The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith (24 page)

“
Huh.. that sounds
quite spectacular.”

“
Ah, so nothing like
that happens here?”

“
Well, some of the
stronger monsters can reincarnate, because their spirits aren’t
directly bound to their bodies. But for the most part, you just have
different factions moving in to take over the empty area.”

“
I see…”
So there is a respawn system, of a sort.

“
Of course, it takes
a lot longer than a day for any of that to happen. First, the new
faction would have to learn about the vacancy. Then, they’d
gather supplies and people to fill it. Sometimes, it can take up to a
week before slain enemies are replaced.”

I smirked to her. “You
sure did a lot of research when you wanted to be an adventurer.”

She blushed lightly and
looked back to the front. “Well… these things are
important to know… for instance, if you take too long clearing
an area, it’s possible to run into the entire replacement force
at once on your way out.”

“
That… would
be bad.” I thought of the possibility of running into an entire
dungeon’s worth of enemies in one room, and shuddered. “Okay,
that settles it. Before we go into a dungeon, I’m getting a
teleport spell or scroll or something, so that we have some way to
get out if the worst happens. Agreed?”

She nodded quickly. “Good
idea. But just how do you expect to find a dungeon in the first
place? The only one I’ve noticed so far was the one in the elf
forest, and that was by pure chance.”

I grinned to her. “I
plan on cheating.”

I heard a sigh coming from
in front of me. “Of course you are. Divination? No idea how
your magic works, but if it’s a spell that gets information you
might be able to do it?”

“
Either that, or we
just buy a map of the area, and head to the most unexplored regions
to randomly search.”

“
Divination it is.”

“
Aww, where’s
your sense of adventure!”

“
In the opposite
direction of lizardmen fortresses where they could ambush us in the
thousands.” She nodded vehemently, and I laughed.

“
Okay, well, given
the terrain, there are only a few possibilities for the type of
dungeon we could encounter. How much do you know about the area
around Coatin?”

“
Not much, I always
figured my adventure would lead me to Eastal.”

“
Oh? Why’s
that?”

“
Dunno, just felt
like a good starting point.” She shrugged.

“
Alright, that
settles it! After we meet up with Kevin, you and I are heading to
Eastal!”

“
...Seriously? We’re
going halfway to the Shattered Realm, and then turning around to head
in the opposite direction? Do you have any idea how long that would
take?”

I thought about it for a
few minutes. She had a point. “A couple hours?”

She knew I was just
joking, so let out another sigh. “Tell you what, we can head to
Eastal after we do what we can in this direction. Deal?”

I grinned and poked her
side, getting a giggle out of her. “And here I thought I was
leading the adventure.”

“
You are, when I
agree with your choices.” She smirked back to me, then stuck
out her tongue. “So, did you see them?”

Well, that got my
attention. “How many?”

“
Looks like five or
six, but there could be more.”

“
Lizardmen?” I
activated my scan spell, and sure enough ahead of us I saw two
figures hiding in the sand. “Guess they’re missing their
scout.”

“
Well, projectile
bears aren’t such a brilliant plan against multiple enemies, so
how do you want to do this?”

“
How many can you
take out with your bow before they get close?”

“
Without getting off
Midnight? Two or three if I am lucky.”

“
Well… then
this is going to get real interesting.” I smiled, making a plan
in my head.

“
You have a look. Is
that a good look? I don’t like that look.”

“
I’ll get the
two in front with a surprise attack. I don’t have a shot at the
others yet, but I’ll work on them once I can.”

She let out a sigh at my
extremely vague plan. “On three?”

“
Alright.” I
brought my hand up to chest height, palm facing upwards. “This
is going to be fun.. Armies of empires past, ghosts of fallen
kings..” Denise’s eyes went wide as she identified the
spell I was casting, shaking her head back and forth frantically.
“Imbue these beings with your power. Fusion summon wolf and
ape.”

About fifteen meters ahead
of us, between the two lurking lizardmen, the three circles of the
fusion spell lit up, rising and falling until the familiar werewolf
was standing between them. “Forgotten gods, nameless tales,
show me the wisdom of another. Merge!”

My body shot off Midnight,
and flew at the wolf. My mana was almost depleted by the double
spell, and I had a feeling my only shot at having control of this
creature is
direct
control.

“
Three…”
I let out the hoarse voice as I stretched my claws, my lips pulled
back in a grin when I looked at the shocked Lizardman in front of me.
With a speed I had never imagined possessing, I lept forward,
extending my clawed hand and raking at his neck, tearing it open.

Not one to waste an
opportunity, I grabbed the body of my prey before it even hit the
ground, and turned around, throwing it at its companion. Needless to
say, the other lizardman was stunned, knocked back by the blow. And a
moment later, I was on top of him, ripping out his throat as I had
the other one.

Turning around, I saw that
Denise had slightly miscounted the amount of enemies present. There
were at least a dozen lizardmen charging at her from all directions.
They must have thought that she was the easier target. Smart…
but oh so dumb. She was steadily picking them off one by one, but at
this rate several would make it to her. Well, we couldn’t have
that.

“
Summon…
Midnight.” I tapped into my remaining mana, and summoned
Midnight, and a certain surprised human archer that was riding him,
to my side. This gave them more distance from the lizardmen forces,
who now saw that their target was on the other side of a ferocious
monster.

