Chapter XLI (41)- A Dagger's Wisdom

Kizu did his best to not think about the sentient dagger over the following week. Unfortunately, Basil was far less reserved about experimenting with it.

“Pst,” Basil whispered to him in Enchanting C.

Kizu pretended not to hear, focusing on their lesson. Professor Kateshi was explaining how enchantments could be applied to liquids. She demonstrated by enchanting a pool of water to glow red. It seemed to be an altogether higher degree of difficulty over the normal solid enchantments. Apparently, gaseous enchantments were also possible, but only for absolute master enchanters, and only if the gas was first captured and contained in a closed container.

“Pst,” Basil whispered again.

Kizu gave him a side-eye.

“I captured some rats. Let’s stab ‘em after class.”

“You sound insane.”

“I mean, I never claimed to be sane. You’re projecting onto me.”

“I am not going to stab rats.”

“Why not? They’re known disease carriers. It only takes a single look into their beady little eyes to know how disgusting they are. You would be doing the world a favor by taking them out.”

“And what if I infected the knife with a disease as a result?”

Basil blinked. “That’s not possible. It’s a hunk of metal.”

“Have you ever met a sentient knife before?”

“I wouldn’t be so interested in this if I had, now would I?”

“Then you don’t know what’s possible or impossible when it comes to the knife. I remind you again that it wanted me to stab you.”

“I wonder what would have happened if you had,” Basil mused. “You should have tried.”

“Kaga Kizu,” Kateshi said from the front. “Something you wish to share with the class?”

“No. Just discussing the uses of enchanted objects. Sorry.”

He gave Basil an ugly look when the boy attempted to pick the conversation back up. But Kizu knew he wouldn’t be able to ignore the boy’s pestering forever.

He fingered the wicked knife’s hilt under his uniform. Recently, he had taken to carrying it with him at all times, just in case Basil decided to experiment with it while he wasn’t there. The knife hadn’t spoken again, but Kizu strongly suspected its silence was due to lack of blood, not lack of bloodthirst. He had wrapped it thoroughly with cloth to keep it from pricking him accidentally.

After class, Kiz escaped down to his little study corner under the stairs by the World Dungeon’s entrance. Despite the stairs being murder on his broken leg, he still came back to that little study spot almost every day. Unlike every other study spot he had found in the academy, nobody knew - or at least, no one cared - about this one. He liked the reliability of it.

He took out the enchanted tome of maps and leafed through its pages. He needed the library’s books on Primordial to translate it, something he absolutely dreaded attempting. His first Primordial translation had taken him days, and that had only been a single paragraph. An entire book might take him years. Instead, he looked at the maps drawn onto the pages. As he studied them, he noticed something peculiar. The 83rd page was different from when he’d studied it the day before. Notably different. It wasn’t just a few lines he might have forgotten; the entire page looked different. Even the outer walls of the map were a different shape.

“It shifted,” Kizu muttered to himself. “The entire area shifted.”

If these pages were updating themselves in real time, if the dungeon actually changed as well, then this book was far more valuable than he’d first thought. It mapped out something unmappable.

Just to be sure, he took out some spare parchment and drew a quick sketch of a dozen different pages, deciding to compare them to the original pages in the coming days. Even if this was what he thought it was, he wasn’t sure if that area alone could shift, or if the entire dungeon moved.

Sure enough, later in the week his theory proved true. Every page he’d sketched was different from the corresponding pages in the book. Some only shifted in subtle ways - a pathway might widen or shrink slightly, an outer wall might gain another wrinkle or two. But others drastically changed, forming entirely different passages. Rooms opened and hallways closed, and they weren’t even always replaced. One page went entirely blank. He wished, not for the first time, that he could read the Primordial footnotes at the bottom of each page’s map.

Both the book and the amulet were clearly invaluable for venturing into the World Dungeon. He wondered why the cursed dagger had been buried with them, though. It seemed out of place.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Unless….

Kizu sighed. He pulled out the black dagger and unwrapped it. Then he very gently pressed his thumb up against it.

A drop of blood soaked into the blade. He pulled his thumb back immediately. The pommel’s eye blinked awake.

“Hello!” it greeted him cheerfully. “I hope you have more than that. I’m parched beyond belief. You might as well be giving a mummified man in the desert a mouthful of water.”

“I need to ask you about the phantom that led me to you,” Kizu said.

“Phantom?”

“Yes, the one with two different colored eyes. It’s been stalking me since I arrived at the academy.”

“If you feed me I can kill ethereal creatures like phantoms,” the dagger declared confidently. “Seriously, I’m low maintenance. Just, like, a pint or two every week. But don’t get the wrong idea. Ethereal creatures are terrible sources of nutrition. I need blood before you go hunting one down.”

