The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith (35 page)

Once the door was free to
open, I could hear a low grumbling from the other side as it opened.
“You know how long I was trying to push this door open? What,
did you fall asleep in front of it?”

“
Nice to see you too
Denise.” I smirked to her, moving back to sit on the bed.
“Sorry, ran here to get away from the mob celebration. Ran out
of energy at the door.”

“
Celebration? I
thought it looked like people were happier just now. So.. it worked?”

“
Seems like it. We
won’t know for sure until a demon goes out and checks.”

“
You mean, even
after all of this, someone’s got to be bait to see if the plan
worked?” Her eyebrows came together and she muttered something
under her breath.

“
So, since you
didn’t know about the ritual being done. You here for something
else?”

“
Oh, not
particularly. My instructor wanted to take a break for a little
while. I had wondered why, but I guess he didn’t want to miss
the party.”

“
Oh god, I hope they
aren’t really throwing a party.”

Denise grinned to me at
that. “Oh come on~! Just think about it, you can be the center
of attention at the innermost circle of Hell!”

“
I think that sounds
more fun than the reality of it.”

“
Face it, Jin. You
do the deed, and people are going to want to thank you for it.”

“
No good deed goes
unpunished?”

“
Punishment? Didn’t
Lilith make you into a totally cheat character for all of this?”
Denise tilted her head back and laughed after asking this.

“
Yeah, and now she’s
letting me personally summon her whenever I want, as long as I make
it a flashy entrance.” I let out a sigh, shaking my head.
“Don’t get me wrong, I am glad that I helped them. Just
never been good at parties.”

“
You prefer to
receive your thanks in private, eh?” There was a suggestive
tone to her words, and she winked at me.

“
All innuendos
aside, yeah. The great and powerful mage is terrified of being the
center of attention for a big crowd. Ironic, ain't it?”

“
Hey, at least that
means you aren’t perfect! You’re human just like the rest
of us. You are still human, right? No extra demony bits?”

“
To the best of my
knowledge, still human.”

“
Good. So, we’ve
still got a few days before your friend makes it to town. What do you
plan to do until then?”

“
I planned to train
a few abilities. If I’m going to be hiding that I’m a
full mage, I’ll need a second skillset to fall back on.”

“
Like what?”
She tilted her head to the side, looking to me curiously.

“
I was thinking of
taking up archery, if you’d give me some pointers. Even though
I can use the weapon just by making it, it’d still be nice if I
knew what I was doing.”

“
So, you want to
be…”

“
An arcane archer,
of sorts. I can make the gear with my lesser creation, and I should
even be able to make the arrows that way, and pass it off as a magic
bow. I’ll just need to test how much mana it uses to fire an
arrow, since I won’t likely be able to get that mana back like
I do with held objects.”

“
Well, why don’t
we go test it? Also~ I had an idea for you.” Denise looks at me
with a playful smile.

“
Oh? What is it?”

“
Strip.”

“
Eh?”

“
Oh come on, it’s
nothing I haven’t seen before.” She laughs before
reaching into her bag and pulling out a very simple outfit, which
looked suspiciously like my beginner’s commoner outfit. “Get
into these.”

“
We went through all
that trouble to get me
out
of
those…” I sighed as I dutifully stripped out of my
robes, and changed into the cheaper outfit.

“
I know, I know.
Hear me out. Now, with that outfit on, you can use that creation
skill to create weapons, armor, or… even a robe, right?”

“
Well, yeah…
ah, I see what you’re getting at.” I nodded, and
channeled my mana through my clothes, triggering the creation skill.
Within moments, I was wearing leather armor similar to Denise’s.
“I can just use those clothes and supply my armor with my
creation skill, right?”

“
Exactly! Though,
it’d be nice if you could create magical objects like that…”

“
Can’t be
helped. The ability was called lesser creation, so maybe if we find
another magical race like the demons, the ability will upgrade?”

“
True. Oh, I got you
something else, too!” Denise smiled to me and pulled a bracelet
out of her bag. “One of the shops gave me a really good deal on
it. Probably your fault. According to them, you can store weapons in
it to retrieve at a moment’s notice. Any magical effects,
whether good or bad, stay active constantly while stored in it as
well when you wear it.”

I nodded, “Sounds
good. I’ll need to have a tracker spell put on it though.
Wouldn’t it suck if some thief thought the bracelet looked
valuable, so he stole it? And wound up with my grimoire and staff..”

Denise nodded. “Yeah,
hadn’t thought about that. Still, it’s a good idea,
right?” She smiled over to me, holding out the bracelet.

I laughed as I accepted
it. “Yeah, it is. I can get a tracker easily enough from
Lilith. But, it’s safe enough to use while we are in this city.
Nobody here would want to rob me while I’m on her good side.
Hell… I’m not even sure it’d be possible.”

Pulling out my staff, I
held it up to the bracelet. The staff’s form became blurred,
and then faded into the bracelet like a cloud of smoke. Checking to
make sure I did indeed keep the buffs from the staff, I did the same
thing with my grimoire. “This’ll make it easier to keep
the secret. Thanks. Now, about that training?”

“
Oh, right! Uhm…
there should be an archery range near where I do my sword training.
But how are you going to get there without being noticed?”

“
...Dammit. Well, I
guess there’s no helping it. We can’t shoot a bow in
here…” I paused as a thought came to me. “Hey,
Denise..?”

“
Yeah?”

“
Is there an
explosive powder in this world? Not magical, just a mix of different
ingredients that causes a small explosion.”

“
Oh, you mean black
powder? Yeah, some people use them for bombs. Why?”

I grinned widely, looking
to her. “Can you find out how to make it?”

