Outrun - Cyberpunk LitRPG

I pushed open my apartment door, and tossed my poncho onto the couch. Mira followed just behind me and closed it. “Finally cleaned this place up, huh?”

”It’s a lot easier to keep clean when I don’t live with a slob who just throws her dirty clothes on the ground.” I moved over to the couch, and slowly started to unwrap the bandages around my hand. Before anything else, I needed to change them out. Blood was starting to leak through from wear the cauterization ripped.

“Oh, Shiro, don’t talk about yourself like that.” Mira grinned, and moved off to the kitchen to grab my emergency medkit. She returned a moment later, and sat down beside me. “Arm?”

I obediently handed it over, and let her work at it. My medical skills were fairly decent—at least in terms of emergency first aid. It was a bit hard to work with only one arm, though. “I call first shower.”

”All yours.” Mira unwrapped the last bandage, and carefully pulled the blood soaked fabric off. The synth skin had turned into a gooey mess at some point, and dipped into a cave in the middle of my hand. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

”Me too.” A shiver went down my spine as she used a pair of tweezers to pull the stuff up and out of the wound. I think I would’ve rather just lost the hand entirely.

While she took care of that, I looked away and let a distraction rise up.

| Perception - 11>12 |

It was about freaking time that Perception went up. It was a hard one to level. It was kinda… passive? In a way? I was always working on it, which in turn made it feel like it took longer to go up compared to a more active Skill like Tech.

To be honest, I expected Deception to go up too. It must be right on the cusp of leveling. Maybe I could try to put myself in a situation sometime soon where I could level it up?

“Hey, I think I’m going to choose some Perks tonight.” I spoke up after looking through my status. Between Perception and Leadership, there were two Perks Points to go through.

Mira stilled next to me, and her hand tightened slightly on my arm. She released almost immediately afterward, but the motion was almost impossible to miss. Right, the last time I picked one and she was around, I started exploding with blood, didn’t I?

“… okay.” She carefully wrapped a bandage back around my hand. While I was focused on the interface, she’d already taken care of the injury. “You said it was two days, right?”

”Maybe four this time. It depends on what I pick.” I shrugged lightly, though I ensured the motion wouldn’t pull my hand away from her.

“If you’re out for a while, what do you want me to do with you?” She pulled the bandage tightly, and then whipped out a plastic bag to tape around my hand. It was a bit scuffed, but it’d work to keep the water off of it. ”You’ll be a fox, right?”

”I’ll be fine if you just leave me.” ‘Sides, I wanted to go for mutation or power type Perks. The knowledge ones were good—incredibly so—but being trapped in a subspace to learn like that wasn’t ideal.

She nodded and shuffled back to the kitchen. “Imma make some ramen. Want some?”

”Nah, I’ll be fine.” I checked the seal on the bag, and moved off to the shower.

About thirty minutes later, I sat down on the coffee table while Mira carefully ran a brush through my long hair to get all of the water out. I usually did it myself, but that wasn’t an easy option at the moment. The motion was making me increasingly drowsy.

”If you turned into a fox, your fur would be short, right?” Mira paused mid-stroke to ask.

”Chek?” Why—oh, yeah. It might be easier to dry off like that? I never really thought about it in that way. Hmm… would my—

”Would your wound transfer?” Mira asked the exact same thought that ran through my head. The saying was true. Great minds really did think alike.

“I think so?” I mean, I already knew that the wound would transfer over in some shape or form. When I was injured while going after Kaynis, the injury had still been there when I assumed my sprite shape. It wasn’t a full heal.

I was curious if the exact injury would copy over, though. I hadn’t really tested it much, but I was really curious how that worked. Would my paw turn into a mangled mess just the same? Worse, even. The bandages and synthskin would count as equipment and disappear, wouldn’t they? One way to find out.

A flush of warmth covered me, and Fox’s Fluffy Cloak dropped onto my shoulders. The hoodie’s comfort levels were simply unmatched. I didn’t bask in it for long before activating its primary feature.

In mere moments, my vision dropped way lower until I was once more a silver fox. My paw throbbed unpleasantly, and my tail whipped around behind me in irritation. “Yip?”

