-47- The Beginning of the Journey

Rosalind had left behind many letters, but as time stretched on, the intervals between them grew ever longer.

In a life of unchanging routine, Yvette's days became increasingly monotonous and dull.

She would regularly go out to sea to hunt, devouring aberrant creatures of stage two or higher. She often stayed at home reading, diving into academic texts as well as all sorts of miscellaneous books. She indulged in sleeping on rainy days, believing it allowed her to forget all her worries. Occasionally, she would visit the underside of a certain overpass to check on the few wild chickens her students had always cared about.

Amidst this life of repetitive days and years, whenever a crucial milestone arrived—the time when the next letter could finally be opened—a slight ripple of emotion would stir within her otherwise tranquil, still-water eyes.

Yet, just as surely, within this protracted waiting, a somewhat sorrowful answer seemed to take root deep in her heart.

...

A hundred years, and then another hundred.

No aurora, and no familiar voice.

Until one morning, after the rain had cleared, upon finishing the two-hundredth and final letter, Yvette turned her head slightly and stared out the window for a long time. Finally, she picked up pen and paper, deciding it was time to write a letter.

This was a letter written to her student, as well as a farewell message before setting out on a long journey.

She thought that if Rosalind were still alive and had truly returned to the Land of the End, then rather than the Isle of Yish, she was far more likely to appear on one of the world's three major continents due to the inherent uncertainty of the Abyss's landing points.

Therefore, instead of waiting, embarking on a long journey—traveling across the three continents to look and see—would actually offer a much higher probability of running into her student again.

Of course, she knew this was merely a form of self-consolation.

According to research from the Black Tower Medical Association, the impact of magical cultivation on longevity extension was extremely minimal and constrained by the limits of one's biological form. Without changes to one's genes, living to the age of 180 was considered the absolute limit—and given the Black Tower's insurmountable lead in life-extension technology, these claims could be regarded as highly authoritative.

Yet, the continent of Radiance was, after all, a mid-to-high magic world, a world where true gods existed.

Things from another world—who could really say?

In any case, until she saw Rosalind's tombstone with her own eyes, she would continue to hold onto hope.

Thus, she was writing this letter here so that if her student suddenly returned after she had set off on her journey, she would not find her teacher missing.

She would tell her student in the letter what her travel route was, which city ruins she would visit along the way, and where she would leave messages. If the student saw them, she could walk the route backward from the final destination, allowing the two of them to meet sooner.

...

Leaving the letter behind.

Sealing the doors and windows.

Stashing all important belongings down in the basement.

Having completed all preparations, Yvette donned a black dress, strapped an alloy battle blade to her back, and took the driver's seat of the magitech locomotive, preparing to embark on her very first apocalyptic road trip.

Compared to the heap of junk she had used two hundred years ago, the silvery-white magitech locomotive she used now possessed a far greater sense of mechanical aesthetics and was much larger in size—it was essentially a motorhome.

This was, of course, the result of modifications. After all, the days she was about to embark on would be spent wandering the ends of the earth; she needed a place to shelter from the wind and rain. Otherwise, constantly sleeping out in the wilderness not only compromised her safety but also easily soiled her clothes or attracted bugs.

Of course, she could choose not to sleep at all, but she would grow very tired. She had a high tolerance for hunger, but sleepiness was a different matter. Given the conditions, she still thoroughly enjoyed sleeping.

...

Half an hour later, driving the large magitech locomotive—which was the size of a truck—Yvette watched as everything outside the window gradually became swallowed by the boundless, azure sea.

The Isle of Yish shrank into a steadily receding speck behind her, while on the distant horizon, the waves rolled wildly under the sunlight, resembling schools of golden fish.

This ocean was called the Abyss-Flow Sea, the great ocean lying to the west of the Black Tide Continent.

If one looked at a rectangular map, the distribution of the three continents of the Origin Civilization actually resembled a straight line running diagonally from the upper-left to the lower-right.

That was to say, the Black Tide Continent was in the upper-left, the Emerald Continent resided in the middle, and the Silver Mirror Continent lay in the lower-right.

In this way, planning the travel route would be quite simple: she would simply head diagonally downward.

Soon, after leaving the waters surrounding the Isle of Yish, underwater monsters began to occasionally burst forth from the depths, attacking the passing motorhome, only to be instantly pierced through by strands of silver hair, turning them into fleeting, withered corpses.

