When Exploring Unfamiliar Places, It's Best to Rely on a Map
The act of transferring real-world terrain and structures onto a flat plane was commonly called projection.
Projection. To express a three-dimensional form in two dimensions required, quite literally, a process of distorting its appearance as if casting it into shadow.
Of course, since a two-dimensional plane could never perfectly capture a three-dimensional object, one had to layer on color and shadow in an effort to convey its form as fully as possible…
But enough of the hard stuff. What I really wanted to say was that making a single good map was an extremely difficult task requiring considerable mathematical knowledge and calculation!
It's not like there's GPS here, and I can't launch a drone either. Making a map with accurate scale using my own abilities was basically impossible. …No, it was impossible. Until recently, that is.
Even Creation — which was practically omnipotent so long as I had CP — would have required an astronomical amount of CP just to produce a map of the Abyss.
Meeting Polaris in a Delic a month ago and taking her under my protection had been nothing short of a stroke of pure luck.
Having shed her body, her knowledge, and even her consciousness just to survive in the Abyss, she possessed a detection ability that could pinpoint any destination she desired with perfect accuracy!
It's a completely absurd ability. Being able to find even a place she doesn't know about…
Perhaps Polaris's detection ability was less a function and more a kind of supernatural phenomenon.
Just as no one could pull glittering treasures from a locked empty vault, finding an answer you couldn't possibly know was something no formula or algorithm could ever achieve!
But considering this was a cyber world created by someone, I could at least speculate about the origin of her ridiculous detection ability.
If some kind of database formed the foundation of this realized world, and Polaris could access that database…
She would essentially dwell in the realm of omniscience, knowing everything — so in theory, it wouldn't be impossible.
Of course, when you consider that beyond her detection ability, all Polaris can really do is nibble on pizza… maybe only by developing a single ability to its absolute extreme can you barely touch the foundation of the cyber world.
And if that speculation were true, then Polaris might not be the only one who had obtained an ability that transcended the rules.
If pushing any function or ability to its absolute limit could let you break past the laws of the cyber world and reach its foundation…
Then the Predator Species that had been devouring absurd amounts of data until now would be prime candidates for possessing such supernatural powers.
…Ugh, looks like I've got even more things to be careful about. If this speculation is actually true, I could get one-shotted if I let my guard down based on appearances alone.
After all, I hadn't known about Polaris's ability until I experienced it firsthand.
Getting careless around a beast that looked pathetic only to get wrecked by a hidden supernatural power it was concealing — that wasn't something I could dismiss as pure fantasy.
The one reassuring point was that among all the beasts I'd encountered so far, none had possessed supernatural abilities. Maybe the odds of a beast developing such a dangerous power were extremely low.
If every random beast had dangerous supernatural abilities, I would have already died screaming and been buried somewhere after cutting down so many of them with my Scissors Blade.
…Probably among the trash mobs I could casually defeat, almost none developed supernatural abilities.
Yeah, it was already in the past, but thinking that way made me feel a bit more at ease.
"…Haa. Well, I can start being more conscious of it from now on. Alright! Time to get moving!"
I shook my head vigorously as if flinging away the complicated thoughts, then looked straight ahead with a mind cleared of anxiety.
This wasn't the time to get lost in side thoughts. Time was more precious than gold, and today I wasn't planning to go far — just a quick trip out and back.
I didn't have the luxury of standing still and letting worries and concerns grow wild.
I'd already booked out my schedule for today, tomorrow, and the day after. Right now I needed to finish what I'd planned, and fast.
So to keep from wandering off course, I started walking in a direction where a Delic was likely to be, and pulled out the maps Polaris had made for me from the botanical garden.
There were four maps in total. One was a full map of the Abyss with my home drawn in the corner, and three were interior maps of nearby Delics.
Each map was drawn in concrete detail from an overhead view, reminiscent of a high-resolution satellite map.
