Chapter 8: Ch. 7

“You’re sure you can do this?”

Fi came to the exam the next day, more out of her own personal sense of responsibility than as a task appointed by the church. Her voice dropped as she added, “The other two have settled in surprisingly quickly too. The pretty one already has the run of things, his ability to adapt is frightening, while the tall one seems genuinely impossible to faze at all. He never stops smiling. He might be even more formidable.”

“They are the summoned heroes for a reason.” Sago stretched down, touching the tip of his toes with his fingertips. He didn’t pay attention to the gathering crowd around the edges of the training field. Whether or not they were here, he wouldn’t change how he approached the exam.

A staff member of the Union stepped forward, clearing his throat. “Sago of Baycliff, please confirm you are taking the exam of sound mind and under your own volition, and that you bear the responsibility of your own fate.”

Sago rolled his shoulders, nodding. Societal sense meant that nobody should abandon the life of a child, but by seeking to become an adventurer, even a child had to be prepared to become responsible for their own survival.

“I do.”

“All right. First test.” The official blew a whistle, backing out of the training ground. A gate on the other side opened up and a red and brown blur rushed out, immediately leaving a long slash in the ground where Sago had just been, before he sidestepped.

A funguy. Bipedal mushroom monsters that attacked with long whip-like tendrils that dropped from the edges of its cap. He raised his eyebrows, feeling a little amused. Was this meant to be an easy or a difficult exam? On the one hand, their short legs meant they walked at slow pace, and they had poor eyesight that made them easy to sneak up on. However, the speed and crushing power of their whips were no joke for the beginner adventurer, and they could use them to hook and pull themselves quickly around the battlefield. Their real danger was in their spore clouds, however, which they used to paralyse and poison prey and unwitting opponents.

They were considered a level four challenge, low yet still dangerous to anyone who underestimated them. Yet they had a simple and fatal weakness, the same as any plant monster.

“Ialpir yorb.”

Sing flame into sound, shape sound into speech, utter speech into life.

The air was suffocating with the amount of magic. It took the smallest amount of effort and the song reacted instantly, shaping a roaring pillar of fire so hot it burned blue-white all around the funguy. It didn’t even have a chance to make a second attack before it became cinder.

There was an instant reaction from the watching crowd, drowning out the sound of the bell signalling the end of the first test. The official had to step up, quieting the crowd with a shrill whistle.

“First test,” he looked at Sago, “fail.”

Fail? He failed? He didn’t even remember what failure felt like. So this was it. It felt… bitter. He didn’t notice the childish pout he was making, nor the angry sparks of white fire he was giving off from his fingertips. Failure. The former Demon King had failed at a simple subjugation task!

“The hell he did!” Fi shouted, flustered.

“Calm down, Fi.” Vera had arrived, pulling at the arm of the knight to reign her in. “Let me talk to him.” She approached Sago, crouching down to his eye level. “Do you understand why you failed?”

“No.” He answered immediately, eyebrows furrowed. “It’s dead. I killed it. Easily. What’s the issue?”

She sighed. “Do you understand what adventurers do?”

“Kill things, pick plants, drink excessively.” He counted off on his fingers, doing his best to recall the key traits of every adventurer he’d ever killed. That felt… accurate to his impression of them.

“Well, haha, yes, sort of. But adventurers, and the Union, work for profit.” She pointed at the drifting ash. “A steak from a root stem of a funguy is considered a delicacy and can be sold for a large price to restaurants. The spore sacks are used in making bombs for fighting monsters, or applied as effects to weapons. The gills can be dried and crushed into powder to make medicine. The cap can also be used as medicine, or even tanned and used to make leather for armour. What can you—what can we, the Union—sell from the funguy you just hunted? Even if all we wanted was for you to subjugate it, what proof is there that you did the task? ‘I burnt it to ashes, just take my word for it’?”

Sago felt his ears turn red.

