The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith (63 page)

“
What’s wrong
with Jin? Why’s he laying down like that with his eyes closed,
did he get hurt?” She immediately approached me with a pained
look. Levy smiled up to her mother and shook her head.

“
No, he was just
watching you fight with a spell and couldn’t move his body.”

“
Levy..? I thought
you weren’t going to fight?” She glared accusingly to
Levy while I returned my vision to my body.

“
She didn’t.
She came in after the fighting was all over to watch you.”

“
Jin!” After
hearing me speak, Lilith launched herself at me, holding me tight.
“Stop worrying me like that!”

“
Really.. aren’t
you too strong? You dared to call me a cheat, and yet you have that
kind of power.” I laughed, patting Lilith on the back and
looking around. Denise was smirking while shaking her head, and Krath
was joining me in my laugh. Levy just seemed to sit there next to me
smiling at her mom with an amazed expression.

“
Yeah, well.. I’ve
had thousands of years to get this good. What’s your excuse?”

“
Having women not
letting me slack off, of course.” That caused Denise, Lilith,
and Dariel to all laugh together.

Denise walked over and
pated me on the head. “If we let you slack off, we wouldn’t
get to have so much fun.”

“
But sometimes a guy
needs a break, you know?”

Lilith smiled to me,
finally releasing me from the tight hug. When she did, Levy jumped
into her arms.

“
You were awesome!”
She said, clinging onto a laughing Lilith.

“
Thanks. Haven’t
had a good fight like that in a long time.”

Slowly rising to my feet,
I looked over towards the demoness. “Is Halor going to be
alright? That wound seemed pretty serious.”

“
He’ll
recover. It’s not like we’ll be needing to bring him out
again for a while, so he has plenty of time to heal.”

“
I see..” I
nodded to her, understanding that they really didn’t get out of
Hell very often.

At that time, two figures
came towards us from the distance. One, I recognized to be Dremor, so
I could assume that the other was Belial. In most respects, he looked
like Krath, except his hair was a bright red. Also, instead of
Krath’s full plate armor, Belial only wore normal-looking
clothes.

“
Good fight, Queen
Lilith!” Belial called out with an exaggerated smile as he
closed the distance between us. “I had forgotten what it was
like to see you getting serious. This was that strong of an opponent,
huh? Wish I could have had a go.”

“
If it had been
older, all of us would have had a hard time against it. Thank you all
for taking care of the forest and giving me the chance to win.”
Lilith bowed to her generals politely, and Belial laughed.

“
No, no, thank you
for showing me something good. I had been getting bored, you know?
There’s nobody I can challenge in the Wrath district, and even
if I could it’s a pain when I have to help pay for repairs.”

What, do you cause so
much damage that your opponent can’t afford it?

Lilith smirked, casting a
glance towards me. “Knowing this one, you may get the chance to
fight something strong soon enough.”

Belial looked to me with
hopeful eyes, and I really felt like he was nothing more than a
battle addict. “If you ever find something like this again,
summon me right away, alright kid?”

“
Uh… sure..”
I nodded to him, and he smiled. Krath, behind us, started letting out
another loud laugh.
Are all powerful demons
such strange characters?

“
Really, Belial,
can’t you think with anything but your fists?”

“
But Krath, surely
you have been bored as well! You used to lead such great battles
during the war, it was always interesting to be a fighter at that
time.”

Lilith’s face
tightened up at that, and Belial instantly apologized for his words.
“I’m sorry, my queen, I didn’t mean…”

“
No, it’s
alright… you can say what you want.” She shook her head,
shrugging off his apology.

Looking between the two, I
decided to speak up. “So, what’ll happen now? We’ve
pretty much destroyed this island’s entire ecosystem, since
neither plants nor animals live here now.” I wasn’t even
sure that the tribesmen we originally saw hadn’t been killed by
the randomly aimed attacks.

“
This island will
become deserted, and might regain its life eventually.” Dremor
spoke from beside Belial, nodding. “It won’t get very
many animals unless some happen to come across on ships, but in the
end it doesn’t matter. This island had been little more than a
nest for that dragon in the first place, and now it’s gone.”

I nodded to him, looking
at the scorched land around us. Part of me began wondering if any
passing ships saw the battle, and if they did what they were going to
do. Looking back at the mountain of plants, I noticed that it seemed
to have dwindled a bit.
Guess the parts are
gradually burning and rotting after all. Should be entirely cleared
up in a few hours.
“Oh, Lilith, I
wanted to ask you about something I got earlier.”