“So you don’t know anything about my stalker?” Kizu thought about it. “Then how did it know about you?”

“How should I know? I’ve been asleep in that wooden box for who knows how long.”

“What’s the last thing you remember from before the box?”

“Oh, I was down in the Labyrinth. My wielder wanted me to hunt bloodspawn. I’m not super fond of the beasts, though. Most barely have a drop of blood left in them, and it usually tastes horrid. I was making the case that we should go back to the surface and maybe kill some puppies and kittens. I don’t usually like animal blood all that much, but it’s much sweeter when they’re young. Fish aren’t bad either.”

“Who was your wielder?”

“Oh, some guy named Roku. Found me in his aunt’s will, I think. She never fed me though, so I have no idea how I ended up in her possession. Roku was great though! Not necessarily the best of all my wielders, but at least not stingy like some.”

Kizu thought the name Roku was familiar. He tried to recall where he might have heard it. But then again, it could also just be a coincidence.

“What color were Roku’s eyes?” Kizu asked.

But as he asked, the dagger’s own yellow eye drooped shut. Kizu sighed and dripped a few more drops of blood on it before repeating the question.

“I don’t know. Black, I think? Maybe brown. Something dark. I don’t really pay attention to those sorts of details.”

Just one color. That meant Roku probably wasn’t his stalker.

“What’s his family name?”

“How should I remember? These sorts of things are hardly a priority in my life. I don’t even know your name.”

Kizu was hesitant to let an ominous sentient blade know his identity. But really, what was the worst that a knife could do with his name? He went ahead and introduced himself.

“Kaga Kizu? Nice alliteration. Gives it a little punch. Your parents definitely knew what they were doing. Uncommon enough to stand out, but short enough to be remembered.”

Kizu rolled his eyes. “I doubt they gave it that much thought.”

“Nah, humans put all sorts of thought into these things. Trust me,” the dagger’s eye winked at him. “Now, Kaga Kizu, how do you feel about lunch?”

“Why were you created?” Kizu asked instead.

“What do you mean?”

“Enchanted items usually have a focused intent behind them. You don’t have any glyphs etched into you, so the enchantment must have been applied directly by the mage.”

The blade scoffed at him. “Shows what you know about enchantments. The only intent I have is to get another drink. I hate feeling sleepy. I feel like I’m on the cusp of sleep all the time when I’m awake and not drinking. That’s even worse than being asleep.”

Kizu empathized with the dagger. So much so, that he gave him a few more pity drops of blood. The blood soaked through the black metal, leaving no sign of it.

“That tastes phenomenal, Kaga Kizu, truly. But it’s like feeding a starving man a cherry. Not exactly the most satiating meal.”

“Are you related to the bloodspawn?” Kizu asked. “You both seem desperate for blood.”

“Hardly. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m missing a few of their key features. Like toenails, and elbows.”

“But they didn’t create you?”

“No way. At least, I don’t think they did. My memories from that far back are a bit foggy. But I’m pretty sure my creator had blood. Like, seventy percent certain. But I can do whatever those guys can do, and I can do it better! They’re all just wannabes. I’m the real deal. Go stab someone and you’ll see. In fact, stab one of the bloodspawns! I can drink the blood that they drank.”

“What do you want besides blood?” Kizu asked. “If you had an unlimited supply, what would you do?”

“Probably find something interesting to entertain me. You know what they say, bread and circus is all you need to find happiness.”

Bread and circus. He didn’t want to know what a bloodthirsty dagger found entertaining.

“What do you know about divination magic?” Kizu changed the subject. He needed to get the conversation rolling again if he didn’t want to drain himself dry of blood. He needed that stuff to cast spells.

“Divination magic? Nothing. I’m more into the physical side of things than the arcane. Unless you want to stab a diviner. Then I could probably help you out. Have you tried looking in that book over there, though?” The dagger’s eye flickered over to the divination tome that Kizu had been studying for weeks now.

“Of course. I’m almost ready to return it.” He looked forward to the day he could finally check out a different book from the library.

“Oh. In that case, you should try contacting the owner of it. The owners of those kinds of books are all eggheads. They usually scribble their name on the back page. I know, because I once had a wielder who just sat around and studied me all day. Dripped chicken blood on me all day long, just enough to keep me conscious. Absolutely dreadful experience. Thought I would die of boredom.”

Not expecting much from a library book, Kizu decided to humor the dagger’s idea anyway. He opened it and flipped to the back. He gaped at the handwritten message.

“This book is the property of Kaga Anna.”

He didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. For weeks, he had been looking for something concrete that was tied to his sister, and he’d been carrying it around in his bag the entire time. Her schoolbooks had been donated to the library.