Chapter LXXI (71)- Guardians and Tests

Kizu had zero interest in returning to the World Dungeon. And, thankfully, neither did any of his companions. But now the abandoned mine made a bit more sense. Assuming the gnomes punctured into the dungeon, it was possible that either monster crept up from within, or the miners had gone down and gotten forever lost in the labyrinth’s ever shifting passages.

Either way, according to the recovered notes Aoi read to him, the necromancer arrived at the location after hearing rumors of it. For a while, he set up his base right on the World Dungeon’s doorstep, to better observe the labyrinth and conduct experiments. But something drew him in deeper. What that something was, Aoi couldn’t tell him.

“It’s not my fault he switches to Gnomish randomly,” she said when Kizu complained. “I don’t know why anyone would write in anything other than the Universal Script.”

“I know a bit,” Kizu admitted. He took a page of the notes from her and looked it over. The smudged handwriting didn’t help, but after looking through a dozen more pages he made out a couple of words. Enough to be able to tell that he wrote his general notes about his journey in Universal Script while keeping his more necrotic notes to himself in Gnomish. And, for whatever reason, the necromancer’s reasons for entering the World Dungeon fell in the latter camp. Unfortunately, Kizu couldn’t riddle out much else from the pages.

Not wanting to stay all night down in the mines, Kizu eventually tore Aoi away from her studies of the labyrinth. But as a compromise, she forced him and Sojan to carry several different jars and tools. Neither of which Kizu wanted to look too closely at. But he carried one of the smaller vats strapped to his back with a lizard-like appendage floating in it.

“How are we getting past the guardian?” Kizu asked Aoi. “Did you find anything in your book or new notes?”

“No…but I think I might know of a way to stun her briefly.” Aoi removed one of her silver rings and handed it to him. “Just get this to pass through her. Ghosts break down briefly when exposed to silver. The metal disrupts something inside their soul structure. The same as most monsters.”

“And you didn’t mention this before because?”

“It didn’t come to mind right away,” she said defensively. “My knee jerk reaction isn’t usually to throw my jewelry at my problems.”

Kizu flipped the ring between his fingers before gripping it in a fist.

“You have anything to add?” he asked Sojan.

Sojan grinned up at him from the gnome’s body, now draped in a loose, black necromancer cloak. “Let’s get to the surface. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the sun.”

Kizu nodded.

Sojan wiped his mouth with a sleeve. “So many warm-blooded creatures up there. I’m already salivating.”

Kizu decided to ignore the comment as he pushed open the door.

The ghost stood centimeters in front of the doorway, mouth agape and darkness spreading in chaotic, nonsensical spirals. Kizu slammed his fist into her chest. He felt the necrotic energy crawling up his arm, sucking away his life, but when he unclenched his hand and exposed the silver, the ghost froze in place.

“Go,” Kizu growled at his companions. While the ring’s direct exposure appeared to be stopping the undead from progressing, his arm ached horribly from holding it in place.

They shimmied their way around the ghost and quickly started down the mine’s cavern back the way they had entered. Aoi snatched up her fallen scrying orb as she passed by and lit it back up to illuminate her path.

Kizu yanked his arm out. The ghost made a noise akin to sucking in a quick breath, but Kizu decided not to wait to see what she decided to do next. He jumped right behind his companions and followed their retreat.

The ghost remained behind. Kizu thought she likely couldn’t leave her position as guardian of the laboratory. But Kizu felt her dark gaze as they hastily departed.

Despite Sojan’s small body, the cursed knife not only kept pace with them, but appeared to be enjoying the new body. It appeared to be able to push the body to physical limitations without feeling pain. Kizu found this especially remarkable because the body had ostensibly never even walked before. The ichor contained in that vat must have maintained muscle mass for hundreds of years. Kizu couldn’t help but wonder if something like that might help him repair his leg. Or his arm, for that matter. From its exposure to the ghost, streaks of colorlessness now extended down his forearm. Thankfully, it only throbbed with a slight numbness.

When they finally squeezed through the mine’s entrance, Kizu let himself finally relax. Then he held out his arm for Aoi to inspect. She actually voiced excitement at patching it up, since she believed it was a unique experience to examine ectoplasmic damage.

As she poked, prodded, and rejuvenated his arm, Kizu looked back down into the darkness of the mine.

“Professor Grove is a spirit, right?” he asked.

“Yes, but a wisp. That below was a phantasm. Different kind of ghost altogether. It is basically a piece of someone’s soul bound to a place with a specific purpose.”

“And Professor Grove has no restrictions?”

