Purity in the Maze (2)
"Do spirits die if you cut their necks off too?"
"Hiiik...!"
Benny’s whole body shivered as she let out a muffled moan. Hey, don’t whisper stuff like that right in my ear. It’s doing weird things to me.
When I stared at her in blank disbelief without saying a word, she shook her head frantically as if making an excuse.
"N-no! It’s not like that…!"
"Benny. Do you really have to be like this right before a fight?"
"I’m just really ticklish, okay?!"
"Sigh. This is exactly why they say women are hopeless. All you ever have in your heads is dirty stuff from morning till night."
"I told you it’s not like that! I just have sensitive skin! W-want to touch my side? You’ll see it feels exactly the same!"
Benny demonstrated an unnecessarily impressive technique—shouting in a hushed voice so the spirit wouldn’t hear. She twisted her body sideways and thrust her flank toward me. Maybe she bent too far, because the dress clinging to her skin faintly outlined the curve of her ribs.
"Oh…"
I’ve always held one firm belief. Flat-chested heroines need beautiful rib lines…! In that sense, Benny passed with flying colors.
To stamp my seal of approval, I reached toward her side.
Swish.
"Hii?!"
Benny flinched violently even though I’d barely brushed her. I carefully ran my fingertips upward along the line of her flank.
"Huu… ahh!"
She trembled, letting out sounds that could definitely be taken the wrong way. I finished by lightly tapping her ribs like piano keys before dropping my hand. Any more and we’d get spotted before the fight even started.
"So you really are just extremely ticklish, Benny."
"S-see? Then let’s focus on the battle…"
"But I can’t help wondering if that whole explanation was just an excuse to get me to touch your side…"
"You little…!"
"…Well, I’m sure you’d never do something like that, Benny. Anyway, do spirits die if you cut their necks off?"
I was going to tease her a bit more but changed course. If I pushed any further she’d probably get genuinely angry. Benny, who had been puffing her cheeks and grinding her teeth, finally calmed down and let her shoulders slump.
"Haah… I told you not to mess around in the labyrinth. We’re not here to play. As for spirits, their vital points are a bit different from other creatures. Some might die from a severed neck, but…"
"Their true weak point is somewhere else, right?"
"Yeah. Exactly."
When I designed the setting for my novel, I tended to keep things as loose as possible. The same went for spirits. I only thought about how they were born, how strong they were, and whether they could be fucked or not. I’d never considered their weaknesses.
Well, there was one thing. Fire spirits and water spirits were fatal to each other, lightning spirits couldn’t do much damage to earth spirits, that sort of thing. I had at least worked out the elemental matchups.
Completely useless information in this situation, though. Earth spirits had terrible offensive power but their defense and endurance were top-tier. That was also why, among the elemental gods, only the Earth God had survived until the end.
I waited with sparkling eyes for Benny to continue. Maybe my stare was too intense, because she leaned back slightly and spoke in a reluctant voice.
"Normally a spirit’s weakness is its opposing attribute. But earth spirits don’t really have an opposite, so you just have to keep smashing them until they break."
"What the…"
Now I understood how it survived the war. Benny chuckled at my dumbfounded expression and added,
"But the one we’re facing isn’t a normal spirit. It’s a corrupted one, right? Then the answer is really simple."
"Ooh! What is it?"
"The core."
"???"
"The magic stone, I mean."
"Ah."
The magic stone was both the anchor that kept monsters trapped in this labyrinth and the pin that preserved them in their own time. Because they were bound to the stone, monsters couldn’t leave the labyrinth, and even if they died they could keep resurrecting. In other words, if a monster’s core was destroyed or removed from its body, it would be severed from the current timeline and vanish into the storm of time and space.
Just like how pulling a magic stone out of a corpse made the body disappear. Well, it didn’t completely cease to exist—it would just respawn in the labyrinth of some other timeline. The important part was that destroying the magic stone made the entire monster disappear. That was the one thing you needed to remember.
"Just to be sure, if I hunt it by destroying the core, what kind of byproducts will I get?"
"None? If I had to name something, maybe the mineral ores that thing is clutching so dearly."
"……"
Mineral ores would definitely sell for money. But still, no byproducts was just too sad. Benny patted my drooping shoulders and continued.