“
Uh…. sure.
You’re wanting to use explosive arrows?”

“
Something like
that. But I need to be able to produce it myself with my creation
skill, or else it won’t work.”

“
Alright. Well, you
want to go find a book on it?”

“
Uh…” I
looked to the door, imagining the horde of people likely to be
waiting on the other side. “Could.. could you?”

Denise looked at me, and
then shook her head with a smile. “This time. But afterwards,
you and I are going out for practice. Agreed?”

“
Yeah… yeah.
Got to face them sooner or later, right?”

“
Exactly. I take it
you’ll still be here when I get back?”

“
Either I will, or
there will be signs of a struggle.”

“
Okay… well,
it shouldn’t take me more than an hour, assuming I can find the
library.”

“
Alright, I’ve
got some stuff to practice until you get back.” I smiled to her
and nodded as she left, immediately reactivating my Scan spell and
getting to work. Even if it took a bit longer, I wanted to start
creating more complex shapes. Starting with a web, I gradually moved
on to moving parts. It was hard to tell if it worked, so I had to
materialize it.

What I created was a
simple steel ring wrapped around a rod. For my test, I spun the ring
to make sure it worked, and then grinned when it did. “It
should be ready by the time we leave here…”

After Denise returned with
the book, I grudgingly followed her out to the archery range, far too
many demons thanking us as we walked. Denise took it a lot better
than I did. She was smiling and welcoming each one, while I was
trying to hide my face in my improvised leather armor.

Once we got to the area
she was training at, I naturally kept walking. She didn’t know
the exact direction, but now that I was here I spotted one area on my
mental map that looked like an archery range. “Would you stop
doing that? It gets a bit freaky when you know your way around parts
of a town you’ve never been in.”

“
Sorry… was
in a bit of a hurry.” I mumbled under my breath as we came up
to the range. There were practice bows and arrows, and targets at
varying distances. “Okay… I should be able to use it
right away, so which target?”

Denise looked at them,
thinking for a bit. “The third one. Looks about twenty meters
away?”

Nodding, I extended my
hand, focusing my skill to create a bow. I poured about the same
amount of magic into it as I would for a good sword, about three
hundred. Adding onto that the four hundred for my armor and I was
down to just under two thirds of my mana. Nevertheless, the result
was a bow that looked similar to Denise’s elven bow. Given how
good her’s was, I knew it would be a good bow to use.

“
Alright… now
for an arrow.” I held out my other hand and focused just a
single point of mana into it. A slender piece of wood formed with a
sharpened tip, looking about the same as the training arrows. At two
points, it become firmer, and at three grew feathers at the base. At
five mana, a stone arrowhead appeared at the tip. “Okay.. Let’s
try this then.”

I put the stone arrow on
the bowstring and pulled back easily, taking aim at the target. When
I released, the arrow flew straight to where I was looking, hitting
just off center from the bullseye. “Damn…” Within
moments of hitting, the arrow shattered into shards of blue light and
vanished. I couldn’t really tell if I got the mana back or not,
since the cost of the arrow was less than my passive mana
regeneration.

“
Hey, that was a
pretty good shot for your first time. Keep going! Next one, thirty
meters.” At Denise’s words, I moved a bit over until I
was in front of a target that was another ten meters beyond the
first. This time, I put twenty mana into the arrow. What I got was a
black arrow with a steel tip. Looks like ten or fifteen would be a
good place to keep for my arrows.

The next shot flew
straight as well, not even slowing down despite my relatively low
strength. Speaking of which I should modify Denise’s bow again
since she increased her strength. With my mind distracted, the arrow
shattered just before hitting the target. “Fuck, got
distracted. Guess the arrows don’t stick around unless I pay
attention.”

Quickly, I created and
fired an identical arrow at the same target, focusing on the
bullseye. Sure enough, the arrow sailed true and struck exactly where
I was focusing. Denise grumbled beside me. “Cheat. You’re
a cheat. It took me weeks to get this good with a bow, you know? And
you’re not even using a real bow! You know what, next target,
one hundred meters!”

Although I thought that
was a bit much, I shrugged and went to the farthest target. It looked
like a small board in the distance, and I couldn’t even clearly
see the bullseye. “Huh… I won’t get it in the
center unless I use a spell..”

“
No spells!”
Denise immediately retorted. If I had to guess, she just wanted to
see me mess up once to save her pride.

I nodded, making another
twenty mana arrow, and firing it straight to the target. Again, even
though I didn’t take gravity into account and adjust my aim,
the arrow flew perfectly straight. That said, the target was a bit
too far to see the bullseye clearly, and I hit one of the outer
rings. “Okay, I think I know how this works now… Rather
than my aim being good, it looks like the arrow itself is guided to
where I focus as I release it. As long as I keep focused on the
arrow, it won’t disappear. That means that I can hit any target
I can clearly see, as long as it doesn’t move. I doubt this
would let me hit a moving target so easily.”

“
Thank Lilith for
small favors.” Denise let out with a sigh. “Okay, how
much damage do you think you’ll be able to do with it?”

“
If the bow is using
normal rules, not that much. But assuming I am indeed a cheat
character and it is based on my magical ability, it should be about
as strong as my mana bolt.”

“
Let’s assume
that you’re a cheat then. Especially since the ability comes
from your spellbook.”

“
Right. I’d
need something better than this to test it on though.”

“
I understand. Well,
this time shoot again, and use your magic. Let’s see if you
really can hit the bullseye.”

I nodded, “Scan.”
My vision zoomed in on the target, and I could see it clearly. In my
right hand, an arrow formed. Firing it as I had before, I kept my
focus on the arrow heading for its target. Sure enough, with the
spell enhancing my vision, the arrow struck dead center in the
target.