Chapter 836: The Effect of Time

Eisen walked over to a shelf at the side of the room, grabbing the stack of papers that he had prepared. Usually, it would be tough making paper at a giant"s scale, at least it was when Eisen tried it before, but with the plants of the giants" country, it was a lot easier.

Their fibers were as ma.s.sive and strong as the plants they came from, so it wasn"t a surprise to Eisen that he could make something like this with surprising ease.

He brought the paper over to his workbench and quickly got started. He was going to make the traveler"s journal, and for the most part, it was going to be very simple.

The most time-consuming part about this would be actually writing everything down into the book, but Eisen already asked Evalia to write up the contents of the story, and she happily obliged and sent him something great that could be copied into the journal. Though it of course wasn"t just Evalia"s work.

The two of them had sat down together and worked out what the journal"s contents were supposed to be about. What parts Eisen wanted to have in there, and what sort of emotions the giant traveler should have throughout. After all, while Eisen was able to express his emotions, putting them to paper in a particular way wasn"t something he was really used to.

So Evalia simply took on the job of taking Eisen"s thoughts and turning them into something more tangible.

But for now, that book had to be ready for that in the first place. The old man got to work. He grouped some of the pages together to a good thickness, using some more beeswax-covered rope to first st.i.tch the pages of each bundle together, and then st.i.tching the bundles together as a whole.

Once enough pages were gathered together, Eisen grabbed a strip of thin cloth and placed it over the journal"s spine, carefully brus.h.i.+ng glue over it to attach everthing together.

A journal like this usually wouldn"t be a hardcover, so Eisen skipped the step that he usually did, not adding a layer of thicker paper or in this case maybe even wood, and just added another layer of cloth to the book"s exterior.

As the glue dried, the old man then got started with the leather book cover. He didn"t want it to look too similar to the backpack itself, so instead of giant ox leather, he used giant goat leather. It was a bit thinner as well, so it seemed like a better fit anyway.

This cover wasn"t going to be anything too special though; nothing but a protective outer sh.e.l.l for the journal. After Eisen cut the rectangle of leather out, and once the glue on the rest of the book had dried to some extent, the old man added the thin leather onto the journal, carefully folding the edges over into the inside of the pages.

To hide the edges of the leather, Eisen then added another piece of paper onto the back and front of the book, just a little bit thicker than a regular page, and then placed the book to the side to dry once again.

It didn"t take particularly long either; Eisen had some magic tools prepared that would speed the drying process up a bit, and so, he could quickly move on to the stage of actually finis.h.i.+ng it. The old man got out a particular magic tool.

He had already made something like this before at human scale, and then basically just copied it over into this size; a pen that was capable of writing things out on its own.

The problem with filling the journal with writing wasn"t that Eisen couldn"t do it himself, it would just take a while. The writing already wasn"t something that Eisen came up with himself, so he figured that using that pen to just transcribe Evalia"s writing was going to be both the easiest and fastest option, giving Eisen time to finish up some other items.

The old man connected the pen to the text that Evalia had sent to him through the message window, and without a moment"s hesitation, it got to work writing into the pages. The only thing that was needed now was for a duplicate hand to flip the page when the pen was ready to move on. He had the time to make all of the rest of the items.

The rations, clothes, knives, cutlery, everything that a traveler might need during their journeys. It took quite a while for him to finish everything, and he even had to go take a somewhat extended break since it was time for dinner with the others.

But by the time Eisen had finished all the other items, the journal had also been properly filled out, and he could get to work actually finis.h.i.+ng everything up. Eisen carefully placed the items into the giant backpack, in the same way that a traveler would.

With it in his hand, he then quickly opened up a door to one of the other floors; the first of the giant floors that was currently under construction.

Sigurd was already carefully curating all the plants everywhere, making sure that they would grow in the exact intended ways to give the ones coming into the dungeon a good experience in regard to the monsters that could appear here, as well as actually finding the exit.

The old man looked around, trying to find a good spot, pus.h.i.+ng his way through the trees that were quite narrowly grown together while he was in giant form. And once he found a spot with a bit more s.p.a.ce that seemed to be in a good location, Eisen grabbed the backpack and dropped it onto the ground.

And now, he was ready to get to work at making it appear as though this bag and its contents had been here for years and years already.

First things first, Eisen got out a small magic tool that he made specifically for this, using magic that would allow him to rust metal faster. He held it over all the buckles and made them rust deeply, and then, he flicked the buckle for the backpack"s main flap with his finger. With his strength, it was easy to snap the weak, rusted piece of metal.

The flap flung open and the backpack"s contents spilled out. Eisen reduced his size and started pulling at the contents, trying to spread everything around a lot. Later, he would have some of the floor"s monsters run over everything here to add some footprints and traces of animals onto it, but for now this was enough. Eisen propped up everything as well as he could, curating the scene properly.

One of the only things left behind inside of the actual backpack was the journal; Eisen wanted curious people to be able to read a bit about the undead giant they were going to fight at the end of the five floors, giving some context about the situation as well as quite a few hints about what they could expect from the next few floors, including hints about the tactics that the giant was likely to employ during the fight.

That was why the journal couldn"t be quite as weathered and destroyed as the other items, and Eisen figured that placing it inside of the protective confines of the backpack would be reasonable enough for that.

Once the items had been put into their proper positions, Eisen got started on destroying everything. First, he took out Bai, and with their knife form, was able to cut grooves and notches all over the backpack.

Eisen tried to make it look like different sort of things; for one, attacks from monsters or other people that sc.r.a.ped by the backpack while the traveler was still alive, giving it that sort of wear to begin with, as well as traces from the animals, bugs, and monsters that came by after the backpack had been abandoned.

Of course, it wasn"t the easiest thing in the world. Jyuuk might have to come by later and change a few things around to make it a bit more realistic, but for now, Eisen was rather satisfied. The next thing he did after scuffing up the backpack was tearing into the clothes, opening the packages for the rations, and pulling the cork from one of the potion bottles.

As the potion poured out over some of the contents of the backpack, Eisen smashed a large hole into the other potion bottle and cracked the potion vials too. Before long, the liquids all settled on the ground, and Eisen felt ready to get started with the final step of this all.

He walked around the area and placed some spikes into the ground in a circle around all the items. These were part of a larger magic item created with Jyuuk"s element, which allowed him to basically accelerate natural processes like growth, but also rot.

It was basically the perfect thing for a situation like this, where Eisen needed to make these items appear as though they were deeply affected by time. The spikes themselves were a magic item that would create a barrier in the area they contained, having all of it be affected by Jyuuk"s magic.

Once everything had been set up, Eisen poured his mana into one of the spikes, activating the barrier. And nearly immediately, a foul, pungent smell filled Eisen"s nose. The food and the potions were all rotting nearly instantly. The backpack was drying out, and even parts of the leather were breaking down, though overall keeping its shape.

Before long, it had gotten past the stage where it smelled bad, and Eisen could relax a bit.

He watched as plants grew around the backpack, moss climbing up its side, while special herbs grew with the help of the potions as fertilizer. Time had now truly taken these items over.