Chapter 214:
Spelunking with Ivy
We walked through the forest with Ciel leading the way. Since the trees were a bit thinner now, Druid was able to walk next to me. I stole a glance at him. He’d been acting strangely ever since we got into the forest. He’d been mumbling under his breath more and more, and it even seemed like he was having conversations with Flame. If something was wrong, I wished he would talk to me about it…
Mrrrow.
I looked at Ciel and saw there was a large cave a little ahead of us. Its mouth was also fairly wide. Ciel wanted us to go in there.
“If you think that cave is safe, Ciel, I’m happy to follow along.”
“Huh?!” Druid yelped in shock. I looked at him and saw his brow was heavily creased.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
Yay! I finally sounded casual! He had said we should be more easygoing with each other since we were travel companions, but I’d noticed my speech around him was still stilted—filled with “Sir” this and “Mister” that.
At first I was a little uncomfortable speaking to an elder so casually, but Druid had said, “We’re family now. Isn’t it a little weird to call me Mister and Sir all the time?” so I’d been trying to think of conversations with him as chats between a father and child. To be honest, I felt very shy about it, but it was also an extremely happy feeling to think that I could be part of a real family just by changing the way I spoke.
Druid smiled and shook his head in response to my question. It was an action I’d seen a lot from him over the past few days. Maybe we should have a talk about it…
Mrrrow.
“Oh! Sorry, Ciel. Come on, Mr. Druid, let’s go.”
“Ha ha ha. Of course.”
Was there a reason for him to laugh? Is he just tired? But we’ve only been walking about four hours. With a confused frown on my face, I followed Ciel into the cave.
“Ivy, do you always just wander into a cave whenever you see one?”
“Um, no? Only when Ciel says we should go in. It’s dangerous otherwise.”
“Oh, so you at least understand that concept?”
Understand what concept? “Um, what do you mean?”
“I was just worried that maybe you didn’t understand how dangerous caves were, since you just waltz in like it’s no big deal.”
“Oh, of course I know they’re dangerous. That’s why I only go in if Ciel goes in first.”
“Okay… So if Ciel says a cave is safe, does that mean there are no monsters inside?”
“No, there are monsters.”
“There are?”
He looked awfully shocked. Did I say something strange? “Yes. Um, is there a problem with that?”
“Do you mean they’re not scary monsters?”
“Scary monsters? Well, I often don’t know what kind of monsters they are, since caves are dark.”
“Okay…”
“Well, they are scary if they howl at you out of nowhere. But Ciel shuts them up right away if that ever happens.”
“Er… That’s interesting.”
It was definitely scary whenever monsters or animals howled at me in a dark cave, but Ciel always made them stop so quickly that I would only be scared for a second or two.
“Oh! Take those monsters over there—I see them a lot on my travels.”
Druid looked over to where I was pointing…and for some reason, he froze. There were five large monsters with fangs and claws, a type that I’d seen relatively often in caves. They usually liked to hang out by cave mouths, so they were one monster I’d been able to get a good look at. I’d looked them up in books but couldn’t find them, so their name was a mystery to me. When this pack of monsters saw us, they all began to howl at us.
Hiss! Ciel snapped, stepping protectively in front of us.
The pack fell silent, then all of them flopped onto the floor submissively when they saw Ciel, meaning that they would not bother us anymore. The first time this happened, I was absolutely terrified. But after experiencing it many times, I’d learned that when monsters flop to the ground like that, it meant they would not attack you.
“The monsters are…prostrating themselves?”
“Yes. Whenever they do that, it’s a signal they won’t attack you, not even if you turn your back to them.”
“I…didn’t know about that. Wow, how about that…”
Huh? Maybe it’s just because we’re in a cave, but Druid’s face looks awfully pale. “You look sick… Would you like to lie down?”
Druid slowly shook his head. “I’ll be fine… Once I get used to this, I won’t have any problems.”
Get used to what? Is there something I need to do, too? “Is there something I should get used to as well, sir?”