Aoi nodded and stepped back from his arm, to examine her handiwork. After another nod of approval, she started to re-braid a loose strand of hair. “Wisps contain almost the entirety of their souls, so they usually have a lot more freedom and maintain their intelligence. But they lack a lot of the utility other spirits have. I’ve tried asking her about it several times. But she won’t talk about her death. Just that it had to do with druidic practices.”

“There are still druids around?” Kizu asked. He recalled the crone mentioning them once in an offhand comment. And not in a good way. She made it sound like she personally dealt with the circles in the Hon Basin.

“They haven’t been relevant in Hon for almost a century now. That’s not to say they couldn’t exist elsewhere. But I also don’t know how old Professor Grove is. And not for a lack of asking.”

“How many kinds of ghosts and spirits are there?”

“Maybe a hundred varieties. But many are so niche you’d never encounter them in a hundred years of searching.”

“Enough of this talk of spirits,” Sojan cut in. “I crave fresh blood.”

“Don’t you have an entire body’s worth?” Kizu asked.

“Not enough. I am forced to ration my feeding to maintain consciousness.”

“Well, I guess you could go hunting outside.” Kizu pointed at the large cave’s exit behind the waterfall. “But please don’t kill anything sentient.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Sojan headed out that direction. Aoi chased after him, asking him more questions about how his soul linked to the dagger and how the necromancer’s body functioned.

Hours later, Sojan eventually returned to the underground lake, wet blood smeared the bottom half of his face. He jumped on board, startling Anata half to death, then launched into a story about how he had managed to chase down a deer and tore its throat out with his teeth before feasting on the creature’s warm blood.

Kizu found the story a bit disturbing but didn’t comment on it. As long as Sojan stuck to deer and similar wildlife, he doubted the knife’s hunts would be an issue.

–

Only managing to get a few hours of rest, Kizu found himself in a zombified state as he stared down at the stack of paper tests in front of him. It had been almost two months for him since the last time he took one of the exams. He expected his scores to remain about the same as before, but still Roba had told him he needed to test every two weeks for her assistance. And so here he was, back in the western tower reading through political questions about the trade relationships between the Tross nomads. A people he didn’t even know existed before picking up the sheet of paper.

Finishing up, he handed over his test to the James in charge, he then pricked his finger and let a few drops of rich red blood fall into the vial for the blood test. While intrusive, the test was at the very least far quicker than the paper ones.

He had a bit of a break between the tests and meeting with Roba, so he ended up down in his old study nook by the academy’s entrance into the World Dungeon.

Flipping through his dimensionalism book, Kizu wondered at the mechanics of a gate spell. If he understood correctly, it required him to bend space to connect two locations together. The theories behind the spellcraft were shrouded in complex mathematics that went far beyond his basic arithmetic. But that was fine, since you didn’t need to fully understand the spell to cast it. Mages had been using the spell for as long as recorded history existed, which meant far longer than even basic math. Though to this day it remained an elite spell that only few mages had the skill to cast.

His scrying orb alerted him to the time, breaking his concentration and motivating him to pack up.

When he entered Roba's office, he was met by the old woman’s glare as she drummed her fingers on her desk. Sharks circled the office on the other side of the glass walls. He greeted her and bowed his respect.

Roba’s frown deepened as a minute stretched on and she leaned back in her chair. Silence stretched.

“Is it that bad?” Kizu finally asked. He knew he’d been neglecting a lot of his studies in favor of more niche subjects, but he hadn’t expected to fall behind too far.

“Your paper tests showed no signs of improvement,” Roba finally said, her frown remaining plastered on her face. “Your blood tests show something different.” She raised a hand, activating Kizu’s orb from inside his bag.

“Kaga Kizu’s Blood Tests- Divination- 103, Rejuvenation and Restoration- 799, Conjuring- 799, Enchanting- 341, Illusion- 84, Elemental- 312.”

“Please explain to me how you rose over three hundred rankings in the elemental class in just three weeks. And, when you’re finished, I would like an explanation on how you passed 100 rankings in divination when you’re not actively studying the material in the academy.”

Kizu was stunned. He hadn’t thought he had progressed that far in his practice. Slowly, not knowing what else to do, he told the story about him traveling into the World Dungeon. He was mostly truthful in his telling of the events, but he omitted a few things. First being his companions. He made it sound like it was just him and Mort who entered the dungeon. And while he did admit to finding the World Dungeon Atlas and the enchanted necklace, he decided to not mention Sojan either. Finally, most notably, he left out Anata’s existence. It left a few gaps in his story, but he did his best to cover them with more details in other story flourishes.

“You’re quite the storyteller,” Roba said when Kizu finished. “But I suspect there is slightly more than what you just said.”

Kizu bit his lip, doing his best to not look nervous. Then realizing he was probably failing miserably. But before he could come up with any sort of protest, Roba continued.

