Surprise and Bewilderment at an Unintended Discovery
When you stumble upon something new by accident, surprise and bewilderment tend to arrive as a matched set.
The Data Trash Heap was dark and cold, without so much as a scrap of light. Coming here on a pleasure trip would have been nothing short of a nightmare.
No matter how diligently you wandered in every direction, the only scenery on offer was the same stifling vista of broken data transformed into scrap-metal heaps piled up like mountains. A thoroughly dull place.
And those irregularly stacked scrap piles rose several meters high. Anyone walking the ground below experienced something very much like wandering a labyrinth, with walls of scrap towering toward the sky.
Feels like it's been a while. I've been so busy expanding my territory lately that I haven't come out this far. …This place is still as creepy as ever.
And I, the one currently lost in that labyrinth of a Data Trash Heap, rubbed my forearm vigorously with the wrist of the hand gripping the Scissors Blade, chasing off a pointless shiver.
I had no idea why the virtual world needed to implement something like frictional heat, but my arm did feel a little warmer for it, so I decided not to dwell on the matter.
That aside… walking feels a bit easier somehow.
Crunch. Crunch.
My pretty shoes — still showing no sign of becoming familiar — mercilessly crushed the data fragments scattered across the ground.
Maybe it was because I'd been earning a lot of CP lately and had put real care into my shoes and clothes. Or maybe it was because investing in LP had improved my physical capabilities that much. Either way, walking was far easier than when I'd last been through this area only a few weeks ago.
Of course it felt different. Data fragments that used to feel like hard stones now crumbled underfoot as easily as a sand pile.
CP really was better the more you invested. I found myself once again thoroughly convinced of a fact that was, perhaps, entirely obvious.
"Hmm, here… yes. Found it."
Moving through the darkness with far lighter steps than the last time I'd walked this path, I finally spotted the trail markers my past self had carved for navigation a few weeks earlier.
Which meant that if I kept walking straight in the ten-o'clock direction from here, I'd reach the Subway Station where I'd once run into a Predator Species.
Registering that fact, I stood still for a moment with a thoughtful expression, then angled slightly right and set off toward two o'clock.
It was unmistakably a path leading away from the Subway Station Delic I'd found before — but that couldn't be helped.
According to Noise, there are so many Delics in the Abyss you can barely count them. No need to deliberately head for a Subway Station that might still be dangerous.
I was neither an honor-obsessed warrior nor a bloodthirsty battle maniac. I hunted Virtual Beasts only when there was a reason to. And if a clear reason existed, there was zero justification for shouldering unnecessary risk.
Even now, recalling that encounter still issued a firm warning that I was nowhere near ready to face something of that level. It would have been as foolish as a fresh level-ten beginner trying to enter a level-one-hundred hunting ground. There was no room for stubbornness.
Besides, Noise would be in trouble without me. And there are viewers waiting for my streams. I don't particularly want to stake my life as a gambling chip.
I hadn't even reached the goal I'd set for myself after falling into this cyber world… which was all the more reason not to take that kind of risk.
So this was the method I'd settled on: follow the previously charted paths as much as possible, while searching for a Delic that wouldn't tangle me up in the Subway Station's direction.
No matter how I looked at it, safety came first. Keeping my mouth shut, I advanced carefully, periodically crumpling nearby scrap metal to mark the way I'd come.
The worst outcome here wasn't returning empty-handed. The worst outcome of this expedition was getting completely lost in this vast darkness and wandering forever. And if the flashlight corroded away entirely on top of that — that would be the worst of the worst.
I had time to spare for now, so there was no need to rush. Taking care that nothing of the sort would happen, I marked my path roughly once every twenty steps.
"Maybe I'll fold this one into a star shape~"
Honestly, it was a little fun — like playing with clay.
…Ah. Maybe I should make a craft-related content stream sometime.
Crumpling scrap heaps to mark my path, occasionally pulling paper from my bag to sketch my own map, I pressed forward for several hours.
At last, in this vast and lightless trash heap, I found something that stood out.
"Huh? What's that…"
The flashlight I was carrying wasn't some slapdash product made for a mere ten thousand CP. It was specialized cave-exploration gear that had cost a full fifty thousand CP. Meaning the beam reached a fairly long way. Even a brief, glancing brush of light was enough to identify what I'd seen.
But no matter how I thought about it, something felt off. The object I'd roughly made out in that short instant was far too jarring to be sitting alone in a place like this.
"Hmm…. Of all things, tree roots? Out here?"
Stepping closer and lighting it up properly only confirmed it. The object's shape was unmistakably that of a great tree's roots.
Where the trunk should have been, something had hollowed it out as if gnawed away, and scrap metal had piled up on top like decoration.
I blinked with a blank expression, stuck for a long while on how exactly I was supposed to process this.
"The texture really is like wood."
Press. Press.
Shouldering the flashlight and running my hand over the root's surface, I found the feel identical to real wood.
Strange. By every visual measure it didn't look like a living tree, yet it was as vigorous as if it were still drawing nutrients from the earth even now.
I stepped back a little and decided to slowly survey the area around the roots, on guard.
…Data trash? It really does look like just this tree root sitting here by itself.
But the search yielded nothing. No matter how much I circled the area, only this enormous root stood there, asserting its presence.
So this place had data trash of this form, too?
I studied the root — so jarringly out of place compared to the scrap heaps — then slowly raised the Scissors Blade. It didn't look related to any Delic, so I simply wanted to slice it open and check the inside.
"…Huh? Hyaah!"
The moment I lifted the Scissors Blade and activated it with EP, the root suddenly changed.
As if it had sensed I was about to split it in half, the roots began to tremble and move!
Completely unprepared for that disgusting motion, I let out a scream and scrambled backward.
Wh-wh-what the hell?!
Cold goosebumps raced over my whole body; the hairs on my arms stood on end. A tree root that starts moving the second you try to cut it — there was a limit to how creepy things were allowed to be.
I retreated to a distance where the flashlight on my shoulder still lit the root, and gripped the Scissors Blade hard with both hands.
If those roots came at me, I would cut them without a second's hesitation.
In my head I was radiating serious fighting spirit — but honestly, the visceral revulsion made me want to just run away.
Running blindly wouldn't solve anything, though. I was here to explore this place thoroughly. If I kept fleeing from every threat, I'd never get anything done. I had to hold out to the limit and figure out what was going on.
S-still, I should at least see what's happening first… huh?
But as I glared at the root like a bristling hedgehog, something utterly unbelievable entered my field of view.
The root had stopped moving. Fine — that much made sense. Tree roots weren't supposed to move in the first place.
But the long roots had formed something like a doorway, and light was spilling through the gap…. How was I supposed to process that?
…A trap?
That was the first suspicion that surfaced. A Virtual Beast luring prey. Maybe the root itself was a monster that ate data.
Yet no matter how long I stared at the light leaking from between the roots, nothing progressed. As if the scene itself were telling me my suspicion was pointless.
So, lips pressed tight in serious thought, I carefully approached the root.
…Weird. There's space beyond this. Much deeper than the thickness of the root.
The door the roots had formed opened onto a space far deeper than the root's own thickness. Did that even make physical sense?
Somewhat flustered, I checked the interior, then immediately realized something and edged carefully closer… properly looking through to the other side of the light.
"…Ah. This is that, isn't it."
And I understood. What lay beyond was an unmistakable green.
In my vocabulary, if I had to name it: an ecosystem where trees made the ceiling and grass made the floor. In other words — a forest.
"A Delic."
Apparently this tree root was… a kind of doorway connected to that Delic.