Warlock Apprentice

Under the moon and stars, there was a giant boulder that was dug-out from the inside as a temporary shelter.

A flat stone slab was used as a door. Across the small gap, one could see shadows and embers moving inside.

There were three individuals resting in the stone house. A pot sat above a makeshift campfire and was brewing pleasant-smelling fish soup.

Two of them were sleeping on the ground, while the third one was a man in a tattered robe who was tending to their meal.

What was exposed from under his robe—a smooth, tender hand—had bugs and maggots climbing on it. One of his hands was dropping some powder-like substance on the ground to attract more worms to go inside the soup.

Someone moaned behind him.

“You alright, Freud?” The robed figure didn’t look back. “So, did you read anything?”

From what he heard, Angor believed that this was not the case. Maybe there was another way to avoid fighting the Lord of Tentacles.

Bypassing the monster meant to put one’s mind and stealth abilities to test. That didn’t sound like a “fight”.

His instinct told him that his previous assumption that the exit was located in the sky was more sound.

Then he thought about Dodoro’s “prophecy”, which suggested that he and Keely were swimming at the bottom of the sea.

There was no sea to be found around here. So how did that happen? Or was it something AFTER the garden challenge?

With these questions in mind, Angor headed to the lava zone again. For now, he planned to take a look at that Lord of Tentacles and see if he could escape detection by using Infinite Reticence. And if the monster was something beyond his strength, he would check out the sky.

As Angor left the stone house, the robed man, Yethew, suddenly frowned at something. The Spy Bug he placed outside was killed by something stepping on it.

Quickly, he changed his vision to another Spy Bug, but he saw nothing else apart from the squashed corpse of the previous one.

In this land of fishes, any foreign creatures would soon become fish chum. And the lack of land-dwellers caused the ground to slowly turn to a wasteland.

So what just stepped on my bug?

“What’s wrong, Yethew?” Shayaron saw Yethew not moving and nudged his shoulder. “Stay with me, buddy.”

“Oh, what?”

“Get some preparation done. We’re going to the lava zone.”

“No need for that. We’ll just go.”

Yethew went outside first and walked to his dead bug while pretending that he was waiting for others.

When no one was looking, he released another ant-like insect from his sleeve, which dropped down and devoured the dead Spy Bug.

Once it was done, the second insect returned to Yethew’s hand.

Yethew took a sniff at it and frowned.

This special ant could help him find and amplify hormones. This was also how Yethew found his teammates quickly after entering the garden.

“This is definitely the smell of a human. Someone was listening in?”