"Don’t worry about it too much. Elementals never drop decent byproducts besides their elemental stones anyway. And elemental stones are…"
"Worthless."
"Exactly. So don’t feel bad about it—just slice and dice the thing!"
There were quite a lot of elementals in this world. The fact that every elemental god except the Earth God had died during the War of the Fallen Gods—what did that tell you? It meant they had fought that fiercely. Naturally they left behind many traces, and countless elementals were born from their corpses.
Beings that were once rare in ancient times had become so common in the current era that they could form entire nations like any other race. That didn’t mean they had become a familiar species, though. Due to their nature, they rarely left their own territories unless they formed a contract. On top of that, their power and intelligence were directly proportional, they needed to spend time in their territory to grow stronger but there were too many of them and not enough space, their lifespans were so long that only long-lived races like elves could form proper contracts, and as incarnations of nature they simply preferred to stay in one place. For all those reasons, they remained a rare sight both then and now.
"Whew. Got it. I’ll head out now."
"Yeah. If it looks dangerous I’ll step in."
-Krr.
Shadow poked just his eyes out in response to Benny’s words. I turned off the lantern hanging at my waist and brought my entire body under my senses. For a moment it felt like the world itself was sliding past me. I controlled every single movement as if separated by an invisible wall, suppressing my presence to the extreme.
Sound-Eating Steps
On top of that I activated the transparent cloak as well. Unlike kobolds, the corrupted earth spirit’s vision hadn’t degenerated.
The dark cavern had only the faint bluish moss growing on the walls for light. I crossed it as silently as a ghost. Even though I was clearly running, not a single footstep could be heard. There wasn’t even the slightest clink when I climbed over piles of raw ore.
Of course I was moving carefully to make it that way, but the result was still impressive. I grinned, raised the Unicorn Dagger, and stabbed it into the back of the corrupted earth spirit that was sitting there in a daze.
And then—
"H-human."
The creature’s head spun 180 degrees to look behind it and spoke in a clumsy voice.
"What?!"
I was so startled I accidentally made a sound and my stealth broke, but… it was fine. My hand never stopped.
The fastest thrust I could currently perform. A strike so quick even my own eyes struggled to follow shot toward the corrupted earth spirit’s chest. It didn’t have a heart, but the magic stone was probably in the place where a heart would be, so it made no difference.
The moment the pure white glowing dagger touched the corrupted earth spirit’s back—
"Intruder… thief!"
Suddenly the earth on its back bulged upward. Exactly at the point where my dagger made contact.
Thud!
The blade sank all the way in, but the extra layer of earth stopped it before it could reach the magic stone.
"Tsk."
I had no idea how I’d been detected, but the ambush had failed. I’d have to pull back, chip away at it carefully, and look for an opening to destroy the core. I clicked my tongue and roughly yanked out the embedded dagger. The earth tried to clamp down on the blade, but I sliced straight through it and pulled the weapon free. The instant I leaped backward—
"Do-do-do! Dooooo…!"
"???"
The corrupted earth spirit began glitching like a broken program, twisting its body like a pretzel. Then, not long after, it collapsed on its own, leaving behind a single lonely magic stone.
"Huh?"
It was ridiculous, but at the same time the sight felt strangely familiar.
"Hobgoblin?"
It was the same reaction the hobgoblins had shown—suffering as if poisoned by the non-virgin critical effect after being grazed by the dagger, then dying. Who on earth had “stabbed” this stubby, vaguely human-shaped thing? Or rather, maybe it had been the one getting stabbed. I shuddered at the knowledge I didn’t want to think about, abandoned even the magic stone, and ran back to Benny.
"Benny!!!"
"Eh?! W-what is it?!"
"Benny! Bennybenny! Bennininiit!"
"It’s kind of cute but at least say my name properly!"
Benny’s reaction made it impossible to tell whether she liked it or hated it. I thrust the Unicorn Dagger toward her.
"Yap!"
The flat of the blade touched her forearm. The dagger glowed with a brilliant pure white light.
Purity Detected
The blade emits a brilliant pure white light, confirming the presence of an untouched virgin.
"Phew."
Only then did my heart feel a little lighter.