This was another major reason Yvette chose to set out on her journey: the high-tier aberrations in the waters around the Isle of Yish had all been fished out by her.

Although she would not bother with stage-one aberrations since the effort outweighed the reward, the magical increment provided by stage-two aberrations was still better than nothing.

Therefore, on this distant expedition, she eagerly anticipated encountering more stage-three aberrations. Only at this stage could she obtain relatively noticeable gains.

However, the total amount of aberrant mana was currently difficult to calculate. If measured in units of stage-one aberrations, her current aberrant mana was roughly around 40,000 points—whereas her actual mana value had just barely reached a little over 2,000.

Comparing them like this was certainly flawed, however; aberrant mana was depleted with every use, whereas mana values could be rapidly recovered through meditation.

Thus, under normal circumstances, whenever conditions permitted, she would first use spells to cripple her prey and then devour them with tentacles, which could save a great deal of aberrant mana expenditure.

...

The days of drifting upon the ocean lasted for about a week.

In truth, given the flight speed of the motorhome, two to three days would have easily been enough to fly to the western coast of the Black Tide Continent.

Alas, she had encountered a monster battle midway, which forced her to make an enormous detour.

One of the participants in this monster battle was that very "Steel Sea Dragon Beast" Yvette had witnessed with her own eyes once before.

On the other side was a purplish-red jellyfish as massive as a mountain range. Its umbrella-like body was covered with the outlines of agonizing human faces, and it attacked primarily using its tentacles. Yvette named it the "Nightmare-Tentacle Spirit."

While watching from a distance as a spectator, Yvette had once guessed whether these two colossal aberrations were merely large in size while their evolutionary degree was actually quite low.

Yet, as she watched them fight, beginning to trade blows using all sorts of incomprehensible, un-deconstructable mystic arts, Yvette became certain that these two giant aberrations possessed an extremely high degree of evolution, far surpassing even the third stage.

In particular, the pulsed light beam shot from the jaws of the Steel Sea Dragon Beast made her suspect that it could completely blast a mountain peak to smithereens.

In short, they were far beyond what her current self could afford to provoke, so she very decisively chose to take a detour. A week later, amidst endless wandering, she finally located the western coast of the Black Tide Continent and made a difficult landing.

...

On the first day of her arrival, dusk was already drawing near.

Yvette parked her motorhome on the beach and slept for the night. The next morning, consulting a pre-apocalypse map she had on hand, she set off toward the nearest metropolis belonging to the New Eden United States.

The name of this target city was "Akasha." Before the apocalypse, it had been a metropolis entirely comparable to the city of Yish, ranking among the very forefront of development across the entire New Eden United States.

She planned to wander around this city, take in the sights, scavenge for scraps, and then leave a trace of her presence in the city center.

Because the energy consumption of the flight mode was five to six times that of the regular mode, and to conserve energy as well as capture the true feeling of travel, she traveled forward on four wheels rolling across the ground. Wherever she passed, the tires kicked up billows of dust and flying earth and stone.

Hours later, seeing that the ruined buildings ahead were gradually increasing and she was nearing the city ruins, she suddenly caught sight of a human figure emerging from a ruined building by the roadside. The figure stood by the abandoned highway in the distance, waiting quietly as she drove closer.

Yvette was slightly taken aback. While she had imagined whether she might encounter other living people on the continent—survivors or fellow travelers alike—she did not particularly mind either way.

To bump into someone on only her second day, however, was far too soon.

Then, through the glass, she clearly saw the other person's appearance.

At first glance, it appeared to be a human girl dressed in exploration gear, holding a flashlight with a distinct adventurer's style. Upon closer inspection, however, one would notice that her eyes had subtle differences from those of a human, and her arm joints featured distinct circular seams. Even the luster and details of her skin did not quite resemble true human flesh.

——This turned out to be a mechanical automaton.

"Greetings, kind lady."

After Yvette brought the vehicle to a halt, the automaton girl spoke in a flat yet impeccably polite tone: "I am a traveler from the Silver Mirror Continent. My vehicle's energy has been exhausted and it can no longer start. Would you mind giving me a ride and dropping me off at the nearest sanctuary?"