Chapter Two Hundred and Two — Heart of Darkness
Chapter Two Hundred and Two — Heart of Darkness Squeezing into the hole that Buster had created was a bit hard. We had to go in one at a time, with Carrot leading the charge, and Peter coming in last.I had wondered why we didn’t just break through the walls, but it seemed as though they were literally feet thick and entirely made of stone. It made sense, for a castle. Not that I knew much about castles and the like.We found a long, narrow corridor on the other side, one mostly taken up by the root, but it still had enough room on the sides for us to walk, though not shoulder-to-shoulder.“Carrot, I haven’t seen this core before, where is it?” Momma asked.Carrot pointed out ahead. “Down there. There’s a sort of round room, and on one side there’s the core room, and on the other’s this door that has a portal out of the dungeon.”Momma nodded. “Very well, lead ahead Carrot. Little ones, stay in the centre. Buster, the rear.”Our formation mostly set, we took off down the corridor. I sniffed at the air. Part of it smelled like dirt and grass, as if... well, as if someone had just unrooted a few plants, then scattered the fresh dirt around. It wasn’t a bad smell. Under that though, so faint that I had a hard time sniffing it out, was that tangy, wrong smell that I was coming to associate with the mana Momma kept mentioning.The root pulsed, and all of us paused, breaths held as we waited for something to happen.“I think we should consider moving faster,” Momma said. “Avoid touching the root, keep your magic to yourself.”We picked up the pace, but there wasn’t exactly room to start running outright, not when the passage twisted and turned, constricting us through narrow gaps overgrown with roots and plate-like leaves. It was cramped enough to give a bun claustrophobia.Finally, we reached an opening and stumbled into a large circular room. It had vaulted ceilings, with nine arches reaching up to the middle where a big chandelier hung. Between each arch was a huge painting, a fresco for each of the nine floors of the dungeon. The entrance, the mausoleum, the foggy forest, they were all represented.The centre of the room was cut in half by the root, with smaller ones racing around the room and curling up around the pillars on the side and climbing up towards the paintings above. There were more seeds here, some of them bigger than those we’d seen in the boss room.“Peter, destroy the seeds,” Momma ordered.While Peter jumped to it, she turned to the rest of us.“I can feel the core from here. Could you all wait here for a moment? I will go and inspect it with Carrot.”Quest Updated!Trim the Cruel!You have reached the core, and the centre of this Evil Root! Destroy one, or both.“I’m coming with you,” I said.Momma hesitated, then shook her head. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”I shook my head right back. “I’m coming,” I said.“Cores are dangerous,” she said.“I know,” I said. “But I have to see it. I... I want to see what you do. If you can save this one, then maybe we can do what you did and save others. And if you have to destroy it, then I think we should all know about it.”Bastion’s head whipped around to look at me, but he didn’t say anything.“No, Broccoli,” Momma said.I pouted. “Gosh, I wish I could get Miss Menu to share this with all of you,” I said. “It would make things easier.”“Share what?” Carrot asked. “And, uh, who’s Miss Menu?”“That’s what Broccoli calls the World’s call to action,” Amaryllis said. “Did your quest for this dungeon change?”“Yeah,” I said.“Pardon me,” Bastion said. “But you have a quest. And you didn’t inform us?”I blinked. “I mean, we were heading here anyway,” I said.“Even if that’s the case...” Bastion sighed. “We would likely have done a lot more to guard you had we known. The protocols... not that you would care, of course.” His brow pinched and I had the impression he was fighting off something of a headache.I really did feel bad for him. “I care,” I said. “What protocols?”Amaryllis was the one to answer. “The World doesn’t just give out quests like a priest handing out alms. Most won’t ever receive one. In fact, most will never meet someone who has had a quest. They appear, at times, to those in the right places and the right times. Never when it comes to political matters, but to prevent disaster and destroy creatures that are harming the world... well, if you’re near such an event, you might receive a quest.”