He had failed. It was, in fact, a crushing defeat. He stared down at his feet, ignoring the unpleasant sensation of humiliation. It was the first time he’d experienced this kind of shame since the time he’d had his rear end soundly thrashed by his predecessor after their first confrontation.

“I understand.”

To kill a creature while leaving the corpse as intact as possible. He’d underestimated the Union. The finesse of skill required to do such a task was far more than the simple brute strength of demonic subjugation.

“Good boy.” She ruffled his hair. “There’s still two more tests to go. Pass both of them and you’ll be fine.” After standing and backing away, she motioned to the other Union staff member: “Continue!”

The whistle blew, and another cage opened. The attack wasn’t immediate. Four wolves with a greenish coloured ridge on their coat ambled out, stances low, immediately spreading. Grass wolves: excellent long distance hunters with powerful camouflage abilities. 

There was only one target in the training ground, standing in the centre with his palm raised, at the ready. He wouldn’t make the same mistake. Think: what value was there in a wolf? Pelt, claws, teeth.

The wolves moved fast. Four versus one was the test. Wolves weren’t an easy opponent on their own, able to explosively close distance, a crushing jaw strength, and a keen killer instinct. But a lone wolf was also a much, much easier foe than a hunting pack. They were gregarious creatures, innately designed to take advantage of numbers that made them deadly when you were alone against them. Take your eyes off one, the other three would circle round and have your throat.

So start with eliminating their range of movements.

“Toltorg carbaf.”

Sing to the deep earth, to that which binds, and become undone.

The training ground was earth and sand. Stone and wood would break bones, after all. He could feel it thrum beneath him, immediately turning loose as power vibrated through and shook up the particles. The ground shook, turning goopy and liquid, clinging with the suction of thick mud to the paws of the wolves and glueing them in place.

“Zodinu ethamza dazis.”

Sing to the water that it becomes form, sing to the form that it obeys command, sing the command that it will drown the unworthy.

He ignored their yelps and howls, fingers moving to paint the air with new notes. Four orbs of water formed, wrapping themselves around the heads of the wolves. No matter how they jerked and bucked, the water would remain fastened to their face, gradually suffocating the breath from them.

Sago could feel himself sweating. It was like trying to run a race after spending months sleeping in bed all day. It didn’t matter how fit he once was; he was no longer in top form.

The wolves slumped, drowned to death. He dropped both spells, the ground turning solid again as the magic maintaining the gooey state escaped, gasping slightly with the exertion of his tasks but smiling a little in triumph. Four perfect corpses. He eyeballed the official, daring him to try to fail him again.

“Ahem. Second test: pass.”

“Heh.” Sago nodded to himself, hands on his hips. See? That was the true power of a former Demon King! The bodies of the grass wolves were collected and taken away to be processed and replaced with a handcart covered in a cloth.

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“Third test.”

A hush fell over the crowd as the whistle blew. There were no more cages. Only the cart. Sago approached, lifting the cloth tentatively. Beneath there was nothing except… two bunches of leaves. He tore the cloth off, looking quizzically at the two plants, then around at the crowd.

“What is it?”

“Looks like bittercress? There are two of them there—ah! I think I know.”

“What, what’s going on—oh, I see what you mean. Heh, how devilish.”

Sago eavesdropped on the low murmurs of the crowd around him while he examined the plants, feeling the first bout of nervousness he’d experienced in years.

Plants. The one thing he could confidently say he had absolutely no knowledge of or experience with. The only plants that grew in the wasteland were carnivorous plant monsters. He’d seen trees with more teeth than this entire room combined. But he had no idea what to make of these two.

“Damn! That’s cunning.” Fi cursed, tapping her foot. “Hey, at least give him a hint.”

“Ma’am?” The official looked at Vera, a question mark over his head.

“Well,” Vera considered for a moment, “one of these plants is an extremely common herb used as a coagulant in many medicines. The other one looks similar, but isn’t. Identify which is which, and determine at least two properties of the other plant.”

