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

Div and En sat in front of their teacher in the office they had only seen when they first enrolled into Camboaci's school. It was as they remembered it, although they didn't have the chance to take a good look back then.

It was a simple room. Just large enough to fit a desk and a single shelf where a few books were carefully placed. There wasn't much on the desk, only a few papers and an ink bottle.

(What do we say?)

[I don't know, she's the one who should speak.]

But Vedovessa seemed intent on making them uncomfortable. She kept looking at them, her face expressionless. Completely silent.

Div and En returned the stare. They couldn't hide their anxiety.

After what seemed like an eternity, Vedovessa finally spoke, "Div, En, what did you think about the dark day?"

They had been expecting a stern talking-to, not a question. It threw them off.

(What do we think?)

[This, we should answer separately.]

"Um," Diven started, raising his left hand to signal he was the one speaking. "At least I got to make progress in my understanding of rot. But both fights were hard and frustrating. The one with the cyclops even more so."

"En?" Vedovessa asked.

"I," En said, "hated it. You set us up against a beast we could not defeat and forced us to leave early. I wanted to fight more."

"I see. If you wanted to fight more, why were you content watching as your comrades did battle?"

"We are stronger than them," En explained, his voice a little too fast for his taste. "We wanted to give them the opportunity to train."

"Div, you agree?" The teacher asked.

Div confirmed. He had been with En at the time, and he still stood by their decision.

"What makes you think you are stronger than your classmates?" Vedovessa asked. "Your high-level skills, I suppose?"

"Not just that," En said, his eyebrow furrowed. "Also, our experience surviving alone."

Vedovessa drummed her fingers on the desk a few times before answering, "You're among the most competent fighters of the class; I'll give you that. But you're making a few mistakes, the most egregious being how you underestimate your friends."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you think my students were sitting on their thumbs before you got here? They were training every day, just like they did for years before awakening. They are good, skill levels are not everything."

"But still," En insisted. "Skill levels mean something."

"Of course," Vedovessa conceded. "However, do you think a level 10 skill holder cannot lose to a level 5 skill holder? The difference isn't that big."

"But there is a difference," En said, not letting up.

[En, you're being stubborn.]

(I don't care. I'm right.)

[Whatever.]

"Let's take another example, then," Vedovessa said. "A man has trained with the sword his whole life. He is talented, not a genius, but a good swordsman. For some reason, that man ends up never receiving the Sword skill. Would he lose to a teenager with Basic Rank Sword skill obtained a few months prior?"

"Why would he not get the Sword skill?" En asked. "Your example doesn't make sense. If he trained the sword all his life, surely he would have unlocked a facet."

[I mean… I can see a few reasons.]

"Maybe he is stuck with a facet he cannot complete," Vedovessa said. "Or he is like Div with Rot Magic, trying to obtain the Sword skill before selecting the facet."

"I'm not convinced," En said.

[I am…]

"It's fine," the teacher continued. "Keep in mind that skill levels aren't everything. Neither the cyclops nor the serpent had high-level skills, and you struggled to beat them."

"Those are monsters, it's different."

[En, stop with the bad faith. She's right.]

(I'm not…)

[Yes, you are. Let me talk now.]

Div asked Vedovessa a few questions about the battle. He was most curious about why they had been pitted against a monster like the cyclops when it was clear they didn't stand a chance against it.

Their teacher pointed out that they needed a reality check before, thinking themselves invincible, they threw themselves at a monster they couldn't beat. They had to study the strengths and weaknesses of every opponent they would face in the future and plan their fight according to their conclusions.

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"Furthermore," Vedovessa added. "You could have beaten that cyclops."

"What?" En asked, taking back the lead. "How?"

"By asking for support from your allies. A cyclops' weak point is its large, unique eye. A perfect target for any archer."

En didn't like it, but he couldn't find fault in her reasoning. It stung, but she was right. They should have asked for help. They had failed.

"As for your fight with the serpent," Vedovessa continued. "You did well. You could have avoided taking so much damage if your mastery of rot was better."

"The experience was valuable," Div said.

"Keep working on it. Overall, you did a good job for a first dark day battle. But you need to pace yourself. It's a dark day, not a dark hour. We need our warriors to last longer than that. Any questions?"

"Not a question," En started. "But a complaint. We need to fight more, we didn't get a single level out of it! And our facet requires us to fight armies, we took it with the dark days in mind…"

"I see. You know, En, sometimes levels don't come for no particular reason. I'm sure you earned some from easier fights. The will of the world is beyond us. Keep working hard, levels will come when the time is right."

As for Facet of the Army Breaker, Vedovessa pointed out that they had never told her about it. Nor did they mention their desire to fight.

