Chapter 380: Paracelsus's Spirits (5)
Chapter 380: Paracelsus's Spirits (5)
“The real battle starts now!”
I shouted grandly, a mana-depleted Elisha and Iris tucked under each of my arms.
“Junior. Stop talking nonsense and start gathering samples.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The moment a dungeon is cleared, it collapses, and everything except what the conqueror is holding is swept away into the rifts between dimensions.
In other words, unless I wanted to go through the hassle of coming back, I had to rummage through the wreckage now.
I didn't really want to let go of the elf priestess’s soft belly, so I used telekinesis magic to search the surroundings instead.
The golems Elisha had neutralized should be around here somewhere….
“Ah, found them.”
In the middle of the debris-strewn ground, I saw something twitching.
It was two Golem Knights, their limbs frozen solid by Elisha’s magic.
One was a melee type equipped with the most common weapon, a saw-toothed sword, and the other was a long-range type with one arm modified into a cannon.
…In a way, they almost looked like robots.
I felt a brief surge of excitement, but thinking of the giant mecha—no, the giant golem—Fay was going to build for me, I obediently handed them over.
“Are these the ones, Senior Fay?”
“Yep! First, I need to make them behave. Now, where did I put the mana blocker…?”
Fay rummaged through her subspace pocket, but for some reason, she ended up pulling a long rod out from her cleavage.
She snapped it exactly in half and placed the pieces on the golems' chests. Their movements grew sluggish before they stopped entirely.
“Great! I’ll handle the dismantling later, so put them in your inventory for now! I’m going to go grab some monster samples in the meantime!”
“Do you need the monsters too?”
“The easiest way to build a giant golem is to study creatures that are already giant, right?”
“That makes sense. Then I’ll wake up Elisha and Iris while you do that.”
While Fay headed toward the monster corpses, her alchemy pouches jangling, I fed mana potions to the dazed Elisha and Iris.
As a bonus, I poured a bit of my own mana into them to jump-start their consciousness.
Before long, the two of them came to. I carefully set them down on the ground, and though they wobbled, they managed to stand on their own feet.
“Ugh. My head is spinning….”
“Master… the world is revolving… blegh.”
Well, they managed to stand, at least.
“We’re about to enter the workshop proper. What do you think? Can you keep fighting? Or should we take over from here?”
“I’ll stop here. I’ve tested my new magic sufficiently, anyway. …How did it look to you?”
“Do I even need to say it? It was the best.”
“Hehe. I thought so. Now that I’ve found the path, all that’s left is to run full speed ahead. I’ll catch up to you in no time, so look forward to it, okay?”
Elisha nodded with satisfaction even as she clutched her head.
It made sense. From Elisha, who was now using the Elemental Circle, I could feel an aura approaching that of a High Magician.
To begin with, the rank of High Magician is a realm where one defines and realizes their own unique magic.
Things like magic control, mana capacity, and mana purity are merely secondary factors.
Through the Elemental Circle, Elisha had provided her own answer to elemental magic. All that remained was for her to become more accustomed to it and deepen her understanding.
Once she accumulated enough proficiency, she would naturally ascend to the rank of High Magician.
As I nodded with a proud expression, Iris staggered over and lightly gripped my thigh.
“Master? What about me? Hmm? I think I was quite cool in my own way.”
“Of course you were cool. But… you know it too, right?”
“Mmm. Indeed. The problem is that I haven't fully organized it yet.”
That was likely why her new Elemental Burst looked like unshaped clay or merely mimicked the forms of existing magic.
Because it hadn't taken a clear shape within Iris, her magic couldn't form its own unique identity.
“Still, thanks to Master, I’ve caught the thread of it. I’d like to try a few more things if I could, but….”
“It’s tough, isn't it?”
“It’s been a while since I’ve suffered mana depletion, so it’s a bit taxing. I boldly asked you to leave the dungeon to me, but I suppose this is as far as I go.”
“It’s fine. I was starting to get an itch to move, anyway.”
“…As I thought, you can’t settle down unless you see blood at least once a day! You truly are a man like a demon sword!”
“What’s with that weird setting again?!”
Iris had been put through the wringer during the process of removing her slave imprint a while back. Perhaps out of a lingering grudge, she had recently taken to framing me as a battle maniac or a lecher.
