The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith (55 page)

I focused on the image I
wanted to draw in my head, able to see it as clearly as if it were in
front of me. And, with any luck soon enough it would be. First, I
started with the most basic shape, shaving off the top and narrowing
it with my mana.
Thank god I can do it this
way, I suck at drawing by hand.

Once the top was done, I
began working my way down, not worrying too much about how long it
takes. If anything, the longer it took the more my spell would grow.
I wasn’t messing with any fine details yet, just keeping to
rough shapes. But even that took over a half hour to get the roughest
shapes done. In that time, my Sculpt Earth and Stone spell had
already risen in rank to a point I could use for what I wanted. But I
am nothing if not stubborn. Never start something you aren’t
willing to see through.

Slowly, I began shaving
off the finer details, rounding out the curves carefully and carving
what needed to be carved. Just the topmost part of the project took
another hour, and at times my mana actually dropped below the halfway
mark. I guess that this is a good way to train it too, huh?

At some point, Denise had
wandered over to the area, apparently curious what I was doing
instead of teaching Levy. When she saw the sculpting in progress she
let out a slight gasp and went silent. By now my hands were moving of
their own accord, striking the air like a composer for an orchestra.
And responding to those motions, more and more details emerged on the
sculpture.

I must have spent half the
day working on it, not paying attention to any of the pop ups that
entered my vision. They can just wait until I was done, so I moved
them out of sight. Eventually, though, I had the shapes entirely
done, the fine details carved as much as I could perform. I debated
adding colors, and decided to experiment with it.

This was more difficult,
changing the composition of the stone I was working with to draw out
specific minerals. Thankfully, I only needed enough for a thin layer
covering the surface, not to change the entire sculpture itself into
the different minerals. This was likely the longest stage of the
process, since I not only had to find the minerals hidden in the
stone, but bring them out and experiment with them to get the colors
I wanted.

Just as the day was
ending, I let out a deep sigh and took a step back from the completed
work. It was a recreation of the scene from earlier, when Lilith was
embracing Levy after her change. Of course, I made a few alterations.
Firstly, rather than her revealing armor I put her in a flowing robe
that I coated in a thin layer of erythrite, giving it a lustrous pink
color. Along the robe were various flower designs, colored in an
additional layer of azurite, making them look lavender. For the black
eyes and hair of the demons, I used hematite. And finally, to give
their skin a more human tone, I coated it in an extremely thin layer
of vanadinite.

The result was a sculpture
of the demon queen kneeling down with a smiling face, a flowing robe
draped across the exposed body of her daughter below her. I nodded to
the work before turning around, noticing for the first time the group
that had appeared silently to watch me work. Every demon I could name
was there, even Kroa, and several I couldn’t.

Krath stood at the back,
head and shoulders above everyone else, with an approving smile. To
the right, Denise was nodding happily as she looked at the statue.
Kroa was staring with wide eyes at the scene, wearing another black
dress that accentuated her features. Aside from that, there were
several demons that seemed like they were just passing by but stopped
to watch. And finally, Lilith was standing at the center of the
group, Levy in her arms again. Levy was smiling to the statue, but
looked to me with a nod.
Little traitor told
her mom what I was up to…

That thought got me a
smirk and another strong nod, but the strongest reaction was
Lilith’s. She was smiling wide, her eyes watering as she looked
at the scene of her embracing her daughter. When she saw that I had
turned around and was looking at her, she blushed a bit, the first of
her tears trailing down her cheek. “Really.. you… just
don’t know when to stop, do you..”

For a moment I thought
that she was upset, and that I might have gone a bit too far. “Uh..
sorry..? Do you not like it?”

Suddenly, Lilith lept
forward, pulling me into a hug. Levy, still in one of her arms,
chuckled and patted my head. “Silly.. how could that be…
It’s perfect. I was wondering what could be going on when
little Levy said I needed to come here. To think.. you were doing
something like this..”

I felt kind of embarrassed
getting praised so much when I had just been wanting to practice my
spell. Looking to Levy, I thought to her intentionally.
You
knew I was just practicing right?
When she
nodded, she gave me a small smile and brought a finger to her lips,
like I didn’t need to tell Lilith that. I suppose she had a
point.

“
Well.. I’m
glad you like it.” I smiled to Lilith, finally bringing one of
my arms around to return her embrace. “Suppose that was a
pretty special moment to you, huh?”

“
Definitely…
How could it not be? That was when I learned just how special my
little girl is.” Lilith laughed weakly, holding me close to
herself for several long moments. Finally, she let me go, and I could
tell that a few more happy tears had been shed, but she was still
smiling brightly.

“
Thanky you. This
means a lot to me, Jin. But really, do you have something against my
armor?” She asked with a teasing smile, making me laugh.

“
Well, surely you
didn’t want me to put you in such a position where your
daughter would be seen exposed to everyone, right?”

“
True… true.
Well, the robe looks nice, so I’ll let that change slide. I
didn’t even know you could do something like this.”

“
Welcome to the
club.” Denise spoke up with a giggle from behind Lilith.

