Rot Heart: A LitRPG of Rot Magic in an Ancient World (Book 1 completed)

The magical lights didn't flicker—something Div had never truly paid attention to before. Yet as he sat at a rough stone desk in Trabine's underground library, he appreciated the convenience.

All the more reason, since the three tablets Oerix had given him were engraved with characters so minuscule he needed a magnifying glass to read them.

He forced down his curiosity and began with the least appealing tablet. Monsters of Rot, a subsection of Yemesh Agada's bestiary.

Div wasn't well-read. Back in Kheiron, he'd been too young to care. In Camboaci, oral tradition prevailed, with few books available. Thus, he had no idea who this Yemesh Agada was. Oerix had been kind enough to explain that while the exact origin of this author was not known, his bestiary was a reference when it came to monsters of all types.

Clearly, Yemesh had put in a lot of work, and most libraries held several copies of his tomes.

In Div's hands was a tablet listing a few dozen rot-attuned monsters.

Div wasn't expecting much, but he was still disappointed.

Most entries were single lines naming a species suspected to be rot-attuned and a brief description of where they could be found.

To be fair to Yemesh, he admitted all his knowledge came from hearsay and that he had never encountered any of the creatures himself.

The only one to catch Div's interest was the Blightspeard. A swarm, sometimes mistaken for fog. Countless wings. Countless mouths. Flesh and bark alive devoured. Wherever it passes, the soil blackens, the water dries up.

He shook his head. It sounded like a bedtime story meant to scare kids into behaving. But, despite the lack of depth, it made him consider where the frontier between rotlife and rot-attuned monsters lay.

Was there even a frontier? Or were rotlife simply small rot-attuned monsters? Would larger monsters register with his Rotlife Sense?

He would have to search for one of those beasts to find out. But, unfortunately, Yemesh's list didn't mention the Wildlands. In fact, most of the places mentioned, Div had never heard of.

There was a swamp east of Betina, but it was so far that it might as well not exist.

Div put the tablet back where it belonged and considered which one to reach next.

Since he didn't get much from Monsters of Rot, he decided to move on to Decay and Renewal. Written in Lienien, it was a local text that sounded quite promising.

Decay and renewal were concepts deeply linked to rot. He'd always understood decay, but the more he studied magic, the more he saw renewal was equally important.

It was, at least, an aspect of rot he wanted to understand better.

The tablet wasn't directly mentioning rot magic. Instead, it read like a philosophical essay.

If Div had to sum it up, Brisanta of Lepante argued that everything was a cycle of growth and decay. From living beings to inanimate objects to cities, empires, and the world itself. Everything would end up being destroyed and would leave space for something else to be created.

It was convoluted, and honestly, Div didn't find it that enlightening. It wasn't wrong per se, but the tablet was stating the obvious and drawing conclusions that Div didn't agree with.

In one particularly jarring sentence, Brisanta urged her readers to embrace change, because fighting it was going against the world's natural order.

Generalities that didn't hold up to real-life examples. Especially not when it came to rot. Fighting rot by salting food or freezing it was perfectly valid. Sure, it wasn't going to preserve it forever, but if it worked long enough to prevent people from going hungry, it didn't need to.

Granted there were situations where working with rot made sense like fermentation or Chorus of Renewal. But he already knew that.

Div sighed and put down the tablet. He didn't see a point in finishing it.

Maybe it could help someone else, but he wasn't convinced.

Blinking, he stretched his back and took a deep breath. Reading with a magnifying glass wasn't the most comfortable; his eyes were getting tired and his back sore.

Someone knocked on the door. It was Dana. "Div, Genno and I are done reading. We're going back. Are you coming?"

Div had lost track of time and wasn't sure if he could stay any longer. The sun must've already been low, and he didn't want to trace his way back to the house Trabine had provided them in the dark.

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But he also didn't want to go back empty-handed.

Why was it so difficult to find people knowledgeable on rot magic? Rot was everywhere, so it stood to reason it would be one of the more common attunements.

Yet it wasn't. Perhaps because rot was something people tended to avoid. After all, which parents would let their children play with rotting food?

Yet, Div was rot-attuned, and he was quite positive he hadn't particularly interacted with rot in his youth.

"Div?" Dana insisted.

"I'll stay for a while longer," he said. "You can go first, I won't be too long."

The Death of Kamun.

