The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith (51 page)

I heard the door opening
to our room, so I hastily picked something that looked good at
random. The server that appeared to take our order took me rather by
surprise. It seemed to be the black haired succubus from the
performance downstairs. “Good afternoon~. My name is Kroa, and
I’ll be attending you today.”

“
Weren’t you
doing a performance just a minute ago?” I asked, a bit
confused. Surely, they didn’t pull her off the stage just to
attend us? Even if we were VIPs, that was excessive.

“
Oh? You saw that?”
She blushed a bit, and then nodded. “The serving staff does a
rotating performance. My turn just ended, so I’m back to
work~.”

“
Really? You two
were great. Even if I couldn’t understand the words, it sounded
lovely.” I smiled to her, readily praising her for her singing.
“I was certain that you were a professional singer.”

“
Well, thank you!
That’s really nice to say. Maybe some time, my sister and I can
do a private show for you~?” She winked to me at the tease, and
laughed. “Sorry, old habit. But if you would like, we offer
several different forms of service here for our distinguished guests.
Anything from private performances, massages, or of course more
intimate entertainment. If we don’t offer it, we can help you
find someone that does!” She puffed out her chest proudly,
shamelessly advertising her workplace.

“
Sounds like this is
a pretty good place to work.” Denise added in next to me,
smiling. “We haven’t really had much chance to talk with
regular demons yet. Wow, never thought I’d be saying ‘regular
demons’ before. But, think conversation could be one of the
services?”

Kroa smiled happily,
nodding. “Of course! Won’t even charge you for it, since
you two seem nice. Let me just take your order real quick and run it
down, then I can sit down and join you. Just, I’m still on the
clock and I already had my dinner break.”

I chuckled, looking
between the two women. “That’s fine. She’s right,
it would be nice to talk with you. I don’t know about Denise,
but the only demons I’ve really talked to are Lilith and the
one I am teaching.” I glanced at my menu again, taking the
chance to order a large pasta dish that sounded surprisingly close to
spaghetti and meatballs. Denise ordered a dish that I had noticed was
a burrito. I didn’t even realize this world had such things.

“
Alright, and would
you like a side order of tormented souls to go with that~?”
Kroa asked with a grin, and as soon as we looked at her she laughed.
“I’m kidding! Sorry, never served a human, so I couldn’t
resist.” She smirked and then walked out of the VIP room,
closing the door on her way out.

After Kroa returned, she
sat between Denise and I, and we started talking about whatever
topics came to mind until our food arrived. She seemed quite happy to
be one of the first demons that we had a real conversation with, and
was open about anything we wanted to know. Of course, my first
question was about the seven Sin Districts.

“
Oh, that? When we
heard what humans were calling the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’,
it gave Queen Lilith an idea. Each district represents one of the
sins. You have the brothels in Lust, restaurants in Gluttony, resorts
in Sloth, academies in Pride, mock battles in Wrath, shopping in
Envy, and gambling in Greed. At first people weren’t sure about
dividing everything up like that, but it turned out to work wonders!”

“
But, I came here
today to train a demon in magic, and Lilith had me do so in the
District of Wrath. Wouldn’t that be better in Pride, from what
you said?”

“
Hmm.. maybe she’s
expecting there to be some property damage if your student’s
growth gets to be too much? The residents of Pride would throw a
royal fit, but the people living in Wrath actually enjoy the
excitement, as long as you pay for the damages.”

“
I see, that would
make a bit of sense. There were other classrooms there as well, so I
guess it’s not uncommon for advanced magic lessons to take
place there. Alright, this has been bugging me for a while. I’ve
been in Hell twice now, and I haven’t seen any children. What’s
up with that?”

Denise smirked a bit, but
Kroa giggled lightly. “Oh, we age differently from other races.
All demons are born as an imp, and as they gain strength and
experience in life they evolve into other forms.”

“
So… all
demons are originally male..”

“
Yup! Our genders
aren’t set until the first evolution, and then it’s
whatever we identify ourselves as.”