Apparently mapping the entire vast Abyss had been too much in various ways — the revealed range only covered about a two-kilometer radius.
The limited range on the map is a problem that can be solved by feeding Polaris lots of food and helping her grow. What's more impressive right now is…
I looked at the bundle of maps wobbling unsteadily on my finger, then let out a small sigh and managed an awkward smile.
"…They're so small. If I drop these by accident, I'll never find them again, will I?"
Since they'd been drawn to Polaris's tiny standards, the maps she'd created were… incredibly compact, like temporary tattoos.
I could almost believe that if I just went whoo and blew on them, they'd flutter away and vanish into some scrap-metal pile nearby.
Still, thinking about how hard Polaris worked to make these… I can't help but feel grateful.
But the tiny, compact size that made them hard to carry and even hard to read… wasn't a problem for me.
After getting badly injured once, I'd talked things over with Noise and learned a new way of handling data!
"Upload."
> Uploading Polaris's maps.
> Data is compatible with NSS. Link?
"Yeah. Link them."
> Linking maps. …Link complete.
A popup message appeared before my eyes, and for a moment a blue particle effect seemed to spread out — then the tiny maps resting on my finger melted away into my body as if absorbed!
If Polaris had been watching, she would have dampened those cute eyes of hers and patted my shoulder in shock…
But the maps hadn't disappeared. As I'd just seen with my own eyes, they'd simply been absorbed into my body.
"Whoa, I was drifting off course. The right direction is… that way, huh."
I carefully studied the small map that now appeared clearly in one corner of my vision, and slightly adjusted the direction I was facing.
In response, the green dot on the map began moving straight toward the Delic I'd set as my destination.
Well… that green dot was showing my current position.
Every time I see something like this, I feel how far I've come from being human… It's a strange feeling.
NSS. Spelled out: Nia Setting System.
Simply put, it was an ability that let me treat myself like a character or avatar using CP or EP.
Going beyond just creating objects or programs, it let me interfere with myself to handle useful functions. I casually called the whole process and its results NSS.
Things I'd been doing unconsciously for a while — making text float over my skin to read the chat window, boosting my physical abilities to absurd levels — those could broadly be considered a form of this NSS too.
Anyway, what I'd just done was simple. I'd taken the maps Polaris made as data and set them to permanently display in one corner of my vision.
Through various experiments with Noise, I'd learned that significantly changing elements of myself was really, truly difficult…
But simply floating something on the surface seemed to be something my body allowed. Maybe tattoos would work too? Not that I particularly wanted any.
"Alright then… it should be coming into view soon…"
Anyway, with the maps from Polaris in hand, there was no longer anything to fear quite so much.
What was fear, really? It was a series of defense mechanisms rejecting the incomprehensible things that might harm you.
That was why humans wanted to flee from darkness, screamed at the sight of monsters, and feared death, wasn't it?
Of course, I didn't want to get beaten up by a Predator Species either. Getting hit just twice and then hobbling around bandaged for days had been only a few days ago.
But with a map guiding me this accurately… I could at least be confident I could escape those monsters safely.
After all, the enemies couldn't cross over to my side. As long as I didn't engage, the advantage was mine no matter how I looked at it.
"…Here it is. A door of rocks clustered together with an eerie sense of wrongness."
Going to the subway or the forest in my current state was problematic in various ways — I had some trauma with both.
The subway was a demon realm where Predator Species that ate other Predator Species roamed. The forest was a place where nothing moved except when data chunks fell.
So I'd chosen a third option. Neither subway nor forest — another Delic I'd learned about thanks to Polaris.
I raised my Scissors Blade toward the door connected to that Delic, consuming EP to activate the blade…
Rumble…
Watching the door begin to open as if the stones themselves had come alive, I muttered quietly to myself.
Just two. No more than two. Don't get greedy.
With that small goal in mind, I slowly walked toward the Delic door that showed no further sign of opening.