Chapter IV.XLVII (4.47) - Retrieval

  The cool water lapped up against Kizu’s calves. To the side, Dog the capybara, gave him a curious look.

  “You’ve been fine since arriving here,” Kizu said to the giant rodent. “And I see you swimming around everyday. That must mean the monster isn’t completely hostile and territorial. Right?”

  The capybara blinked at him. Then it started to trot off in the direction of the waterfall. Probably to eat more of the reeds that grew over there, closer to the sun.

  “Well, I think I’m as ready as ever,” Kizu muttered. He pulled a potion out of his spatial ring and drained it in a single swig. Then he closed his eyes and let its effects take over.

  The skin at this neck peeled open. It flapped, up and down, unable to take in the normal air that surrounded it. Kizu felt similar gills split into his ribs. Tossing aside the top of his uniform onto the shore, he took another step into the water. And another.

  The water soothed his newly formed gills as it washed over them. And then he was underwater.

  He cast an illusion in front of himself, bathing the area in light. He risked attracting the jellyfish’s attention with the light, but even his nocturnal eyes struggled to see far in this obscured darkness. And he wanted to be in and out as quickly as possible. Find Sojan, swim out.

  As he continued along the lakebed, his illusion bobbed along. The reason he’d opted for giving his human form gills, rather than a more encompassing transformation like turning into a fish, was that it allowed him to still cast his spells without additional difficulties. He remained equipped to defend himself if his little expedition went sour.

  He tensed as something approached. A massive sea lion whooshed past him, sending him somersaulting backwards.

  Ione was on board Owl’s Respite keeping an eye on him with her summon in the water. Another additional security measure. Even if his brain got fried by the jellyfish, Ione planned to drag him back to the surface.

  After righting himself in the water, he set up a layer of antimagical barrier around himself. Better to just not risk getting his brain fried by mental magic in the first place.

  He trailed along the bottom of the lake for over an hour, searching the lakebed below Owl’s Respite where he suspected the dagger to have fallen.

  Nothing.

  He retreated back a ways when he saw the familiar glow of the massive jellyfish. He watched it carefully from afar. It floated aimlessly.

  Thanks to Sojan jutting out of his back, Warlord Inari had been unable to fight the creature as it pulled him in. And, if Inari had been consumed by the monster, then it only made sense that Sojan likewise would be consumed. Maybe Sojan was excreted somewhere else in the cavern lakebed. But it was also possible it remained inside the creature.

  Kizu didn’t know which scenario was worse. Having to comb the entire lake, or force the dagger out of a mentally powerful creature.

  Kizu opened his mouth to swear, but his words silently slipped out of his lips in the form of bubbles.

  Channeling elemental magic, Kizu pushed himself forward in the water. While he lacked finesse, it still moved him far faster than paddling with his hands.

  He dropped his light illusion. The jellyfish’s light was more than enough for him to see and he wanted to be casting as few spells simultaneously as possible. The more spells he juggled, the more he risked slipping up and accidentally dropping one. And keeping his antimagic shield up was vital at the moment.

  Sure enough, as he approached, he felt a spell press up against his shield. The jellyfish was attempting to pierce through and reach his mind. Kizu stopped channeling his water spell and floated, focused entirely on keeping up his antimagic active.

  He stared down the monster as it battered itself against his protection. Its tentacles swirled in the water beneath its bulbous bell-shaped body. The brightness emanating from it increased and waned in synchronization with its mental attacks on Kizu’s barrier.

  Kizu kicked himself forward, closer to the creature. Little by little, he creeped up to it, watching it carefully. He considered firing a stone at the monster with his spatial spell but wasn’t entirely certain how the water would react if he attempted to stretch space within it. Better to simply examine his opponent.

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  Then he spotted it. Floating inside the gelatinous body, a wicked black dagger.

  Sojan had been found.

  Now to retrieve his friend.

  If Kizu knew how to cast external jumps, he might be able to replace the space in front of him with that of the chunk of jellyfish containing Sojan. But that sadly remained outside his skillset at the moment.

  While lost in thought, the jellyfish began to drift closer to Kizu. Then a tentacle whipped out towards him at a speed he’d only seen displayed by the creature once before. When it consumed Kateshi and Inari.

