I Became a Spirit
I had lived my entire life surrounded by ridicule and contempt. Everyone told me magic didn't exist in this world, that my research was nothing more than the deranged delusion of a madman. Yet, after spending half my life cooped up inside this laboratory, I had finally found it—the undeniable existence of true magic, capable of upending the very laws of reality. Resting in the palm of my hand was this synthesized substance: the Mana Cube.
Tomorrow, I was scheduled to unveil it to the world and secure official investment. My heart thudded against my ribs with soaring anticipation. Finally, both my work and I would see the light of day. An era where humanity wielded genuine magic was about to dawn.
"The world will run on magic, and I'll go down in history as the very first mage... At the very least, I'll never have to worry about money again."
Crash!
In that fleeting breath, the lab window shattered with an ear-splitting screech of fracturing glass. Shards sprayed in every direction as a man breached the room. Something about him was fundamentally unnatural—tendrils of purple energy billowed around his silhouette like a shimmering heat haze.
That reaction... it's just like the Mana Cube I synthesized...?
"Who the hell are you?!"
I shouted, but the intruder didn't utter a word. With dead, expressionless eyes, he simply extended a hand toward me. A visceral chill crawled up my spine, screaming danger. Without a second thought, I threw myself beneath the desk.
Swish!
Something sharp and invisible whipped past, grazing the tips of my hair.
Shatter!
Behind me, rows of flasks lined up on the shelves exploded simultaneously, spraying chemicals across the floor. Crazy bastard... I could actually die here!
"Wait, hold on! Calm down and talk to me—!"
Before the words could fully leave my mouth, the man thrust his palm forward once more. He had zero intention of negotiating. Gritting my teeth, I kicked off the floor and sprinted blindly. Explosions detonated in rapid succession behind me as his onslaught pulverized the laboratory furniture to splinters.
Think... I have to think of something...!
Glancing over my shoulder as I fled, the blood in my veins turned to ice. While pretending to target me, the man was subtly closing the distance toward the glass pillar where the Mana Cube rested. His objective had been my life's work from the very beginning.
I couldn't let him have it. Not in a million years.
"Die, you son of a bitch!"
Roaring at the top of my lungs, I grabbed a chunk of metallic sodium from the nearby reagent cabinet and hurled it with all my might, shattering the glass column containing the Mana Cube. The aqueous solution inside cascaded onto the floor, and the instant the sodium made contact with the water, a violent chemical reaction ignited.
KABOOM!
A thunderous explosion tore through the room, engulfing our surroundings in flames and choking smoke. I gasped for air in the sweltering, suffocating heat.
...Did it get him?
Swallowing hard, I strained my eyes through the thinning smoke.
"Damn it."
Rising from the haze, the man was dusting himself off, completely unscathed.
If I leave things like this, he'll take everything. If that's how it is, then I'd rather—!
Risking life and limb, I threw myself toward the Mana Cube. The man caught on to my intention and reached out, but his boots slipped on the water pooled across the floor, sending him tumbling. In that fraction of a second, my fingertips grazed the Mana Cube.
"Aaargh!"
My vision was consumed by a blinding violet radiance. As an agony that felt like my brain was being incinerated tore through me, my consciousness snapped into darkness.
When I opened my eyes, a crushing weight bore down on me. I had been buried beneath the concrete rubble of the collapsed building. I strained with all my might to move, but I couldn't twitch so much as a finger. Even when I tried to lift an arm, the sensation of having limbs didn't exist at all.
What's happening... Wait... I can't even speak! What is this? What the hell happened to me?!
Dread seized my heart when not even a whimper escaped my throat. Am I going to die like this? So pointlessly?
...
No, don't give up yet. A rescue team might clear the debris quickly. I told my girlfriend I was stopping by the lab today... She'll tell the police that I might be trapped under the building.
Clinging to hope, I forced myself to stay calm. Whether the Mana Cube was lying somewhere nearby or not, the cramped space around me glowed with a faint violet luminescence.
That evening, the distant patter of rain drifted down from above. Filtering through the fissures in the collapsed rubble, rainwater began to pool on the ground directly before me. I strained my vision, attempting to glimpse my reflection in the water's surface. Yet no matter where I looked across the puddle, my face was nowhere to be seen.
There was nothing. Nothing except a single, small violet cube reflected plainly in the stagnant water.
...!
It was the Mana Cube. I had lost my human body and become the Mana Cube itself.
This... this can't be real. None of my research ever suggested the Mana Cube possessed a function like this...!
Only after wrestling with this incomprehensible reality for what felt like an eternity did the truth fully sink in.
Ha... So that's why I couldn't move. But if I'm like this, even if people clear away all the rubble, there's no way they'll ever find me...
The next day arrived. Oddly enough, I felt no hunger. Without a human body, the entire mechanism by which I sustained energy must have transformed. Haah... Are they still not clearing the debris...?
Several days passed. From the outside, heavy vibrations echoed like the concussive boom of artillery fire. Are they finally trying to excavate the site? Is the rubble too dense, so they're using controlled demolitions?
A month slipped by.
It's taking quite a while. Am I buried too deep at the very bottom?
Countless days trickled away until counting them lost all meaning.
Has it been... about a year? Did they just declare me dead and abandon the site because clearing the wreckage cost too much?
Pathetic, miserable thoughts chased each other in an endless spiral. I miss Mom... Is my girlfriend doing well? She's probably met someone else by now and forgotten all about me.
From then on, unfathomable, immeasurable time flowed past. At some point, the Mana Cube and my brain—or rather, my consciousness—seemed to fuse completely. Bizarre glyphs and intricate geometric formulas I had never seen before began tracing themselves spontaneously inside my mind.
