Chapter XXVII (27)- The World Dungeon

Kizu did his best to sleep that night, but he kept seeing the stalker's silhouette whenever he dozed off. That pale face, peering out at him from the foliage with its mismatched eyes.

When the sun rose, Kizu gave up on the idea of getting any more rest. He barely ever got any these days, anyway. He was quickly getting used to being sleep deprived. Deciding he might as well get an early start on the day, he readied himself and made for the testing tower.

The test questions were different this time. He still didn’t know any of the answers for history, but he did significantly better on the astronomy test. This time, when a James asked for a blood sample at the end of his test, he complied without argument.

It only took an hour to complete it all. That done, he headed for Roba’s office.

She didn’t even bother to look up from her papers when he entered.

“Your results just finished processing. You’ve moved up in 3 of your current subjects. No change for history, music, and brewing. And combat, of course. That test will be tomorrow.”

“What are my new rankings?” Kizu asked. He couldn’t help a bit of nervousness as he waited for her to shuffle her papers around.

“Enchanting- 381, Astronomy 223, Elemental- 726. Also, your summoning and divination scores improved as well. You’re 799th now in Summoning and 196th in Divination.”

Kizu felt his heart leap. He wanted to press for more information, but Roba appeared to be in a bit of a foul mood at the moment. Instead of letting him ask questions, she began her lecture.

“Your history score is beyond horrible. I know Krimpit is difficult to learn from, especially in his F class, but I won’t excuse such laziness on your part. If you want to be here, then you need to try harder.”

“Okay,” Kizu said.

“And you need to stop causing problems. They found you passed out in a corridor from over-exhaustion. I admire the tenacity, but despise the stupidity. Learn to be tenacious without being foolish. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Good. If I am going to teach you how to jump, I need you to be able to keep a level head and not make stupid decisions.”

“I understand.” He stood up a bit straighter at the mention of jumping.

“The first thing you need to understand: Jumping kills people. Every year, at least a hundred mages suffer fatal wounds from jumping. They misjudge their distance and jump into the ocean. They jump a little too low and find themselves submerged underground. They jump into a place they used to know but now the furniture has been rearranged and they end up collapsing a support beam. A million different factors go into jumping, and misjudging any of those will likely end in your death. Do you understand?”

Kizu nodded his head. Part of him felt like he should be taking notes, but he hadn’t brought anything to write on or with.

“Good,” Roba continued. “The worst situations don’t end with the jumping mage’s death. The worst sort of situation is when the mage has the gall to choose a populated street and ends up jumping into a child playing hopscotch.” She let that sink in for a moment.

Kizu bit his lip at the image. But she hadn’t deterred him. He wanted this. He needed this if he wanted to talk to his sister again.

“We will start by going over safety precautions you must take before a jump. First, aim higher than you intend. A two-meter fall might be uncomfortable, but it’s far more comfortable than being covered in blood and flesh that doesn’t belong to you.”

“What if there’s a ceiling?” Kizu asked. “The crone used to jump in and out of her hut all the time when I lived there. If she’d jumped too high, she would have had her head stuck in the ceiling.”

“Do not jump anywhere indoors that you cannot see. The crone likely designed her home and laced it with divination spells. That way, even if she was on an entirely different continent, she would have known immediately if something changed within the space. The same is true for this room and myself.”

As if to punctuate her point, she jumped to the other side of the room. Then she jumped a dozen more times in quick succession. She finished by jumping back into the armchair behind her desk.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Divination magics are by far the most useful when combined with spatial magics. If I hadn’t seen the potential for divination in your blood, I would have refused you outright. I take it the crone taught you something of the subject.”

“Taught is a strong word,” Kizu mumbled. “I mostly just watched, and helped her sometimes if she needed me to.”

“Even still. The witch covens of the Hon Basin are famous for their divination talents. And they tend to hoard their secrets. Don’t discard what you learned there, no matter how dismissive of the knowledge others might be.”

Kizu stared at her. Did she really believe he had the luxury to throw away his skills for sake of appearances? He kept the thought to himself though.

“Today I have some books for you to study on the subject. Once you complete the reading and can answer any question I have from the texts to my satisfaction, then we can begin the more practical applications of the magic. Do you understand?”

“Yes. I understand.”

“Good.” She gave him a hard look. “Now, tell me how the blood disposal went last week.”

She knew. Somehow, she knew.

“I forgot to take out my earring,” he admitted.

“And?”

“And a humanoid creature chased me down and managed to steal a few vials before I threw them into the river of fire.”

Her eyes remained locked on him, even after he looked down in shame.

“And you didn’t tell me,” Roba said. “That, by far, was your worst mistake.”

After a long minute of silence, Roba finally continued to speak.