Div sat back at his desk. Eying the final tablet the librarian had given him.

He didn't know what to expect. All Oerix had said was that the text was ancient and twice translated.

The work started with a note from the latest translator explaining that Kamun was the name of a city located in the same area as modern-day Hyepshut. The text was found in one of the many layers of ruins buried below the city.

Then, came a primer on Hyepshut's known history. Div skimmed over the text, trying to find a reference to rot. It seemed there wasn't any in the translator's notes.

Div skimmed the primer, barely absorbing the long-winded lineage of rulers and dynasties. No mention of rot, no hint of magic. Just history, politics, and dates that meant nothing to him.

Then the real text began.

They say Kamun fell in silence. They're wrong. That fateful year, the dry season had started early. The flood had been too weak to irrigate even half of the fields, the harvest insufficient.

At the time, it wasn't a concern. Bad years happened, and we would be poor administrators if we didn't plan for them. By the grace of The Serendipitous, we had enough grain in storage to last for years. Decades, if we rationed the populace. Centuries, if we traded our wealth away.

Under the nine Aths, the realm was prosperous.

As it was my responsibility to oversee the distribution of food in the eastern sector, I was looking forward to my skills being tested. It had nearly been a decade since I'd last earned my eighth level in Organisation. Easy times didn't help advancements.

I thought, perhaps, it was my chance to rise a little further. Ascension was only a dream to me, yet I still strived for it.

At first, everything went smoothly. We had protocols for such events. Even if people worried, as they often do, we truly believed it was without cause.

In our mind, there was no way Kamun would suffer from a single failed harvest.

We were right.

The dry season passed, and I was proud to report that no citizen of the eastern sector went hungry. No more than usual, at least. More than that, when the flood came, it was a centennial event. The first I witnessed. Seeing the river fill with so much water was so impressive that it washed away my disappointment at not leveling up.

This flood wasn't like the others. A centennial flood was supposed to be a favor from the world. This one was a curse.

When the water retreated, farmers planted as usual, expecting to more than make up for the losses of the previous year, but nothing took hold.

No wheat, no millet, no chickpeas, nothing.

Disappointing, but if it was just that, Kamun would have been fine. Financial losses, merchants skipping the city for a few years, nothing unprecedented.

But it wasn't. On a day when I inspected the Sun Gate's granary, I discovered that the grain was rotting.

How? I still don't know. We had magical wards to prevent just that. I cannot say about the other departments, but we of the eastern sector took our responsibilities seriously.

Regardless, rot was infecting our stores. After examination, the entire granary was compromised and we had to purge it. Food to feed the neighborhood for three years, gone just like that.

Naturally, we diverted grain from nearby granaries to feed the population. But incidents kept cropping up. Not just in my sector, but all over the city.

So we did what anyone would do in our position: strengthen the guard and import food.

Then people started dying.

It began without pattern. A dockworker in the western basin. A bookbinder in the central market. An advisor to The Serendipitous. All died of unrelated causes.

But the bodies rotted too fast.

Even before burial, even before rites could be performed. Flesh darkened within hours. Some decomposed mid-conversation, as if their bodies had decided they were already dead.

People began to panic. And when panic spreads, it devours logic.

We ordered the cremation of the dead. Closed streets. Ceased trade. Enacted quarantines.

I want to believe we did all we could to stem the plague.

Still, it worsened.

My Organisation skill leveled up, twice, but I couldn't find it in me to celebrate.

One night, the river boiled. No warning, no cause. A low hiss echoed down its banks. Every fish floated belly-up, bloated.

After that, the gardens wilted, crops, trees, flowers. Even stone began to weaken, sweating a black resin that cracked our walls and ate through iron.

We sought a cause. Sabotage? Sorcery?

The Serendipitous himself took action and sealed the city. No one could come in—though, by then, anyone with sense had long stopped traveling to Kamun.

More importantly, nobody could come out.

I don't blame him, for the curse could spread. But as I carve these words on a stone tablet that I hope will endure time and the cause of our misery, I can't help but despair.

For we are trapped inside.

Left to rot.

Div emerged from his read slightly disoriented. Was it rot magic that had doomed Kamun? Possibly.

Once again, he was left with more questions than answers. He would have to ask Oerix to recommend more books. Even if there wasn't much on rot magic, maybe more generic knowledge could help him advance.

For now, he had to return home. It was night, and he was hungry.