Chapter 674 - Air Tunnels

Right now, she was on the edge of the Section. In front of her were five tunnels that led to different places within the section.

Glancing at the map that showed her where the air tunnels led to along with where the Tower of Nike is, Shiro narrowed her eyes.

'The Tower of Nike is located near one of the larger cities in this Section. To get to the city, the fastest route would be through 5 tunnels and walk for around a day. During the time in the tunnels, I'll be starving so I need to get some food otherwise the people on the other side of the tunnel will see a corpse instead.' Shiro thought to herself.

Looking at the map, Shiro could see several towns on the way to the city meaning she could probably get some rations from the towns to keep her healthy for now. The good part about this section was that Aerial beasts were a common sight so food could be easily obtainable so long as she didn't hunt the wrong beast.

'I'll probably need to take a few breaks in between the air tunnels to hunt for some food and speaking of food, I'm starving right now.' Shiro mused to herself while glancing down at her left arm.

Sighing softly, she looked around for a place where it would be easy to hunt the beasts.

To her right was a path that led up to the top of a mountain. Thinking about it for a moment, Shiro figured that this was probably a good spot to hunt in. Glancing down at her map, she made sure that the danger level of the area was something she could handle. After all, she was an injured person right now and her plan of action was to use the bow with one leg and one arm.

It wasn't the most refined way of using the bow but it'll work.

Hiking up the mountain, Shiro looked up and saw a flock of birds in the distance. Even if she was to kill them all, it'll take some effort for her to retrieve their corpses.

"Hmm…" Seen as though there were no other options, Shiro could only sigh.

"I'll just treat it as a workout before food." She muttered.

Sitting down on a boulder that she found on the mountain, she leaned back slightly and summoned her bow.

Using her feet to hold the body of the bow, she pulled back on the string with her only usable hand.

Narrowing her eyes, she fired her arrow.

Soaring through the sky, the arrow made an arc before piercing the bird's neck causing it to flap its wings in panic before falling to the ground beneath it.

"One." She muttered and had already fired the second arrow.

With the sudden threats of arrows, the birds started to fly away as Shiro only managed to kill two more of them before they were too far for her to bother to retrieve their corpses.

"Oh well, three birds should be enough for a meal." Shiro cracked her neck and started to make her way down the mountain.

Unlike the Section of Life, the Section of Sky was filled with large plains, rock formations and valleys. Finding the birds wasn't too difficult since they landed on plain land and it was also easy for Shiro to see the other monsters that might roam around in the place.

Most of the monsters in this section could fly but for the few that couldn't, they were more proficient in burying through the ground rather than hunt on the surface.

After collecting the bird corpses, Shiro had to make her way back to the border since she needed some dry sticks to make a fire to cook the meat. With her being surrounded by grass and rock, making a fire would be much harder.

"I should probably collect some sticks and use them as firewood." She muttered while cooking the birds.

After eating a small meal, she started to collect some of the twigs and put it in her bag.

Now that she was partially full, she glanced towards the air tunnels. Referencing her map, she found that the first tunnel would bring her near a small town called Avio which would allow her to have a small break of sorts. Plus, she could also see if she could order some medicine for her arm after all, travelling with a broken arm was going to be a pain. Literally.

"It's going to hurt but I suppose it's better than walking around for another week." Shiro sighed as the air tunnels would put some pressure on her body and with her arm being injured, it was going to hurt the entire journey.

Shaking her head, she hopped into the wind tunnel and allowed the wind to sweep her body up into the air.

Closing her eyes, she ignored the pain in her arms and took this chance to rest up.

Halfway through this journey, Shiro remembered another important point to the air tunnels and that was the fact that the one using it was still open to attacks by monsters. So unless one was confident in driving the birds away, these had to be used with caution.

Glancing up, Shiro could see a few monsters following her.

Sighing a little, she immediately summoned her bow and fired her arrow.

Piercing the wing joint of the monster, Shiro watched as it crashed towards the ground while trying its best to keep itself in the air.

Seeing this, the other monsters quickly made their distance once they realised that Shiro wasn't an easy target. After all, if their wings get injured they wouldn't be able to hunt for a while.

Once the monsters were gone, Shiro sighed in relief.

"Easy but risky huh? No wonder Dimos explained the air tunnels like this." Shiro muttered while glancing at her surroundings. While winding through the wind tunnels, it reminded Shiro of a road trip with her jet only at a much slower pace. If her current body had to bear the brunt of the air resistance that her jet had to suffer, she'd be crushed into a pancake.

Thankfully, that wasn't the case so she could enjoy this journey while ignoring the pain in her arm.

After a few hours of travel, Shiro could see the end of the current tunnel and shifted herself so that she could land properly.

Once the air tunnel ended, Shiro landed on the dirt ground and slid for a few meters. Looking at the dirt strip among the grassy plains, she could tell that this had been used several times which stopped the grass from growing again.

Shrugging her shoulders, she turned towards the village in the distance.

Looking at its size, Shiro knew that it was a rather small village. However, despite it being a very small and rural area, the 'postal service' still extended out to this place.

Arriving at the village, Shiro didn't waste any time and looked around for the postal building.

Finding it with relative ease due to the small size of this village, Shiro approached one of the stone tablets.

Writing down the words medicine for broken bones, Shiro was given a list of medicine along with their costs.

'Well damn, aren't they quite cheap.' Shiro raised her eyebrow in mild surprise. She would have thought that the medicine was going to be more expensive but that wasn't the case. For a decent healing ointment for broken bones that will heal it within a day only cost around 8 silvers which wasn't too bad for her. She was just glad that it didn't cost tens of silver. If that was the case, she would have been a little short for cash.

She had spent 14 silvers in the last town which meant that she still had 11 silvers left along with 225 coppers.

After choosing the ointment, she wrote down the next town that she was going to visit. With the delivery cost, it brought up the total to 10 silvers.

Placing the amount on the stone tray next to the tablet, Shiro watched as it was replaced with a token.

Storing the token away, Shiro left the building.

"Hmm… it'll take me around half a day or so to reach the next air tunnel so it's probably good to rest up for the night." Shiro muttered while glancing up at the sky. After the air tunnel which took a few hours, the sun was beginning to set and she wasn't keen on finding out what's in store for her at night.

Paying for a night's rest at a small traveller's tavern, which only cost 10 coppers this time, Shiro rested up for the night.