Nox's Examination
The method for measuring a spirit is as follows.
1. First, observe the spirit's attribute.
2. Analyze the spirit's mana distribution to determine its rank.
3. Assess the spirit's combat functions and characteristics.
4. Through the above, measure the spirit's overall condition.
On the surface, it looks simple enough. Straightforward, even.
Attribute and mana distribution are one thing — but measuring combat function is considerably more ambiguous.
There's a lot that has to be covered.
Offense. Defense. Recovery. Support. And everything else in between.
All of it has to be resolved by the spirit's own will alone, without any assistance from its contractor. Only then can you truly understand a spirit's nature — what it prefers, how it fights, what defines it.
Spirits have personalities as varied as any person, so this is a process every one of them has to go through at least once.
"Hecate unnie. How did you do?"
"This body is destined to become a Spirit King. There is no chance this body would score low."
"Really, Papa?"
"She's not wrong. Though the defense portion was a disaster."
In Hecate's case, her tendencies leaned overwhelmingly toward pure offense. Attack power needed no discussion. Support was decent enough on the mental side, and recovery worked in a poison-fighting-poison sort of way — she could at least keep things from getting worse.
Defense, though… how to put it — her mindset was more like eliminating the source of the damage to erase the pain? She simply erased the attack itself, which made calling it "defense" a stretch.
Well, that part followed her personality, so there was nothing to be done about it.
"…The best defense is a good offense."
"Nobody said otherwise."
I soothed a pouting Hecate and headed into the testing grounds with Nox.
First up was checking attribute and mana distribution.
"Measurement complete."
It didn't take long. Strap on an armband, pump it a few times, done.
I looked at the results sheet that came out and slowly turned my head.
"Hm? What's wrong, Papa?"
"…Uuuhh."
The results sheet read as follows.
[Dark] [Upper-rank]
[Dark] [Mid-rank]
[Dark] [Mid-rank]
[Dark] [Lower-rank]
[Dark] [Lower-rank]
[Dark] [Lower-rank]
[Dark] [Lower-rank]
[Dark] [Lower-rank]
[Dark] [Lowest-rank]
[Dark] [Lowest-rank]
[Dark] [Lowest-rank]
[Dark] [Lowest-rank]
[Dark] [Lowest-rank]
[Dark] [Lowest-rank]
[Dark] [Lowest-rank]
· · ·
[Dark] [Lowest-rank]
"Measurement error?"
I was baffled. Nox was clearly a single spirit, yet the results sheet was claiming nearly thirty, forty, or even more spirits existed inside her.
No wonder the civil servant who'd handed me the sheet had been looking at me like he'd just seen something deeply wrong.
"There's nothing strange about it, Papa."
"Uh… you saw?"
As I stared at the document, lost in thought, Nox stepped closer and answered.
"Nox is merely the representative of us, after all."
"Right. About that 'us' you've been talking about this whole time — what does it mean?"
"'Us' means 'us.' The ones Papa saved."
"I'm not really following…"
"You don't need to understand."
Just know that all of us love Papa!
Nox's bright, sunny smile — a smile that promised she wouldn't harm a single thing — only delivered a creeping unease in return.
Nox… the "children"… they're the undead that had piled up in Nari's womb, aren't they?
I'd simply thought of them as children accumulated through miscarriages.
But if you took that thought to a more extreme conclusion…
…for instance.
Not just the children who'd grown in the belly and been lost to miscarriage — but also the "future children" who were supposed to have been in that womb, all of them broken free…
"We don't have a 'Mama' anymore, after all."
"!—… That means."
"If we don't have a Mama, then there's no reason to keep waiting, is there?"
"………"
Those billowing black clouds. If every single particle of them was a spirit — and if every single particle was an "undead," the "children" that had been inside Nari's body…
"Somehow, it makes sense now."
Hecate nodded calmly and continued.
"This body could not understand how a newly born spirit could nearly match this body, even if falling short. But with this, it becomes clear."
The quality may not measure up. But the quantity is more than enough to drive one mad.
I looked back and forth between the document and Nox, thinking.
At this level… and if my guess is right…
In a certain sense, Nari's body had been set free.
Because her periods would never come again.
Because even if she wanted to conceive, she never could again.
"I suppose you could call it reaping what you sow."
It was far too late for any of that now.
I took Nox and moved on to the next testing ground.
"Please attack the metal plate over here."
Destructive power test.
Nox shaped darkness into a spear and hurled it at the metal plate.
KWOONG…!
"C."
"…Boo."
The black spear of darkness had pierced the metal plate. But it hadn't gone all the way through — it was stuck about halfway, writhing…
KWAJIK… KWADUDEUK…!
"…B."
"Yes!"
No — beyond that.
The darkness lodged in the metal plate began to unravel, churning through the plate's interior. Darkness that gnawed at the metal as if corroding it from within. Only after leaving behind a sticky black scorch mark did the dark flame finally vanish.