“
But wait.. first
evolution? That means that if you get stronger you’ll evolve
again. Wouldn’t that put you on the same rank of evolutions as
Lilith?”

That made our waitress
laugh brightly. “Oh, good hells no. Queen Lilith’s actual
species is Succubus Queen. It’s an extremely rare variant with
incredible power. Though we are both in our final stage, you can’t
compare a regular succubus with that.”

“
Alright, well how
many evolutions does a demon tend to have?”

“
Normally between
three and five, depending on the path they take. I had four; Imp,
Mephit, Reborn, and finally Succubus.”

“
What’s a
Reborn?” This time it was Denise’s time to ask a
question. Which was good, because I was running out of them.

“
A Reborn is
actually only about as strong as an Imp, so it’s usually seen
as taking a step backwards in evolution. They look almost exactly
like humans, with only two or three demon traits. I, for instance,
kept my horns and claws. But Reborn also have the greatest potential
for a final evolution. I might not be on the Queen’s level, but
I’m no pushover, either~.” She smiled to us at that.

“
That’s
actually pretty interesting. So, maybe the real test of this training
is to see if I can get Levy to evolve. And if so, what she becomes.”

“
Well, you shouldn’t
expect too much from an imp’s first evolution. Their type may
change, but they don’t gain all that much power.”

“
I see..” I
nodded to myself, and then the food arrived. As if that was her cue,
Kroa bid us goodbye and asked us to visit again if we had the chance.
I definitely planned to come back, because the spaghetti--and I found
out it really was a massive helping a spaghetti with meatballs-- was
amazing!

Chapter
24

The next day, I opted to
simply teleport straight to the classroom, and was back in my normal
robes. Though, I had colored them red instead of blue to match the
setting. What I found waiting for me there nearly made my heart
break. Levy was sitting at his desk, almost in tears. In front of him
were both books that I had handed to him last night, and they were
undamaged, so I couldn’t understand why he was so sad. His
black shirt and pants looked crumpled as if he was grabbing them
again and again out of some nervous habit.

“
What’s the
matter..?”

“
I… I’m
sorry… I.. couldn’t finish your assignment. When I got
home… the books were suddenly so hard to read! I was only able
to make a little progress… I couldn’t get to the
advanced book at all…”

I see.. so that’s
the problem.
“No, don’t worry.
This isn’t your fault. You honestly don’t have anything
to be upset about. I forgot that the increased learning rate would
only work when you were in my presence, and gave you such a difficult
task. For that, I’m the one that’s sorry.”

“
You… you
mean it?” He looked up at me with wet eyes, and I had the
distinct feeling I knew what gender Levy was going to grow into.

“
Yeah. Now that I’m
here, try reading the advanced book again. Don’t worry if you
can’t understand it, just give it a shot.” Levy nodded,
picking up the thicker book and opening it up. He must have thought
I’d beat him as an unworthy student or something with that
reaction he had given.

“
I.. I can read it!”
He suddenly smiled brightly, and I received messages indicating his
level was steadily rising again. It was almost scary how fast he was
learning. Once his Magical Knowledge had hit 12, I decided to have
him stop.

“
Okay, now like I
said yesterday, today we will practice actual magic usage. You should
have figured out quite a lot of it on your own already, just from
reading these two books. But first, I’ll have you do the same
spell I practiced on my first try.” I brought my hand out and
cast the Light spell, forming a simple ball of light in my hand. “Do
you need help with the incantation?”

Levy nodded, so I repeated
the incantation from memory. “Northern stars, grant this
traveler safety in the darkness. While saying this incantation, focus
on the rune of Light in your mind, and then let that image flow into
your mana. Give it a try.”

He nodded again, holding
his small clawed hands out. “Okay.. Northern stars… uh…
grant this traveler safety.. in the darkness.” His eyes closed
tight, likely focusing on the rune. With his level of Magical
Knowledge, though, the rune should come to him by pure instinct. And
sure enough, a small glowing orb appeared above his outstretched
hand. When he opened his eyes to check his progress, he let out a
happy smile. “I did it! I did-- where’d it go?”
With his concentration broken, the light flickered out of existence.

