Get that Necklace!(Job/Solo)

JUST FOCUS ON THAT GOAL

Here he was, his first official job as a mage! The teenager stared in towards the entrance of the ruins, inhaling a deep breath. Yus! He could do this! After all, wasn't completing jobs a way to get stronger and get his revenge on his family? This was a must. Though he could still feel the weird quiver in his body from his condition, he knew the wires that had been surgically output into him would sustain him for the most time. Unless he did anything too drastic or purposely fell, they shouldn't fail him. However, he still directed for his virtual assistant to take a checkup on hiss body condition.

"My my, Granon-san, are you nervous?" the cool, controlled voice of Kyo sounded as she ran screens up and down around her creator's body. Floating in the center of the screens, the hologram of Kioku would lightly hum a tune as her slim, glowing fingers dragged one screen up to inspect his head area. After ensuring that Itsuki would be save for the most part, she gave the boy a brisk nod, before fading back into her miniature form within a screen. "Thanks, Kyo," he would say, ignoring her question. If some normal person saw him right now, they would never guess that he was technically disabled.

In fact, Itsuki was the very image of a healthy human teenager, one who was perfect boyfriend material to the teenaged girls. With casually arranged hair, a perfect complexion, and that sort of body that looks good in anything, Itsuki was the guy you wanted to hang out with. After checking his files one last time, the Archive mage breathed in a deep breath, and started forward. The Ancient Ruins... Old, cracked pyramidal structures rose up around him, pillars coated with a thick layer of ivy, and crumbled bricks of stone lay all around him, a perfect haven for archaeologists. In fact, from his research on his sister, she would likely be fascinated by such a site. Ah, well, all he'd have to do was destroy it all someday, hm?

"Hmm, Kyo, pull up that job again, will you?" He turned to face the lavender-colored screen Kioku resided in and watched as the feminine figure's finger neatly drew out a screen from the files. This had been a rather oddly received job, seeing as he had received after being raced past and knocked over by some man travelling at supernatural speeds. He winced, remembering the pain of the fall, and how he had stood up to find he had a letter stuffed in his hand. Naturally, he had stored it into his Archive and read it thoroughly. A job! At last! Thrilled, he had immediately alerted Kioku, and was soon on his way. So... they were to travel through a dungeon, and find a magical necklace. Sounded rather cliché, but, ah well. It was a job!

Looking about, he slowed his previously brisk pace and began to pull up information about the ruins, searching for clues. Occasionally, a small dinging sound would ring out; a sign that he had found something useful. After gathering sufficient information for the youth to continue on this job, he began to test his surroundings. To his shock, the second his magical signature met the air, it was like something had broken. What was with this weird magical energy in the air? What the heck was happening here? Something very obviously was not right.

JUST FOCUS ON THAT GOAL

Feeling for the source of this unnatural energy, the Archive mage was soon lead to a cave entrance: this was what had to be the dungeon. With careful, wary steps, Itsuki began to make his way inside, quickly lighting up a small screen in a pale green color that was often seen in his spells and Archive. He pushed it before him in one careful movement, adjusting it's angle to better light up his path. It was quite a nerve-racking experience, here in this cave, and he hadn't been out of Bellum's factories before either... straightening his back determinedly, which had previously been hunched in uncertainty, he commanded Kioku: "Kyo, please use the GPS to try and locate the direction of the necklace."

"Mmhmm, I'm on it, Granon-san," she said in a light tone, eyes glossing over with swirls of light as she entered the great Archive. As he waited, Itsuki would grin appreciatively at how he had designed the little virtual assistant. Based off of a former close friend of his who had committed suicide after her last surviving sister was killed in a machine accident, he had displayed Hitomi Iwamoto in formal, clean clothes for once, making the older slave girl what she might have come to be had she not lost herself to despair so quickly. The crisp white pixels that formed her clothing, the pale apricot that made up her skin had all been chosen to give one of Itsuki's few friends a proper memorial.

