Chapter 258 - Super Ears

The needle universe of Purpureus Mundi was small, it was tiny even, considering that it was technically a universe with its own, special borders, but when one explored its lands on foot, it looked a lot bigger to the common observer. The dense forest, which was difficult to walk through without experiencing tens of cuts, made the surface of the universe seem all the more larger!

The team didn’t have a great time exploring it, especially since they had taken the position of a pack mule throughout the first couple of hours of their foraging session. It wasn’t an easy trip, but thankfully, they were very close to collecting all of the ingredients on Ortana’s list, and afterwards, they could try and make some good mana potions with them. They started feeling quite enthusiastic!

Ten minutes later, however, they saw something that put them right out of their stride. The team locked eyes with three, short dwarves, and they didn’t know how to feel about it, as this was quite unexpected!

“What the fuck…” Tim grunted, “How the hell did you get in here?”

“I could ask you the same question,” One of the three-foot tall dwarves asked, “We’re supposed to be here, our hair vouches for it. Look at our beards!”

Although this one particular dwarf was intense, Timothy wasn’t intimidated. He had met dwarves before, and got along with them quite well, so he figured that his charm transferred on other dwarves. Regarding their beards, they were as crimson-coated like everything else around here, which in a way could confirm some biological implications. Of course, they could also be lying.

“What if you guys are just gingers? I saw gingers before, and they were nowhere close to Mundi.” Gustav argued.

“Mundi…?” The dwarves mumbled, “Is that what you call the forest? We call it Grukuk, which in our language means Red Shit.”

“Your language? How do you understand us, then?” Tim asked, and he was certain that he’d be able to catch them lying here.

Skendus was of course very helpful as well, because he was reading through their minds. So far, he was quite frustrated that he couldn’t quite pinpoint if these dwarves were telling the truth or not. He couldn’t understand why he was struggling.

“We have good ears, very good. To us, most creatures speak the same. Bugs, dwarves, you guys, whatever you are, it’s all the same vocabulary, with different tones.” One of them answered.

“He’s telling the truth,” Skendus then finally confirmed, and sighed in irritation. “As weird as these guys are, I’m almost certain that they belong here. They don’t even know where they are, they think Purpureus Mundi is the forest, guys, in actuality, Mundi is our sky.”

Skendus hinted that these dwarves didn’t know what a universe was, and quite frankly, he did so because he didn’t want to melt their brains. He lied to their face, even, with little white lies. The astronomical sciences were oftentimes difficult to comprehend, unless someone sat down and thought about it for a couple of months, and these dwarves were absolutely clueless. His friends picked up on that hint, and acted accordingly.

“We live in a castle, and this is the first time our parents let us out. We live here as well, but sometimes weird creatures drop down from the sky, and we don’t know how to make it stop.” Tim added, as he tried to dumb down the concept of portals. White lies were never harmful, after all.

“Oh, our ancestors mentioned something about that, it’s weird. I’m Bindal, by the way, and these are my brothers, Bilus, and Tilan, and we live underground.” Bindal added, leaving the team’s mouth agape. “Anyway, do you need any help? I see you’re foraging, so you guys are alchemists, right? So are we, and we know how to find most plants!”

“Yes, we need to find three more types of plants, and then we can go back home.” Ortana said, and started listing out the items.

Timothy was still in a bit of shock. He was used to speaking with weird creatures, yes, but the environmental factors of this encounter stunned him. He wouldn’t have ever guessed that there was enough space here, underground for intelligent creatures to live in, it sounded unprecedented!

Furthermore, he did not like the fact that other, intelligent creatures lived here as well. He was under the perception that Mundi was his to keep, so he was quite nervous about the fact that a bunch of dwarves lived here, in this timeline! The thing was that if these dwarves were dangerous, he would have to eliminate them if he was to visit Mundi peacefully, which meant that he would have to kill their children as well, he had to be thorough, and he wasn’t looking forward to that! He had never killed a child before, not even the young fish, as it was not what he would enjoy doing.

“Let’s hope these bastards are as nice as they sound, I really hope that they are. I killed more conscious people in Mundi than what I’m comfortable with.” He thought.

The team, and the three dwarves searched for ingredients together, and unsurprisingly they made good progress. These dwarves had truly mastered the ability to properly maneuver across this forest, as they didn’t even suffer a single cut! They belonged here.

During their foraging, Timothy couldn’t help asking them a couple of questions. He wanted to figure out what these dwarves, and their families were capable of.

“So… what kind of mana do you guys use? Calidum Mana, right?” He asked.

Bindal thought for a while, and then he answered. “Oh… Gukuk Mana? You have a weird way of saying it, but that’s what Calidum Mana translates to. It’s otherwise called Warm Mana, because we work with warm things, such as lava. We’re really good at messing with lava, and stone.”

“Well, that’s what I wanted to ask you about. Is there really a lot of lava, and stone for you guys to work with down there? This place looks awfully small, it can’t fit too many people in it.” He followed along.

Bindal squinted his eyes, confused, and said. “You’re mistaken, my friend. There’s a lot of stones below us, hundreds of meters deep too! We never even made it to the bottom, but the stone has been good to us so far, so we don’t go above our bounds, and respect it.”

Timothy was astounded by this fact. He instantly pictured the needle universe actually being shaped like a needle, rather than a boring flat land, and now he understood why it was called a needle universe to begin with. Metaphorically, it didn’t just feature the tip of a needle, but rather the whole needle itself! One way or the other, these dwarves were aware of this, they had realized it a long time ago, even if they didn’t know the official name, or concept for it. In other words, they’re capable of helping the team in ways that had gone beyond his head earlier on!

“Well, I have to admit, you’ve mastered the elements around you quite thoroughly.” He said, “Maybe you can help me with a matter that has been bugging me, Bindal, I feel like you can? See, I’m looking for a certain root, but I’m not quite sure what it does, or what its name is. It’s a consumable root, it’s edible, and would help us become better mages, we found it in a book back home. Do you know which species of root I’m talking about?”