“Underneath our feet is a pathway to the World Dungeon, also known as The Great Labyrinth Sekai and The Endless Abyss. What do you know of it?”

“Nothing,” Kizu said honestly.

“Hm. This dungeon is connected to every known continent on the planet. It’s through it that we have access to the travel rooms that deliver us students from across the civilized world. It was built in an era long before the modern day. The written languages found in its depths still baffle historians.”

“Can’t you use magic to translate it? Like with my enchanted earring?” He had wondered the same thing back when he was translating his sister’s letter, but he hadn’t had any resources to look into it.

“Your earring,” she drew out the word and paused before continuing. “Your earring translates the intent behind the words, not the language itself. It takes in the speaker’s intention using their spoken word as a medium, and turns it into something you can understand. Discovering the intent of writing is far more difficult. There are divination spells that obtain the writer’s intent. They’re incredibly complex. And even then, often the writer is actually a scribe without a firm intent beyond writing the words themselves.” She raised a hand when Kizu opened his mouth to ask another question. “If you want to know more about languages, perhaps you could ask Professor Krimpit?”

That shut him up. She was right. Professor Krimpit had even said on the very first day of classes that he was an archaeologist. And yet, that somehow didn’t make the idea of approaching him any more appealing. Still, this hadn’t been the first time someone had directed him to the surly professor.

“What you need to know is that monsters live down there. We have monsters on the surface, obviously, but they’re nothing in comparison to what you’ll find in the dungeon. If you were to drop a surface troll down in one of the deeper levels of the dungeon, it would be dead in minutes. That being said, it’s extremely rare to encounter a dungeon monster so close to the surface like you did. Unless, of course, you idiotically break a rule your mentor set for you.”

“They have a spellsense?” Kizu guessed, pushing through his burning shame.

“Yes. Almost every monster down in the dungeon has a far more powerful spellsense than any living human. Humans require enhancement spells to truly gain a clear view. And bloodspawn, the specific breed of monster common to this section of the dungeon, feed off of blood. More specifically, blood from living hosts.”

“Which is what I was getting rid of.” Kizu felt a bit of irritation. Why would she keep him in the dark about the nature of the errand? The whole situation could have been avoided if he’d known what was at risk. Instead of pursuing that line of thinking though, he asked a different question. “Why are you disposing of blood in a dungeon full of blood suckers? Can’t they see them?”

“That bag I gave you is laced with powerful divinations to keep the vials from being seen. And those magma tubes are the perfect method for utter destruction of blood. Disposing of blood through magical means leaves residue. And as I mentioned before, it’s never been an issue because the bloodspawn keep to themselves in the deeper levels. Normally, they wouldn’t even be close enough to the surface to sense your earring, let alone reach you. The creatures despise the heat and avoid the magma tubes like they’re the sun itself. I suspect the one you encountered was an exile.”

“What does this mean for the people whose blood it drank?”

“Oh, nothing much. It’s the drinker that’s affected, not their unwilling donor. You see, when one of the spawn drinks blood, suddenly, it gains access to the full arsenal of spells in the blood donor’s repertoire until their blood has been depleted. More importantly, they also gain the ability to bypass the barriers that keep them contained, allowing them to leave the dungeon.”

“You mean I-”

“Let an undead terror loose on the island? Yes. You did. Luckily for the island’s inhabitants, you’re also going to be the one to put it down.”

Kizu groaned as she began to list off the creature’s natural resistances and weaknesses. Fire, apparently, was the most definite way to kill a bloodspawn. Unfortunately for Kizu, his skill with elemental spellcraft was severely lacking. Another option was to stab it in the heart with a stake of wood, or use silver to suppress it. Recalling the creature, he decided that he really did not want to get within stabbing range.

“Do you understand now what you must do?” Roba said.

“I am supposed to somehow lure out a vampiric spawn in the middle of the night and burn it alive.”

She nodded.

“Do you seriously expect me to be able to do this?” Kizu said. He threw his hands into the air in frustration. It must be some sort of strange joke. It made no sense.

“Were you not the one to release the bloodspawn on the population? Who else should take the responsibility?”

“Um, someone qualified and actually able to do this? I can barely even make an antimagic shield. I struggle to freeze a cup of water. This sounds like suicide.”

Her crow’s feet crinkled as her gaze hardened on him. She tapped a nail against her table.

“You have a set of skills unique to yourself,” she said. “Use them. And don’t mention this errand to anyone else. If others were to hear of it, you might find yourself without a school to study at.”

“Is this what happened to my sister? Was she sent into a dungeon with no instruction and then expelled for something that wasn’t her fault?”

Roba’s scowl deepened.

“I gave you instructions,” she said. “Now clean up your mess before someone else notices.”