“
One more.. Warriors
of the thunderstorm…” Denise was frantically shooting at
the charging lizardmen, as I focused my more bestial mind on the
complex task of casting a spell. “Bestow upon me your spear.
Warriors of the thunderstorm… bestow upon me your spear!
Merge, become shock bolt! Fusion summon, become shock bolt!”

The two summoning spells
immediately cancelled themselves, letting me drop to my knees in my
human form. But at the same time, four bolts of lightning shot out of
my body, directly striking at four of the remaining lizardmen. The
two spells used as a base this time had high mana costs, so the
resulting blasts were much larger than a standard shock bolt would
have been, and the four struck lizardmen immediately stopped moving,
falling to the ground.

I had defeated six, Denise
had defeated six, and now six more are left. “Okay guys…
we just wiped out two thirds of your ambush in seconds. You really
want to continue this?”

They were close enough
that Denise might be able to take out three of them before they got
to us, but I wasn’t entirely confident in my ability to take
out the other three. Then, maybe I didn’t have to.
Well,
looks like you’re about to find out! Here they come!

“
Denise, they’re
all yours.”

“
Thanks a lot. Big
help!” She was firing shots at them one at a time, and I put my
hands forward.

“
I intend to be.”
Okay, small spell, won’t use much mana.
Let’s do this.
“Brothers living
in the sky, show me your indomitable power. Gust!” The four
remaining lizardmen that were nearly upon me were suddenly blown
back, and Denise continued her rapid assault of arrows, until only
one was left.

“
Okay, this one’s
yours.”

“
Aww, come on! I
already gave you the perfect chance to finish it off and take the
credit!” I whined to her, the last lizardman laying back on the
ground trembling as we bickered.

“
Nope. I took out
eleven, you only took out six. I’m willing to count some credit
for that gust, but you gotta even up the score.”

“
Fine, fine..
Headhunter.” I spoke the single word, clenching my fist, and
suddenly the Lizardman was dragged down to his neck in the sand.
Though really, it’s sand. Not that much of a problem. “Earth
Spear.”

The condensed spears of
sand that pierced him from multiple directions… now those were
a problem. Denise nodded as the lizardman spat out blood, obviously
killed by the spell. “There, that’s better.” She
smiled down to me now that the scene was over. “You worried me
when you went into the wolfman, you know? You got more.. savage.
Wanted to make sure you were back to normal.”

“
Ah.. thanks. Yeah,
I think possessing something that strong did make me lose it a bit at
first. Also! Where did you learn to count! That was way more than
just five or six!”

She grinned, and we went
back to bickering again. “Well, excuse me! Some of them were
hiding better than others! Not like you noticed any of them before I
said something.”

I gripped my chest, like I
was stabbed through the heart. “That hurts, Denise. You know I
was just paying more attention to you.” I teased her, and we
both laughed as we collected what we could salvage from the battle.
Though, we didn’t see any point in confiscating their
equipment, since we have an unlimited source of funds and it’d
just weigh us down. We did take back our arrows though, and took
their coins, so that at least it
looked
like
we were proper adventurers. All in all, they had a total of 563 gild
between them. Since I was the source for our funding now, Denise was
more than happy to shove the coins into my bag.

Only then, when we were
riding away, did I remember one of the messages that appeared during
the combat. “Huh.. So, it looks like my summoning magic will
improve if I fight while merged with a summon.”

“
Yeah?” It was
kind of funny, if that battle hadn’t gone well, we might not
have made it out in one piece, yet we went right back to talking like
normal.

“
Yeah. I got a
message saying it improved after I took out one of the lizardmen.”

“
Neat, might need to
do that again when it’s safe. Though.. not the wolfman, okay?
He still freaks me out.”

“
Alright. Well, how
about I test some other combinations? My summoning magic is good
enough that I’m confident I won’t lose control so easily
now, as long as I don’t summon anything at
that
level of strength.” I recalled how I was able to take out the
lizardmen with one blow, when otherwise it took us several hits to
bring one down.

“
Alright. Wanna do
it while we ride, or wait until we make camp?”

“
Camp. Definitely
camp. I need to rest after using so much energy in that fight.”

“
Uh huh, good
excuse. You just wanted to show off, didn’t you?”

I grinned to her. “Maybe.
But I do need to work on spells that can hit multiple targets. We
won’t be any good in a dungeon if we both rely on picking
targets off one at a time at range.”

She frowned, nodding.
“Yeah, you’re right. Well, maybe I should learn how to
use a sword while you learn your new magic in the city? We can take a
couple days to work up our skills to acceptable levels, and then see
how we do.”

I nodded, smiling.
“Alright. But I feel that this is wholly unfair since you get
stronger when I do, but not the other way around. As long as you
casually practice your sword, you will get better while I have to put
myself through hellish training.” I laughed a bit at that.

“
Yeah, yeah. But
I’ve still got to seriously practice too, you know? I could
have all the skills in the world, but if I’m lacking the
experience to use them… well it won’t end well.”

“
True. So, you’ll
visit the Fighters’ Hall, and I’ll visit whatever magical
library the city has.”

She thought about it, and
shook her head. “Coatin is a trade city. I don’t think
it’ll actually have a big library or a fighters’ hall.
You’ll have to visit the shops to get the books and items you
want, and I’ll have to look around for a skilled swordsman to
teach me.”

“
Yeah.. if only
Dariel was a swordswoman, then she could be your teacher. But her
specialty seemed to be magic. And we don’t want to wait for
Kevin to train you. Heck.. even if we did, I doubt he has the
experience necessary. People like him just tend to wave their sword
around and hope for the best.”