Girl in a Box

"This should be the place."

Yuuto quietly spoke as he tuned into the memories he had taken from the man who attempted to shoot him.

Normally he would never take a person's memories forcefully as he did with him but there was something he wanted and he took it as payback.

The vagrant's knowledge of the mines and the way to traverse through them was one he greatly needed. He could have taken it from another vagrant but he wanted to take it from that person. 

It might be petty but he didn't care if it was.

"The fragmentum is being densely combined with the Geomarrow ore from its surroundings."

Taking his sword and swiping at the eroded walls of the mine, he began to absorb the energy within it actively and sent it over to his Stellaron.

The speed at which he absorbed the energy was slightly faster than his initial speed as it took just a couple of seconds for a fist-sized crystal to dissolve into fine black dust.

Yuuto opened his eyes as he felt a hot energy course through his body and felt the Stellaron just barely reach 1% of its capacity. This may be a small amount but the amount of crystals he absorbed so far, he considered it a pretty good result.

This was also due to the nature of his engine which is able to pump out more than it has in store so just this small amount can provide him hours of stamina based on his physical body alone. 

It may be fewer if he activates a few memories but it was a considerable amount compared to what he started with.

–VOOOM

"I was wondering when they would appear."

Collecting more crystals for him to absorb, Yuuto heard some footsteps and the flapping of some wings off in the distance.

He dusted off a few bits of sand from his palm and formed his sword while keeping a close eye on the number of monsters appearing in front of him.

"It would be around six." 

Yuuto counted the monsters in front of him. Three Shadewalkers, one Frostspawn, and two Firespawns.

Finding that they were all grouped together, Yuuto released a dense mist into his surroundings which dropped the temperature by a decent amount.

Pale moonlight also wrapped around his body as he rushed towards the singular Frostspawn closest to him. 

Seeing Yuuto run towards him, the Frostspawn let out a small shriek before flattening the wings it had to its side. Using the momentum from its wings, it mindlessly rushed forward.

Yuuto who was a few meters away, swiped his sword and three lines flashed in front of him. These lines converged into one point before shooting out.

He watched as the sharp line dug into the icy exterior of the Frostspawn where various shards of its armor broke off leaving behind an opening to its inside.

Not wasting any time, Yuuto thrust his sword forward multiple times to this weak point he created and shattered the Frostspawn completely.

Seeing that his first enemy was defeated, Yuuto summoned a few ice spears and kicked them toward the remaining Firespawns while focusing on the Shadewalkers. Their icy axes shone with malice with every intent to dice Yuuto apart.

"Luckily these guys just act and don't think at all."

Yuuto said to himself as he blocked the ax coming his way with his sword and kept his eye on the other Shadewalker beside him. Using his left hand he conjured some mist to appear on his left side and harden. 

In order to block the other attack coming his way.

Seeing that he was successful, he parried the ax that was held by his sword and blurred his hand to release a flash of slashes, aimed at the joints and throat of the monster.

Moonlight dug into the Shadewalker causing it to stiffen up and eventually vanish after Yuuto snapped his wrist and cut its head off.

The mist that hardened slowly returned to its formless state where it turned into various spikes and punctured a multitude of holes into the other Shadewalker.

Having only one remaining, Yuuto released more of his mist and waved his hand. "Let's see how much damage my mist can do on its own."

As he absorbed some dark mist from the ghosts earlier, he felt like his mist might have gotten colder and sharper than before. 

Feeling the rough grainy texture brush past his fingers, a vortex of mist began to surround the last Shadewalker while it pitifully subjected itself to a series of attacks.

The sharp icy fragments dwindled their surface while on occasion receiving attacks from spikes.

"It feels much smoother to control and the quantity I can release also increased by a decent amount."

Yuuto made rough estimations based on what he felt and the observations he noticed when he attacked this Shadewalker.

Taking his time to absorb a few crystals of fragmentum, he allowed his engine to pump its energy throughout his body and felt his stamina grow even stronger.

"This should be enough."

Yuuto dusted his hands and stopped the onslaught of mist from attacking the Shadewalker and saw how its surface was ridden with various medium-sized grooves.

He finished it off and double-checked to see if the rest were dead before looking at his surroundings.

"Based on the memories from those two they wanted to go somewhere in this area."

Both the male and woman scholars had a distinctive memory or thought that constantly pulled toward an area that was deeply imprinted within them. 

He first noticed the similarities when he got the second fragment from the woman and felt the 'wish' they had.

"The geography of this place changed a lot due to the erosion but a few rocks are still here that I can use as a landmark."

Yuuto noticed the shape of one of the Geomarrows shining above him and tried his best to follow the footsteps from the memory he got.

Fighting off a few monsters while absorbing whatever crystal he could get his hands on, Yuuto carefully walked through the caverns before reaching a small area where one side was completely ridden with fragmentum on its walls.

Near the center were footprints and a large hole which he estimated was done by some humans. The shovels thrown to the side and the empty crate still in the hole were a dead giveaway. 

"This should be the place where that person got one of the guns." Yuuto ran his fingers through the crate and felt the grains of gunpowder left behind.

Getting his fill of this, he stood up and looked at the only wall with eroded crystals sticking on it and pressed his palm onto its surface. "Based on the memories there should be a path here but…"

Yuuto did another check of the memories he got and confirmed that this path should be to his right when he first entered the area.

