Immersed in the memories—drowning in the emotions and anger they carried—Naia felt her blood pressure rising even more.
This was straight-up murder. Did those people really think they could get away with it?!
Although she spent her whole life in an apocalyptic base, the previous generation made efforts to preserve and gather as many references as they could.
Each of the survivors had read several books, fiction or non-fiction (and sometimes they didn't know which was which), watched several movies, among others.
She had also seen a lot of evil during her time, so it wasn't like she was in disbelief that this could happen at all. She was even kidnapped and experimented on by the radicalist faction back then.
She was never going to let this go, of course, especially now that she was in this body.
What she needed to do now was, well, survive first.
Her body was in pain, covered with blood, but considering she bled to death and was thrown down a cliff, it was amazing she was alive.
She blinked. Was it her ability?
Although she could not use it as an aggressive power, her self-healing abilities were inferior only to those with Healing or Regenerative abilities.
If so, then her superior regenerative ability from the past life, for some reason, seemed to have carried over to this life as well.
She concentrated and looked into her own body. She could feel her bones arranging themselves and her wounds healing on their own. It took several hours, but she didn't mind. She took this time to appreciate the place she landed on.
Though she was thrown off a cliff, it wasn't too steep and had some ledges and outcroppings. One of these ledges happened to be where she fell due to pure luck.
If the old man had thrown her a meter to the other side, she'd have dropped tens of meters more. Who knew if she'd still have an intact 'body' by then?
Not to mention, if she fell down into the forest below, the body could've been food for wild animals by now.
However, even if she did fall on a ledge, it was still a good three to four-meter drop, so getting out of here still wasn't straightforward, considering her current weakened state.
Naia looked at the forest that surrounded her, listening to the gentle rustles of the leaves, the sounds of birds, and various other 'noises' that she had never heard before, but felt so natural here.
There were no more wild animals when she was born. They had all died before she was even conceived.
The air was fresh and clean, and it made her body feel light. While the current people (according to Nadia's memories) would argue otherwise, this was practically pure land to someone like Naia who had only seen desolation.
She was not sure, but could this be the world before the apocalypse? The fantastical world before those creatures came crashing down and ruined everything.
From Naia's memory and general knowledge, everything fit. The map of the world, including the names of some countries, was consistent with her memory of the apocalypse. There was even a movie that had just been released that had become part of the historical 'archives' back in the base.
The more she thought about it, the more excited she felt. Her body unconsciously jolted, and she gasped at the pain. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to calm the hell down.
She reminded herself to let her ability finish working before she moved an inch. Speaking of her ability, she looked at the trees around her and felt the grass under her palms. There were also some small trees hanging along the cliff, and there were even some shrubs and vines near the ledge she landed on.
Her ability was actually related to the wood power. Even the scientists weren't particularly sure how it was, but the energy signature indicated the powers were similar.
It was just that the last remaining "true" wood user died during the last raid, and the wood user closest to her—her own mother—perished earlier than that. However, since wood was the closest element to her own mysterious ability, she took note of everything related to the ability.
Wood users could manipulate plants, control vines to do their bidding, reinforce their strength, force the growth of different vegetation to create shields made of wood, and so on.
Sadly, it didn't carry over to edibles. Since it was a forced growth, the plants did not flower. Even if they did, it felt like bubbles and their food content wasn't much.
If she could use the vines to help her out of here…
She raised her palms, beckoning the nearby plants to her.
She did feel a connection with them, but it felt different from what her mother had described.
Nothing happened.
Her eyebrows furrowed.
Sigh.
She did not let the failure sadden her too much. She needed to get out of here first and foremost. The cliff above her was still more than four or five meters above her. How would she get up?
Even if she recovered within the day, that would just be enough for her to stand and walk. Forcing herself to climb up and carry her own weight the entire time would probably break a few bones again.
She shut her eyes and sat up, concentrating on the forces of the world. It was thin, but it existed. It was something she did when she first used her abilities, so she did it by habit whenever she was stuck.
Unexpectedly, the area between her collarbones heated up. When she opened her eyes, an invisible box overlaid in front of her. It was not big, around three meters in each dimension.
While looking around, she saw another ledge not far away. It was bigger and located on a gentler slope. It was not far, just within reach of the overlaid 'box'.
The next thing she knew, she was already sitting there.
"..."