  Kizu both used elemental magic to freeze the water in front of himself while simultaneously creating a physical spatial barrier. The tentacle connected with force and slammed the barriers into Kizu. He was sent tumbling backwards.

  The next moment, something else rammed into him. At first a spike of fear went through Kizu as he assumed it to be the tentacle. But no. This was something else entirely. A massive mouth closed around Kizu, plucking him out of the water. Suddenly he was inside an air pocket, his feet pressed up against the creature’s teeth. Behind him, the dark tunnel of flesh that led down the beast’s throat.

  Ione’s summoned sea lion carried him off in the opposite direction of the jellyfish. But at a speed that Kizu’s antimagic barrier couldn’t keep up with. Before he completely exited the jellyfish’s range, a mental spike split through his skull.

  Kizu! A familiar voice said, burning words onto his mind I’m in here! Can you hear me? Mind getting me out? My current existence is rather drab.

  Thankfully, Ione’s summon carried him, otherwise the migraine the words caused would have left him paralyzed in pain. As the beast zoomed through the water, the words faded from Kizu’s mind.

  Pushing aside a very slimy tongue that pinned him down, Kizu wiggled out of the sea lion’s mouth and back into the lake.

  His gills flexed, returning to their function. Sojan was alive and active inside the jellyfish. And his friend wanted out. But how? Could he ask Anata to order the monster to spit Sojan out? But…could jellyfish spit things out? Especially something as settled in it as Sojan appeared to be. Wouldn’t that be like asking a human to spit out their gall bladder?

  Jumping in and out seemed out of the question. The insides of the jellyfish had dissolved Kateshi and Inari. Kizu had no intention of treading in their footsteps.

  But…what if he didn’t just jump into it alone?

  Kizu created a stone with a spell. He warped it to wrap around his hand. He’d seen elementalists create armor out of their elements. While he lacked the control to command the stone to be maneuverable enough to function as armor in a fight, he could still encase himself in the element. That took significantly less skill to manage.

  Rocks formed all around him. Piece by piece he formed a stiff coating of stone around himself. His gills fluttered as he took a deep breath, then sealed himself inside.

  Focusing not only on himself, but the rocks around him, he jumped into the space Sojan had been at inside of the monstrous jellyfish.

  Then, a split second after he felt his spell finish, he jumped again.

  At the end of his second jump, he carefully pushed the stone confining him aside with a basic elemental spell.

  There was a slight amount of jellyfish insides that had transported alongside him. He avoided touching it and pushed himself through the water in the direction of the main glob he’d removed from the jellyfish.

  Floating inside the blob was a black dagger.

  Kizu flicked his wrist and created a blade of ice. Then he slowly sliced into the piece of jellyfish, surgically removing Sojan without touching the dangerous material.

  And then he had it. The dagger was in his hand once again.

  He opened his mouth to welcome Sojan back, but only bubbles left his lips. Right. Still underwater.

  Tucking Sojan into his belt, Kizu withdrew some empty vials from his ring and uncorked one to scoop up some of the residual jellyfish goo off of his sword. He wasn’t about to say no to collecting rare brewing materials. Who knew what this jellyfish’s bits could accomplish when properly prepared? Then stored the vials back in the ring.

  The spatial storage of his ring didn’t react to the water around him. There was some sort of safety measure enchanted into it to prevent it filling up if dropped in water. In fact, Kizu didn’t even recall it absorbing water when he washed his hands or when walking in the rain. It might just reject liquids in general unless properly sealed within a container.

  Kizu’s gaze went beyond the clump from the jellyfish over to the beast itself. It had deflated and begun to retreat after his lobotomization of its insides. He felt a stab of guilt for the creature. But he knew of no other way to retrieve Sojan from inside it. His attack shouldn’t kill it. But…there was no promise that it would ever fully recover back to its full strength.

  Taking out a couple vials, Kizu wrapped them in a small ball of thin ice. Then, with all the elemental power he could muster, he sent the ice ball off on currents of water to collide with the massive jellyfish.

  The frail ball smashed into pieces as it connected with the gelatinous body. The tentacles whipped out to attack and shattered the vials.

  For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. But then the jellyfish appeared to regain a bit of its former shape. The healing potions should at least help it a bit. He would keep the creature in mind for any other rejuvenation methods.

  Before Kizu could see any further changes, Ione’s summon returned. It snatched him up and began their ascent back to the surface.

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