“You progressed with remarkable speed when you first arrived,” she said. “Ascending through the ranks quickly. But the bottom two hundred ranks are full of students who either don’t bother to try, or are new to spellcraft and easily overwhelmed. Climbing over a hundred ranks in your elemental placement was an achievement to be proud of, but not impossibility.”

“Well, like I said, I spent several weeks trapped inside a time dilation room,” Kizu quickly said. “All I did in that time was practice spellcraft.”

Roba resumed drumming her fingers on her desk while Kizu felt a bead of sweat trickle down his cheek.

“You don’t have the blood to sustain such a growth. Maybe in thirty weeks, but not an extra three,” she said. Then she paused. “I have records stating that you’re working on mastering a gate spell for your enchanting final.”

It took Kizu a moment to understand her change in topic.

“Yes, how did you know?”

“All requests to visit any of the restricted libraries have a copy sent to me. It is one of my many duties. Just in case something suspicious sneaks its way past one of the professors.”

“I think I am strong enough now to handle it,” Kizu said. “I’ve mastered short range jumps.”

“Mastered?” Roba stood. She stretched her back, a pop sending shivers down Kizu’s own spine. Then she walked over and set a hand on his shoulder.

In an instant, they were back in the training field.

“Show me,” Roba said.

Kizu considered holding back. Roba was already suspicious. But he needed her help to progress, and continuing to practice at the level he had been at before would be completely useless to him now. So, he gave the best display possible, rapidly jumping across the field dozens of times until Roba lifted a hand, the frown again prominent on her face.

“Another impossibility,” she said. “But your skill is real, even if it is unfathomable. And you want me to teach you long distance jumping now?”

Kizu jumped in front of her and bowed his head. “If it’s at all possible.”

“No.”

Kizu’s heart fell.

“However,” she said, drawing the moment out with a thin smile. “I will not throw you out just yet. Despite your rule-breaking, deceit, and blatant disrespect, earlier today the headmaster himself requested that I continue your instruction. And so, I will teach you the next step in your training. Something that may help you not get caught in traps in the future. I’ll teach you to bypass beacons.”

—

According to Roba, the first step to long-distance jumping was being able to locate beacons from afar and transporting him to them. And the best way to familiarize himself with said beacons, was to learn how to bypass them. It seemed a bit backwards to Kizu, but he didn’t argue.

He didn’t get much from their first lesson, other than half a hundred reroutes to the academy’s beacon as he practiced the technique in a room next door to it. But Roba didn’t look dismayed by his lack of visible progress. If anything, she looked a bit relieved that he didn’t master it.

At the end of his tutoring session, Kizu made one final request to Roba, asking to be put on the list for tomorrow’s combat test. She agreed, noting his absence in the matches. Enough time had gone between his injury that she felt any complaint by Arclight would now be unfounded.

After being dismissed by Roba, Kizu went back to the ship to prepare for the Festival of Light. When he arrived, he found Sojan fishing, of all things. Half a dozen different fish lay strewn across the deck, completely drained of blood. Kizu decided not to comment on it but made a mental note that he needed to set up a drying rack for the fish. He might even be able to smoke the fish once Sojan finished with them.

Anata and Mort were both asleep in one of the hammocks as he crept down into the crew’s quarters. He rummaged through his things before pulling out the outfit Basil had made for him back when they descended into the World Dungeon. He also pocketed the circlet he bought as a gift for Emilia. Then Kizu decided to go change up in the captain’s cabin, just in case the noise accidently woke up the two sleepers. However, when he opened the cabin’s door, he found it filled with junk.

All the necromancy stuff he and Sojan had hauled up from the laboratory lay strewn across the room in a disorganized mess. Gnome skeletons stood on either side of the room, as if acting as guards. Aoi sat in the middle of it all, currently examining the appendage in the smaller vat Kizu had lugged out of the mine for her.

“What’s all this doing in here?” Kizu asked.

She looked up at him, grinned, and splayed her arms out wide, as if presenting the room to him. “Welcome to my new laboratory. Since the one in the mine has a guardian, I figured this would be the best place possible to take my studies.”

“Just lock the door when you’re not here. The last thing I need is for Mort and Anata getting their hands on this clutter.” Kizu sighed and exited.

He ended up changing in the cargo hold.

When he arrived back in the crew quarters to put away his laundry, he found Anata looking up at him wide-eyed. She held out a ball of yarn she and Mort liked to chase around.

“Sorry,” Kizu said. “I’m pretty busy today. We can play some other time.”

Though, Kizu couldn’t help noting to himself that he was pretty much busy all the time. There was always more to do. But right now, he had a date to attend.