“It’s protocol in Sylphfree that anyone who receives a quest has it verified by those in authority, and once that’s done, they are assisted as best they can be,” Bastion said. “One doesn’t just ignore the will of the World.”I shrugged. “I don’t know, the World can be pretty nagging sometimes. I guess it makes sense that you wouldn’t ignore it.”Bastion looked a little exasperated. “No, no, it wouldn’t do to ignore that,” he said.“Never got a quest before,” Carrot said. “What’s that like?”“Uh,” I said. “Not much? Just kinda pops up sometimes. Hasn’t really changed anything. No real rewards either.”“I would still rather have you stay,” Momma said. “But if you insist. The rest of you, could you form a cordon? If things go wrong, it would be best if everybun here were ready to act.”I skipped over to Momma and Carrot, following them towards the back of the room and to a small corridor splitting off to the side. That’s also where the root went, though for some reason it wasn’t blocking the whole path again.“It’s ‘cause that’s against the rules,” Carrot said.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.“Huh?”“You were looking at the root with a puzzled expression,” she said. “Doesn’t take a genius to figure that you were asking yourself about the passage and why it isn’t blocked. It’s because dungeons don’t like it when you change them up. Adding walls and blocking paths.”“But the one over in the boss room was blocked,” I said.Carrot nodded. “Yep, it sure was.”I didn’t quite understand, but maybe it didn’t matter. I had a whole bunch more things worrying me. “Momma? How are you going to get rid of the root?”Momma didn’t answer for a while. “I don’t know,” she said. “I have some talent with magic, but I’m beginning to fear that this may be beyond me. I’ve always found that there is one method that always works with weeds. I just hope it works here too.”I swallowed. Momma sounded... resigned but determined. It was actually a little scary. “We can break the core,” I said. “I’ve... the World told me to do that before, for another infection, and we can do it here too.”Carrot winced, but Momma didn’t seem to so much as flinch. “If we must,” she said. “I’ll take the burden.”“Momma!” Carrot said. “You can’t.”“Huh?” I asked.Momma smiled down at me and patted my helmeted head. “To the people of Dirt, there is no sin greater than the one we are considering now. The reward for that sin is a beacon of temptation upon your head. The punishment is, inevitably, death.”“But, you're the boss of Hopsalot, can’t you-” I began.Momma laughed. “They wouldn’t kill me. Silly little bun. No no, they would exile me, perhaps, or maybe nothing would come of it. I’m quite old already, you know, set in my ways. Hopsalot’s council of elders... why, I’ve raised a number of them. I’d like to see them try to meddle in my affairs.” She harrumphed. “But no, it would only cause me a lot of trouble, and perhaps I’d have some suspicions cast upon me for some time, but that’s all.”“Suspicions?” I repeated.“That’s ‘cause everyone thinks that someone that broke a core has to be some sort of evil person, a big old plotting villain,” Carrot said.Oh no! Had that quest made me take a step onto the path of villainy? I didn’t want to be a villain. I wouldn’t look good in spandex. I shook my head and cast aside the silly thought. “That’s dumb,” I declared.Carrot laughed. “Lots of things are.”“Focus, buns,” Momma said. We were at the core’s entrance.Each core room I’d seen was different, and yet they all followed the same principles. A small-ish room, with some space set out in the centre.This one had walls of the same stone as the castle and the walls that separated each floor, with some nice pillars to the side holding up a domed roof. In the centre, on a plush bed atop a meter-tall pillar, was a faintly glowing ball.The dungeon core wasn’t alone, of course. All around it, grasping onto the walls and pillars, and with dozens of tendrils all around the core, was the root.“It’s everywhere,” I said as I looked in. The floors, the ceiling, they all have a thick mat of roots, with little sprouts sticking out of them that had sharp little leaves. The leaves were all twisted so that their flat side was towards the core, like sunflowers chasing the sun.