Chapter Two Hundred and Three - Do Science To It

Momma was a very humble sort of bun. She didn’t mind at all when I suggested that we tell the others of our plan, if we could call what we had in mind a plan.

My reasoning for wanting to share was simple. The others knew more about magic and such than I did, by a whole lot. Amaryllis had a proper education, and Awen was clever, and Bastion probably saw all sorts of things as a paladin.

“So,” I said. “Our plan is real simple. We’ll grab the root, and feed it full of mana that it doesn’t like, then see what happens. Hopefully, we can weaken it enough to get it off the core, or maybe chop it apart.”

“Do you think that will remove the infection entirely?” Amaryllis asked.

I shifted from foot to foot. “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell where the root starts, exactly. I don’t remember seeing a starting place for it in any of the dungeons I saw with Evil Roots, and this one is all over the place in there, it’ll be hard to see where it originates.”

“I don’t think that would work on a plant,” Bastion said. “Now, keep in mind that I’m no expert when it comes to gardening or horticulture, but I have spent some time in the royal gardens. I’ve seen gardeners prune roots apart and the plants were entirely fine afterwards. Would trimming these roots do anything but slow them down?”

I crossed my arms and frowned really hard in thought. “I really, really don’t know. I think that this is the kind of thing that will be really hard to remove. Maybe it’ll mean spending a long time working on it too.”

“Taking the roots away, bit by bit, every day,” Carrot said. “Until it gives up and dies for good.”

“Or until the thing we do to weaken it finally starts acting like a sort of poison,” I said. “Plants sometimes need really specific kinds of earth and dirt to live. Though, I guess weeds are different. Ah, I wish Oak were here, he’d be good with this. Bet he knows a bunch about plants.”

“Well, he isn’t,” Amaryllis said. “And I for one suspect that we don’t have all that much time to lose with this.”

I nodded along. We couldn’t leave and just return, not when reaching this floor took hours and leaving would likely take a while too. “Well, we call this plan A, and give it our all.”

“And if it doesn’t succeed?” Bastion asked.

“Then we do as the World wants and break the core,” I said.

He winced, but there was nothing to it.

We moved closer to the core room, but paused before entering. “What kind of magic will we be trying?” I asked.

Momma hummed. “When did you gain your Cleaning aspect magic?” she asked.

“Uh,” I said. “Just after getting my first quest,” I said.

“I suspected as much. In that case, perhaps we’ll use that to begin with.”

“It’s nearly at rank up,” I said. “Then I’ll have Cleaning at Rank S. That’s, um, Master Rank. I think that it might get stronger at that point.”

“Master Rank Cleaning,” Momma repeated. “Well, that’ll be a first.”

“Hey, it’s a really versatile spell,” I defended.

The bun nodded and patted me on the head. “I’m certain it is,” she said over the sound of Amaryllis cackling. “Now, let’s go see about those roots.”

We slipped into the core room again, trampling on the uneven roots across the ground. It was just me and Momma this time, the others waiting by the exit, and keeping fairly close to the portal leading back to the surface.

I went around the root, looking for a good place to start while I felt the mana in my body start to tingle. I found a bit of root sticking out from the rest. Just a handspan, but enough to grab onto.

My eyes narrowed, my feet set. I took a deep breath and pushed as much Cleaning magic as I could into the root, all the magic I was absorbing from the core and more. Nothing happened at first, but, like poking a finger into a tub of hardened grease, I broke through and the edges of the root started to fray and break apart, turning into dust the way that all grime and yuckiness did when my Cleaning magic got it.

“It’s... working!” I said through clenched teeth.

After a moment, I stopped and pulled my hand free. The little stub looked as if a dozen caterpillars had been gnawing at it for an hour, dimples and bits missing all along its form. I looked at my work, then at all the roots around us.

“You’re having an effect, at least,” Momma said. “Come here, I’ll give you a hug.”

A reward hug? Well, I hadn’t said no to hugs before.

I spread my arms out into the optimal hugging position and laughed when Momma engulfed me with both arms. She was very strong, and warm, and obviously knew what she was doing when it came to hugging.

You Have Received a Hug from a Fearsome Mother! Your Power Increases!

“Oh! A Buff!” I cheered.

“Indeed. Just a little one, but useful all the same. I tend to avoid giving those to just anybun, they tend to make one overconfident at times.”

I nodded. “I have teas that give bonuses too. But none that’ll help here, I don’t think.”

“Unfortunate. Do any of your companions have skills like that?”

“Not that I know of. Bastion might, maybe, but I think he would have used them already if that was the case.”

Momma nodded. “Well, try now, we’ll see how it goes.”

I nodded and found another bit of root. I would have used the first, but I needed to be able to compare the differences pre and post hug.

Biting the tip of my tongue, I gripped on hard to the root, then shoved mana into it as hard as I could. I felt a vein on the side of my temple throb and my hand shook, but mana, lots and lots of mana, came pouring out of me and attacked the root.

