Rewrite That Witch
CH829 · Rewrite
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Chapter 829: Findings at the Snow Mountain

The Mathematical Olympiad textbook was not itself remarkable. What it implied was.

In his early explorations of the Dreamland, Roland had discovered that books he had never read were blank — all of them. Books on the stands, books in the library: covers over empty pages. He had come to believe the covers themselves were traces of fading memory, the ghost of a shape without content. If he had never seen a specific book, it would not exist in the dream world. Not as anything more than a spine and a title.

The Mathematical Olympiad textbook on Zero’s desk had disproved that.

He had not noticed its peculiarity immediately. Had he missed it in the first two or three months of exploration? Or had the text appeared later, gradually — filling in where blankness had been? If it was the latter, he needed to understand why.

If one book could restore itself without his remembering it, others could follow. Things he had never seen might come into being. The question was whether this was his doing, or something else’s.

He was trying to trace a line through three events: the strange power he had gained, the extermination of the Fallen Evils, and the release of the Force of Nature. Whether they were connected, whether they were the cause of the dream world’s changes — he could not yet say.

“Your Majesty?”

He looked down.

His hands were moving against Nightingale’s feet. He had not noticed. The thin fabric of her socks did nothing to conceal the warmth of her skin, the precise smallness of her toes.

Nightingale’s expression was caught between embarrassment and something she was visibly not naming. “I changed my socks, but I couldn’t take a shower on the ship, so I’m probably still a bit…” She stopped. “Would you mind if I — took a shower first?”

The phrasing had a particular resonance he was fairly certain she had not intended. Roland opened his mouth to clarify that his attention had been entirely elsewhere, found no version of the sentence that helped, and was mercifully interrupted by a knock at the door.

Nightingale vanished into the Mist. Roland cleared his throat. “Come in.”

Agatha entered, bowed without ceremony, and asked, “All the samples from the Great Snow Mountain have been transferred to the Third Border City. Do you want to inspect them?”

Roland composed himself under the guise of consideration, then nodded. “Of course. Let’s go now.”

Agatha turned to leave, paused at the door. “Are you feeling unwell?”

Roland blinked. “What makes you say that?”

“Your voice sounds odd. Slightly hoarse — it’s a typical early sign of a cold.” She said it with complete clinical detachment. “The Months of Demons has passed, but this is still the coldest period of the year, when snowmelt creates damp air and lowered resistance. You are not a witch. You should take care of yourself — not only for your own sake but for the sake of the entire human race.” A beat. “Before we go, I recommend sending for Lily and having her examine you.”

…

The physical examination was brief. Roland drank a bottle of Lily’s “anti-illness water” in a state of faint amusement — it tasted of nothing he could name — and descended to the base of the Impassable Mountain Range under the protection of his guards and a cluster of witches.

The Taquila survivors were easier to be around than they had been at the wharf. Almost all of them had since visited the Dreamland, and the experience had settled something in them — made them more present, more approachable. The exceptions were Pasha and Alethea, who had not gone. The visitors Roland now recognized: Phyllis, designated No. 76, who alone among them had a female appearance; Faldi, known as Magic Bug Nest; Dawnen, called Matte Curtains; and Ling, Shadow Walker.

Alethea spoke first. Her tentacle moved with the deliberate emphasis of someone stating a position. “I have heard that you plan to raise those unknown bugs in our hall and tame them. Mortal king — I must say you are as bold and reckless as the researchers of the Quest Society. You know your curiosity will destroy you eventually. Those creatures were brought by enemies from the deep ocean.”

“Which is why I want you to guard them.” Roland kept his voice easy. “The captured bugs aren’t aggressive. They can’t even drill holes. A single sealed chamber would hold them. And according to Agatha’s observations, they have no self-consciousness — only the instinct to feed and reproduce. There is some chance the multi-eyed monster could regain control over them from a distance. But if Neverwinter became so defenseless that a creature that stupid could reach our walls, we would already have been destroyed long before it arrived.”

“Agatha is also a member of the Quest Society,” Alethea pointed out, with a swaying of her tentacle that managed to convey disapproval.

Agatha, who had become the subject of this observation, twitched one corner of her mouth and said nothing.

Pasha stepped forward. “Alethea means no offense. She is worried that the mutated bugs will have a negative effect on Neverwinter.” She looked at Roland. “I apologize for her.”

“If you want to bring Celine into this,” Roland said mildly, “she is also a Quest Society member. I’d be careful about saying it in front of her.” He turned to Pasha. “That’s fine. Let’s go look.”

Alethea’s fear was not baseless — he knew that. But what Agatha and Lightning had written in their reports mattered. If he destroyed the bugs because of potential risk, he would be throwing out the child with the bath water. Placing them at the base of the mountains was already a precaution. He had done what he could.

Pasha nodded. “Follow me, please.”

Past the broad hall and through a narrow corridor, they entered a room so large it could have held four or five castles laid end to end. Several Stones of Lighting in the walls threw pale light across the space, revealing the rough outline of it — vast and cool, the ground thoroughly excavated, loose soil littered across the floor. From somewhere beyond the far wall came the sound of running water: constant, unhurried, the seepage of underground streams through rock.

“This is the culture room Fran set up,” Pasha said. “It is completely sealed — one entrance only, and the water is natural runoff from the stone. But I have to ask…” Her gaze moved across the space. “Are you truly planning to grow mushrooms and mutated bugs in here?”

Agatha said, “Those large mushrooms are exactly what the bugs feed on. If they can grow here as they would in their natural environment, we can obtain a large number of mutated bugs without much effort.”

If the mushroom transplant failed, they would have to use Lily’s artificial cultivation method instead. Roland noted, with some regret, that the mushrooms from the ruin at the snow mountain were inedible — poisonous. Given their size and quantity, they would have made an excellent high-protein substitute for meat. The ruin’s bounty was frustrating in its specificity.

“What are the bugs for, exactly?” Phyllis asked, leaning forward with the attentiveness of someone who actually wanted to know. “If the goal is study, a few specimens would be sufficient.”

Roland looked at Agatha. “If the report is correct, they’ll likely play a significant role in Neverwinter’s development.”

Agatha gave a short nod. She reached into the cage of mushrooms, picked up a bug that had been moving slowly across one of the caps, and set it on the excavated ground. Then she drove two ice pitons through the joints at its head and waist.

It struggled fiercely. Then it went still.

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