Nanomancer Reborn - I've Become A Snow Girl?

Making their way to the marked location on the map, Shiro made sure that the city was roughly a day's travel away before keeping it hidden deep in a valley. There were quite a few high-level monsters roaming around but they were dealt with easily since none of them were tier 6.

Standing above the city, Shiro narrowed her eyes since past this point would be Frost Giant's Pass.

Shiro could already see the two large mountains in the far distance and that was where the relic will appear.

From this distance, the twin peaks looked like toothpicks but she knew that their true height was much larger and most of it was being blocked by the clouds.

Their main goal today was to just set down some drones so that they could scout around the area while also interacting with a few Queens. Shiro was planning to use a nanotech avatar of sorts to roam around since she didn't know what might happen if she faced a Queen in person.

She was heavily injured by the Ghost Queen's subordinate after all. Even with her stats, she was akin to a glass cannon.

Ironically, this glass cannon could also break itself since a fusion of all her abilities would definitely shatter her body to pieces.

Flexing her fingers, nanobots appeared next to her as it transformed to look exactly like her. Even the mana signature was the same so it would be quite difficult for someone to realize who it was.

"That should be fine." Shiro smiled before returning back to her room.

Remotely controlling the avatar, she stretched her body a little and nodded in appreciation.

'This isn't that bad. I'd say it has around 30, maybe 40% of my strength.' Shiro mused to herself. It wasn't the best but it was ok for now. Her main goal was to scout around a bit to see which Queens are around.

Making her way towards the twin peaks, Shiro made sure that she sent her senses out like a radar. It didn't matter if others sensed her avatar since it was just an avatar. Like a light in the dark, her presence attracted the attention of several monsters guarding this place. Most of them were tier 5 so Shiro didn't bother with them that much. There were one or two that reached the realm of tier 6 but once they realized that she was just an avatar, they lost interest and let her do whatever she wanted without interfering. While Shiro wasn't afraid of fighting them, there was no benefit to doing that at this moment in time so she was grateful for the fact that they ignored her.

Traveling for roughly 3 to 4 hours, Shiro was a little disappointed that she couldn't find anyone but wasn't the worse situation considering the fact that there was still a few days before the relic appeared. Most queens might not even participate considering the fact that more powerful queens are likely to show themselves. If they left their territory with very little chance of success, they're risking way too much. If someone decided to attack while they're out, they could just be eliminated immediately.

So it's not an exaggeration to think that the ones attending this fight for the relic will be the more powerful Queens maybe even the empresses.

Knowing the allure of the rainbow grade relic, Shiro had no doubt that one or two empresses will show themselves in a few days' time.

'There's a pretty good chance that one of them is the Chimera Empress as well as the Dragon Empress.' Shiro thought to herself as she noticed a small spike in mana roughly 30 minutes away from her current location.

Since she hasn't been here for a long time, she wasn't sure if this was normal or not but she was inclined to investigate a little.

Activating some of her recycled stealth skills, she made her way towards the source of that mana spike.

Noticing that several monsters have also dashed over to investigate, Shiro hung back a little to make sure that she wasn't seen.

Crouching on a tree branch, she narrowed her eyes and saw the monsters huddling around this one area.

Activating Analysis, she looked past them and noticed a few faint marks on the floor.

The moment she saw them, she recognized them to be marks left behind by a teleport circle. But this teleportation circle was a little… amateurish? Most experienced teleport circles wouldn't leave behind such an obvious mark.

Only those that weren't used to making the teleportation circle would make this mistake.

'Who teleported here?' Shiro thought with a frown.

Looking around, she couldn't find any tracks that might show where the person had gone which meant that they were experienced to some degree.

'Strange…' Shiro furrowed her brows before creating a small drone.

Sending it over to where the spike in mana happened, she recorded a signal.

Frowning slightly, Shiro couldn't find a single trace of the signal. It was as if they didn't exist at all.

Standing up, Shiro decided to walk around for a bit longer. If she couldn't find a signal, it meant that the person was a good assassin or they're proficient in hiding their signal. Regardless, she wasn't too keen on standing around to find out who it was.

Turning around, she was about to dash away when she realized that there was a person sitting on a branch not too far behind her.

"Hello~ Seems like you're the one who was trying to track my signal huh? I wonder what kind of Queen you are." They smiled as Shiro narrowed her eyes.

They had short midnight blue hair and a pair of ruby eyes. Their clothes were quite rough and dirtied. Shiro couldn't tell which gender the person was but there was a sinking feeling in her heart. Like she was in the middle of a mud pool that made it hard to move or breathe.

"Why aren't you speaking? Oh is it because of the monsters around here? Don't worry, I've already eliminated our existence from their perception. Even if we were to cut their arms off, they'll think it's normal. Though only Queens are somewhat resistant to this effect hence why you even have the chance to track me. So tell me, what kind of Queen are you?" They narrowed their eyes as Shiro frowned.

Since she couldn't see the system, Shiro couldn't see any details on this person.

"What context are we talking about? Are we talking about good or bad? Are we talking about the powers we use? Because if it's the latter, I'm afraid I can't tell you anything." Shiro frowned.

"Oh, that's fine ahaha. I just want to know if you're on the side of humans or not. I also want to know if you're allied with the beast queen." The person asked as Shiro noticed a dark aura flickering from their body.

It was one that seemed to taint the surrounding area as it immediately became hard to breathe.

"I'm not solely on the side of humans but if I see good people, I will help them. As for the second question, I suppose you can say that we're enemies." Shiro replied.

"Hm… all true. That's good, I haven't seen many Queens that told me they're on the side of humans yet. In that case, then let me introduce myself." The person grinned as they stood up.

"Ahmiya. I'm a Queen Hunter." Ahmiya introduced herself as Shiro raised her eyebrow.

"Queen Hunter? You hunt Queens?" Shiro asked curiously.

"Well, only those that hold malicious intent towards humans. Since you're not an enemy to humans, I won't bother you anymore. You might want to hang back a little when the relic appears though, since other fallen will be here to cull the numbers a little." Ahmiya smiled darkly as her figure immediately disappeared.

Realizing that Ahmiya must have eliminated her presence, Shiro frowned since powerhouses are becoming more common now that the new age has arrived. However, what concerned her was the fact that Ahmiya had mentioned the fact that 'other fallen' will be there to cull the numbers.

Considering her aura, powers, and the fact that she mentioned fallen people so casually, I can assume that she's a fallen. Seems like fallen are granted a class by the system and her class is Queen hunter.' Shiro thought with a frown.

Considering her power, Shiro assumed that Ahmiya was probably an assassin. With how confident she sounded, she either didn't know a Queen's strength or she knew and it didn't bother her.

Sitting in the same spot for a moment, Shiro closed her eyes.

Opening them again, she started to make her way back to the city. She was going to end the scouting for today and share the information first since they now know fallen will also be participating in this fight.

Plus, she now also found out that the system potentially gave fallen people the same information they give to Queens. Since this relic was only told to Madison and Isilia while others didn't know anything.