I was driving the car, with Miko sitting next to me and Ayuri and Yuuki sitting in the back seats. I wanted to ask them if they knew anything about Ruby, but I guess they don't even know she's an A.I.
The sky was sunny, without even a trace of a cloud. It was high summer and the heat was oppressive. But luckily the car had air conditioning, so the heat wasn't noticeable at all.
I drove for almost two hours, and neither of us spoke during that time. Ayuri and Miko were asleep and Yuuki seemed to be engrossed in his thoughts, so I didn't want to disturb him.
While I was peacefully driving the car, I suddenly felt vibrations under the floor. The others also felt the vibrations, because Ayuri and Miko woke up and Yuuki was looking out the window.
I became restless and increased the speed of the car.
"Eve, get us out of here now!" Yuuki shouted.
"What happened?"
"Those tremors aren't from an earthquake, but from the zombie worm."
"What the hell?"
"It's a worm that somehow got infected with the first virus and is now as big as a skyscraper. I've never seen it, but I've heard rumors about it. They say that if it keeps digging underground tunnels, one day the ground will collapse beneath our feet."
"I see the world has managed to almost wipe itself out in my absence."
Suddenly, cracks appeared on the road ahead. I managed to dodge them with ease, but the vibrations became even more violent. The whole car was shaking like crazy. It was as if the thing was right under us.
Everyone seemed concerned about our current situation, and I could sympathize with them.
I don't even know if I can take this thing. Probably not.
After a while the shaking stopped and we thought we were safe, how silly of us.
The ground shook violently once again and opened in two in front of us.
"Fasten your seat belts!" I shouted.
I knew there was no way I could avoid it.
The car flew through the air for a bit and then began to fall at high speed.
Even though the car was made of this material and couldn't possibly be destroyed, the fall could hurt the others. So I decided to implement an idea that came to my mind.
I put my hand on the steering wheel and activated my analysis ability. I wanted to find something specific. I didn't have enough time before the car hit the ground. But fortunately, I found what I was looking for. The car's airbags.
I held my left hand to the glass of the door and the black liquid flowed out of my hand, entered the car and started to form four big airbags around the car.
That's good, then nothing will happen to us.
And I made it just in time before we landed on the ground. The others were a little dizzy from the fall, but they got over that quickly.
I dissolved the airbags and got out of the car.
We were actually in a tunnel, and it was way too big.
Oh God, how are we going to get back to the surface now? I guess we have to go through the tunnel?
"Hey Eve, what are we going to do now?" Miko said with a slightly anxious voice.
"Don't worry about it at all. I'll get us out of here." I said while patting her on the head.
I said I'll get us out of here, but we're not even sure if the tunnel will take us out.
"H-hey guys, I think you need to see this," Yuuki said.
He was looking at an opening that had formed on the left side of the tunnel. We all walked in that direction to see why he looked so intrigued.
I looked out of the opening and I must say I couldn't believe my eyes. In front of me was a whole new biome. It was a whole tropical forest with a huge pyramid in the middle. What the heck had we just discovered?
"Wait, what's that?" Miko said , pointing her hand in the direction of the pyramid.
I looked in that direction and saw something illuminated by the sun. But why was it daytime here? I mean, it's underground.
I made myself a little telescope to see more closely what the thing was. And to my great surprise, it appeared to be an elevator. We're not the first ones here? Strange.
"Okay, do you guys want to go see what this thing is, or do you just want to try to get out of here?"
Everyone looked at me and collectively said, "Check the pyramid."
Heh, I'd been waiting for an answer like that either way.
"All right, get in the car. I'll take us down there."
"How are you going to do that?" Yuuki asked.
"Trust me, I have my methods."
So we all got in and I started the engine. I steered the car to the other side of the tunnel facing the small opening and raced the car toward it.
The opening broke apart and the car plunged into the unknown jungle.
"I knew I shouldn't have trusted you," Yuuki said.
"Why are you like this? I told you I'll get us down here."
"I didn't think you'd want to kill us so badly."
"Oh, don't be like that, if I wanted to kill you guys, you'd be dead already." I said with a smile.
I once again built the airbags around the car to stop the fall.
We landed on a tree that broke off from the force of the impact, and the car fell to the ground.
We were a bit away from the pyramid, but we couldn't drive the car through the jungle. So we had to continue on foot.
As we walked through the forest, there were many wild animals around us waiting to attack us. But the moment I noticed one, I killed it immediately without the others noticing.
"I know we haven't walked for a long time, but shouldn't there be any wild animals around here? I mean, this is a jungle, right?" Miko said.
"Maybe because this place is underground, animals can't live in this environment." I said with a smile.
"Oh, okay then." Miko replied.
We continued walking through the forest without anything unexpected happening. But for some reason I had a strange feeling about this place. It was as if all my instincts were on high alert, but no matter how hard I tried to scan the area, I couldn't detect anything dangerous or strange.
After a while, we finally arrived at the pyramid. Up close, it was huge, rivalling the skyscrapers in NeonDown. The whole building exuded an aura of majesty.
It was built of a material I couldn't make out. It was made of huge boulders of this material that looked like blurry glass, but when you broke off a piece of it, the inside was a mixture of blue, green and red colour.
I touched it to analyse its structure and maybe figure out what it was.
[Analysis in progress...]
[25% completed]
[50% completed]
[75% completed]
[100% completed]
[Material: Shinerstone. Shinerstone is a material found in space, it has the ability to block radio signals. Conclusion: it cannot be found on this planet]
Hmm, that's strange. Not only is there an entire pyramid underneath the city, but it's built from materials that don't exist on this planet. Now I'm even more curious to know what's inside it.
I turned my head to the others and said, "Who's up for an adventure?