I was currently wandering around a cave accompanied by not only a few huge wolves but also a giant ant. Now that it wasn’t possessed, the ant seemed to be rather friendly. It even caught me when I tripped over an errant rock a few minutes ago.
Speaking of which... Physically, I’m so much fitter in this world. So how come I’m still tripping over so much? Maybe clumsiness overrides physical abilities... Like, I’m fine with tripping over a random rock, but most of the time I’m tripping over thin air! It’s starting to get embarrassing. I guess the more I fall over, the more I’ll get used to the embarrassment... Ha ha ha. Hang on, I don’t want to get used to it!
The giant ant led us farther and farther into the cave. I assumed we were heading all the way into the depths—and given that I had no real way of communicating with the insect, assumptions were all I had to go on. Koa and the others were with me, so I wasn’t too worried about what might be waiting for me at the end of the tunnel.
Okay, maybe I am worried. Where the hell are we going?
The smaller ants followed us too, scuttling along the walls and ceiling. Every time I turned to examine one, I caught it hurriedly looking away, which amused me greatly. I’d initially thought that the smaller ants must have been the giant ant’s offspring, but thinking more about it—without the impending threat of death—I started to wonder if they were actually the worker ants, with the giant ant being the queen.
Not like I’ll be able to find out for certain either way... But yeah, I’m pretty sure each nest usually has one queen and the rest are worker ants, right? Well, that’s how it was back home at least. Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the same here... But on the other hand, there’s no one to stop me from defining things however I like.
We finally came out into a large chamber, which seemed to be the end of the cave. It was dark—far darker than the tunnel had been—so I conjured a few orbs of light to illuminate our surroundings.
Apparently, the deepest chamber of this cave was home to not some terrifying creature but a lake. And not just any lake, of course. It was a pitch-black, shadow-oozing, cursed lake.
You again! You’re getting on my last nerve, you stupid curse!
I held out my hand. “Purify.”
The giant ant and the worker ants—
Nah, “worker ants” sounds wrong. They’re too cute for such a boring name. Antlets! Yeah, let’s go with antlets.
Anyway, the giant ant and the antlets had really started to grow on me. The frantic, awkward way they ran about was absolutely adorable. Finding insects cute was a relatively new experience for me, but first there were the spiders...and now these ants. Maybe giant insects were just naturally cuter in parallel worlds. Either way, I liked the ants, which was probably why this cast of purification—and specifically, the desire to send the curse back to its caster—felt stronger than anything I’d cast before. My warm feelings toward the ants and my own sheer irritation must have intensified the spell. I didn’t really know if the “counter-curse” part of my purification spells were actually having any effect, but the sight of shadows fading away from the lake’s surface made me happy anyway.
There’s probably more critters like these guys elsewhere in the forest, possessed by this stinkin’ curse.
Anger rushed to my head at the thought. I shook it away, focusing on a mental image of the whole forest—or as much of it as I could, anyway—and held out my hand again. “Unbinding.”
I knew such a broad spell probably wasn’t strong enough to exorcise anything from here, but if there was anything else out there possessed like the ants were, I hoped it would let them regain even a little bit of self-determination. I wanted to help them all, but I was only one person. All I could do was keep at it day after day, purifying and exorcising and whatever else I needed to do, and hopefully one day the forest would be rid of the curse once and for all.
A sliver of color caught my attention, and I looked up, only to have my breath taken away. The last patches of shadow had vanished, revealing the lake in its natural form. It looked like the pictures I’d once seen of the Blue Cave in Okinawa, a crystalline, shimmering disc of azure blue. It was sparkling with a light that seemed to come from beneath the glassy surface. I extinguished the few orbs I’d conjured earlier. As I’d suspected, a soft, warm glow came from the bottom of the lake itself.
Some part of me wanted to stay there forever, soaking in the mysterious, beautiful atmosphere, but I had work to do. I wasn’t any closer to getting my hands on any seasonings, which had been the whole point of today’s expedition in the first place. I’d come back to the lake again soon.
With a final long look at the mesmerizing cavern, I turned and began the return journey up the passage. Koa, Soa, and Hio were close behind, followed by the ants—
Hang on. Are you coming home with us too?
I hesitated for a second before quickly deciding that adding a few more large insects to my swiftly growing family probably wouldn’t cause any trouble. And so, ants in tow, we retraced our long path back out of the cave.
What felt like hours later, we finally emerged into the open forest. I blinked away the blinding sunlight to find Spider Boss right in front of me.
Aww, were you waiting for me or something?
Spider Boss and the giant ant were staring at each other. No, not staring—glaring. A chill ran down my spine.
“Hey now, none of that!” I hurriedly cried. Two pairs of eyes—well, four pairs, because Spider Boss had six eyes—turned to me, and I stared at each of them in turn. “No fighting! You have to play nice.”
The two huge insects looked at me, then back at each other—before suddenly walking off together, vanishing into the trees and out of my sight.
Hey! Where are you going? You both better behave yourselves! Maybe I should go after them... Nah. I’ll just assume everything’s gonna work out fine. Not much more I can do. It’s not like I’m gonna be able to stop them fighting! Make sure you come home safe, okay?!
I pressed on, willfully ignoring the potentially dangerous scene about to unfold somewhere beyond the treeline. A few minutes walk from the lake cave, we stumbled across a tiny clearing, and in it, a tree laden with fist-sized black fruits.
Okay, so the color’s a little unusual, but this is the first time I’ve come across any fruit growing at a normal height. This’ll be the first thing I harvest with my own two hands since getting here... This world sure likes to keep things out of my reach!
Clutching my prize triumphantly, I looked over at Hio, first pointing to the fruit and then miming eating it. He nodded, so I quickly peeled the fruit and took a generous bite.
“Argh! What the—?”
It’s salty?!
My tongue—which had been anticipating the sweet taste of fruit—took a second to start working again, but there it was. Salt. The flavor I’d been longing to experience once again. I hadn’t expected that fruit, of all things, would hold the key to acquiring that most basic, wonderfully versatile seasoning.
But I am in a parallel world, after all. I need to remember that. Even so, salty fruit is still a little weird, parallel world or not.
I’d finally found some proper seasoning—something I could use to give a little complexity to my otherwise plain daily diet of meat. I picked every single one of the salty fruits I could reach, which, as it turned out, wasn’t that many of them. Luckily, Spider Boss returned at that moment, and with quick, skillful movements, retrieved the remaining fruits for me.
Thanks, Spider Boss. Looks like neither of you got injured either. Did you manage to talk it out, or whatever the insect equivalent is?