“It is,” Momma agreed.She stepped in and took a deep breath. “There’s magic here, lots of it, but less than what you’d expect from a dungeon core room, especially one from a dungeon as large as this one.”I followed after her tingles racing across my body. “Yeah,” I said. My mana was filling up fast, I knew. I’d need to vent it soon, but then, there might be a good reason for that soon.Momma found one piece of the root that wasn’t connected to the rest and yanked it up. Her arm came down, edge-first, and chopped into it with a dull thwap. “Strong,” she said.“I was never able to hurt a root,” I said. “I was surprised when Buster managed. Maybe I can try Cleaning them?”“Hmm. Perhaps we’ll consider our options first?” Momma asked. She leaned up to the root and inspected it from much closer. “It’s mana-heavy. No, that’s not expressive enough to describe this. We’re taking in dozens of points of mana every minute here. This root has been taking more, and for... perhaps weeks. Most beings would combust, their will would twist and the magic, as volatile as it can be, would act out that will.”“Like, thinking of fire, then making some without trying?” I asked.“Something like that. The more mana you have, the easier it is to cast a spell. Now imagine having thousands upon thousands of points, then thinking about a fireball. It would practically cast itself, though, without the form and refinement of a skill or a spell, it would just be will pushed into volatile mana. It’s why it’s unwise to remain in a core’s room.”“I see,” I said. That did sound awful.“We should step out, before we absorb too much mana,” Momma said.The three of us gathered just outside the door, and Momma crossed her arms. “Ideas?”“Could we starve it?” Carrot asked. “Use up all the mana?”“All the mana a dungeon core produces? I... that’s possible, but plants don’t die instantly when starved of water. I doubt this root would merely wither away. The amount of mana to be moved too, is incredible, and it would just be going into this chamber.” Momma gestured to the roots. “Unless there’s a way to eject it out of the dungeon, I can’t see it being feasible.”“What about herbicide?” I asked.“I don’t think we have anything strong enough,” Momma said.I nodded, “Yeah, but what about like... mana that the root doesn’t like? We feed it a bunch of anti-plant-aspect mana.”Momma looked between me and the core room. “Well, it’s worth trying.”
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Chapter Two Hundred and Three — Do Science To It
Chapter Two Hundred and Three — Do Science To It Momma was a very humble sort of bun. She didn’t mind at all when I suggested that we tell the others of our plan, if we could call what we had in mind a plan.My reasoning for wanting to share was simple. The others knew more about magic and such than I did, by a whole lot. Amaryllis had a proper education, and Awen was clever, and Bastion probably saw all sorts of things as a paladin.“So,” I said. “Our plan is real simple. We’ll grab the root, and feed it full of mana that it doesn’t like, then see what happens. Hopefully, we can weaken it enough to get it off the core, or maybe chop it apart.”“Do you think that will remove the infection entirely?” Amaryllis asked.I shifted from foot to foot. “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell where the root starts, exactly. I don’t remember seeing a starting place for it in any of the dungeons I saw with Evil Roots, and this one is all over the place in there, it’ll be hard to see where it originates.”“I don’t think that would work on a plant,” Bastion said. “Now, keep in mind that I’m no expert when it comes to gardening or horticulture, but I have spent some time in the royal gardens. I’ve seen gardeners prune roots apart and the plants were entirely fine afterwards. Would trimming these roots do anything but slow them down?”I crossed my arms and frowned really hard in thought. “I really, really don’t know. I think that this is the kind of thing that will be really hard to remove. Maybe it’ll mean spending a long time working on it too.”“Taking the roots away, bit by bit, every day,” Carrot said. “Until it gives up and dies for good.”“Or until the thing we do to weaken it finally starts acting like a sort of poison,” I said. “Plants sometimes need really specific kinds of earth and dirt to live. Though, I guess weeds are different. Ah, I wish Oak were here, he’d be good with this. Bet he knows a bunch about plants.”“Well, he isn’t,” Amaryllis said. “And I for one suspect that we don’t have all that much time to lose with this.”I nodded along. We couldn’t leave and just return, not when reaching this floor took hours and leaving would likely take a while too. “Well, we call this plan A, and give it our all.”