Chương 49: 1-48 Slippery slopes

"No, no," Josef was hissed at by Pretzel when he once again failed to get a proper water bullet going.

"You should just form it from the stomach up, like I do" To make a point, she immediately built up water inside herself, aimed at an unfortunate Rachse, and fired a wet projectile from her open mouth. The projectile struck with practiced precision, hitting with enough force to pancake the creature. Unfortunately, it wasn't like he could do the same, differences in biology be damned. At least that wasn't an actual requirement, as he had figured out from questioning her about the progress.

He wiped the water from his latest failure from his face before sighing.

"You know I can't do that. Unlike some lucky snake, I have to do it the hard way." Pretzel huffed at that, but didn't refute his statement either. Not that she didn't want to, he knew she did, but because she was unwilling to take another trip to the 'timeout corner', as Josef had dubbed the place where dismissed familiars go.

Just a little while ago, after wagging her tongue with a bit too much sass during her mentoring, he had sent her away, deciding he'd rather test out that ominous mana penalty from his latest feat instead of listening to another description on how shaping water bullets is like regurgitating a well-digested meal. How did she even know that? She was less than a day old and had no physical need for food!

The moment she disappeared, turning back into a vague feeling in his chest, his mana actually increased by a small amount. Turns out there had always been a downside to having a multitude of familiars active, but he had never been in a position to notice. Not that it really mattered with how much of the resource he already had, but it was a neat thing to know and had him ponder the connection between him and his familiars.

Now more than ever, thanks to his recent increase in affinity, he could feel the bond they shared. It wasn't something so simple as the magical line he had first thought of, nor did it hold any immediate power over the other side, as a leash would have. Their connection was more like a thin stream of consciousness, thoughts broken down into the smallest possible pieces. It held impressions and intentions, possibly more.

And somehow either side could correctly parse these fragments into words, emotions, and even strategies. It was a weird thing, not quite like discovering an unknown part of himself as he had when accessing his mana, but still similar enough to remind him. If he had to pick a comparison, it would be like going about your day and realizing you were only using four fingers because your pinky had fallen asleep.

Josef had now entered that prickly wake-up phase, where he could tell what's there, but it was weird and uncomfortable. However, those sensations were clear enough to tell him that what Pretzel did was not merely an act of throwing up water with lots of pressure, but something a lot more sophisticated that felt more natural to her than it had any right to be. Her insides appeared to be pretty much exclusively water, which ultimately created a flexible cylinder shape.

At the bottom of which she created an orb of different water, which then accelerated rapidly on its way up and out. It was like a launcher, which she could repeatedly reload as long as there was enough mana available. The problem was the actual mechanics behind the launch, though, which Josef was struggling to understand. It acted neither like the barrel of a cannon nor like a rail, as there were no explosive forces or rapidly moving parts involved. When the orb touched the cylinder, it simply ascended through it.

It had taken Josef a while to understand the principle behind it, but had recently locked onto a main suspect, buoyancy. Somehow he had to create water that was much lighter than the initial launch tube, and the interaction between them would cause rapid acceleration. Unfortunately, he wasn't exactly a physics genius, and the parts that he knew just made the whole act seem like an impossibility.

If the orb were of a super low density, then it shouldn't be doing any damage on impact, not with the amount of speed currently involved. But if the cylinder was extremely dense, then Pretzel's body shouldn't be light enough to continue hitching a ride on him. The entire process was barely noticeable beyond some obvious muscle movement, even though she had wrapped tightly around him.

Even if it weren't for those realizations, he would have given up on the route of creating superdense water, because the mana cost was utterly ridiculous and didn't lend itself to extensive experiments. Any magical construct he put together with that idea also tended to destabilize immediately and spray water everywhere. Which might be the reason the others had confined him to the back of the group.

Or maybe he had chosen that exile out of an intrinsic survival instinct, after Linda gave him a murderous glare when she had caught some of the fallout from his earlier attempts.

"Fine, I've got one more idea to try. If that doesn't work, then I'll just throw mana at you until you get sick of vomiting water." Josef decided, poking the indignant snake on the nose. What he needed to accomplish wasn't a physical change to the water he created, but a conceptual one. It was only from the descriptions of his Water Prison line of spells that he had an inkling of what that was.

He had noticed long before how that magic drowned any creature inside of it much faster, and fixated targets more easily than it should be capable of. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. And how was he supposed to infuse a concept into his spell? Well, it certainly wasn't an academic endeavor, or Pretzel wouldn't have succeeded without trying.

He himself might not even have managed it with his first water spell, if that was a requirement, as he couldn't recall anything beyond basic physics. His memory issues weren't even to blame for that one, but his own lack of academic effort in that subject was. Instead, Josef opted to go for imagination and vivid imagery. What he needed was a stretch of any old water, and a sphere that had very high buoyancy, then shove the latter into the former and hope for the best.

This quickly presented him with the first issue after he had finished creating a ball of water and stretching it, first into an oval, then into a rough cylinder shape. How was he supposed to add another sphere when he was already maintaining his launchpad?