“No, Ivy…you’ll be fine. I guarantee it.” His tone was very firm, like he was sure of it.
Still feeling a little confused, I walked past the pack of monsters. No matter how many times I’d seen them, it was still hard to ignore their sharp claws and huge fangs. If they did attack us, we wouldn’t last a second.
“So you actually go pretty deep into the caves, huh?” Druid remarked.
“Yes, I guess I do. I’m not sure how deep Ciel is going to take us today, sir.” I checked on the adandara ahead of us. Its tail was still wagging softly downward, so that meant we were still a little bit away from our destination. Gee, I’m kind of excited to see what we’ll encounter next.
“Ivy…you’re calling me ‘sir’ again.”
Am I? Dang, and I was trying extra hard not to. “I’m sorry, I’ll be more careful, sir—I mean, I’ll be more careful.”
“Hah! Your old habit comes back whenever you try to form longer sentences.”
“Does it?” He may be right. I do tend to get pretty preoccupied with other things.
Mrrrow.
Aha! Ciel’s tail wagging just got a bit more intense. And its voice has raised a bit in pitch, too.
“Looks like this is the place.” I took stock of our surroundings…but there wasn’t much to look at. All I could make out were some black rocks sticking out among the larger boulders. Other than that…there was nothing.
“Mr. Druid, do you know why Ciel chose this place? I’m having a hard time figuring it out.”
Druid was carefully observing the rocks between the boulders. Was that what Ciel had wanted to show us? The black rocks?
“Ciel, is this what you wanted us to find?” I asked, touching one of the rocks. It was cool to the touch and felt wonderful—I was probably a little overheated from all that walking.
Mrrrow.
“I don’t know why…but I’m feeling kind of scared now.”
Druid’s words confused me. There weren’t any monsters around us, so what was he scared of?
“Mr. Druid, what are those black rocks?”
“They’re blackstones. You make true swords out of them.”
“Blackstones… They’re named exactly what they look like, huh?” Did whoever named them just go off outward appearance?
“No, they have a proper name, but it’s hard to remember. Sorry.”
Wow, it’s unusual for Druid to forget things.
“So, are you going to collect these?”
“Of course!”
“Yeah…I shouldn’t be surprised.”
I tugged on one of the black rocks protruding from the boulders. Did it move a little? Maybe if I pull a little harder, I can actually get it out. I grabbed the blackstone and yanked with all my might.
Pop!
“Ha ha ha. I actually got one.”
It was surprising just how easy it was to get it out from the boulders. I looked at the blackstone I’d just picked. It was about as big as one of Druid’s fists, a bit larger than I was expecting. I reached out to grab another…
“The rock you just picked out is enough for three swords, you know.”
“What?! Just from this one rock?”
“Yep. You just mix a little of the ore into the metal when you forge a true sword.”
“Oh, really…” I lowered my arm from the boulder and looked at the blackstone in my hand. It could make three whole true swords…
Mrrrow? Ciel sounded a little worried. It was probably wondering why I’d only picked one rock.
“Sorry, Ciel. But he says this can make three true swords, so I think just one rock is plenty.”
If Druid hadn’t been with me, I would have gathered a lot more and sold the lot at once. Good thing he was here.
Mrrrow, Ciel trilled in understanding, swishing its tail side to side a bit more energetically. Its tail hit the cave walls a little too energetically, and blackstones started tumbling out of the boulders.
“Do you…think we should pick these up?”
Druid sighed. “I think Ciel wants us to.”
“Agreed. And I just can’t say no to those soulful eyes…”
We went ahead and put the displaced blackstones into our bag. We had about a dozen, and some of them were pretty big, too.
“We’ll have to sell these little by little, won’t we, sir?”
“Yeah…especially the biggest ones. We should be extra careful with those.”
Just how much money would we get from all the blackstones we now had in our bag? The thought scared me a little—not as much as Druid earlier—but it still scared me.
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