Just as birds never need lessons to beat their wings, and fish instinctively know how to swim, I absorbed and comprehended those grotesque formulas and arcane patterns without the slightest resistance. In time, my sole pastime to stave off the crushing boredom became devising complex magical formulas in my head and solving them through mental arithmetic.
Hmm... Magical formulas share quite a lot of common ground with modern mathematics.
When I converted them into higher-order functions, there were stages where the calculations resolved far more rapidly. It was on one such ordinary day, while I was untangling a magical formula woven out of differential equations, that it happened.
Thud!
With a heavy groan, the colossal slab of concrete that had shielded my head for decades fractured and tumbled aside.
...!
It was light. Dazzling sunlight, unseen for years—no, for decades. The light of freedom. After enduring ages of relentless weathering and erosion, the outside world had finally begun to expose itself. I had no eyes from which tears could fall, yet a searing surge of emotion welled within my chest.
Yet decades, perhaps even centuries more, marched on after that.
I have no sense of how much time has passed anymore.
Most of the wreckage that had once pinned me down had dissolved into nothingness. But the world was no longer the one I remembered. The entire region was utterly desolate, as if not a single living soul inhabited it. High-rise buildings had collapsed into ruins, and thick moss and tangled vines choked the concrete skeletons. It looked like a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Hmm. I'm bored. Should I count to 256 million seconds this time?
Just as I was trying to kill time with idle thoughts, a rustling sound caught my attention from the distance.
...Shit... Another cockroach? Even after humanity goes extinct, those damn vermin stubbornly cling to life. They breed without end.
Yet as the sound drew nearer, something felt different. It was dull, rhythmic, and heavy. The realization struck me like lightning.
Step... step... step...
This... it's a person!
There was no mistaking it—those were human footsteps. Crunch, crunch. The footsteps shattering the silence drew steadily closer.
Please look over here! Look this way!!
I screamed until my nonexistent throat felt ready to tear, but not a whisper carried into the air.
Emerging from between the rubble was a woman with short hair and eyes as red as fresh blood. She walked slowly toward my location.
Oh... oh... just a little more...!
Yet her steady footsteps carried her right past me.
Ah...
A suffocating despair crashed over me in an instant. Was I doomed to rot alone in this solitude for years, decades, centuries more? But after taking just a few more paces, she paused and turned around.
"Huh...? What's that? Why do I feel a trace of mana coming from over there?"
Approaching cautiously on edge, she reached down and picked me up from the dirt where I lay. Murmuring, "What is this?" she narrowed her eyes and began examining me closely.
Ah... the feeling of being touched. How long had it been since I last felt human warmth? The gentle, tender touch nearly brought me to tears all over again.
"Could this be... a Spirit...?"
Just as she tilted her head in bewilderment—
Rumble!
From behind the ruined building, a creature far too colossal and grotesque to be called a bear lumbered into view. It was a monster whose entire physique was built of repulsive, knotted mounds of muscle.
Wh-What the hell is that...?! In all the centuries I've existed, I've never seen anything like it!
Panicking internally, I screamed at the woman to run, but my voice couldn't reach her.
Crack!
With the sickening crunch of breaking bones, the woman and I were hurled into the air before tumbling violently across the dirt. She had taken a direct hit from the beast's club-like foreleg.
"Ah... ah..."
Blood dripped from her brow, staining her pale face crimson. Her red pupils trembled violently with terror.
"Why would an Ursus... be in a place like this...?"
With a shuddering voice, she chanted an incantation.
"Feles!"
With a crackling whoosh, a cat wrought of pure fire leapt from her fingertips.
It pounced with nimble agility toward the bear, but the monster casually brought its massive paw down, crushing the flame cat into the earth.
"Kyaaaaooo!"
Its will to fight thoroughly broken, the pinned cat struggled to scramble to its feet and flee.
SLAM!
The monster stomped the fleeing familiar once more.
"Ky... aaah..."
SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! SLAM!
Again and again, the beast crushed the cat beneath its weight every time it tried to rise. With each lift of the paw, the flame feline grew dimmer, its form flickering and waning.
THUD!
With one final brutal stomp, the creature flattened the cat as if pressing it in a rice cracker mold. Dissolving into wisps of fading light, the cat dispersed into nothingness.
"N-No... please, no..." the woman cried, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
Charging with terrifying speed that defied its colossal bulk, the monster slammed directly into the woman's torso. She and I were hurled sideways, crashing hard into a reinforced concrete wall.
"Haa... haah... cough!"
Faint, ragged breaths rattled in her throat. Coughing up blood, sheer desperation burned in her fading gaze.
"Ah... should I... give it a try...?"
Raising a trembling hand, she began tracing a small magic circle aimed toward me. In the distance, the monster let out an ear-splitting roar, charging in to deliver the finishing blow.
I don't know what you're trying to do, but you'd better do it damn fast...!
At that moment, a brilliant violet light erupted from across my entire body—from the Mana Cube itself.
Ah... this light... just like hundreds of years ago...
BOOM!
When the violent gale of radiance flared and subsided, I was standing there.
Not as a Mana Cube, but in my original form—the exact appearance I had possessed when I was human. The only difference was that my entire body was now sculpted from dense blue smoke and violet mana.
An overwhelming surge of mana roiled madly within me. The formulas I had spent centuries unraveling in my mind ignited along every vessel of my ethereal frame. Instinctively, I knew what had to be done.
Drawing in a deep breath, I exhaled forcefully toward the charging monster.
FHHHHOOOOOOOO—!
The vapor of magical energy composing my body erupted in a howling tempest, flooding the entire expanse. Caught in that overwhelming storm, the grotesque bear monster couldn't even manage a whimper before it dissolved into nothingness, melted away without leaving a trace.