Sago held up a bundle in each hand, shaking them. Figure out the properties of one of the plants, identify them both. One was… probably bittercress, whatever that was. Whichever it was. If one could be used as a coagulant, the easiest way would be to cut off a finger—no, humans didn’t grow those back naturally.

Hmm. He sniffed one, then the other. They both smelled bitter.

“Is there a time limit?” He turned and asked.

“Half an hour.” Vera confirmed.

He examined each closely, trying his best to identify the key differences between each plant. At first glance they were identical, but with careful inspection the leaves he could see one’s edge was a straight up and down zigzag, while the other was more like the serrated edge of a knife. The serrated blade was also slightly more squared off at the tip of the leaf, as opposed to the other which was a little more oval. They smelled identically pungent and heady in a way he wasn’t skilled enough to differentiate. Green was all green to his untrained nose.

“Ialdinu.”

Let the water burn.

He plucked a leaf, throwing it up as he chanted. A palm-sized ball of water condensed around it, immediately boiling. Steam rose off from the leaf, giving off an astringent smell that was totally foreign to Sago. The water was gradually turning greenish as the leaf disintegrated into the heat, becoming withered and brown.

“Pagrit.”

Let the water sleep.

The water cooled as quickly as it boiled, turning into a sphere still enough to appear as glass that hovered gently above his hand.

“Zarman vaoan.”

Show the truth hidden in the weave of the fabric of the world.

The ball of green glass-like water shimmered, glowing for a mere moment. There was no visible change to the ball that he could see, so he casually discarded it, causing the water to splash and spill across the ground, turning it to real mud.

“This one’s bittercress.” He set aside the plant with the zigzag edges and the oval tip. It was a guess, but better to just take the gamble and commit to it rather than agonise back and forth.

“Ialdinu.” He chanted once more, plucking a leaf from the second plant with the serrated edges and depositing it in the quickly boiling ball of water. The change was near-identical to the first, the water turning green as the plant was drained of its core essence. “Pagrit.”

He examined the ball of water, rolling it between his hands in order to try to pick out a single difference. But plants were plants.

Fine. There was an easier way to figure out what the secret behind this was.

He shoved the plant into his mouth.

“Hey! H-hey, Sago, hold on—!”

Sago chewed and swallowed, ignoring the screaming voices around him and the sound of footsteps rushing over. As he chewed, he tasted a sharp, burning bitterness enveloping his tongue as though a hundred bees were stinging it all at once. Blood immediately streamed from his nostrils at the fumes filling his respiratory system. Spitting left a globule of thick blackish blood and phlegm on the ground.

“Highly poisonous with an almost immediate effect. When agitated, it releases corrosive fumes. It also has a coagulant effect on blood; however, the effect is too extreme and it turns blood gelatinous at a rapid pace…”

He felt dizzy. Touching his finger to his nose, he realised his nasal passage was entirely gummed up by blood. His throat had closed up too as his voice trailed off, choking off his airways entirely. There was a good chance his lungs were in the process of filling up with fluids.

Circles of light surrounded his body as Vera and the other staff member stood on either side of him, twisting and rearranging runes of light floating along the rim of the circles. They slotted them into place, slamming their palms against the circle and causing it to shake as the magic activated. A cleansing light passed through him, immediately suspending his body and freezing his limbs.

He intended to tell them there was no need to panic so much, poison had no long-term effect on him, but all that came out of his throat was a wheezing rattle from the blockage.

The poisonous rampage through his body paused, then was slowly pushed out through his mouth, sending thick black ooze dribbling down his chin. Purification magic. That stuff was more toxic than the damn plant.

“Idiot!” Fi came over, slamming her fist down on his head. “Do you know how close you came to dying?!”

Vera and the other staff member were both pale and shaking, staring at Sago. The adventurers around were in an uproar over the brazen stupidity they’d just witnessed.

“Third test,” Vera was palpably angry as she roared, “failed! Sago fails the examination!”

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