Having remembered that Hitomi had been extremely proud of her surprisingly luxurious head of silky violet hair, he had emphasised that part of her. A large section of it rippled beautifully over her back, with the bottom part all made with separated boxes made of pixels to show she wasn't a real person. He had also made her legs completely of pixels, as he had found out in a painful attempt that he simply couldn't design legs. It was odd, seeing as he had created extremely accurate parts of the rest of the body, so one would never be able to tell she wasn't human besides the fact that she glowed ever so slightly, and one could pass their hand through her body.

Suddenly, a soft ringing sound emitted from the screen, and Kioku's eyes suddenly filled with a bright green light, turning to face an empty space. A screen was projected from the pupils and assembled itself before them, above the path. "Thank you, Kyo, let's get going," Itsuki said softly, using a finger to position the GPS screen in a preferred space. The blinking green dot began to point forwards, and the young man set out on his way to prove he could survive as a working guild mage. Finally, the dot led him and his hologram to the yawning mouth of a cave, leading deep down into the creepy-looking space he guessed was the dungeon. A small frown appeared on his face, but he began down anyways.

"Kyo, keep a scanner out for monsters and danger, will you?" The hologram nodded, and soon, a pale lavender screen was floating around them, spinning slow circles and making soft, familiar bleeping noises. Though it might creep others out, someone who surrounds himself with technology was easily accustomed to such noises. As he walked in deeper, the screen suddenly released an agonized sound, flaring up brightly. The cause was soon shown: a horrible, dirt-crusted skeleton had just walked right through it.

JUST FOCUS ON THAT GOAL

Immediately, a slight creak would resound from some gear inside of Itsuki, the system of wires and gears inside him immediately strengthening his body when he suddenly tensed, and the beating of his heart quickened. Immediately, he loosed his go to spell, a sudden burst of electricity bursting out from his body towards the skeleton. However, it was a low ranked spell, a only caused the creature jump back a bit, making eerie clattering noises as it went along. Itsuki shuddered slightly, the wires barely holding him steady with his heart beating at such a speed. With a grimace, he steadied himself with a few breaths, then steeled himself as the skeleton came back for more.

Thinking quickly, he would begin to call out commands and codes for the awaiting Kioku, "Kyo, please open folder "Attack", spell file "energySlash"." With a flick of her wrist, the violet haired hologram sped through the files of the folder, quickly releasing a screen. As the skeleton came nearer, an bolt of energy suddenly lashed out, striking the horrifying creature squarely. However, despite the fright he had felt initially, Itsuki found a smile slowly spreading across his face as the creature slowly toppled, the bones crumbling to dust. Suddenly, he whirled around again as he realized that this skeleton had been accompanies by two others. This time, however, he was confident. With two cases of brisk thought, electricity buzzed through the cave, bursting from random points and striking the skeletons down.

"You are making excellent progress, Granon-san. Please keep up the efficient pace," Kioku said smartly, recording the events and Itsuki's current condition in his health journal, which was used to adjust wires and panels for better utilization of the wires embedded within him. Feeling a slight twitch within his arms and legs, Itsuki looked to Kioku to check that adjustments had been made, then moved on. Moving at a much faster pace now, the Archive mage kept all screens shining brightly as to avoid surprise incidents such as the last one. He would have to adjust the screen 's capabilities to work with the dead and undead too, huh... "Kyo, please add a motion sensing screen with the life detecting," he said, glancing always at the hologram now floating above his shoulder. A holographic remote control appeared in her hand, and with a touch a new crew floated up.

Almost immediately, a siren sounded, and a whistling noise shot past Itsuki's head. "Someone shooting arrows at us, Granon-san!" Kioku's shout echoed through the cave, and she fumbled to brighten the light of the screen. As an eerie green light suddenly illuminated the room, Itsuki could now clearly see what was happening. Pits dotted the area, and odd dips in the walls were sure to conceal more traps. With a clench of his teeth, Itsuki blasted outwards with a program of his own, having quickly opened it up with his own screen instead of Kioku's help. A large screen popped up before them, with sentences of code running throughout it.

