Chapter 280 Closest City
"Hm… I've managed to get 10 tears. Excluding me, if the party were to consume this, I'll still have 3 left. 5 if Lisandra and Yin can't eat these." Shiro muttered to herself while throwing one in her mouth.
Putting the rest in her inventory, she made her way back to her old home.
"Sorry about that, I just felt a little homesick then." Shiro smiled apologetically.
"Ah, don't worry about it. You're quite young and you're far from your home so it's only natural." Amanda smiled in understanding.
"Now quickly eat before the food gets cold." She said, gesturing for her to sit down.
Nodding her head, Shiro sat down and enjoyed the meal.
###
The next morning, the chief had finished asking all of the villagers what they wanted to do.
30% wanted to stay while the other 70% wanted to leave since they felt like it was too dangerous to stay here, especially since so many had died already.
After confirming all those who had died, Nytri was shocked to find out that Dalim was included within the list.
Running away with tears threatening to spill, her mother and father chased after her.
Meanwhile, Shiro looked at all of this and shook her head lightly.
Turning back to the chief, she focused on the task at hand.
"Chief. Since 30% of them want to stay, why don't we find out why they want to stay first." Shiro suggested.
After all, they couldn't force them to leave if they didn't want to.
Nodding his head, the chief started a discussion with the 30% who disagree. While this was happening, Shiro helped load the heavier items into the carriages.
All of these people were essentially moving houses hence why they wanted to make sure that they brought everything they needed.
"Miss Shiro." The chief called out with a difficult face.
"What is it chief?"
"You see, their main reason for staying is because of the memories they have made in their homes along with the fact that their family has been staying here for generations. They don't want to abandon this place." The chief smiled apologetically.
"Hmm…" Furrowing her brows, Shiro frowned slightly.
'Tch, troublesome.' She thought to herself.
"Let me try something first. If that doesn't work, we'll leave without them." Shiro shook her head.
Walking over to the group that didn't want to leave, she coughed lightly to get their attention.
"I know you don't want to leave this village but think about it. By staying here, you could be subjecting yourself to more raids in the future. However, if you were to move elsewhere, not only will you ensure that your lineage continues, but you can make more memories and create a new legacy." Shiro said while trying to convince them.
"But then things aren't the same." One of the villagers protested.
". . ." Looking at that villager, Shiro suddenly had the urge to punch him in the face.
"Nothing's going to stay the same. After the raid and after so many people died, do you think you can just continue your lives like nothing had happened? That's just running away from reality. People are leaving because they want things to change for the better. If you just stay in one spot and hope that nothing has changed, you might as well have died in the raid. Plus, even if you don't want to change, the world will change regardless." Shiro rolled her eyes.
"For those that want to come, follow us but I won't force you. You're the maker of your own story, not me." She said before turning around.
Allowing the villagers to make their own choices, she helped out with those that wanted to leave.
After a few hours of packing, everyone was finally ready.
This time, 23% of the initial 30% decided to change their minds while the other 7% stayed stubborn. At that point, Shiro could no longer bother to deal with them.
"Let's go." Shiro called out since everything had been packed into the carriages. Acting as the bodyguard, she sat in the middle of the caravan and kept an eye out for any monsters or bandits while those who knew of the direction led the way.
As the caravan made their way through the forest paths, they would take breaks to cook and rest since they had a lot of people and they needed to make sure that everyone was well rested.
At night, Shiro would venture off a little and practice the nanobot research volume 3. While she made little to no progress, she knew that her control was slowly increasing.
By the end of the fifth night, she had already sped up the time needed for her to create her guns.
A single flickof her fingers was enough to form two guns and two swords that floated around her.
While the swords were rather weak, it was fine since they were only complimentary items. The main focus was her hand cannons that had been reinforced.
Taking a deep breath, she had Nimue materialise beside her.
"You know what to do." Shiro said while closing her eyes.
"Mn. I understand my queen." Nimue nodded before flickering away into the trees.
Rustling could be heard as Shiro kept her eyes closed.
*Shshshshsh
Hearing the sound of leaves falling, her eyes snapped open in alertness.
Clicking her fingers, a wave of nanobots surged towards the source of the sound while a pair of hand cannons appeared in her hands.
*BANG BANG BANG BANG!
Pulling the triggers, she was satisfied to see that every bullet had been pierced and locked in a nanotech cage.
"Mn, not bad. Volume 3 had definitely been helpful. Not only has my nanobots increased their resilience, but their overall speed has also improved greatly." Shiro smiled in satisfaction.
Disassembling her hand cannons, she gestured for Nimue to return.
"Let's go. By tomorrow, we should be at the next city."
###
Sitting in the centre cart as usual, Shiro could see the distant buildings that belonged to the next building.
Furrowing her brows, she realised that this city seemed to be quite familiar.
"Miss Shiro, we're approaching Kamure City. We should be able to find ourselves some shelter there." The chief called out.
"Wait Kamure City?" Shiro frowned.
If her memories were correct, the closest city should not be Kamure because Kamure was across the continent and it was where she had eventually escaped from the labs with the help of the hero.
For the city to be the 'closest' to her village, confirms that this space was melded to suit her. She had no memories or knowledge regarding the true closest city.
'Hmm… if this space is tailored to me, what is the goal? What does it want me to find out?' She wondered to herself while the caravan continued towards the city.
'I guess it wants me to find volume 1 and 2 since the labs are close to this place. But, I need to be careful since the enemies should be around level 100 to 150.'
Shaking her head, she decided to stick to assassination for the next task. As a person who had spent a ridiculous amount of time in the labs, she was quite familiar with the overall layout.
However, she suddenly felt a pair of eyes lock onto her body.
"Chief!" Shiro called out.
"Mn? What is it?"
"Are you able to lead the villagers into the city and find somewhere to stay for now? I need to quickly do something. Here's an item to help you contact me if you need to." Shiro said while handing him a small device.
Quickly crouching down, she flickered towards where she had felt the gaze.
Seeing some tracks, she knew that the person shouldn't be too far away.
"Tch, annoying fly." She clicked her tongue and created two copies of Genesis.
Tracking the marks left behind, she soon approached an open area where a man was standing idly in the middle.
"We've been monitoring the movements of our scientists that we had dispatched out into the world. For two of them to suddenly die in that village is quite strange wouldn't you say?" The man asked while turning around.
"Heh, it's not like it's my problem." Shiro smiled while checking his stats.
[Redirm LVL 100 Arena Master]
'Arena master?' She narrowed her eyes at the strange class. But the biggest problem was still his level. With a difference of almost 40 levels, she knew that she must be careful.
"Well no matter. As a person with the finished nanobots, we're quite interested in collecting your corpse for research purposes."