, stopping for long enough that he was able to get a clear view of it. Until this point, from the time it entered the cave until it crashed into the wall, only five or so seconds had passed, his mind stretching each moment as it raced for solutions.

It was brought to a screeching half- for just a single moment- as he registered a humanoid shape with clothes; crude, tattered, and made of leather, but clothes nonetheless. Despite that, they were obviously not human, instead reminding him of a bat. Large pale wings in place of their arms (one of which was badly cut and bleeding), a hideously wrinkled face, and clawed feet, and taller than him, but still… they had eyes, ears, a mouth, and a nose…

Yet, the sound of bugs rapidly grew closer, and he had seconds to make a choice. Run and guarantee his survival, or stand and fight to protect them. He had a sword… but he was no soldier, and he wasn't trained. Hell, he wasn't even athletic; running with the current weight on his back would push him. He wanted to save them, but there were just too many enemies. He couldn't fight eight or more horse-sized bugs. The single second ended, and he made up his mind, turning away, when they let out a low, pitiful whine.

Glancing down at their figure again, he could practically see the fear in their bulging black eyes as they glanced between Aaron and the incoming monsters. He stifled a sigh. Throwing his bag behind him, he quickly approached them. They seemed to curl into themselves and whine a bit more, but didn't attack him, and he bent down, lifting them up in a princess carry.

He had to hold them mostly in his elbows, as one hand still held his feather, but he managed to make it work He almost threw himself off balance standing up when he drastically overestimated how heavy they were, only about twenty to thirty pounds, but regained his footing quickly, and wasted no more time, breaking into a sprint down the tunnel. Behind him the sound of monstrous bugs grew closer, but he toned them out and focused exclusively on putting one foot in front of the other.