Chapter 436: Learning

“So, how did you find Mirrorwane in the first place?” Derek asked as they strolled through the reflected version of Mirrorwane, heading for the walls. “It’s pretty well hidden.”

“I didn’t find it,” Vil replied with a shake of her head. Her gaze flicked to the stormy skies above them before returning to Derek’s back. “The System did. I got sent here.”

“Sent here?” Derek glanced over his shoulder at her. “How?”

“Vil was part of the first wave from the Bleeding Crown,” Mite said. He sent a glance over his puppet — which he’d very intentionally placed between himself and the woman — and narrowed his eyes. “She was an enemy. Technically speaking.”

Still might be, actually.

“Huh,” Derek said. He stopped walking. “Really?”

“I didn’t know what was going on,” Vil said hurriedly. She raised her hands before herself, palms open as she shook her head. “I fell into the Mirrorlands some time ago. I don’t know exactly when. My town betrayed me and kicked me through a pathway leading here. Then I woke up mid-fight. Alex and Claire realized that I was in control of myself and not a monster. They let me join the town.”

Derek frowned. “You’re not an Anomaly.”

“A what?” Vil asked.

“Never mind,” Derek said. He shook his head and let out a small sigh before starting back toward the wall. “Not fun at all. I got my hopes up for a moment. Thought I’d just missed something. Guess my senses are as good as ever.”

Mite followed after him. Vil hesitated for a second, then hurried to catch up with them.

“What does that mean?” she hissed to Mite. “Hopes up for what?”

“I’d wager he was hoping to kill you,” Mite replied with a grin. He took no small amount of pleasure in the worry in her voice. She’d had a hand up on him since they’d met. It was nice to turn the tables slightly — even if he had absolutely nothing to do with the rotation of aformentioned furniture.

“What?” Vil asked. She missed a step. “Why? I’m part of the town now, aren’t I?”

“That wouldn’t stop him,” Mite said with a shake of his head. “He’s tried to kill Alex at least one or two times. That’ just how he is.”

“Is that allowed?” Vil asked in disbelief. “You’re not screwing with me?”

“Nope,” Mite said cheerfully. “And I don’t think it’s allowed, but you can feel free to be the one to tell him that. Besides, I don’t think Alex had much issue with it. Not from what I’ve heard. I wasn’t exactly there to see the fights.”

“I lost,” Derek said without looking back. “Alex is really strong.”

Vil stared at the assortment of massive weapons sprouting from Derek’s body. For a long second, she said nothing. Then she grunted.

“I see. But I passed the requirements to not get attacked?”

“More like failed,” Mite said. “You weren’t worth killing.”

“You’re kidding,” Vil said. Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Seriously?”

“Yup,” Derek said. “Not enough reward for it. I only want Anomalies. That’s where the good rewards are.”

“What’s an Anomaly?” Vil asked. “And I assume this means Alex is one as well?”

Mite shrugged. He wasn’t really feeling in a sharing mood. A mood like that was already rare enough for him. Whatever the hell was up with Vil wasn’t helping that in the slightest. The only thing keeping his mood up was the promised gift waiting for him just beyond the wall.

They all stepped through the gateway at the edge of town, passing by the townsfolk guarding the entrance, and continued out into the Mirrorlands beyond.

“So,” Mite said. “Where are we…”

Then he trailed off. His eyes widened, slowly tracing up the massive wooden giant made entirely of gray roots looming just a short ways away. An equally large staff crafted of the same material was planted in the ground at its side. Multiple other giants littered the ground behind it in varying degrees of destruction. The others looked even bigger than the nearest one.

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“There,” Vil said with no small amount of pride. Her lips curled upward and she pointed to the nearest giant. “In that one’s chest. There’s an energy source. A very powerful one. I don’t exactly have a crafting class, but I know it isn’t stable.”

“That’s fine,” Mite muttered, all else forgotten as he started walking faster. “How’d you get it in there?”

“I grew the giant,” Vil replied with a shrug. “It was pretty simple. But getting it free will be a lot harder. The power source is connected to the rest of the giant now. If that connection gets severed—”

“It’ll go off,” Mite said. The three of them came to a stop at the giant’s feet. Mite craned his neck back to look up at it. He was silent for a moment. Then a grin split his lips. “Yeah, I figured. Not bad.”

“I should mention that if it goes off, Mirrorwane is going to take a lot of damage,” Vil warned. “And that includes us. I don’t think any of us will survive the blast. Don’t be blasé about this. It could get us all killed.”