An arrow hit the screen, and a small ripple was made in programming, but it quickly resumed. In this manner, Itsuki slowly moved past the arrow shooting trap. Awkwardly skirting a pit while surrounded by at least ten brightly glowing screens, he found himself near a dip in the wall. Slowly, Itsuki would close his eyes, mentally connecting the more cyborg portion of his mind to his Archive. There. Opening his eyes again, he knew the most outside layer of his body had been changed to pixels. He quickly changed that color to match the cave rock, and retracted all his screens, sliding past the trap unnoticed. In this manner, he evaded the rest of the traps in the two chambers with some ease, entering a long tunnel next.

JUST FOCUS ON THAT GOAL

Placing a hand on either side of the tunnel to steady himself, Itsuki inhaled a deep breath, looking forward determinedly in mental preparation for what was up ahead. Now, he was finally realizing the toll of spending fifteen of his sixteen years of life in slavery, how much it meant he didn't know. He didn't know what monsters were out there! He didn't know good counterattack for certain spells! These were things a normal young mage would have learned by this age, but all Itsuki had ever been allowed to do- no, forced to do was to find out the best ways to convince people to buy the electronic parts the illegal company he'd slaved for produced, and to advertise the company in the Archive.

In fact, he had very few spells created for actual battle, most having been made for practical purposes as a slave. However, he knew he would have to learn eventually. No matter how long it took, how much pain he had to go through, things would have to work out. They had to. For he had only one single goal in life, and all he had to do was direct his entire being towards it. With a grimace, he entered the passage, moving slowly and carefully. Finding a point where the stony walls suddenly swerved into a turn, Itsuki pulled out his files explorer and opened up an exact holographic copy of himself, pasting it into reality. Sending it ahead, Itsuki would be ashamed to know that he cringed at the sound of ricocheting spears and the screams of his holographic twin as the screen perished under the steady rain of spears and the thudding of a boulder. He had to move onwards.

Kioku floating by his shoulder, Itsuki cautiously inched through the turn in the passage, slowly lowering himself to the ground with help from the wires. Forming a screen that floated no more than an inch from the ground, he lay himself on top of it and typed in a command fir it to move him forward slowly. This excruciatingly long and nerve-racking process took about ten minutes. Ten whole minutes, until Kioku's clear voice confirmed the absence of any remaining traps. "Thank you, Kyo. Are we near yet?" The teenaged semi-cyborg's voice quivered as he glanced over at the violet-haired hologram. "Actually, Granon-san, it should only be a few feet before you!" Came the encouraging answer.

JUST FOCUS ON THAT GOAL

Itsuki carefully stretched a finger out, prepared to move the scanning screen to the front. "Ai ya!" he hissed angrily, as his finger passed through air. The screen slowly fell apart before his fingertips; having shorted itself due to how long it had been running. "Ah, man... Kyo, only time can fix this one, am I accurate?" The hologram nodded gravely. "It was being overused: you're not yet used enough to using your tech and magic in battle so they're more likely to run out of power. It's something you can only learn by experience." With a sigh, Itsuki let the faded pixels float off, knowing that he would have to do better next time.

"Kyo, what would you recommend as best course of action?" he asked wearily, slowly shuffling forward while keeping his eyes out for this necklace. Suddenly, a flash of light burst out, and the hologram now stood at full-size beside him. Meanwhile, Itsuki gaped up at the violet-haired woman shot him a cold look that softened slightly at his shaking limbs, and said, "Demon ahead. I do apologize for startling you, but there is a powerful opponent ahead." With a startled look, Itsuki stared in front, then noticed an altar slowly rising up out of the gloom, on which a monstrous figure was perched.

Immediately, without any particular thought, that instinctive jolt of lightning burst out at the demon. Even if it was imposing, This creature was a lower-ranked creature nevertheless. It wouldn't take all his energy to slay. In fact, the creature was already cowering from the electricity that jumped between Itsuki's fingers. However, he had other ideas in mind. "Kyo, open attack folder file trackerScreen," he said, having calmed down now. In her larger form, Kioku could multitask easily, adjusting Itsuki's cyborg supports while opening files. Immediately, a large screen floated out, drifting slowly towards its target. As it would follow the demon about, Itsuki would calmly attack it with small holes of lightning, each C ranked attack finally backing it into the simple D ranked screen and leaving the necklace free for the semi-cyborg to take.

And that was the extremely anti-climax end of Itsuki's first job.