"[Break]"

Using the memory of [Break], the wall of fragmentum shook before a medium-sized crack appeared in the center where his palm was. "Still not enough." Yuuto saw the damage and once again used [Break].

After a few more times the wall eventually shattered and a hole appeared. Past the initial hole was a dark tunnel and Yuuto felt glad he finally found it.

"Now let's see why these guys want to go here so badly."

Not forgetting to pick up the fragmented crystals, Yuuto turned on a flashlight and made his way down the tunnel.

Walking through the tunnel, he tried his best to not inhale the large amount of dust floating in the air and avoid the large cracks in the ground.

'Hmm? There's some light…'

Yuuto saw that a dim orange was illuminating one wall and marked it as the end of the tunnel where an open door was available to his right.

As he turned to his right he saw that the room was filled with lamps that ran on Geomarrow energy. This made him extremely curious about the mechanism used since it looked like these lamps continuously ran for countless years.

He knew the limitations of Geomarrow due to the textbooks he received from Herta back then so at most the limit would be 30 years if the lamps only used a minuscule amount of energy from it.

Yuuto decided that he should take one and use [Archive] so he could learn more about its structure but that was for later. 

Within the room he was in was a multitude of bookshelves alongside countless papers spread throughout the room.

Some looked broken down due to the battle against time but a few books were still intact. A few chalkboards were also placed around the room with what seemed to be theories of some kind.

"[Objects and entities absorbed within the corrosion manifest different properties when corroded and appear back into reality.]"

"[Evidence 1: Private of Silvermane Guard was killed and left behind within the corrosion but a few hours later came back and demonstrated hostile properties alongside different external features from normal.]"

"[Has the corrosion afflicted this person and forcefully changed its properties to suit its desire? Or has the corrosion recorded what it touches and used it as a baseline to create a new being?]"

"[Can this be reversed? Evidence is still needed. –Alexandra Rand 150 AF]"

Yuuto stood in silence after reading just a small snippet of the record written on the board and looked at the others.

Analysis of the corrosion, testing out if healing was possible, and potential solutions to help combat its spread. These were just to name a few of the prompts Yuuto saw.

"A place where scholars and bright minds join together to figure out what they could do with the situation they found themselves in… this place is extremely valuable but why would this area be abandoned in the first place…."

Various questions popped up in his head as he found this unbelievable seeing as this place was a treasure mine of research for who knows how long.

Yuuto's eyes shined when he realized this and carefully used [Archive] to record each of these records and made sure not to damage them.

"[Engine of Creation's lower structure has been damaged and needs repairing. Processador Alisa Rand has left records and the competent personnel from the Technology Division have made efforts to improve structure. But several hordes have stalled this advancement. –Alexandra Rand 153 AF]"

"This Alexandra has made countless logs in these… and even managed to progress through a number of issues Belobog was facing at the time.." 

Yuuto was in genuine awe of this person and was beginning to understand why that man was so fanatic about her rule.

One other thing he was surprised to find were blueprints belonging to the Engine of Creation and a few plans began to formulate in his mind once he used [Archive] to store this in his library.

—TOK TOK TOK

As Yuuto was analyzing the blueprints and trying to figure out what each line meant, he heard the sound of what seemed to be knocking on a piece of wood. 

Feeling familiar with this routine already, he stayed quiet and waited until he heard the sound again before turning his flashlight to its source.

–TOK TOK

"I can hear you."

Moving a few crates and tables out of the way, he was now faced with a medium-sized box that had a large padlock to its right.

Yuuto reached his hand to feel the lock but his instincts made him reflexably take his hand back and felt a sharp pain hit the back of his hand.

A few drops of blood came out from the cut he received and Yuuto stepped back while he healed the wound he got.

A dense black mist began to flow outwards surrounding the box which was an intense reaction compared to the previous interactions he faced before.

"This one is actually fighting back."

His eyes narrowed and Yuuto released his mist and isolated the room into halves where he protected the bountiful research of Alexandra.

The mist gradually formed into tentacles which made him extremely disgusted. "You must be crazy if you think you're going to touch me with that."

Yuuto ducked down feeling the mist aim for his head and had [Clarity] wrapped itself around his fist. The second tentacle that came his way, he stepped to the side and punched the flat end which evaporated from the attack.

"It's getting mad." Yuuto saw the mist move intensely and decided that he should finish this quickly.

Pushing his feet off the ground, Yuuto touched his sword and had the light from [Clarity] seep into his blade after putting what he considered a good amount.

Yuuto slashed the box multiple times. The iridescent color his blade gave out immediately gushed out and attacked the black mist from moving.

He continued to do this until the mist eventually vanished and what was left was a box with its padlock broken from Yuuto's attacks from before.

"Now what's inside…"

Making sure the mist was gone, Yuuto opened the box and was surprised to see a little girl sleeping inside.

She looked to be around 10 years old with strands of crimson red hair however at the base of her scalp, black hair seamlessly blended into the initial red she had.

Yuuto was at a loss for what to do but he paused when he noticed that the girl slowly opened her eyes.

"Hello..?"

"Who.. are you?"

***

"W-Who is this…?"

"Uhh.. a person I found when I was roaming around?"