*RUMBLE!!!!!
Feeling her room shake, Shiro snapped her eyes open and sat up.
Looking around her, she saw that she wasn’t being attacked and yawned.
Cracking her neck, she took a deep breath and yawned.
“What the hell is going on so early in the morning?” Shiro muttered and glanced out the window.
Furrowing her brows, she blinked a few times just to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating.
“. . . Why the hell is the town flying??????” She widened her eyes in confusion and dashed out of the inn.
Running to the edge of the town, Shiro could see the ground getting further and further away.
Looking around her, she could see the faces of concern as the townsfolk were holding onto each other. Some of them looked a little pale while others sighed.
“Excuse me? Do you know what’s happening?” Shiro ran over to one of the more composed townsfolk. He was a man who seemed to be stacking up the years as wrinkles could be seen around his face. His hair seemed like it used to be black but now it was ash grey.
“This place is becoming one of the islands and new air tunnels will be formed in a few weeks time. During this, we’ll need to survive on what food we have and hope that people will come assist us soon. However, monsters will overrun this place soon.” The man sighed.
“Wait what? What do you mean monsters will overrun this place soon?” Shiro tilted her head in confusion.
“It means that this place will become a nest once they discover that a new island has appeared. They’ll be fighting over this new territory as the other floating islands have already been claimed.” The man shook his head and started to walk back to his home.
Hearing that more monsters will be appearing here and that they’ll be fighting over this territory, Shiro frowned.
If she was powerful like she was on earth, she wouldn’t mind staying back and helping these people out but she could barely save herself with this fractured arm never mind others.
“Sorry, as much as I would like to save you all, I’m not sticking around. I got sh*t to do!” Shiro muttered.
Taking a few steps back, Shiro waited for a moment before breaking into a sprint.
Naturally, this wasn’t because she was suicidal but rather she wanted to wait for the right moment so that she could land in one of the air tunnels.
If the island was too low, she wouldn’t be able to cover enough distance to reach the air tunnel that she had used before. But if it was too high, the wind could easily knock her off course so she had to be careful. But it was still better than sticking around and waiting for the monsters to eat her like a morning snack.
Shielding her face slightly from the wind, Shiro found the air tunnel that she had used and started to adjust her body accordingly.
Bringing up some calculations in her mind, she figured that she had a 80% chance of survival if she landed in the tunnel properly.
She needed to go against the flow of the tunnel so that the air could dampen her speed of descent otherwise she’ll fall straight through and die. But with her calculations, there was no problem.
Narrowing her eyes, she waited at the last moment before shifting her body.
Crashing into the air tunnel like a bullet, Shiro felt the air push against her momentum which made her body feel like it was about to collapse.
Ignoring the feeling, she focused on adjusting herself so that she could land on the ground properly without rolling across it.
Allowing the air to push her towards the ground, she landed without too much difficulty.
“Few… that worked out pretty nicely.” Shiro smiled.
However, just as she said this, she heard something in the distance and looked up.
Seeing a flock of large birds flying towards the island, Shiro knew things were looking bad.
“I’m sorry I can’t stay for long but if there’s one thing I can do, that’s help you drive off this first wave of monsters.” Shiro glanced back at the island and sighed.
Summoning her bow, she saw down and started to shoot the birds out of the sky one by one. After the first wave was killed, she jogged over to collect their bodies. After all, it could be used for food later.
Each of the monsters were roughly the size of her arm and with how many she had killed, they should last her a while. The only problem left was transporting them with her.
Thinking about it for a moment, she reached into her bag and brought out the tendon rope that she used for traps a while ago and tied up the monster corpses.
Dragging the corpses behind her, she made her way towards the next air tunnel that she needed to go without looking back. After all, as cruel as it may be, the town was not her responsibility and she was probably going to die if she stuck around.
Shaking her head, she left the area.
###
After travelling for around half a day, Shiro finally found the air tunnel that she needed to take to reach the next village. Since it was going to take her around 4 hours to get to the next town, she wanted to take a small break for food since she was hungry after walking for half a day.
Occasionally, she would glance up at the sky and see flocks of monsters flying towards the newly created island and felt glad that she had left when she did.
Sitting down, she started to prepare the monsters and made a small fire with the fire wood that she had collected at the start.
The monsters that she had killed seemed like they only had small bits of edible flesh as the other parts seemed to be tainted with a black substance originating from their organs. Remembering the black goo lake that the dread sapling had created, Shiro wasn’t too keen on eating it so even though she killed quite a few, the amount of meat that could be harvested only amounted to two decent meals rather than several days worth.
Rationing them out so that it would last her a while, Shiro had a quick meal and stored the rest away carefully before hopping into the air tunnel.
‘Let’s hope the next town doesn’t rise into the sky like this one.’ She thought to herself and closed her eyes.
Thankfully, the trip through the tunnel was rather safe as none of the monsters were aiming for her. They were more concerned about the island that was floating in the distance that was unclaimed by anyone.
Landing with relative ease, Shiro started to make her way to the town.
Upon arrival, she immediately booked a room at the inn since the sun had long set and she had been traveling for the entire day. Checking her map, she saw that there were three more tunnels for her to go through before she could arrive at the closest city to the Tower of Nike. With three more tunnels, Shiro needed to find a way to collect some more food since she wanted to be full when she attempted the trial.
After all, fighting on an empty stomach was rather difficult as she would find it hard to muster 100% of her strength.
To make matters worse, there was a tunnel that lasted around two days and eating within the tunnel was rather hard since she was being carried by the wind after all.
For that two days, she needed to make sure that she was properly fed.
Dismissing her worries for now, she rested up for the night.
###
“Fu… much better. Honestly walking around with a fractured arm is annoying.” Shiro smiled in satisfaction after obtaining the ointment from the messenger. While her arm wasn’t fully repaired yet, as it would take around half a day. There was a cool feeling that spread through her arm and soothed the pain.
While it was easy for her to ignore the pain and fight without worries, she knew the downsides of doing so and it could completely disable her arm.
Back on Earth she didn’t need to care as she knew her natural regeneration would handle everything but things weren’t the same here.
After obtaining the medicine, Shiro didn’t waste any more time and resumed her journey. For food, all she needed to do was to hunt some of the monsters that flew around in the sky. Making sure that she didn’t provoke a strong beast, her journey was quite relaxing.
Going from one air tunnel to another, she covered a great amount of land every day and soon, she was flying through the final air tunnel. One that would bring her close to the city. However, even though it was ‘close’ she’ll still need to walk for around a day.
“Can’t they just build the city around the air tunnels?” Shiro muttered but that brings the problem of enemies being able to enter the city immediately.
Shrugging her shoulders, she made her way to the city that was barely visible in the distance.