The difference wasn’t huge, but it was there, the root started to wither, not like a plant that was dying, but as if someone was sucking all the life out of it from the inside. Little bubbles appeared along its green length, and they popped and bust apart with little puffs. The root started to turn to dust even faster after that.

Congratulations! Through repeated actions your Cleaning skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!
Rank S costs Five Cinnamon Bun Bun Class Skill Points!

“Yes!” I shouted.

“Oh?” Momma asked.

“My Cleaning went up,” I said.

Cleaning
Rank S - 00%
You have mastered cleanliness. Dirtiness fears you, grime shudders at your approach. You have taken the first step onto the Path. Cleanliness is next to godliness.

“Whoa,” I said.

“So?” Momma had a knowing little smile, like someone who knew something but wanted you to tell them the good news yourself.

“It’s, um, not very detailed about what this does. Like, as my skill gets better, I always get new things, but this is more vague than usual. Still, it sounds good.”

“Master Rank is often like that. Give it a try.”

I took a deep breath and grabbed onto a root, then I closed my eyes. The first bit of Cleaning magic came out, and I stopped right away.

It was... not wrong, but definitely different. My magic had always come out as a sort of flow, a weird sensation that reminded me a little bit of having blood drawn for a test. It tingled and made me feel a bit empty, but it wasn’t painful.

Now my Cleaning magic felt more like someone had turned my veins into a pressure washer. It was a lot, a lot and hard.

I grit my teeth and focused a little more, then fired just a burst of Cleaning magic into the root I held.

The mana came out of me, spun around like the writhing tentacles of an octopus trying to hug an electric fence, then stabbed into the root from all sides. The magic then spread out, poking at the weakest, least dirty parts first, then racing in and suffusing the root’s length with Cleaning magic that practically blasted the root to dust. Then even that dust faded, leaving the air smelling pine-fresh for a moment.

“Whoa,” I repeated as I looked at my empty hands. My palms felt as if I’d just scrubbed them clean. It wasn’t painful, exactly, but it was harsh.

“That seems to have worked,” Momma said. “How’s the accuracy?”

I licked my lips and fired a ball of Cleaning magic across the room. It zipped into a root-covered wall and managed to break a little divot on some of the roots. “It’s not bad,” I said.

“Well then,” Momma said. “Start with a circle around the pedestal, we’ll free the core first. I suspect that the core will want to fight back, if only a little.”

“Alright!” I said.

I got to work, walking slowly around the core and grabbing all the little roots I could and breaking them up with bursts of Cleaning magic. The bigger one needed some more time, with me basically grabbing them as if I wanted to choke them with my bare hands, and pushing mana into them.

Momma left to go waste her mana, and left me with Carrot as I worked, when she returned it was with a big smile on. “I think it’s working,” she said.

“Oh?” I asked as I rubbed the back of my hand across my brow. I was working up a sweat.

“The roots on the exterior are looking a little parched. I suspect that the current root system is as big as it can be.”

“How’s that?”

“Trees will only grow according to the amount of water they have available. Starve them, and their growth will stall. Likewise, a little bun will only grow to be as good as a bun can be if there is enough love and attention and care around them. I think that this Evil Root’s growth might have been slowing down. It grew too fat off the mana of this core and can’t sustain any additional growth. Perhaps its next step would be to grow into something else, but I hope we don’t need to see that.”

“I think I get it,” I said. “And now we’re cutting it off.”

“So we are,” Momma agreed.

I got back to work, pushing myself twice as hard now that we knew it was working. I could hear my friends talking outside, but I had to focus on my hands and on my magic if I wanted things to work out.

Momma might have been right about the root. The little leaves on the roots around me twitched and it felt almost as if they were growing bigger.

I let out a bit of my Cleaning aura, making sure not to send it towards the core, and let the roots chew on that for a bit.

The leaves shrivelled, like someone taking a bite of something and realizing it was super sour.

My circle ended soon enough, and all the roots clinging onto the core itself were now loose. I stood up, grinning, and moved to the wall nearest the edge of the room. A hand pressing against the roots there, I pushed out more magic and started to walk in a long circle around the room. Seeing all the mean roots curl up and flake away was wonderful.

“Nice work,” Momma said. “Buster, little ones, could you help us? We’ll be pulling these remains out. Drop them outside. Carrot, you try to burn them. No magic in the core room, and certainly no hitting or touching the core.”

Once I’d completed a circle of the room, my friends taking the cut-off bits of root with them and leaving those too entwined behind for later, I started to look at the ceiling. I didn’t know where the roots came from, exactly, but it had to be close.

I used Cleaning magic like a flame-thrower, flooding the roots with it until they died and flopped to the ground.

And then, just as we started to clear up the very last of them...

Quest Completed!
Trim the Cruel!
The Core is saved!

I blinked at Miss Menu... was that it?

Of course, that’s when Awen started screaming.

***