Swamped Chapter 150 Page 2

“Crawl… like a spider…” she says. Her mouth doesn’t actually move.

But, you can also see a faint shadow of a world where it is moving. This probably has to do with the time ether swirling around you.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t add much clarity to her words. Is it an instruction? A riddle of some kind? Or did she mean to warn you about something that crawls like a spider, but it didn’t come through properly?

Minnie seems to have settled on the “instruction” approach, since she’s crawling around the floor. Not doing a great job of it, as she’s just collided with your leg.

“Well, that didn’t help,” she says. “And I’m not even sure we know what we need for the pure wind. I’ve got a guess, but that’s it. Elliot didn’t really make it any clearer, either, since I haven’t figured out what number’s hiding here.”

“At least we’ve got enough mana root, thanks to Spade,” Badger says, dumping a good dozen or so roots on a table.

You hope that didn’t interfere with your diversion too much. The time magic entity can only make the problem here worse.

At the very least, the fact you have actual experience with ether allows you to essentially confirm Badger’s theory. You can’t quite see the forbidden ether, but you can understand that something very strange is there. And the folklore remedy he’s suggested makes sense in principle.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much else you can do. You could try taking some mana root, but you’re not sure if that would actually let you cast anything besides time magic. Or be of any help in dealing with the entity, which is the main reason you don’t want to risk any more time magic use.

But you do have one idea you can try that might help out.