A Spirit's Dream
What are you aiming for?
Every spirit has a dream.
Even if that dream is something so simple—'sleeping well', 'being happy'—so humble it borders on laughable, every spirit nonetheless has a dream.
'I want to be like Her.'
The water spirit Io had a dream, too.
It went back to when she was very young—to the days when she would toddle along after the caretaker spirit who led her and watched over her like a nursemaid.
Spirits are born when the energy scattered across nature gathers in one place.
They are spiritual beings who come into existence naturally, not ones deliberately birthed by someone's will.
And so, for all intents and purposes, nature itself was a spirit's parent.
Young spirits, barely more than half-formed selves, follow their instincts to find a caretaker, and under that caretaker's guidance, they learn how to live in the world.
The caretaker taught Io about the world, then gave her a single commandment to engrave upon her heart.
'Never draw near the angels.'
Angels.
Agents and guardians of all light, masters of resplendent divinity, great and exalted beings.
Countless spirits had been drawn in by an angel's beautiful form, pulled by that same instinct—and like moths hurling themselves at a bonfire, they burned away to nothing.
The truth was, angels were not kind.
Angels found spirits tiresome, and never spared them so much as the glance one gives a pebble on the roadside.
So if you don't want to die, for heaven's sake, stop throwing yourselves at them.
...Even after saying all that, the caretaker sighed and added that even at this very moment, spirits were charging at angels and dying all across the world.
A spirit's fondness and fascination for angels was instinct, after all.
Telling them wouldn't stop it. Of course it wouldn't.
But you know what? I never believed it.
'Wandering about noisily again today, are we?'
Because there were kind angels too. Like Her.
'You... Io, was it. And you're Aisha. And you, Ruje.'
She remembered all of us.
Kind angels really did exist! I was sure of it!
'Why do I remember everything? Ah... a curse, it's a curse. Remembering it all, every last bit.'
A curse? What curse?
When the ice spirit Aisha asked that, the angel with sky-blue hair and blue eyes gave a wistful smile.
As though recalling something far away.
'Forgetting, you see... is a privilege every living thing ought to have. A wonderful, wonderful blessing that everyone should naturally possess.'
One I had lost.
The angel of that time was truly beautiful, truly mysterious—but Io could not understand those words.
Wouldn't it be better to keep everything? To never lose a single memory?
Why would forgetting be the greater blessing?
Because of that memory, She remembered Io, and Aisha, and Ruje—all of them—didn't She?
It was strange.
And perhaps that strangeness was exactly why it became her dream.
'Light.'
A spirit's self takes shape under the influence of its surroundings.
The young water spirit Io, swayed by the kind angel's influence, settled on a single dream.
I want to become like Her.
She labored endlessly to become light, and only after hundreds of years did she finally succeed in housing light within her own body.
She was overjoyed.
So overjoyed that she wanted to rush out and show Her this new form right away—but...
In this vast, wide world, finding one angel was harder than finding a needle in a desert. In the end, she never found Her.
She didn't even know if the angel still lived, or had long since perished.
And so Io remained at the place where the angel had always appeared, and waited.
She'll come back someday.
It had been a long while since She last came, but someday, surely... She would come back.
And so more time flowed past. So much of it.
And then—
“Well. I'd say that's pretty close.”
Ah.
At last.
“...? What the—this is insane?”
Leo tilted her head at the power flooding through her—several times stronger than any Spirit Descent she had ever performed.
The spirit that had always doled out its strength grudgingly was suddenly pouring it out without reserve?
'.....Hhk.'
“Hm?”
It almost sounded like something had caught in the spirit's throat.
“So you want to put a stop to that evil deed too, huh?”
Leo nodded solemnly and gathered the light energy around her. A graduate student? Please. That was beyond absurd.
Professor Lily's evil deeds had to be stopped.
“Here it comes!”
The hammer came swinging down.
Watching it again, the sheer, overwhelming force of it sent chills racing across her whole body. How was something like that even possible?
Leo slipped out of the attack's range by the narrowest of margins and drew out her sword of light.
A far smaller blade than the one she'd used against Raizaka.
Since her opponent was much smaller this time, an overly wide, overly long weapon would only be a liability.
Even so, it easily topped seven meters.
Light poured into the blade, and Leo's eyes bleached a searing white.
Light Sword — Formless Cleave
Crash!
Light drew a line through the world.
The razor-honed radiance cleaved through everything standing before it.
The hammer wasn't about to sit idle either, and moved with all its terrible strength.
BOOOOM!
“Kgh!”
In an instant, the shockwave of that colossal force shook the entire forest. It felt as if some invisible cataclysm had swallowed the woods whole.
