The Nightingale Does Not Sing (3)
The Nightingale Does Not Sing (3)
"......You say it's possible?"
"Of course. That's not all that difficult, is it?"
Dojin, who had come to find Noah, was a little taken aback hearing her confidently claim she could make a tool to capture spirits.
Honestly, he'd thought it would be a bit tricky. If it were that easy, wouldn't such a tool have been invented ages ago, and everyone would be carrying spirits around?
But after hearing her response, he could see why that wasn't the case.
"Collecting spirits themselves is easy. Tools like that already exist."
"Really?"
"Yeah. The real challenge is finding spirits. Where do you even get them?"
Dojin didn't know it, but just as she said, storing spirits somewhere was incredibly straightforward. Even Orion alone used spirits to communicate with her kin in the Great Forest.
The hard part in that process was gathering the spirits. Spirits never appear naturally.
The only place spirits appear naturally is near the World Tree, the mother of the world—and that area around the World Tree was swarming with terrifyingly powerful elves.
In short, in reality, humans couldn't even dream of collecting spirits, let alone spotting them. Especially not in the Dungeon City, where humans and various other races lived crammed together, recklessly destroying the environment.
"Reverse psychology, huh."
But right here, right now, there was a divine voice that even enchanted spirits. A singing princess who captivated all the world's creatures, as if she'd dropped straight from the heavens.
"Then, can you make one for me?"
"Hmm, like I said earlier, even if I make it, spotting spirits is impossible, so......."
"How long would it take? A day? A week?"
"...30 minutes."
"Then I'll come back in an hour?"
"Ah, aaah! I was joking! Three hours, it'll take at least three hours!"
Wondering why on earth he even needed such a thing, Noah still quickly whipped up the Spirit Catcher Dojin had requested.
After all, collecting spirits like that wouldn't even let you handle them properly, trapped in some stuffy confined space.
Unless an elf, the fairy of the forest, came in person......
'......An elf?'
And only then did someone flash through Noah's mind.
"Here."
"......This is it."
Orion received the Spirit Catcher from Dojin. Tools to collect spirits existed in the Great Forest too, but she didn't know how to make them.
If she could master Ranger training and still craft something requiring that kind of engineering knowledge, she'd have been hailed a genius.
Holding the Spirit Catcher and roughly hearing how to use it, Orion immediately turned to Ga-hee.
Even though Ga-hee had been asked to sing outside again, she sang without a fuss.
Of course, singing dozens of times a day was her routine anyway, so what was one or two more?
"LaLaLa─."
"......Wind spirit."
As Ga-hee started singing, a wind spirit instantly appeared in Orion's hand. After experimenting with transferring the captured spirit's power to arrows or imbuing it into her own body, Orion nodded.
"This should be plenty usable in the dungeon."
"Then we're good now, right?"
"Yeah! Now if we just had ten... twenty more of these!"
"......Twenty?"
"Yeah!"
"In one day?"
"Of course?"
As if asking what he was on about, Orion looked at Dojin. And Dojin looked at Ga-hee.
Ga-hee, drenched in sweat from energetically dancing and singing, tilted her head at Dojin staring at her.
Then, hearing the evil boss's command, she unleashed a curse at Dojin.
"Death! death! death!"
Her expression, eyes bulging as she belted out rock 'n' roll, was enchantingly demonic, like a female demon risen from hell.
Even the spirits couldn't resist that spicy allure and popped out in droves. Orion, filling ten containers in a flash, happily suggested testing them in the dungeon.
Dojin headed into the dungeon with her alone.
'Maybe I should grab some honey water on the way back.'
Entering the dungeon, Dojin thought of Ga-hee probably groaning back at the mansion, pondering what to buy her on the return trip.
Not exactly the kind of thing to dwell on in a peril-filled dungeon, but Dojin was relaxed. Getting his life threatened on this floor wasn't all that likely for him.
"Chwik!"
Eyes closed, he dodged the sword swing from the sword-wielding orc, waiting for Orion behind him to shoot her spirit arrow.
But no matter how long he waited, Orion didn't fire. Feeling something off, Dojin swiftly subdued the orc and turned around to see Orion tussling with the spirit.
"Orion?"
"Ah, Leader. Hold on a sec. I'm almost done persuading it......."
"Persuading? What're you talking about?"
"Well, you see......."
Orion whined that the spirits wouldn't come out of the Spirit Catcher. For some reason, they were extremely reluctant to enter the dungeon.
If it were just one spirit, you could chalk it up to personality differences, but with every single one reacting the same way, it wasn't that simple.
Seeing that, Dojin realized why the spirits hated coming into the dungeon.
'The dungeon eats even spirits.'
The dungeon greedily devours everything in its belly. The magic stones scattered by monsters are bait for its meals.