Mira pulled me onto her lap, and carefully lifted my paw to check it out. “It’s not as grotesque as your human hand, at least… Want me to wrap it?”

“Yip!” I exaggeratedly nodded my head. The last thing I wanted was to get fur in the injury.

“Stay here.” She gently set me down on the couch. Her golden hair swayed as she stood up, releasing a fresh strawberry scent from my shampoo.

“Hmph.” Not like I could go anywhere, anyway. I already had a hard enough time walking around on four limbs. Trying to do it on three? Yeah, not happening.

After playing paramedic once more, Mira gently picked me up in her warm arms. Before we even made it to bed, I slipped into the interface space once more.

A vast darkness stretched around me for a split second before I was thrust out into the pavilion. Soft blue light flickered, casting deep shadows over the sizable library that’d filled the space. Off through a paper wall, a strand of silver moonlight spilled in and dropped squarely onto me.

Stolen novel; please report.

Bang!

Something fell and clattered from back in the library, beyond the shelves. It was just out of my sight, but the sound made me freeze entirely even still. I should be alone here. I’d always been alone. Was I not alone?

“Hello?” I called softly into the darkness. Thankfully, I was back to being human. This place should’ve been purely mental, so I appeared as I usually did. Likewise, my hand wasn’t injured here. “Voyeurs? That one of you?”

Nothing answered me except the unsettling silence that lingered around this place. Only the wind swaying through trees beyond the walls of the pavilion faintly brushed my ears.

Light flickered atop two of the shelves as if to distract me from the noise. I stared at Perception and Leadership for a moment. I should go investigate, right? I should totally go and check to see what was going on. What if something snuck in here under the nose of the eidolons? I could always back out with a thought if something actually happened, chek?

I carefully prowled around the shelves. My steps were dead silent, naturally. Even after all this time, Fox’s Paw still reigned supreme as one of my most useful Perks. The others weren’t far behind it, though. Shadows surged up and surrounded me, making me almost invisible against the darkness.

The blue light of the flames, and the moonlight slowly faded. My vision narrowed with the lack of light until everything took on an ugly monochrome just as it usually did in low-light conditions. Details started to get lost on me, but I could still make out vague shapes through the darkness.

Around the shelves, just next to Stealth's shelf, a door swung softly on a hinge like it’d been hit with an insane amount of force. From beyond the door, soft torchlight flowed into the library. Was this it? Maybe the door made that noise when it clattered against the back wall?

Who- what opened it? And where did it go? I hesitantly took a step toward it. I’d always thought that this place was a bit of a waste. There was so much detail put into the pavilion and the area right around it, yet most of it went unused. I was only ever allowed in the library with all the Perks. Was that finally going to change?

I walked through the hallway, and up a set of stairs. The way down was blocked off, but the way up was open for me. Upstairs, the place looked exactly the same as the library. Only, it was a bit smaller. A door, flanked by burning torches, stood open. An inviting blue light flickered from just beyond them.

A black, four-sided obelisk stood in the very center of the room. The thing looked like smooth obsidian pulled out of the abyss. It was marked with names, though all of them except one were scratched out and unclear. At the bottom of the obelisk was a perfectly clear one. Shiro Tsukuyomi.

Is this a dedication to all of their Scions? That’s what we interface holders are called, chek? I walked slowly around the obelisk. Why make an entirely separate room for this, though?

| (experimental) Title System Unlocked |

| Try? |

Experimental—the same thing that marked Spectral Flock when I first got it. Were the eidolons actively adding new features to the interface? From the time I’d gotten it, it certainly felt like there were a few small changes here and there. Did previous generations of Scions even have this mental space, or was this a newer feature? “Um… chek?”

The lights in the room abruptly went out. Before my eyes could even adjust, the lights flicked back on to reveal a changed room. The central obelisk was still there, but now there were eight smaller ones circling it.

Most of them were blank, but one of them had a small set of words etched into it. As soon as I tried to read it, a new interface window popped up.

| Scion |

| Child of Fox |

| Shorty |

| She Who Grow’s Bane |

I stared at the popup for a moment. Was that it? Just a record of my accomplishments—wait! Why the hell was Shorty there?! I crossed my arms and glared at the obelisk. That so wasn’t cool. I had half a mind to try and break the stupid obelisk and see what they thought of that.