"Damn cheating snakes and their unrealistic body standards." He grumbled under his breath before absorbing his experiment with Mana Drain. Waste not, want not. If he wanted to pull this off, he would need a column of water that wasn't actively maintained by his mind. Fortunately, he could think of just the thing to do. Instead of forming a spell, he redirected his reacquired water mana into his arm and accumulated more of it until he had filled his arm to the brim with it.

There, wasn't this practically a cylinder as well? Now came the awkward part, picturing buoyant images and convincing his magic that this was absolutely the way it should act. On top of that, he had to condense the magical orb inside his body, something he hadn't really practiced before. Good thing he had a healer standing by in case anything went wrong with that. Calling on his mana, Josef put the most floaty thoughts he could muster into his mind.

A piece of Styrofoam that shot out of his bathtub after a silly experiment he did as a kid. Lifeboats floating on top of a stormy sea. A buoy out on the ocean. Josef couldn't fully stifle his laughter.

"A buoyant buoy bouncing buoyantly." As if he had just recited ancient magic words, his magic reached a critical threshold as the growing sphere intersected with the mana in his arm. The result was quick, dramatic, and wet, as the orb shot through his upper arm and out of his bent elbow. If only he had remembered to stretch his arm out fully beforehand, then maybe he would have had some say about where it flew off to.

Unfortunately, he didn't, so his newest projectile promptly veered away to the side, impacted the wall with enough force to crack the bricks, and sprayed water all over a certain elven lady who was standing a little too close to the splash zone. Sometimes, when survival hinges on but a single decision that had to be taken within a fraction of a second, humans tend to make dumb mistakes. Like trying to point fingers at his own familiar to shift the blame.

Pretzel, in turn, quickly pointed her tail at the silent bunny on her summoner's shoulder, continuing the chain. It was in these decisive seconds, when morale collapsed under the threat to their survival, that everything went belly up. Dusty simply absolved himself of all scrutiny by vanishing into thin air. In response, the desperate serpent dived into Josef's chest, unsummoning herself on the spot.

He had no idea she could do that, and there was no time to marvel as disaster approached fast in the shape of a seething elven knight.

"I'm very sorry, really didn't mean to do that." He placatingly raised his hands, hoping the gesture would ward her off. It didn't.

"Now listen here, you uncouth mongrel. I am hungry, my feet hurt, and I want to go home and sleep in my bed. I want to drink tea with my aunty and spend a whole day soaking in a hot bath. What I don't need are any of your stupid antics. All of that laughing, joking and fooling around you lot do all the time, even though we are in mortal danger. Have you no sense of decency, modesty, or decorum?"

When she snapped at him, her words quickly made it clear that she wasn't upset about getting sprayed by the water per se, but about the situation as a whole. That didn't surprise him, as everyone could clearly see her trudging along unhappily, with even the armor unable to mask her emotions. It was not as if Josef didn't understand where she was coming from, since his own living standard on Earth would probably compare favourably to that of a noble in this world.

He missed all of those things, except drinking plant water, and the others probably felt much the same. This adventure wasn't the fun kind, but a brutal necessity, and they were all handling it in their own way. Josef didn't quite understand why he responded the way he did, but something about that entitled girl irked him something fierce. Maybe it was his own frustrations boiling over, or a prideful dragon instinct flaring up.

"I don't know about a hot bath, but I can certainly give you the hosing down you need." He practically snarled at her. Dodging the fist that came his way was about as easy as he had come to expect from her fighting style. Slow but powerful swings that missed more often than not. In spite of whatever combat training she must have received, she was by far the worst fighter in their group. It was almost too easy to weave around her assault, slowly stepping back as if they were engaged in an awkward dance.

Aifreed was attempting to soothe her from the sidelines, while Bezzo just shook his head as Zippa cheered them on. Did that guy think this was a tavern brawl or something? He probably did, considering he just tried to start betting with his brother. Unfortunately for everyone involved, this awkward situation was not resolved by a knight's calming words or Linda getting too tired to continue. It wasn't even because she finally knocked him out, which would still have been an improvement over reality.

Instead, it was the unmistakable click of a trap one of them must have stepped on. With a shudder, the ground gave way to a tilt. This one didn't send them towards the stinking sludge in the channel, but towards a hidden hole right underneath, which stretched into a deep darkness below. Neither of the two could make it out in time, as they were right in the middle of the tilting slab. Aifreed tried valiantly to make a grab for his esteemed lady, but he fell a couple of steps short of reaching them.

Zippa's surprised shout was the loudest, but the sound alone reached them, as both brothers were even further away than the old knight. The only positive Josef saw was that there weren't any spikes or other dangers right below them, so this was most likely just a hole leading down to a deeper floor. They had only made it to the 18th floor so far, so going down a level was uncomfortable but manageable, forcing them to hold out until the others had caught up.

Surely, this trap couldn't lead all the way down to the boss room, right?