Chapter XLVII (47)

  Mitsuko lashed out with her rusty machete, chopping the incoming vine in half before it managed to wrap around her neck. Ankle-deep in bubbling green bog water, Mitsuko’s footing was unreliable and her current stance was one designed to hold ground, rather than risk a misstep while dodging.

  Thankfully, her attacker, an ape made of vines, lacked the intelligence to press this advantage. It continued to send the same uncreative attack her way, vine after vine getting parried by her blade before they touched her.

  This was the first vine ape she’d encountered. Its entire body was covered by thick, writhing vines. She suspected it might have been a normal ape at one point, but was now possessed by a parasitical plant. The way it moved reminded her of a normal animal, rather than the magical being it currently was. Rather than use its vines to maneuver itself about in the canopy, it remained clinging to branches and using its limps to jump about as it attacked her from afar. In fact, Mitsuko suspected it might not even be the ape itself that was attacking her, but the vegetation that grew off it.

  While an interesting creature, at the moment Mitsuko was focused solely on defending herself against the predator. Even after she chopped the vines in two, the dismembered bit would thrash about in the water nearby, requiring her to kick them away or risk a tripping hazard.

  The ape paused for a moment, its back to her as the vines growing on it wrapped around a tree to cease the creature’s retreat. The parasitical plant didn’t want to leave just yet. It clearly intended to kill Mitsuko before it let its host continue into the jungle.

  An opening. Mitsuko let a smile touch the edges of her lips as she threw one of her knives. It landed in the stationary creature with a thump. The host’s body shuddered, but it made no discernable noise. Which made sense as vines currently grew clogged its open mouth, muting the monster.

  Then Mitsuko cast Mend and the knife that protruded the monster’s flesh zipped back into her hand. She would end this creature’s sad life. Put it to rest.

  She threw the knife once again. But, just as it left her fingertips, everything changed.

  Suddenly she was toppling over onto a deck with sailors hollering all around her.

  Without realizing it, the loop’s week had completed.

  Mitsuko blinked, then scrambled to her feet. She glanced down at her hand and smiled, relieved to see the familiar ring back in its place there. No matter how much she sharpened that machete last loop, she’d never been able to fully free it of blemishes. And it had been rusty far too long for her to use Mend on it to effectively repair it. She guessed it must have been gathering rust in The Terror’s cargo hold for years.

  “I hope those horrible days trekking about in the mud and filth proved useful to you,” Sterling said once she completed her usual route. He was now back in the cat’s body and trotted alongside her as she dashed over to the safe lifeboat with Holly in tow.

  In truth, it hadn’t been a very smart use of her time. The last couple days had been nonstop bushwhacking, fighting, and fruitless searching for the missing children. Sterling’s mouse body had died during one of her many battles with the packs of giant rats that swarmed the swampy jungle. And not a particularly graceful death either, she’d tripped on one of the dead giant rats’ corpses, and he’d fallen from her pocket as she had scrambled to reclaim her footing. By the time she’d finished the fight, she’d found Sterling’s bloated body floating in the water with a broken neck. After that, he hadn’t bothered finding another body and left her alone in the jungle. Which in some ways had been a blessing. She’d used the silence to sort through her thoughts and felt better about her familial predicament.

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  “I see you didn’t even gain a level for all your trouble,” Sterling commented. “Though you are admittedly on the cusp of one at the moment.”

  Mitsuko settled into her seat on the lifeboat and watched the familiar scene of death and carnage play out as the kraken emerged from the depths. Despite witnessing its destruction half a dozen times now, Mitsuko still felt a hollow sadness at the sight.

  “What are your plans for this loop?” Sterling asked, completely unbothered by the kraken’s butchery. “I assume you took some time to consider your next steps while stomping about in the wilds? What is on the menu for this loop?”

  “I have a few leads,” Mitsuko muttered softly.

  With the others in the boat with her, Mitsuko didn’t want to dive into the exacts of what she had planned. Instead, she pondered over her last few days in the jungle. It wasn’t too unlike the jungle that surrounded her village growing up. But the big difference was that she had known exactly what sort of threats existed in her home. On Verdant Island, she had no idea. And yet, she’d wandered through the jungle anyway. It was a risk that she never would have made before entering the Prismatic Spiral. On one hand, she worried that maybe the timeloops were making her less fearful of death. That lack of caution could absolutely result in her undoing once she broke free of the loops. But, on the other hand, she also now wielded magic. She wasn’t just a normal girl with a sword anymore. Real power now existed at her fingertips. The person she’d been before the timeloops wouldn’t have survived a day in that same jungle that she’d just trailblazed her way through.

  She stared back at the now placid waters behind her and wondered how she might be able to combat the kraken in the future. It seemed like an impossible foe…and yet.

  “I need to learn more spells first,” she decided. “Then I’ll be able to face it.”

  “What’s that, Mitsuko?” Holly asked beside her. “You’re thinking about picking up another spell? Want me to coach you on something?”

  Mitsuko thanked her friend but declined. Months of effort for a minor divination or illusion wouldn’t cut it.

  This would be the loop she would unlock Mauve Island’s secrets and obtain its spell.

  The moment they beached the lifeboat on shore, Mitsuko wasted no time. She scrambled out of the harbor, declining the help offered by the Sailor’s Guild. This loop Holly had recovered coins from their room aboard the Selcouth Sable. While not enough to bribe her way onto a ship like The Terror, it was more than enough to reserve a room in an inn.

  “Mind if I go out for a bit?” Mitsuko asked her friend. “I want to clear my head and get a lay of the land.”

  Holly told her to stay safe and happily started sorting through her maps, preparing new sheets with the intention of logging the city. She mentioned that when she finished up with that she planned to have a date with a fellow gnome and told Mitsuko not to wait up for her tonight.

  Mitsuko immediately headed over to the town square. But this time, instead of entering the bar with Gina, Mitsuko found a nice bookshop on the other side of the street and kept an eye on the bar’s exit while she perused the shelves.

  Nearby the clocktower rang. Despite the frozen time outside the dome, the clockwork mechanisms continued to tick on, marking the passage of time.

  She flipped through a book that looked interesting. It was the basic history of Mauve Island. It was clearly written with the intention of being read by visitors from other nations. But that suited her needs perfectly. She wasn’t ready for an in-depth dive into centuries of unfamiliar politics. She’d scout out the surface information before diving deeper.

  With the book purchased, she sat down on a bench, facing the bar’s exit, and began to read.

  The bitelas people apparently had been here as long as anyone could remember. They were the original nativities. Unlike on Verdant Island, which Mitsuko had discovered in her last loop had previously had different inhabitants, Mauve Island’s people outlasted several attempts of colonization from foreign powers. The books didn’t go into details on who’d attacked or when the battles had taken place, but Mitsuko assumed it was the usual suspects. Tross and Hon. Especially since both humans and Kemon were present on the island. Crocus City’s founding was on top of an ancient bitelas village and was where peace treaties were signed. It was designed from the start to be a place where races could unite together from across the archipelago in peace and mingle.

  That was when Mitsuko started skimming, looking for any mention of ancient buildings in the city. Nothing stood out from what she read. Also, the city had been founded thousands of years ago, so well before Sterling’s demise. That also matched up with what he’d said about knowing a bitelas performer in the past. She needed to find somewhere old in the city that could serve as a safehouse for the sage. Sterling had been found inside a church, so she kept an eye out especially for religious buildings while she read.

  Then the door of the bar across the street opened, revealing a hunched over bitelas man holding a string instrument. Mitsuko watched Coleo shuffle over to an alleyway and she snapped her book closed.

  Time to tail her mark.

  15 more chapters on my !!