"I can't read your minds," their teacher said, shrugging. "Make sure you tell me in advance if you have such concerns in the future. Anything else?"

"No," En said.

"Then you can go home. Class starts again tomorrow; don't be late."

Div and En left the school on their own, with no idea what they were going to do today.

[I don't think there's anyone home.]

(We spent enough time cooped up inside. Let's explore the village.)

Despite living there for a few weeks now, they had never taken the time to get familiar with Camboaci. In their defense, they spent most of their time in class.

With the massive tree growing in the center serving as a guiding landmark, Div and En walked in a random direction.

Camboaci was mostly made up of small houses not dissimilar to the one they were living in. However, both Belilamos and Carmeta were fighters. Some buildings displayed signs marking the profession of their tenants.

Bakers, smiths, tanners, and various shops were scattered through the village. Considering it was the middle of the day, all showed signs of activity.

As they went further from the center, Div and En noticed that farms and barns started making up the majority of the constructions.

While there were close to two thousand souls living there, the wall of trees covered a vast enough area to dedicate a significant portion of the protected land to agriculture.

They had never come to this area. They usually left the village through a path in the opposite direction. The land there was used as an orchard. Div and En had heard there was also a place where livestock were kept. Another place to visit later.

The fields were bare, remnants of the late summer harvest mixed with dirt in the plowed soil that were resting before winter.

[En, those fields are teeming with rot mana.]

(Great, the village food supply has been infected. They will blame us for it, you know. Should we plan an escape before it's too late?)

[Don't be dramatic. I don't think it's a problem.]

The rot-attuned mana was created by decaying plants left from the harvest. Given how neatly plowed the earth was, Div doubted this was unintentional.

[We need to find out why.]

It was the first time they saw a deliberate use of rot. Div needed to know more. Was there another person who could do rot magic in the village?

(Fantastic, another day spent studying rot. I'm getting tired of this, Div.)

[Then, hurry up and evolve Sundered Mind. Then we can each spend our time doing what we really want.]

(Or, we could skip the rot for today.)

[I don't think so. Do you want to delay our evolution?]

(Whatever…)

En grumbled, but he let Div do as he pleased. Despite the lack of outside activity, it wasn't hard to find people near the fields. Div and En simply walked to the nearest farm and quickly spotted a young-looking man doing repairs on the door of a barn.

He was kneeling, inspecting a metal hinge that had come loose from the wall.

"Good morning, sir," Div said as he approached.

The man turned his head toward Div and En, looking up. In his twenties, blonde hair, white teeth, blue eyes, and a few freckles on his cheeks. He was undoubtedly handsome, but his closed expression threw Div off.

"Um, sorry," Div said.

"What do you want, southerner?" The man asked, turning back to his broken hinge.

"I was wondering why the fields were left like that?"

The blonde man didn't answer. Instead, he kept fiddling with the hinge that was only attached to the door and not to the barn's wall. He wasn't really fixing it either.

"Did you hear me?" Div asked.

"Yes," the man said.

"So…"

Sighing, the young man stood up from his crouching position and looked down at Div and En.

"Can't you see I'm busy? You're still going to school, no? Ask the teacher."

(For all the things I have against Vedovessa, she seems more reliable than this guy.)

"I could," Div said. "But she's not a farmer."

"Look, I don't have all day…"

"Then just tell me why, I'll be out of your hair."

The man looked left and right, as if searching for someone else. Seeing he was the only one aside from the boy bugging him, he grimaced and said, "I don't know."

"What?"

"I don't know," the man said through his clenched teeth. "We plow the fields with some leftovers from the previous harvest because it makes the next crop grow better. That's it."

Div looked at the frustrated farmer, unsure if he should follow up with another question.

He mentally shrugged. What was the worst that could happen?

"Why, though? Is the soil eating the nutrients from the plants?"

"I told you: I don't know. I guess it's something like that, but you should ask someone else and let me work in peace."

"But…"

"Enough," he said. "You're wasting my time here. I have better things to do than entertain a nosy southerner."

The farmer put his two hands on Div and En's shoulders, forced them to turn around, and shooed them away.

"Don't come back," he added as he returned to his broken hinge.

Div was somewhat disappointed. As he and En walked through the fields, observing varying concentrations of rot-attuned mana, he lamented the fact that he hadn't found a clear answer.

(He's a farmer, not a rot mage.)

Div shook himself from his thoughts. He had almost hoped for the man to reveal the secrets of the world to him. In his excitement, his expectations grew unreasonable.

Yet, even this short conversation gave him some perspective about rot. A clearer picture of the magic he was destined to wield was forming in his head.

A nascent thought, fleeting and unanchored.

A notion En rejected instantly.

A spark he would have to reflect on, to discuss with anyone who would listen.

Rot wasn't destruction, it was renewal.