The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith (59 page)

The darkness returned for
just a brief moment, blocking out my vision of everything, before I
awoke in the stone shelter lying next to Denise. Maybe it was the
dream, but I was feeling particularly grumpy.

Sleeping past that point
was impossible, so I got up and checked the area to make sure we
hadn’t been attacked or invaded by man-eating vines. Seeing
that everything was okay, I sat down on a large rock next to the
shelter.
Assuming that was a message from
‘god’ or whatever, how the hell am I supposed to find a
way in that can’t be seen?

“
Trouble
sleeping..?” Denise yawned as she walked up next to me, eyes
mostly unfocused, and her blonde hair a mess from the uncomfortable
sleeping conditions.

“
Kind of. I think
someone sent me a message in my dream, but it’s annoying and I
can’t figure it out.”

“
Oh? What kind of
message?” I had never told Denise about my first dream, so
started by explaining that usually I don’t dream on this side.
Then I went on to tell her about the dream that I had last night,
with the prophecy of mass death if we didn’t figure this out,
and how it all relied on us finding some path that couldn’t be
found.

“
Eh? You mean all
that hiking yesterday was for nothing? We wouldn’t be able to
spot the way in if we stumbled right on top of it?” She huffed
out, shaking her head. It seemed that she couldn’t make any
more sense of it than I could.

“
Yeah, that would
appear to be the case. So… shall we go for just blowing the
mountain up?”

“
...You scare me
sometimes, because I know you meant that seriously.”

“
What? It’s
not like we have any better ideas.”

“
How about we try
something else first? Your earth magic obviously works on the
mountain, or else we wouldn’t have had a roof over our heads
last night. Think you could make us a tunnel?” She looked up to
me with pleading eyes, easily conveying the request to not blow up an
island because I got pissed off.

“
Fine, fine…
Give me a bit to work out a spell for that. I could probably use my
sculpt spell, but it would use way too much time and energy.” I
activated Sculpt Earth and Stone, and began etching out a diagram for
a tunnel spell.

“
Thanks. I don’t
want to hike anymore… but I really don’t want to blow up
a mountain that may or may not contain some terrible creature too. I
mean, what if you just ended up letting it out?”

“
Yeah, I get it. I
don’t have to like it, but I get it.” Either because of
the genuine effort I had put into researching this world’s
magic system, or the passive bonus from my skills, I was able to come
up with a suitable spell easily.

“
Okay, got it. Now…
let’s just make a nice convenient door for us to use…”
I pointed my Sculpt Earth and Stone spell at the ledge next to us,
gradually carving out a flat platform and wall in front of it.

“
You cheat so bad.”

“
I cheat so good.”
I grinned to Denise, walking up to the new wall. “Alright…
I’ve got no idea what we are going to be running into. So keep
your demon weapons ready.” I grabbed my magic staff and struck
it to the ground as I activated my new spell. It didn’t really
help to strike the ground, but I always wanted to do that, just to
feel more like a real mage.

In front of me, there was
the sound of stone rubbing against stone. A large rectangular
section, about six feet wide and seven tall, pushed inward in front
of me. From the center of the affected space, the stone gradually
rolled towards the edges as if it were being pushed aside. The result
was a small hallway that opened up before us.

Unfortunately, it was only
a few feet deep, and I had to constantly reapply the spell so that we
could move forward. I was keeping a watch out for any of the usual
suspects, such as a sudden increase in heat that could indicate a
volcano, or any sounds of drilling. All that I could notice, however,
was the wall forming in front of us as we walked forward. On the
bright side, this was a brilliant way to level up a spell and a
talent, and I was gradually gaining experience with both.

The walls formed by my
spell were smooth, but looked closer to being a mine shaft than
anything else. That thought worried me more than it should, because
mind shafts tend to use supports to prevent cave-ins, and we weren’t.
“So… just keep going straight?”

“
Right into the
heart of the mountain….” Denise nodded behind me, making
sure nothing jumped into the tunnels after us.

“
But… what if
we aren’t on the right path? What we’re looking for could
be closer to the top, or one of the other edges.”

“
...Don’t
think about things like that. We’d have to dig out this entire
mountain.”

“
You mean I’d
have to dig it out…”

“
I’m here for
moral support.”

“
Yeah…
thanks.” I tried to check my mental map of the area, but saw
that it was being blocked just like my Scan spell. Thus, I had no
idea how deep I was in this tunnel. After another ten minutes, Denise
had to pull out our illusion torch because the light wasn’t
reaching us anymore.

Thanks to all of this
tunneling, I had gained two levels in my nature magic, and my new
spell had already risen to Advanced level. At this point I was just
pointing my staff forward and channeling the spell while walking
casually.

“
We’ve got to
be getting close, right? I can barely even see the entrance anymore…”
Denise muttered from behind me, not wanting to keep this up any more
than I did. Suddenly, we heard a new noise, and it was like the two
of us jumped in joy. At least, until we identified the noise as a
loud cracking. “That’s a bad noise. That’s a very
bad noise!”

Both Denise and myself
immediately turned around and ran back towards the direction we came,
as massive roots shot out from in front of where we were digging,
shattering the wall and revealing a writhing mass of plant life.
Aiming one hand behind me, I shot off a blast of hellfire down the
hall, hoping to destroy the plants as we ran. I heard the screeching
of the roots, but I dared not look to see if it killed them. “Why
the hell are there plants here? Weren’t they avoiding this
place?”

“
Question later, run
now!” Denise shouted to me, keeping her pace deliberately slow
enough to match me in case she had to grab me. Eventually as we drew
closer to the exit, the sounds of stone being brushed aside by the
plants died down.