“
To be fair, neither
did I. I planned to just make it a drawing, but then noticed that I
could do it this way instead.” I shrugged a bit, as if it was
nothing. Because really, it wasn’t. I had never meant for it to
get so much attention. But finally, I noticed all the messages that
had appeared while I was working.

I blinked a bit as the
messages finally registered. Not just Intermediate, but the spell had
risen to Advanced. Even more, I received a full ten levels. Aside
from when I got my infernal magic, that was the largest gain I had
made at one time in.. ever. And the statue came with its own name? I
thought I’d be the one naming it.
Oh
well, the name isn’t that bad.

Again, Levy nodded to me,
and I wondered if her link allowed her to see the messages I saw, or
if she picked the statue’s name up from my mind. She obviously
wasn’t planning to tell me. But at that time, Kroa walked up to
us, smiling slightly. She hesitated a bit before asking her question.

“
Uhm.. do you
suppose you could do one for me too..? It doesn’t have to be as
good! And you can put it wherever you want..” I couldn’t
help laughing, causing her to blush, but I agreed. Looks like I got a
new job as Hell’s Sculptor. Well, for tomorrow anyways.

Chapter
26

The next day, as promised,
I started working on a statue for Kroa. Well, in a way it was for
Kroa. But since I couldn’t decide where to put it, I ended up
asking the hostess of her restaurant-- the Gourmet Fiend-- if I could
make the statue as a form of advertisement. Given that I had received
the queen’s blessing for this, she didn’t see any
problems.

For the statue, I asked
Kroa if I could use her sister and her both as models, and she
happily agreed. Her sister, the succubus that was singing in the
white dress the other day, was named Japsen. She loved the idea of
getting a statue of the two of them in front of the Gourmet Fiend.
Though, she was suspicious at first, asking if I was just doing this
so I could get in their pants. Kroa assured her that she was the one
that asked for this.

Once they both agreed, I
got to work. My first action was to use my Wall of Clay to make a
giant wall in front of the restaurant, twelve meters high, twenty
wide and four thick. In order to not obstruct business for the day, I
sculpted a gate in the center so that customers could get in. If
anything, the fact that I was working like this was drawing in even
more business for them, pleasing Kroa’s boss to no end.

For the statue itself, the
size actually made it easier to get the details I wanted. It used a
ton more mana than the Royal Line, but in a sense that was a good
thing too. As I condensed each part to work the clay into a stronger
stone rather than scrape it away, I began working on the shapes. Kroa
and Japsen had the day off until I was done, so it was easy to use
them as a reference for the work.

Putting them in the same
dresses as I saw them in when they were performing their duet, I used
the thick foundation as support for the rest of the statue, so that
it wouldn’t topple over onto the restaurant. Next, I worked on
their basic shapes and pose. With Kroa on the left, and Japsen on the
right, their arms in the middle came down to grasp each other’s
hands near level with their waists. Each of them had their tail
encircling their other arm, which held a stone microphone up to their
open mouths.

Their expressions in the
sculpture were happy, their singing mouths bringing out dimples as
they smiled through their song. The biggest challenge for Japsen was
getting her face right, since that was her strongest feature. She was
quite happy to have me stare at it while I worked the details in.

Kroa, similarly, said that
she’d be just fine if I played with her best assets to make
sure that I got them done properly. Though I know I would have been
way too distracted to work if I had been fondling her instead.
Regardless, I ended up doing them both justice. Since I couldn’t
include the cut along the leg of Kroa’s dress without hollowing
out the foundation, instead I lowered the neckline to display a good
deal of cleavage. She was more than content with this compromise,
even feeling her own chest like she was making sure it would compare.

As I did yesterday, I
ignored the pop up windows that appeared until I was entirely done,
and the image of the two singing succubi was on display in front of
the Gourmet Fiend. Once they saw I had stopped working, the people
around the area gave a short applause. I took the time to look over
the messages that had accumulated.

Well, I can’t
expect to get so many levels twice in a row. Especially since this
one was so much easier. I should be happy I got both mana talents
this time. Either way, just three or four more levels and I will hit
my goal for Intelligence.
Turning towards the
hostess, who came out to look at the finished work when she heard the
applause, I bowed my head. “Apologies, but there aren’t
enough minerals around to color this one. It will have to be done
with regular paint.”

The blue woman laughed
softly, shaking her head. “No, don’t worry about it. Even
this is fine. We’ll take over now. Girls!” She called out
to the two succubi who had been dumbly staring at their larger
counterparts. “The job’s done, so how about you go show
these people why we had such a thing made?”

At her call, the two women
nodded quickly, smiling to me as they ran inside. Honestly, I might
have been able to use the minerals like I had on Lilith’s
statue. But that would have taken days to get as much as I would need
to cover both of them. And I did still want to get out of here today.

Once the two demon models
had entered the building, there was a large influx of customers
wanting to watch their performance. Thanks to the rise in business,
Denise and I received permission to come here to eat anytime for
free. Of course, the extra services would still require payment, but
the meals were on the house.