The Awakened One, Book 1: Remnant

Chapter 10: A Chance Encounter

At his question, his newest companion responded with a loud Mwrah Mwrah! For whatever reason to (Y/N) this meant 'wherever you wanna go' and since that's all he had to go off of he took that as her answer.

"Ok so we have Byakko's answer, how about you Meta, do you have any recommendations?"

[Meta ha no idea! Do what you think is best!]

"Do what I think is best." He mulled the thought over slightly, simultaneously pulling up the system map function. He looked at the map scrolling around trying to find any other interesting structures or monuments to travel to. As he resized the map, zooming further and further out, he realized the true size of the continent he was on. 

On the map, it was the clear largest continent in this world, it looked as if it took up about a third of all the land space. The place where he was located was in the north-eastern hemisphere of the continent. The closest geographical structure to him was a mountain covered in snow and on this mountain, he saw, what looked like, the icon of a city. The biggest city icon on the continent was north-west of this one, and it looked a little bit different than the other one. 

The icon closest to him was black in color with a red outline showing off a lot of hostility even on the map. The other city however was green in color with a black outline, and was much larger, but it was further away. Seeing no real reason not to, he made his decision on where to go next.

"Since you guys don't really seem to care where we go, I have decided we'll check out this red, fallen, city thingy. Are there any objections?" Byakko shook her head rapidly as a no, and Meta responded quickly with a resounding 'No!' And with that the decision was made. "Alright! Up the mountains we go." 

Turning back around to the cliff where he exited his first dungeon, he walked up to the massive edge. The cliff was tall, like very tall, it looked almost like the summit of the mountain had a massive sudden drop off leading all the way down to sea level. 

All this meant to (Y/N) was that if he could climb the cliffside, it would be a shortcut to the top. "Hey Byakko, you think you can clime this cliff without help? Do you want me to carry you?" In response, the adorable cub sprinted at the cliff, and leaped high up onto one of its ridges. From this position she leapt from ridge to ridge, climbing the cliffside at a rapid pace. Byakko needed barely any footing to keep her grip on the mountain side, so climbing this was as easy as walking. "Clearly you need no help" (Y/N) said with a smile. "But let me show you some true masterful 'climbing' technique! Speed Demon." 

With his accelerated speed, and the AP he got from leveling, (Y/N)'s body began moving at a speed even he didn't expect. He instantly reached the cliffside and jumped straight up, before maneuvering his body so he was parallel with the cliff. 

As soon as his right foot touched the cliff, he shot off that foot jumping higher up the cliff. At the pace he was going, he would pass Byakko easily, so he ran up to the girl and smoothly scooped her in his arms as he sprinted not climbed but sprinted his way up the mountain side. 

Reaching the top was nothing, as he made it all the way up in a matter of minutes. With each step up the cliff he got a better footing allowing him to run even faster than before, and since Speed demon didn't have a time limit, his speed never let up. After leaping up the last bit of the cliffs edge, he landed softly on the ground with Byakko still curled up in his arms.

"We made it!" With that declaration he tried to let go of the White Tiger, but she refused to let go of him. For a moment (Y/N) considered explaining the reasons she should probably let go, but he then decides against it. 

Instead, he chose to carry her as he 'walked' south-westerly towards the ruined city. Using this time as an opportunity to introspect again, he opened the system map again in his mind. "The dungeon locations are incredibly inconsistent, and surface level treasure is literally nonexistent. There is a good number of small settlements here and there, but as far as big cities go there are only a handful. I wonder what's going on in this world that made some shit like that happen? And the dungeon placements are very sparse. I was kind of lucky that I found a dungeon so close to where I spawned in. The dungeons seem to clump together in the big cities, but in mass open space they are nowhere to be seen, weird." As he approached the settlement, he noticed something very concerning on the map.