It's not Amaterasu or anything.
Was this an unquenchable flame?
"Please hit the moving targets."
Next was the agility test.
Targets began darting about in dazzling patterns, trying to dazzle Nox's ey—
—THUDUDUDUDUDUNG!
"…S."
"Yeah! Papa! Isn't Nox amazing?"
Dazzle, nothing. The targets were dropping the instant they appeared.
Doesn't seem like she was aiming by sight…
I was so startled by how instantly it had all happened that Hecate, watching from the side, answered for me.
"Shadows. Sharp spikes shot out from the shadows and shattered the targets."
"Calling it a cheap trick… well. The test was designed for that kind of thing in the first place."
Fire and water spirits generally struggled with this test. Wind and lightning spirits, on the other hand, cleared it with ease. Earth spirits were a non-issue — those were tanks by design.
"Please block the iron balls launched from the machine."
Next was the defense test.
Nox raised something like a black barrier in front of herself, then looked at me and grinned wide.
Tong.
"Stage 1 cleared. Proceeding to Stage 2."
A smile full of confidence.
Tuoong.
"Stage 2 cleared. Proceeding to Stage 3."
At first I thought the smile just meant she wanted me to watch her try her hardest.
Tuuuoong.
"Stage 3 cleared. Proceeding to Stage 4."
But that wasn't it.
…
..
.
DOO—KUUUUUUUUUUNG!
"…Stage 18 cleared. Proceeding to Stage 19."
"Holy shit."
It was pure confidence — Nox wanting me to watch because this was the subject she was best at.
To block something at that level, even I'd need some prep work.
I'd need Shinpung's reverse wind, Seiren's water barrier, Ran's magnetic force projection — stacking everything to suppress the force as much as possible. But Nox was taking the full power of those iron balls head-on, as if she needed none of that.
DOO—KWAAAAAAAAANG!
"…Stage 19 cleared. Proceeding to the final Stage 20."
A barrel glowing red-hot. And opposite it, Nox's barrier — not a single crack, not so much as a tremor.
I was half-lost in admiration when Hecate whispered again.
"This body can do that much as well."
"…I doubt it."
I still remembered her botching the force control around Stage 10 and wrecking the machine outright. That little incident had earned her a C-Class defense rating.
DOOKWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!!!
"…Stage 20 cleared. S."
"Waaaaah! Papa! Nox is watching, right?!"
"Yeah. You're incredible. You're the best."
I downed a mana recovery potion meant for test participants and moved on to the next testing ground.
This time we had to run the recovery ability assessment…
KKUEEEEEEEK!!!
"Ugh… it's ugly!"
"I'll give you that. Still ugly no matter how many times you look at it."
A test orc, forcibly strapped into a chair. Its regenerative power had been maximized to the extreme — essentially a living sandbag for testing purposes. Behind it, the examiner worked various devices and spoke.
"We will deliberately induce multiple status abnormalities. Please keep it in a 'living state' by any means necessary — healing, reinforcement, whatever you choose."
"Hmmm…?"
Nox wore an intrigued expression. She nodded lightly, as if to say she understood.
Then she placed a hand on the orc's knee, and slowly its entire body began to darken to black.
"Beginning the test."
Gureuk… guuuuuk…!
The orc flinched at the whirring of the machinery — clearly not its first time going through this. It squeezed its eyes shut, bracing for the pain that was about to arrive any second.
…Guuuk?
"Huh?"
It blinked its eyes stupidly. The examiner also tilted his head, finding something odd.
"Strange. The machine is clearly operating fine…"
"Aren't you going to keep going?"
"…Proceeding."
At Nox's single remark, the examiner had a gut feeling. This spirit had done something. In that case, no reason to hold back — he kept cranking up the machine's output.
WUUUUUUUUNG!!!
The machine piled on more and more overload. On the display, paralysis, poison, mental assault, bleeding, and more status effects than the eye could count were triggering all at once.
Kkuik?
"…Ha… haha!"
But the test orc just kept blinking, as if nothing was wrong at all. If anything, it looked fascinated that it didn't hurt in the slightest, flaring its nostrils.
When the machine finally hit overload so severe it seemed about to explode, the examiner shut it down and declared:
"Recovery. S."
Highest grade. Nox smiled and released the strength from her hand.
"Bye-bye, Mr. Piggy!"
Kkuik?
An eerie smile. And the moment the darkness covering the orc's body withdrew—
PUSHIIIIIIIIIIK!!
KKYEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!
"Ugh, what the…?!"
The orc's entire body burst apart. Skin blistered and rotted. Eyeballs exploded. Green fluid poured from every hole that could be called a hole. The orc collapsed like a meatball crushed under a spoon. By the time only a gurgling sound remained — its windpipe clogged with blood—
"…Correcting to C."
"Eeeehhh!!!"
Nox.
It hadn't been recovery. It had been doping.