Sometimes the Simple, Brute-Force Method Is Best
The scrap pile she was aiming for sat roughly twenty meters out in a straight line, thirty degrees northeast of the front door — taking the door's face as due north at zero degrees.
At that distance, the candle's feeble glow was nowhere near enough to make out what waited near it.
But there was no other option. No matter how thoroughly she scanned her surroundings, nothing of any use showed itself except that heap of scrap.
So that's where I have to go… hmm…
It was going to be tricky. Even if the straight-line distance came out to about twenty meters, the vertical drop looked to be roughly ten by eye. That put the horizontal gap at something like sixteen meters, mathematically speaking.
Considering the men's long-jump world record sat around nine meters and the women's around seven and a half… simply leaping the distance on leg power alone did not seem like a promising plan.
And even if she did jump across — how was she supposed to get back?
Which means I need some kind of special method…
Ugh. Just thinking about it made her head hurt. A way to reach a place that far away without a single hitch — and she didn't even have wings.
Augh! Am I an idiot? All I can come up with is pole-vaulting or bungee jumping. Ugh, but those are way too risky…
She had never been particularly clever. Application and creativity, especially, were thoroughly average. Pulling some stroke of genius out of thin air in a crisis was simply beyond her.
So if she wanted the most reasonable solution, she needed to close her eyes and think it through properly for a while.
A sure, safe way to reach somewhere that far…
"…Could I do something with my Creation ability?"
Come to think of it, there was one thing she had been overlooking. She had a special power no one else possessed.
Right! Looked at that way, building a path with Creation was hardly out of the question. It didn't need to be anything grand — just solid enough to step on and cross for a moment would do, wouldn't it?
"Alright. Let's try it once."
People tended to forget this, but putting an idea into practice mattered far more than coming up with a brilliant one in the first place. After all, everyone had world-changing notions rattling around in their heads.
"Creation!"
Without a second's hesitation she planted her hands on the floor and, through her Creation ability, produced a long board of styrofoam. Thanks to the styrofoam data she had pulled from the internet, the cost ran about a hundred CP per meter.
The width was narrow — she had shaped it inside the cramped entrance hallway — but a three-meter styrofoam plank looked sturdy enough to hold her weight for a short while.
"Like this… hang this end out over the door…"
She gripped the end of the board and shoved it out through the doorway, adjusting its position. Once more than two-thirds of the plank extended outside, she stacked the odds and ends she had made while practicing material creation on top of the indoor end, weighting it so it wouldn't wobble.
When the whole process was finished, the styrofoam board looked for all the world like a diving board at a swimming pool.
"Should I… try stepping on it."
It wasn't thin enough that it would snap the instant she put her weight on it — or so she told herself. Still, styrofoam was styrofoam. She couldn't quite put her mind at ease.
But she had already tied a rope around her waist as a precaution. Even if the board gave out and buckled, that rope would keep her from plunging into the deep darkness below.
…Right?
"Heave-ho. O-okay… i-it is holding. Thank goodness."
She forced her heart — racing from all those anxious thoughts — to settle, then carefully crawled out along the styrofoam on all fours. Anyone watching from the side would have found the sight mortifying, but no one was watching, so it was fine.
Safety first, right?
And when she finally inched out to the very end, she confirmed it: this styrofoam board could support her weight without any real trouble.
Which meant building a path of these boards all the way out to that distant scrap pile was not impossible at all.
Haa… thank goodness. I was honestly worried I'd have to try something like bungee jumping.
Knowing the plan to pave a road with material creation actually had legs, the tension coiled in her chest loosened a little. Of course it did. If this had failed, she had been seriously considering tying a rope to herself and flinging her body into the void below. Just imagining that nightmare made her head spin — so being able to skip it entirely was a genuine relief.
But sixteen meters of styrofoam is pushing it. I'd need steel plate at minimum… no, steel costs way too much CP.
A second problem presented itself at once. The horizontal distance alone was roughly sixteen meters. A three-meter styrofoam path was perfectly doable, but anything longer and she couldn't guarantee the durability. No matter how thick she made it, styrofoam was still styrofoam — a fragile material that would crumple the moment real weight settled on it.
"Hmm… hmm… Ah! I just need to make a twenty-meter styrofoam board and rest the far end right on top of that scrap pile!"
A rather crude solution to the whole situation popped into her head on the spot. Make the styrofoam long first, then set its far end on the scrap heap itself. With both ends resting on solid ground, the structure would be far more stable than a board hanging off one side alone.
Of course, even styrofoam, at a monstrous twenty meters, would be hard for a person to lift…
"For some reason, I don't feel like I'll fail right now."
Just as she had felt no fear when she first opened this front door, she had a gut sense that the prediction would come true. So the idea of muscling the board into place and bridging the gap… she wanted to try it at least once.
"Alright then — first, a sturdy twenty-meter styrofoam. Twenty meters is two thousand CP… no. It's a bit wasteful, but let's add about two more meters for margin of error."
The same way she had stretched things during her debut stream, she simply elongated a styrofoam board through an application of Creation. Producing a grotesque twenty-two-meter plank was no problem at all.
Volume: 8.58 cubic meters. Weight: a full 214 kilograms. Absolutely not something Nia's frail frame should have been able to lift.
"Urrrgh… tsuwaaaah!"
But as always, the intuition in her chest seemed to have the right of it. She had to grit her teeth and strain with everything she had — yet somehow she managed to hoist that mass and swing it into position!
CP affecting physical ability too? That was something worth thinking over carefully later.
Wait — hang on. With this kind of strength, couldn't she just long-jump the whole way?
"Ugh, huff, huff… thought my arms were going to fall off…"
Drawing on every last scrap of strength, she finally, barely, got the styrofoam board settled where she wanted it. The path was complete. Next step, then…
"I should pack supplies, of course."
She might get stranded. The way back might vanish. Thorough preparation was essential. So she created a long rope to tether this side to that one, a bag, a self-defense staff, and a flashlight.
"Good — this should do it. Haa, I wanted to make the flashlight after getting proper data… but still, going out there holding a candle is a bit much. Used up a lot of CP."
Perhaps because she had made quite a few different items, the total came to a full twelve thousand CP or so — even though the quality was closer to bargain-bin junk than anything else. Adding everything she had spent so far, she had already burned through roughly half her spare CP. At this rate she was heading straight into a deep red deficit.
Which meant she needed to use this opportunity to find material she could at least turn into content for the next stream.
"Clothes… no need to make any. What I'm wearing is probably tougher than any cheap outfit I'd create anyway."
She currently had on Nia's default outfit. Unlike the flashy costumes that looked good only on the surface, this one was meticulously detailed from outerwear down to undergarments. Thanks to the crystal-clear image of Nia lodged in her mind, she had managed to cut the cost to nearly a tenth — and it had still consumed a full ten thousand CP. A specialty product, in other words.
Which meant this default outfit was effectively clothing worth a hundred thousand CP. Considering that higher CP costs produced better-functioning items, it was clearly far more durable than any ordinary clothes.
That settled it. Preparation was complete. She had a bag for loot, a way home ready for emergencies, a flashlight for visibility, and a staff for self-defense.
"…Let's go. I need to see with my own two eyes what's down there."
Worry that she might run into danger filled one part of her mind; hope that something extraordinary might be waiting filled the rest. Tension and anticipation tangled together into a feeling she couldn't quite name. Like setting off on a solo trip for the very first time, her heart thumped and raced of its own accord.
"The title… First Expedition would be good."
Still, there was one thing she could be certain of.
This was not the end of everything so far. It was the beginning of everything.
Which ending that conclusion pointed toward… she still couldn't know.