“And if it doesn’t succeed?” Bastion asked.“Then we do as the World wants and break the core,” I said.He winced, but there was nothing to it.We moved closer to the core room, but paused before entering. “What kind of magic will we be trying?” I asked.Momma hummed. “When did you gain your Cleaning aspect magic?” she asked.“Uh,” I said. “Just after getting my first quest,” I said.“I suspected as much. In that case, perhaps we’ll use that to begin with.”“It’s nearly at rank up,” I said. “Then I’ll have Cleaning at Rank S. That’s, um, Master Rank. I think that it might get stronger at that point.”“Master Rank Cleaning,” Momma repeated. “Well, that’ll be a first.”“Hey, it’s a really versatile spell,” I defended.The bun nodded and patted me on the head. “I’m certain it is,” she said over the sound of Amaryllis cackling. “Now, let’s go see about those roots.”We slipped into the core room again, trampling on the uneven roots across the ground. It was just me and Momma this time, the others waiting by the exit, and keeping fairly close to the portal leading back to the surface.I went around the root, looking for a good place to start while I felt the mana in my body start to tingle. I found a bit of root sticking out from the rest. Just a handspan, but enough to grab onto.My eyes narrowed, my feet set. I took a deep breath and pushed as much Cleaning magic as I could into the root, all the magic I was absorbing from the core and more. Nothing happened at first, but, like poking a finger into a tub of hardened grease, I broke through and the edges of the root started to fray and break apart, turning into dust the way that all grime and yuckiness did when my Cleaning magic got it.“It’s... working!” I said through clenched teeth.After a moment, I stopped and pulled my hand free. The little stub looked as if a dozen caterpillars had been gnawing at it for an hour, dimples and bits missing all along its form. I looked at my work, then at all the roots around us.“You’re having an effect, at least,” Momma said. “Come here, I’ll give you a hug.”A reward hug? Well, I hadn’t said no to hugs before.I spread my arms out into the optimal hugging position and laughed when Momma engulfed me with both arms. She was very strong, and warm, and obviously knew what she was doing when it came to hugging.You Have Received a Hug from a Fearsome Mother! Your Power Increases!“Oh! A Buff!” I cheered.“Indeed. Just a little one, but useful all the same. I tend to avoid giving those to just anybun, they tend to make one overconfident at times.”I nodded. “I have teas that give bonuses too. But none that’ll help here, I don’t think.”“Unfortunate. Do any of your companions have skills like that?”“Not that I know of. Bastion might, maybe, but I think he would have used them already if that was the case.”Momma nodded. “Well, try now, we’ll see how it goes.”I nodded and found another bit of root. I would have used the first, but I needed to be able to compare the differences pre and post hug.Biting the tip of my tongue, I gripped on hard to the root, then shoved mana into it as hard as I could. I felt a vein on the side of my temple throb and my hand shook, but mana, lots and lots of mana, came pouring out of me and attacked the root.The difference wasn’t huge, but it was there, the root started to wither, not like a plant that was dying, but as if someone was sucking all the life out of it from the inside. Little bubbles appeared along its green length, and they popped and bust apart with little puffs. The root started to turn to dust even faster after that.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.Congratulations! Through repeated actions your Cleaning skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!Rank S costs Five Cinnamon Bun Bun Class Skill Points!“Yes!” I shouted.“Oh?” Momma asked.“My Cleaning went up,” I said.CleaningRank S — 00%You have mastered cleanliness. Dirtiness fears you, grime shudders at your approach. You have taken the first step onto the Path. Cleanliness is next to godliness.“Whoa,” I said.“So?” Momma had a knowing little smile, like someone who knew something but wanted you to tell them the good news yourself.“It’s, um, not very detailed about what this does. Like, as my skill gets better, I always get new things, but this is more vague than usual. Still, it sounds good.”