Shadow Runner [LitRPG]

"What do you mean, 'NO'?!"

Amelia really was excellent at the 'disapproving voice' thing. That subtle growl of hers was also an excellent way of communicating exactly how much she wanted to slug me.

Thankfully, though, my mind was operational again. So, when my eyes landed on the walls of Garren's bolthole, a solution actually occurred to me.

"I'm not letting the two of you risk yourselves just because I decided to be an idiot," I said firmly. "Especially when I can get away with basically no risk to me."

"And how's that?" Just as thankfully, Amelia was at least willing to hear me out.

"Well…" I forced myself upright. "This place was walled off, right?"

Mela narrowed her eyes. "Yeees?"

"Well, if that's the case, then I can just do… this."

It took me a minute to get over to the nearest wall that looked like it was blocking the way to the rest of the tunnel. Then I pushed Essence into my claws and made them come out.

Funnily enough, doing so didn't hurt. There was a very odd feeling of the broken claws digging into my flesh on the way out, but it felt more like something brushing against my fingertips than actual discomfort.

Even better, my claws sank into the wall just as easily as they usually would, and I started burrowing my way out. Mela grumbled about how I was ruining the place, but she didn't really seem unhappy about it. If anything, her voice was tending towards relieved.

Not that I had much attention to spare for her. Mostly, I was focused on how odd my body was feeling, now that my attention had been drawn to it.

It was strange enough that the meds Amelia had guided me through applying were keeping me functional. Considering how heavily injured I was, that was a minor miracle on its own.

But it was more than that. I didn't feel any pain. In fact, I felt… floaty? Like my body wasn't quite mine?

Bits of me were also grinding together in odd and uncomfortable ways. The grinding didn't produce pain, but it did alert me to the fact that something was severely wrong, somehow.

Most interestingly of all, even though I was using Essence to tear open a hole big enough to fit through, I could feel my reserves topping up. The stream of Essence didn't abate.

It took me only a few minutes of silent work to realize all of that Essence was getting funneled directly into my arms. A closer inspection of those didn't reveal much, but I did briefly wonder at the state of them.

The damage I'd taken before my forced nap had felt a lot worse than what I was seeing now. For one thing, I'd been actively bleeding tar from my hands at the time. Now? All my wounds were sealed, at the very least. Sealed to the point where I could actually use my arms without ripping the wounds open again.

"That should be big enough. Squeeze on through and stop wasting time there," Amelia ordered. "We have no clue how close they are to finding you."

While I winced at the sight of the hole, which was just barely large enough to let me wiggle through, I obeyed.

That process was… painful.

The intense physical activity was enough to irritate my body to begin with. Every jostle against the edges, as smooth as I'd tried to make them, made one of my wounds flare up. Still, eventually, I was through the hole and staring down a dark stretch of tunnel.

I tried to speak cheerfully, but my voice was tired. "Yay for lack of sewage and smells?"

"Just get moving, genius." Somehow, Amelia made the word sound even less flattering than when she called me an idiot.

Couldn't argue with her, either.

The only light at the end of the tunnel, and the thought did make me chuckle, was the reality of my eyes. The weird eldritch nonsense they had going on let me see perfectly well in all levels of darkness. As such, I wasn't stumbling over my own feet when obstacles started popping up. I got around bags of garbage, skeletons, other bodies that weren't quite so decomposed, and other foul-smelling shit with relative ease.

I was also able to use my eyes' navigation app to give myself a general rough direction to head for. It wasn't perfect, the app being fairly cheap and meant to be used on street level, but I could work with it. Eventually, I just set it to point at my target rather than try to chart a course. That stopped it from glitching out every few seconds.

"What is all this stuff?" I asked, just to prompt conversation and keep myself distracted.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

I wasn't in any physical pain anymore, sure, but my limbs just felt so tired.

"You're in the maintenance tunnel meant for keeping the net, electricity, and a few other things operational, I think." Amelia squinted in confusion. "I don't think our maintenance tunnels have quite as much… trash as these do, though."

Mela snorted. "Course not. That's 'cause the ones in the inner districts are actually used. Maintenance inside the slums? Ha! Anyway, people just started dumping their crap down there at some point. Ye'll find all sorts of stuff. Lots of stories about the place."

"What kind of stories?"

"Ya know, the usual. Hostile alien infestations. Weird creatures stalking the dark. Serial killers and worse making their dens down there…"

Suddenly, I felt like changing the subject. Not because of some irrational fear or anything. It was just that any single one of those various horrific options would be able to fold me effortlessly at the moment. Plus, my experience with bullshit made me have a far more open mind than most.

"Right. Moving on! Had a chance to go through all those files yet?"

Amelia sighed in disgust. "Some. I can't believe the scale of what they were doing. So many people, just… Anyway. The files on Zerx members are extremely useful. They're as exact as military records, I guess. Mostly because a good chunk of them are exactly that."

