110 Surprise Mimic!
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CRASH!
The walls broke after we hit them with all our strength as a hidden passage was shown before us!
“W-What? No way…” murmured Zack.
“Ugh, so much dust… cough…” said Aquarina soon after.
“Indeed… Vacuum Wind,” I chanted.
I conjured a simple Wind-attribute spell I had learned from mother. She had not taught me many spells at all. In fact, this was perhaps the only one I knew because it helped clean clothes and other things from dust.
The spell easily absorbed the cloud of dust into a sphere of dust, collecting every ounce of dust in the surroundings.
It wasn’t capable of absorbing anything else than dust though. But I think it’s possible to take the oxygen out of the lungs of a person if I pointed my hand into their open mouths… then again, that seems hard to pull off if they’re armed.
…..
In any case, I threw the ball of dust towards another corridor as we continued our journey ahead.
“This place is dark…” Zack could not help but say.
“Light Bulb,” I chanted in response.
FLASH!
A small sphere of light quickly emerged before my hands. This was another Light-attribute spell, though it didn’t do anything else other than create a bulb of light to illuminate the place.
“Do you have a spell for everything now?” Zack could not help but ask.
“Hehe, my mother taught me the most basic spells for daily stuff. I could also use Ember to illuminate our surroundings, but the light is dim and if I make too many, we might burn,” I replied.
“O-Oh…” uttered Zack. He was surprised because I seemed to have endless mana unlike the two of them.
“Sylphy-chan is indeed amazing…! B-But let’s grab the treasure and walk back home, okay?” Unsurprisingly, Aquarina still wanted to head outside.
“The day is almost about to end as well. If we stay here until night, maybe more monsters would appear.” Eventually, Zack said something that finally put the nail in the coffin.
“Ugh, alright, we’ll go back after inspecting this room… And we’ll come back another day,” I finally relented.
“T-Thank you!” squealed Aquarina. She was very scared and was holding back her tears of happiness.
“Finally,” said Zack with a sigh of relief.
As we reached the room through the secret corridor, we found out it was a completely enclosed place, a cubic-shaped room that was filled with things.
“U-Uwah! I-Is that a human skeleton?!” asked Aquarina.
“Yeah…” replied Zack.
“Ooohh! Hello there, mister bones. Mind if you move aside?”
Inside the room, there were many glowing crystals growing from the ground, ceiling, and walls. The entire room was approximately 25 x 25 meters. Aside from the crystals which I had found out were named Magicite, there was a skeleton sitting over something covered in moss and dust.
And I think I know what it might be.
“Sylphy, don’t move the skeleton. What if it’s cursed? Ah… that skeleton brings back some bad memories…” Aquarina murmured.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m here to protect you children,” I replied.
“You’re overconfident as always,” said Zack in response to my words.
I moved aside the skeleton rather carefully, sitting the dead man over the floor, resting his back over the Magicite.
“W-Who is that skeleton from anyways?” asked Aquarina.
“Probably someone that got here and died…” replied Zack.
“Well, duh…” I responded.
“But… from what?” asked Aquarina.
I looked at the thing in front of me. It looked like a very old and rusty treasure chest!
Was this man guarding it as he died?
“Maybe he just died out of starvation or ate some poisonous mushrooms or something… it doesn’t have to be because he was killed here… oh look, it doesn’t even have clothes from your tribe. He must be from another place…” I told them.
“True…” answered Zack.
I touched the treasure chest as it seemed to be very old, but I could clearly feel it was holding something inside. Although, for some reason, there was some sort of magic coming from it that blocked me from discerning what this thing held inside. Maybe it really is holding a magic treasure.
I slightly opened the treasure chest, however…
“GRAAAARRR!”
Out of nowhere, the treasure chest opened itself and showed me an assortment of razor-sharp fangs all around the entirety of its opening.
It had a long tentacle-like tongue that it quickly used to grab my body, wrapping it around my waist.
Then, it pulled me right towards its maw! I’ve seen these things before in monster encyclopedias… they were treasure chest mimics.
“SYLPHY!”
“SYLPH!”
The treasure chest mimic was incredibly quick and close to me, so taking out my blade would take a considerably amount of time. I couldn’t easily do this. However, I had my instant cast Ember to help me out, and an endless amount of mana.
With just a thought that moved faster than the mimic, countless little Embers began to emerge across my hands as I grabbed the slippery tongue of the mimic before covering it in flames.
“GRYYYEEEEEEEGGG…!”
The monster quickly screamed in agony as its tongue burned. Then, it was torn apart by Zack, who moved faster than I thought, using his axe. He sliced the tongue and helped me out, while I moved back and saw the mimic scream in pain as it hit its tongue over the floor until the fire dissipated.
“Gryyaaagaaagggh! Gryyagaghh! GRAAA!”
“Sylph, are you okay?!” asked Zack out of concern.
“Of course, but thanks for that,” I replied as I gave him a smile.
“Y-You’re really an idiot!” he said with a sigh as he suddenly blushed a little bit.
“Sylphy!” Aquarina hugged me from behind.
“Okay, let’s save these for later. We got someone here that doesn’t like to give up,” I said, pointing at the mimic, which began to stand up. Several bug-like legs emerged around its treasure chest exterior as its mouth opened widely and a massive worm-like mass of red flesh with several eyes, teeth, and tentacles emerged out of it, looking absolutely horrendous.
“GRRRUUUUUOOHHHH!!!”
“W-What the heck?! This thing is way too big and strong to be a mimic inside a treasure chest!” yelled Zack.
“T-That’s… not a mimic…” said Aquarina not long after.
“Eh? What do you mean?” asked Zack in response.
“T-That’s a demon!” Aquarina replied.
“A demon?!” I asked.
I looked into the monstrous being. Indeed. It was like a treasure chest mimic, but it wasn’t like a normal monster, it really was a demon.
“GRAAAAAHH…! Y-You damn… ants! How dare you burn my tongue?!”
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