“Master Rank is often like that. Give it a try.”I took a deep breath and grabbed onto a root, then I closed my eyes. The first bit of Cleaning magic came out, and I stopped right away.It was... not wrong, but definitely different. My magic had always come out as a sort of flow, a weird sensation that reminded me a little bit of having blood drawn for a test. It tingled and made me feel a bit empty, but it wasn’t painful.Now my Cleaning magic felt more like someone had turned my veins into a pressure washer. It was a lot, a lot and hard.I grit my teeth and focused a little more, then fired just a burst of Cleaning magic into the root I held.The mana came out of me, spun around like the writhing tentacles of an octopus trying to hug an electric fence, then stabbed into the root from all sides. The magic then spread out, poking at the weakest, least dirty parts first, then racing in and suffusing the root’s length with Cleaning magic that practically blasted the root to dust. Then even that dust faded, leaving the air smelling pine-fresh for a moment.“Whoa,” I repeated as I looked at my empty hands. My palms felt as if I’d just scrubbed them clean. It wasn’t painful, exactly, but it was harsh.“That seems to have worked,” Momma said. “How’s the accuracy?”I licked my lips and fired a ball of Cleaning magic across the room. It zipped into a root-covered wall and managed to break a little divot on some of the roots. “It’s not bad,” I said.“Well then,” Momma said. “Start with a circle around the pedestal, we’ll free the core first. I suspect that the core will want to fight back, if only a little.”“Alright!” I said.I got to work, walking slowly around the core and grabbing all the little roots I could and breaking them up with bursts of Cleaning magic. The bigger one needed some more time, with me basically grabbing them as if I wanted to choke them with my bare hands, and pushing mana into them.Momma left to go waste her mana, and left me with Carrot as I worked, when she returned it was with a big smile on. “I think it’s working,” she said.“Oh?” I asked as I rubbed the back of my hand across my brow. I was working up a sweat.“The roots on the exterior are looking a little parched. I suspect that the current root system is as big as it can be.”“How’s that?”“Trees will only grow according to the amount of water they have available. Starve them, and their growth will stall. Likewise, a little bun will only grow to be as good as a bun can be if there is enough love and attention and care around them. I think that this Evil Root’s growth might have been slowing down. It grew too fat off the mana of this core and can’t sustain any additional growth. Perhaps its next step would be to grow into something else, but I hope we don’t need to see that.”“I think I get it,” I said. “And now we’re cutting it off.”“So we are,” Momma agreed.I got back to work, pushing myself twice as hard now that we knew it was working. I could hear my friends talking outside, but I had to focus on my hands and on my magic if I wanted things to work out.Momma might have been right about the root. The little leaves on the roots around me twitched and it felt almost as if they were growing bigger.I let out a bit of my Cleaning aura, making sure not to send it towards the core, and let the roots chew on that for a bit.The leaves shrivelled, like someone taking a bite of something and realizing it was super sour.My circle ended soon enough, and all the roots clinging onto the core itself were now loose. I stood up, grinning, and moved to the wall nearest the edge of the room. A hand pressing against the roots there, I pushed out more magic and started to walk in a long circle around the room. Seeing all the mean roots curl up and flake away was wonderful.“Nice work,” Momma said. “Buster, little ones, could you help us? We’ll be pulling these remains out. Drop them outside. Carrot, you try to burn them. No magic in the core room, and certainly no hitting or touching the core.”Once I’d completed a circle of the room, my friends taking the cut-off bits of root with them and leaving those too entwined behind for later, I started to look at the ceiling. I didn’t know where the roots came from, exactly, but it had to be close.I used Cleaning magic like a flame-thrower, flooding the roots with it until they died and flopped to the ground.And then, just as we started to clear up the very last of them...Quest Completed!Trim the Cruel!The Core is saved!I blinked at Miss Menu... was that it?Of course, that’s when Awen started screaming.
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