I resisted the urge to groan. "How many of them are as dangerous as the gorilla man who did this to me?"

Amelia hesitated. Which sure was a great sign!

"Not as many as you'd expect, but… yeah. There's at least forty of them at that level."

"Forty?! And that's not as many as you expected?!"

"The Zerx own a quarter of the slums, Adrian. Their numbers are… considerable. Could've been worse. Still, I really think we need to steer clear of the mercenary company backing them."

I stiffened and tried to keep my voice carefully neutral. "Oh? Why's that?"

"Because they have one impressive record. They've done just about everything, up to and including warfare against a 'seditious' city that tried to break off and establish its own military. The guys they send to the Zerx? With a few notable exceptions, it's the soldiers who didn't make the cut for the mercenary company."

That almost tripped me up. The gorilla had cybernetics that made him impossible to beat outright using Clairvoyance, because my reactions simply weren't fast enough to keep up. He was also shooting me right through Stealth, despite all the havoc that skill wreaked on the senses.

If he was one of the rejects, then what the hell was I supposed to expect from actual members of the mercenary company?

One thing was for sure: I understood why they wanted Patch and his crew dealt with now. If I had to bear the same label as a guy like Patch, in spite of being so blatantly superior, I'd try to off him, too.

"Well. That's… nice," I mumbled. "For them. A-And what about their leader? Titus? Any info on him?"

Amelia was silent for a long time. Had I not been so exhausted, and also focused on walking, I'd have said or done something stupid just to distract her.

"I… can look into him, if you want?"

She made the offer so carefully, I lost every last hope that she hadn't noticed the surname.

"I-I'd like that, please," I requested quietly, half-terrified and half-hopeful.

Hopeful that there was no link between me and Titus, mind.

"Kay. Give me a minute." With that, Amelia fell silent again, her attention drifting away from the call.

Mela, I noted, was also quiet. A glance at the camera revealed that the redhead was watching my feed with the intensity she usually reserved for food or guns. Or maybe a really cute guy or girl who caught her eye. She was also visibly bouncing her left leg to the point that her whole body was vibrating lightly.

As horrible as it was to see her worry so much, the sight also filled me with warmth. She clearly wanted nothing more than to do something, preferably drag me back to safety by the ear, but she was trusting me to handle things.

Only time would tell if this was a mistake on her part.

Still, until that moment of reckoning came, I busied myself with going over everything that had happened so very recently. The conclusion I reached was one I didn't like.

I was stupid, sure. And reckless.

But most of all, I simply wasn't good enough.

My eldritch packages afforded me all sorts of advantages, as did Essence and the base abilities of my cybernetics. When it came to using them, though? I was more or less brute-forcing things.

Maybe, if I were a better shot, I could have done something less potentially lethal. Maybe, if I were better at infiltration and operating as a runner, I could have ensured that no one even knew I was there. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

The funny thing about this conundrum was that I could not easily remedy any of my problems.

I'd only recently gotten a good place to practice shooting, and it would take a while to get as good as I needed to be. Besides, ammo was annoyingly difficult to purchase in large quantities in the inner districts.

On top of that, while Mela had picked up right where she'd left off with me on physical conditioning, she hadn't been with us for long. That, too, would take time to yield proper results.

And I didn't have time. I didn't want to wait.

That left a few simple solutions, most of them being different cybernetics. Legs, for one thing. If I could have moved faster and relied on the strength of cybernetics, I potentially could have handled the gorilla, even with his own cybernetic advantages.

Yet, I'd known this for some time. I was aware of the advantage such cybernetics would offer me.

The problem was, I didn't want them.

Getting a new spine, muscles, and skeleton in general had been hard enough, and that was all stuff I couldn't even see. Lopping off my legs willingly?

I shuddered, wondering what it would be like to have so much of me replaced by either eldritch bits or plain old metal. I'd only have my original torso and head at that point!

Was it funny that one of the first things that popped into my head was how such a change would affect cuddling and other intimate activities? Maybe. Regardless, that just made me even more reluctant to consider it.

Then again…

"Hey, Mela? Do you think I should get cybernetic legs?"

The redhead froze, blinked, then rebooted with a sigh. "Fucking hell of a question to ask me all of a sudden. Why?"

"'Cause I couldn't do shit against that idiot who shot me a bunch of times."

I could practically feel Amelia turn her attention to our conversation, but she was staying silent for the time being.

"Maybe." Mela's eyes were distant as she stared into the camera. "I fucking hate being weak. Would jump right into replacing most of my bits, if you two let me. It's not for everyone, though."

"Yeah…"

I trailed off, feeling even more conflicted.

Thankfully, Amelia had something more pressing to catch my attention with.

"So… I've found some stuff. On Titus."

I didn't like her hesitant tone of voice. At. All.

"Okay." I took a deep breath in, then let it out. "Hit me with it."