“
Oh? What is it?”
Lilith turned her head to me, suddenly smiling.

“
You saw my
Intelligence score from back when I was training Levy, right? Well,
today it finally hit five hundred, and I got a new type of magic.
Dariel had already mentioned before not knowing about it, so I wanted
to ask you.”

“
Hmm? What’s
it called?”

“
According to the
window, it was called Origin Magic.”

Suddenly, Lilith began
laughing uncontrollably. “I knew you’d get that
eventually. Yeah, it’s pretty much what you think. Kind of like
the ability your book got from me, only permanent and less
restricted. It also uses up a lot more energy.”

“
Ah.. I’m
guessing Origin Magic was the basis for Magus Mercy?”

Lilith grinned to me while
nodding. “That’s right. Mercy is basically the highest
form of that kind of magic, allowing you to heal something from any
wound, no matter how serious. He thought it might even be able to
bring a body back to life, if the soul could be anchored.”

“
Ah, there is no
resurrection magic in this world?” I had been wondering that
for a while, for various reasons, just never found the time to ask.

“
Apart from you
foreigners who seem to come back from deadly injuries, no. We only
have one life, so we have to make the most of it.”

I nodded to her.
So,
Origin Magic is one of the stronger fields? Maybe I should focus on
mastering that for a while.
“Oh, also.
I think I figured out what you wanted me to learn about enchanting.”

“
Ooh, did you get an
advanced circle created?”

“
I think so. I never
got the chance to use it because I don’t have the materials, or
even know what materials would be needed. But, for an advanced
enchantment, you need a specialized diagram, right? You can’t
just use the same one for all of it like you can with the basic
stuff.”

“
That’s
right!” Lilith nodded happily as I said it. “Any spell
that is more advanced than just a few runes will need to have its
diagram incorporated into the enchanting circle, or else it won’t
work. I was wondering if you would be able to realize that.”
Lilith patted Levy’s head beside her, and the little girl
laughed at the attention.

“
I see. Could you
still send me the book later? I’d like to go over it so that I
know what materials are needed. The diagram I made was to make a
cursed ring that would constantly drain my mana. I thought that I
could train my magic like that, but now I’m more focused on
doing it the hard way.”

Lilith nodded again. “That
kind of item doesn’t suit you at all.”

“
Yeah, I realized
that. Also, could you send me a book or something about Hell’s
crafting techniques? Only infernal items keep their effects when I go
into my demon form, so it is quite difficult to use.”

She nodded to me,
gathering up Levy and her generals to head back to Hell. “Alright,
I can do that. Just be careful, people with a good eye can spot
demonic items.”

I smiled, chuckling at her
warning. “I can keep myself from being noticed. Done a good job
of it so far.”

She grinned back to me.
“Fair enough. Hope you won’t have to forever, though.”

Dariel walked up to me,
smiling as well now that she had finally recovered the rest of her
magic. “Mind sending me back? Looks like our work here is
done.”

“
Oh, right, sorry.
Forgot you needed permission.” I cancelled my summoning spell
on Dariel, allowing her to step through the white portal back to her
own home.

At the same time, the
three demon generals vanished into the shadows, likely returning to
Hell now that the battle was over. It was likely that Levy couldn’t
teleport out of Hell without her ability to appear beside me, so
Lilith was making a proper gate for the two of them. “Don’t
be a stranger. Otherwise, I might just use this little one to track
you down.” She patted Levy’s head again, and the little
girl giggled.

“
Alright, alright. I
get it.” I nodded to them, and they began heading towards the
gate. Denise stood next to me, putting a hand on my shoulder and
smiling to me. Seems our big battle was over after all.

No sooner had I thought
that than Levy froze at the gate, suddenly turning around. “Jin!”
Her face was masked with despair, and I had no idea what was wrong.
Before I had the chance to ask, though, a large series of roots shot
out from within the ground like a giant jaw. An eerily familiar jaw,
directly around Denise and myself.

My head jerked around to
look at Denise, who was skewered by the various roots, blood flowing
down her body and out her mouth. I could feel the roots being held
back from me for a single moment, before pain was sent through my
entire body as they impaled me as well.

I spat up a bit of blood,
and Lilith was next to me before I could even blink, ripping away
roots as my vision began to turn grey, my consciousness leaving me.

“
No! No, Jin!
Dammit, you plant bastard! What the hell!” I could barely make
out her screams before everything faded away.

To be continued…