Leo shook her rattling head side to side and scanned her surroundings.
“Where's Professor Lily?”
“Right here.”
'Oh no—!'
In the split second her attention had wavered, the hammer was already upon her. There was no blocking it.
Just before impact, Leo's lips moved in the briefest flutter.
SPLAT! Leo's body burst apart on the spot.
Any ordinary observer would have assumed it was long over. The destructive power was absolute. Without question, she was finished.
“...Revival?”
But her opponent was Leo.
One of the greatest players alive, armed with countless hidden pieces and abilities.
CRACK! Of the three bracelets on her wrist, one shattered.
The fragments of the bracelet clattered to the ground, and her body knit itself back together in a heartbeat.
Whew... Her eyes went calm and level as she steadied her breath.
“Three Days. Just like the name says—as long as the sun is up, I get to revive three times. And just so you know, this is a 'regenerative-type' item, so cooldown resets don't work on it. I won't be able to use it again this entire siege war, but...”
Something told her that if it wasn't now, she'd never get to fight on even footing.
With that, Leo drew out her staff.
Every condition, every circumstance was swinging in Leo's favor.
And there was Three Days' greatest gift of all.
'Penalties are temporarily suspended.'
Keep Professor Lily tied up right here... and then—
Strike the main base!
“Signal's in. Let's move in now.”
Fracion checked his necklace—it had shattered.
A syncing spell: when Leo's bracelet broke, his necklace broke with it. Crafted by a master of scrolls and alchemy, its shattering was the agreed-upon signal—Leo's word that they were to rush the Core immediately.
Iron slammed his gigantic fists together with a resounding CLANG! and steeled himself.
“Alright! Let's go!”
“Reinforce.”
FWOOSH! Iron's already monstrous body grew stronger still.
Trailing behind him came Dinosaurs Are Alive's summons.
Like yaksha fording a river, they charged across the water and made for the castle.
Ziiiing.
“Ziiiing?”
They crossed the river with all their might and reached the castle gates—only to be greeted not by people, not by soldiers, but by a magic circle.
A circle of searing crimson flame.
A moment later, a colossal explosion swallowed them whole.
“Ugh!”
But it was useless.
Iron's body was solid as a mountain—not something a mere burst of 'fire' could hope to dent.
Besides, the summons had been buffed by Leo and Fracion as well, making them stronger than ever.
Aside from a light scorching here and there, the army hadn't taken so much as a scratch.
“Yeah, that's more like it!”
It was Vlack and Lily who'd been monstrous—one-shotting summons like that. This was the normal result.
“What do you mean, 'more like it'!”
“Oh! Devil, is it!”
Devil came flying in, wreathed in billowing black flame. Iron grinned and met the incoming fist with a fist of his own.
GUUUNG...!
'So heavy!'
Devil gritted his teeth and drove his fist down again. Still heavy.
There was no way the gap between them should be this wide.
Devil was an offensive-leaning tank. Iron was a tank built entirely around defense.
Their rankings and skill levels were practically neck and neck—but right now, every single factor favored Iron enormously.
'But I can't let my offense fall behind either!'
Ddguk...!
Power forced its way in.
The half-baked power of the dragon made Devil's heart pound harder, faster.
“Oh-ho.”
Little by little, Iron's feet slid backward.
He let out a low chuckle and clenched his fist tight.
“Youth really is a wonderful thing.”
“What's that supposed to mean, human?! I'm five thousand years old!”
“Sure, sure.”
By the way...
“You do realize someone's standing next to you, right?”
CRASH!
“Gah! You vermin!”
A giant bear's forepaw slammed into Devil.
The blue giant hawk whipped up gales while the wolves tore at Devil's body with their fangs.
No matter how durable he was, his opponents were monsters each rivaling Devil himself. With this many swarming him at once, a hand-to-hand brawler who had to deal with every enemy one by one was in a tough spot.
“Redberry!”
“I know!”
The crimson sigil drawn over Devil's heart blazed to life. Black-flame mana and searing-red mana churned together, and the summons that had been pressing their relentless assault suddenly faltered.
Mana amplified to such an extreme that even Iron hesitated to close the distance.
At this rate, it would all detonate—
'That's not a choice Vlack would make...'
The explosion never came.
“Pushed all the way to mutual self-destruction, were you? Fair enough, but I don't quite follow why Vlack had to aim his attack in there too. Wouldn't Lily have been more than enough on her own?”
Fracion came walking down through the sky, the Frozen Hourglass floating at his side.
The sand above it drained downward like any hourglass—but plenty of it remained.
A power that interfered, however faintly, with 'time' itself.
Fracion looked over at Redberry, her hand clenched tight around her staff across the field.
“What are you aiming for?”