“Hm,” Derek said. He didn’t look very concerned.

“A portion of a city is much lower stakes than the last time,” Mite said through a confident snort. “And unlike last time, I’m the one working. Not Alex. He’s a lot of things, but subtle isn’t one of them.”

“You blew up a city last time?” Vil asked. A small grin flashed over her features. It faded quickly when Mite didn’t return it. “Wait. You’re serious?”

“I assume the power source is in some kind of container to make sure it doesn’t blow up from a stray hit?” Mite asked, ignoring the question.

“Of course,” Vil said. “But—”

“I know what I’m doing.” Mite raised a hand to cut her off. Then he hesitated. A small frown crossed his lips and he let his hand fall. “Actually, keep going. What were you saying?”

“There’s a denser section of roots around the source,” Vil said. “And if the connection between the source and the construct gets severed in the wrong way, it’s going to go off.”

“Oh. Yeah,” Mite said. “I figured that part already. Anything else I should know before I pull this baby apart? Hidden traps? Sensitivity to certain types of magic? Automatic defenses that are going to try to kill me while I’m working?”

“No,” Vil said. “Just don’t kill us all.”

Mite rolled his eyes. His puppet rose, its tattered cloak slipping back as pieces of its body unfolded and lengthened. Vil’s eyes widened slightly as it wrapped itself around him, attaching itself to his back with a series of loud clicks. Then it leapt.

Wind whipped through Mite’s hair for the brief second he was airborne. Then he landed on the side of the giant with a grunt. His puppet’s legs drove into the wood, absorbing the force of the landing. Then it clambered up the giant’s side.

“About where is it?” Mite called down.

“Near the middle of its chest, in the center,” Vil called back. “Just a little higher than where you are now!”

The puppet scurried a few feet farther up the giant, snagging onto the individual branches protruding from it to secure itself. Mite glanced down at Vil. “Here?”

“Yeah,” Vil nodded. She looked slightly paler than what he recalled. The woman’s eyes held no resemblance to the bloodthirsty gaze that she’d shown him back on 274-50 just a few minutes ago. “That’s pretty close to it. But be careful carving into it.”

“I know, I know,” Mite said. He looked back to the giant’s chest and pursed his lips. There were a number of different ways he could go about this. He’d have done it fairly slowly in an ideal world. But Vil had said that the power source was unstable.

I can’t take any risks here. It’s way too hard to get these power sources. If I damage this, who knows when I’ll be able to get my hands on another one. The amount of time I waste… no. No way. I’m going to finish the Endbringer Culverin soon, and then I’m going to start practicing more. I need to get stronger.

Mite cracked his neck. He directed his puppet forward. It started slicing at the roots before him gingerly, peeling them away layer by layer.

“Do you think we should maybe move?” Vil asked from somewhere below him, her voice just barely reaching his ears. Mite ignored her. He didn’t expect anyone else to understand his genius. Fear was only natural when one lacked understanding.

“Nope,” Derek said.

“But—”

“It’s Mite,” Derek said. “He’ll do it. And even if something goes wrong, I’m sure I’ll be fine. It takes a lot more than an explosion to kill me. Wess has tried.”

“Who is… no, never mind. I’m not nearly as hard to kill as you are, you know.”

“Oh,” Derek said. He paused for a moment. Then he grunted. “That’s too bad.”

Mite snorted. His puppet continued its work and peeled several roots away, snapping them at the edges and dropping the discarded pieces to the ground as it carefully got him a better view at the inside of the giant.

It didn’t take him long to spot his target. Large portions of the admittedly impressive construct were hollow, revealing a thick ball of tightly woven roots near its center. The roots making it up looked to be a darker color than the rest of them, and Mite could sense faint pulses of energy emanating out from within it.

That’ll be the core.

His puppet carved the final pieces of the exterior body away and he gingerly clambered into the interior of the giant, the limbs of his puppet holding him up like the limbs of a monkey automatically reaching to grasp the nearest roots and bearing him up through the branches toward his target.

Mite drew up to the core. He made no move to touch it. Instead, he made sure his puppet had completely secured itself on roots that didn’t directly connect to his target.

A long second passed in silence as he studied the core.

Then he nodded to himself.

“Okay,” Mite muttered, a lone droplet of sweat rolling down the side of his neck as he reached out to the core and set his palms on it, feeling the magic within. His eyes narrowed. Then his jaw set. “Here we go.”