What was the point of this, anyway? And I swear I had more titles than that, chek? What about Nightshade? Eclipse? Or, what was that one I tried with Carone? It didn’t go anywhere… was it Mr. Black? Woah, I’m really original, aren’t I?

The obelisk abruptly changed while I was lost in thought. The pyramid-like top of it glowed with soft blue fire. It flowed down the corners of the four sides in an intricate pattern, and flowed down onto one of the titles. From there, it filled in the etching until the word glowed with fire.

| Active Title: Scion |

| — ———— —- — -————- - |

| Effect: Aether entities will recognize you. For better or worse. Immunity to Aether Sickness |

So the Titles gave me effects, then? Just like a Perk in that regard. That’s… horrifying. Hey, voyeurs! Get out here! I just want to talk, really. What do you mean for better or worse?! That could only ever end up as worse, chek?

Every encounter in the Aether so far had been pretty freaking bad except for the times at Nine Peaks. Let’s not forget the entity that tried to lure me out of my bunker, yeah? And I’d hardly even spent time in the Aether!

What was up with that flavor prompt, too? I couldn’t quite make it out. It was like the entire thing was blurred. Might not even be flavor script, actually, but that was usually how the eidolons had designed stuff.

I tapped on one of the other Titles, and the blue fire abruptly shifted directions to fill in Shorty.

| Active Title: Shorty |

| Giants shape history. Rarely are those who trip them remembered. |

| Effect: Entities are less likely to be initially hostile. Opponents are slower to recognize you as a threat. Authority figures are less likely to care about your involvement in matters. |

That… was surprisingly useful. I really, really didn’t want to leave that as my active one, but the last part of that alone was incredible. Especially in times like these, where I was seemingly thrust out into the eye of people more and more with each passing day.

Still, I’d be a fool not to check all of them.

| Active Title: Child of Fox |

| Child of the most glamorous, beautiful, intelligent—(39,586 words omitted) |

| Effect: Increased relations with fox and other canidae sprites. Small coincidences are more likely to fall in your favor. Misfortune strikes those who persue you. |

That… was that just a pocket Ligh? Ugh, that was so good. Or it could be, anyway. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what it was that Ligh did, but any kind of luck, probability, or chance manipulation was incredible. I wanted that one andShorty. Too bad I could only have one active…

And should I say the flavor text was as should be expected? Still, almost 40,000 words omitted. Just how big of an—ahem, never mind. Anyway, the first part of it was kinda mediocre, to be honest. Sprites already liked me, so…

| Active Title: She Who Grow’s Bane |

| Mother? Who’s that? Oh, you mean the hag that tried to touch what’s ours? |

| Effect: Fallen will recognize you. Plants tremble in your presence. |

Well, that was useless. I wanted to distance myself from Mother in any way possible, too, so I’d never use that one. Fallen recognizing me was also not a great idea. If there were others like Mother, then I wanted to be nowhere near them.

I looked back through the four Titles. Decisions, decisions. Probably for the best I didn’t have a billion of them for every little thing I did, or I might actually suffer decision paralysis.

After a moment, I picked Shorty. I hated the Title, but its effects were the best at the moment. Child of Fox would be better when I was in the field working a job, but Shorty’s effect was just too good to pass up.

Was this kind of Title system really okay, though? It was, like, omega power creep, right? Giving all this power to just one person—were the eidolons not scared of destabilizing the balance of the world? I was pretty laid back, I like to think. If, like, a megacorp CEO got a hold of the interface one day, wouldn’t that end in disaster? They’d actually be unstoppable.

Speaking of, did anyone else even know about the interface? Surely, right? The actions of previous Scions couldn’t have been small. Take Nathos, or whatever the previous holder’s name was, for instance. He was considered one of the best assassins in the world… or did people just chalk that up to him being naturally talented?

I moved away from the Obelisk and back up to the library. I needed to do some more research at some point. For now, though, it was really about time I picked my Perks.