When we finally jumped out
of the entrance, we looked back and saw the distant shadows of
retreating vines. “Okay… I think it’s time we call
our nature expert..”

“
There is no way
anything about that is natural.” Denise pointed inside the
passage. And what happened to them needing sunlight? Isn’t that
the whole reason the trees don’t attack at night?”

“
Like I said.. I
think this is when we should summon Dariel.” As I said that, I
called up the spell in my mind, and the white doorway appeared beside
us, the elf maid stepping through in casual hunting clothes.

“
You need something,
Jin?”

“
...You weren’t
watching?” I blinked, having been sure that she would be up to
date on the situation.

“
Ah, sorry, no. Ever
since you went to Hell I wasn’t able to get a lock on you, and
I didn’t know you were out yet. So, mind explaining?”

“
Okay… so…
we came to this island to train, and there is a giant forest here.
Except, the giant forest is full of man-eating trees that have caused
the disappearance of every other living thing on this island except a
band of small tribesmen that have moved to the beach. The trees had
been avoiding this mountain, so we thought that the secret to
defeating it was inside… except there were even larger roots
that just attacked us when we went to investigate.”

“
A forest of
man-eating plants… a mountain full of ravenous roots…
you don’t take an adventure half-way, do you?” She let
out a small smile, and then laughed. “Sorry, I see why you
called me. There are a number of things it could be. Do you have any
other information that could narrow it down?”

“
Uh… the
trees only attack during the day, but there wasn’t any light in
the mountain so I can’t explain that. Also, the mountain itself
blocks any attempts at divination or detection magic.”

“
Seen any dryads, or
treants?”

“
...No? Unless
dryads are midgets wielding stone axes and wearing loincloths, we
haven’t seen anything like that.”

“
Okay, let me do a
quick communion, see if I can find anything.” Dariel walked
over to the edge of the mountain, while Denise and I readied out
hellfire attacks in case the plants decided to attack her. Once she
was at the border of stone and soil, she kneeled down, touching the
ground. “I speak as one who knows the truth, has seen the past,
and journeys onwards. Wayward souls of wind and rain, earth and fire,
grant me the wisdom I seek.”

“
I need to learn
that spell.” I sighed, thinking it would have saved us so much
time if I could just ask the dirt what was wrong.
Hey
dirt, what’s eating you?
Oh,
nothing, just a few moles.

A few moments later,
Dariel nodded, rubbing her hand along the ground. “I see. Thank
you.” After that, she stood up and walked back over to us, her
face grim. “It would seem to be a bit worse than you imagined.
Or better, depending on how you look at it.”

“
I’m going to
go with worse.” Denise shook her head, stating immediately. I
had to agree, things suddenly getting better were unlikely.

“
Well, you don’t
have to worry about the thousands of entities it appeared to be…
this is all one giant creature.”

“
You mean…
that forest, and what is in the mountain is the same thing?”

“
Well… that’s
where things get to the ‘worse’ stage.” Dariel’s
face was grim as she said this, and I couldn’t even ask her not
to say it. “That’s no mountain.”

Turning around, I looked
at the… mountain. Yep, it was a giant peak of stone rising out
of the ground over a thousand meters into the air. “It looks an
awful lot like a mountain.”

“
Yeah, I’m no
expert.. but it does look like a mountain.” Denise readily
agreed with me. I mean, if that’s not a mountain, what is it?

“
It’s not a
mountain… it’s an egg.”

“
It’s a what
now?”

“
Yes.. it’s an
egg. Whatever this creature is, it’s growing inside that
mountain. According to the nature spirits, that mountain didn’t
exist until three months ago, before it suddenly appeared and started
growing.”

“
And all of these
trees connect back to it? What, through the roots or something?”

“
Exactly. The trees
are absorbing any life energy they can find and feeding it into the
mountain. It would likely grow with just the sunlight, but feeding it
the energy of creatures appears to have accelerated its growth.”

“
Again, we’re
talking about a creature so massive, a fucking
mountain
is nothing but an egg for it. What kind of plant monster could be so
terrifying?” I couldn’t help myself, this shit is just
wrong.

“
I honestly don’t
know. The shape wasn’t clear because of all the roots. All I
can tell you is that it takes up almost the entire space of the
mountain.”

“
So when we were
walking through the mountain earlier..”

“
You were walking
under it, yes.”

Denise decided to ask the
million gild question. “How do we kill it?”

“
Pardon?”

“
Jin got some kind
of dream prophecy that if we don’t deal with this, a bunch of
people are going to die.” Denise summarized half of my anxiety
into a simple sentence, and Dariel glanced towards me.

“
I see.. Have you
consulted with Lilith on the matter?”

“
Until you said just
how big the scale of this thing is, we really hadn’t seen the
reason. You were our nature consultant. We didn’t know that we
would need the most fearsome fighter of Hell to join us too.”

“
Well.. you might
want to call her.” Dariel spoke softly, obviously not wanting
us to take whatever this is on alone.

“
Alright. Open,
Hell’s Gate.” I pointed towards the mountain, and a black
gate rose up, tearing through the stone. When it was fully above
ground, it opened up to the Queen’s throne room. “Hey
Levy, we got a problem. Mind asking Lilith--.” I never got to
finish my sentence because I was being suddenly tackled by a hundred
and twenty pounds of demon.

“
Oh good, you’re
safe! Levy lost you for a little while so we were worried!”
Lilith was hanging on tight to me, and I thought I heard a bone pop
from my back.

“
Need…
breathe… air..”

“
Oh! Sorry!”
Lilith blushed, releasing me to take big gulps of air. “What
happened?”