Adventurers enter aiming for the dungeon's bait, and sometimes the dungeon swallows the baited adventurers whole.
That's why the dungeon wasn't so kind to adventurers. Why would it need to be? The dungeon was a stomach where stomach acid in the form of monsters dripped from its maw.
"Hmm, can't you just force them out?"
"......Do that, and the other spirits will hate me. Unless they completely vanish, they'll remember and spread the word to every spirit. By tomorrow, not a single one would come near me?"
"They disappear on their own once used in the dungeon anyway, so just ignore it and use them, right?"
"L-Leader? What are you......."
"Huh?"
Seeing Orion panic, Dojin sensed something was wrong. And he realized elves were a type of spirit too.
In other words, it was like telling a white person to make a bomb using black people as ingredients.
'That's horrifying.'
If he'd said that on Earth, people would've trashed Dojin, his family, his neighborhood, and his entire race.
Luckily, Orion understood Dojin was an outsider who didn't know the major differences between spirits and elves, so she forgave him easily.
"So in the end, we need something interesting enough to lure the spirits into the dungeon?"
"That's how it boils down."
"What's that?"
"Hmm...... idol?"
Orion casually used the word she'd heard from Ga-hee. Idol—Dojin gave a wry smile, anthropomorphizing the spirits.
Idiot spirits so obsessed with their idol they wouldn't notice their own kidnapping; their fave holding a private concert in the ultra-dangerous dungeon?
Obviously risky, but as fans, they couldn't pass it up.
"Let's test it first."
After that, Dojin brought Ga-hee into the dungeon. Seeing the pitch-black darkness incomparable to the one she'd entered just days ago, Ga-hee shuddered.
"......What is this place? The dungeon?"
"You came here the other day?"
"B-But it wasn't this dark then? Hurry and turn on the lights......."
"Can't."
"Why!"
"Think of it as a haunted house and tough it out. You won't be able to turn them on even if you want once we head up anyway."
"Ugh...... I hate scary stuff. Especially pitch-black darkness."
No telling if that was genuine or idol character, but somehow he dragged her to where monsters lurked.
Facing the monster, Dojin warned Ga-hee not to stray.
"Hey, stick right by me. It's dangerous if you fall behind."
"Dangerous!? It's dangerous!?"
Dojin advanced wordlessly. Ga-hee, trying to follow in fear, spotted the sword-wielding monster ahead and collapsed in terror.
Clang clang, while Dojin bought time fighting the orc, Orion approached the trembling Ga-hee.
"You okay?"
"W-What is that thing...... Scary, get me out quick......."
"Ga-hee-ssi. Don't you want to help the Leader?"
"......Dojin's?"
"Yeah."
"...I do."
"Then."
Poke, Orion buried Ga-hee's face in her fully exposed upper chest. Elf body scent has a stabilizing effect on human mind and body, regardless of gender.
The effect worked on Ga-hee too. She felt her racing heart calming like she'd taken drugs.
"Get up, and sing."
"......Okay."
Snuuuurk, inhaling that scent one last time, Ga-hee stood and looked at Dojin. He was fighting so hard over there—she couldn't just cower here.
"You guys—! Listen to my song!"
A messy tune popped into her head. Whatever. She was Muse. The Otherworld's top singer and idol.
The world's shiniest superstar.
─Kyahahaha?
The spirits reacted to Ga-hee's singing. Ones that had refused to exit the Spirit Catcher even if it killed them started peeking out one by one.
Clatter clatter, Orion released all the thrashing spirits that seemed ready to break the device, then infused their power into her arrows.
Wind, water, fire, earth.
Arrows mixed with various attributes aimed at the orc fighting Dojin. Once ready, Orion yelled loudly at Dojin.
"Leader—! Firing!"
She didn't give him extra time to dodge. That's how much she trusted him. Sure enough, Dojin swiftly twisted away from the incoming arrow.
But the orc he was fighting wasn't that agile. Whoosh—! Spotting the arrow flying with intense airflow, the orc panicked and blocked its gut with its weapon.
'Too late.'
Far too slow. The arrow had already pierced the orc's belly. Not content, it blasted a huge hole, then set the corpse ablaze and froze it solid.
Crack, the orc vanished upon death, leaving a single magic stone rolling on the floor. Orion beamed insanely at the sight.
"Leader! It worked!"
"Yeah, sure."
Finally, finally, she could be useful. Sure, there were conditions, but she was helping, right?
Dojin picked up the magic stone, caressing his ear where the arrow had grazed. It wasn't a direct hit or even a glancing blow.
Just passing nearby had torn off part of his earlobe.
'Gotta admit, the power's impressive.'
Now he had reason to bring her—and Ga-hee—along. Thinking that, Dojin ran a few more tests.
The results were a success. Orion's arrows had solid combat viability.