While I silenced Iris by pressing down on the crown of her head with a smirk, Fay arrived, drenched in blood after having dismantled a suitable amount of parts from all the monsters.
“All done! Let’s go!”
“…Let me use Clean on you first.”
Since large monsters wouldn't fit in the inventory, she had dismantled them on the spot… but what on earth did she do to end up in such a state?
Only after returning Fay to her usual state—where it was hard to tell if she was clean or just disheveled—did I step into the cave.
Step.
When looking from the outside, it felt like an accidental fissure, so it didn't really feel like a cave.
But that feeling remained even after entering.
The passage was carved into a perfect square. It was an artificial construction, no matter how you looked at it. Even the material wasn't ordinary stone; it emitted a faint, soft glow of its own.
I canceled the Light spell I had prepared and led the way through the passage.
There were no battles here. It was as if the dungeon was claiming that overcoming the battlefield outside was the trial itself, and this was now the reward phase.
Well, I’m sure it was designed to look that way.
After walking for a long time, the passage finally ended, and a massive door appeared. It was impressive, but it didn't even have a locking mechanism.
In the outside world, where things change organically as people live their lives, it might be different, but this was a secluded dungeon.
That meant the scenery beyond this door would be exactly what I remembered.
“Whew….”
I gripped the Shining Lion Dagger in one hand and my staff in the other, steadying my breath.
Then, I kicked the door open.
Thud!
The door swung wide. However, what filled my vision wasn't the interior scenery, but a translucent woman weeping tears of blood.
—I wish you were all dead, I wish you were all dead, I wish you were all dead, I wish you were all dead….
The woman muttered gruesome things. It was a horror-movie-like presentation that had actually startled me back in H&A.
But there was no need to worry. This wasn't a ghost; it was a Spirit of Hatred.
In other words, it could be killed.
“Hup!”
I poured mana into the Shining Lion Dagger in my right hand and swung.
It was a basic blade of mana, a low-grade spell. I used no special techniques; I simply extended a blade of mana along the dagger.
However, for a spirit whose body was composed of energy without physical substance, it would be a blow sharper than anything else.
Even more so when that blade was forged by the powerful magic control unique to a High Magician and the output of a Dragon Heart.
Slice.
The head flew off without any resistance. True to its name as a Spirit of Hatred, it scowled fiercely, but that was the extent of its final struggle.
Static flickered, and the outlines of the severed body and head grew blurred. Finally, the Spirit of Hatred scattered into particles of light.
It was a rare sight to see a spirit perish in this day and age, but I didn't have the luxury of looking away.
The other incomplete spirits, having noticed my intrusion, were all staring in my direction.
There was a Spirit of Wrath in the shape of a half-melted wolf, a Spirit of Space that formed the shape of a boy out of cubic blocks as if made of pixels, and even a Spirit of Illusion that had already transformed into my likeness.
The artificial spirits scattered throughout the room intensified their spirit power with clear hostility.
Their reasoning was faint, but guarding against an uninvited guest in their home was an act close to instinct, so it was a natural reaction. However…
Bzzzt—
Perhaps because none of them were proper spirits, static flickered across their bodies whenever they tried to use their power, making them shake as if they would collapse at any moment.
Furthermore, although they were looking this way, their focus was off, leaving their eyes blurry.
Because of such incompleteness, these artificial spirits had lower combat power compared to the strength they possessed… but this time, they wouldn't even get a chance to use that strength.
That’s because I intended to sweep them away before they could do anything.
Vroom—
Was this the first real combat I’d experienced since obtaining the Dragon Heart?
Just as Elisha and Iris had earlier, I also needed a place to test what I had newly acquired.
Without even trying to hide the smirk that crept onto my lips, I uttered the activation words.
“[Starlight Rain!]”
Normally, this was a spell that devastated the area ahead with countless streaks of light falling like rain.
But the Dragon Heart would not allow such a simple application.
The split beams of light began to wriggle like living creatures, aiming directly at the artificial spirits baring their teeth.
It was the moment a simple wide-area destruction spell transformed into an annihilation spell where every single component homed in on a target.
Flash!
Like a predator swallowing its prey, my magic devoured the artificial spirits.
And that was it.
A single intermediate spell had wiped out every single one of those numerous artificial spirits.
“???”
What?
What the hell just happened…?