“
Don’t worry,
that’s normal. Once you stop focusing on a spell like Light, it
will stop working. Try it again, this time without the chant. Same
procedure as before.” When Levy listened to my words, he
immediately followed, and I received a message showing that his
Magical Talent leveled up.

“
Okay, good. Now for
my personally most used spell, Message. This will let you talk with
people even if they are far away. Also, this is a two-rune spell. You
have to picture both in your mind at the same time to get it to work.
The runes associated with it are Speak and Friend. The incantation is
‘wings of light, signs of beginning, may my voice reach the
farthest corner.’ Now you try.”

Levy nodded again, happy
to be learning spells so quickly. “Wings of light, signs of
beginning, may my voice reach the farthest corner! Message.. uh…
Queen Lilith!” He lowered his head a bit as he chose the target
for his spell, but soon perked up. “It’s me, Your
Highness! Yes, he’s already teaching me spells! I know!”
He laughed a bit as they held a brief conversation. “You’re
welcome. I’ll let you get back to work now!”

When the spell ended, his
smile radiated in the room. It was clear he was eager to keep
learning. “Okay, next is… hmm.. Ah! How about a spell to
let you see everything at once, down to the smallest detail? After
that, we should be able to skip straight into infernal magic.”
Given that his talents were raising nearly every time he cast a spell
so far, he’d hit at least level fifty by the end of the day.

“
Okay!” Levy
didn’t really seem to care what spell he learned, as long as he
was learning something.

“
Alright, the runes
for this are Awareness and Area. While using those, focus your mana
into your eyes. The chant for this one is really easy. In my eyes,
all things are as one.” Levy nodded to me, repeating the
incantation I told him. Once he was done, his black eyes lit up
green, glowing with a faint light.
Huh, so
that’s how it looks from the outside. Wonder why Denise never
commented on it.

“
Wow.. I really can
see everything!” Since this was a maintained spell, his Magical
Talent was leveling up just by keeping the spell on. This was way too
scary. Compared to this, I really can’t be called a cheat at
all! Then, I noticed that both his Mana Pool and Mana Recovery
talents both increased a level as well.

“
Alright. Now, let’s
move on to the demon specialty, infernal magic. These spells are
infinitely more complicated to utilize than the three you’ve
just learned. With infernal magic, the simplest spell I know is
Hellfire Bolt, a four rune spell. After that, you can’t count
the spells by their runes, because they use a different focus
method.”

“
A different
method?” He looked to me, suddenly confused as his eyes went
back to black.

“
That’s right.
When spells reach a certain degree of difficulty, you stop simply
visualizing runes. Each of these spells have a pattern, like a
diagram, associated with them. This diagram’s formation is what
issues the instructions to your mana to perform the necessary spell.
If it’s your current growth, no doubt you’ll be able to
cast these spells by the end of the day.”

“
Is that true? Am I
really growing that fast?” He looked down to himself, and
seemed to notice for the first time that his shirt was actually
stretched somewhat as he had gained another few inches in height in
just over an hour. His face registered pure awe at his own results,
and I figured he must be approaching his evolution. Levy was already
one of the biggest imps I had seen in Hell, compared to being among
the smallest just twenty-four hours ago.

“
Yeah, you are. Now,
for the Hellfire Bolt spell, we’ll need to go outside. It’d
suck royally if we set fire to all of these teaching materials.”
Hence being why we were in this district in the first place.

Once we were outside, I
sat down on the ground, cross legged. Oddly enough, this put me eye
to eye with Levy. Raising one hand, I manifested a sheet of paper
with my creation skill. Then, using the fine tuning I had practiced
when making my gun that I am
still
peeved
about never getting the chance to use, I formed four runes on the
sheet of paper.