The Specter of Past Duels
In the dungeon.
The anomaly.
A place where all the undesirable things had gathered.
Some claimed it was the price humanity paid for gaining power after awakening.
Others said it was evil born to punish humanity for its greed over good and evil.
Judgment. Punishment. The rotten and pathetic. And so on.
And if all of them shared one common problem...
It was that the power of Spirit Contractors depended entirely on the spirit's mind.
The purity of the soul was the quality of the fuel.
If spirits were machines, then the Spirit Contractor's mind was the driver controlling it.
"No matter how good the fuel was or how strong the spirit, if the Spirit Contractor's mental state was trash, it was worth less than a donkey cart."
Stay cold at all times.
Analyze the situation and stay conscious.
Do not let go of your reason's reins and constantly communicate with the spirits.
Words that are not just sweet or pretty—words that come out when you can't handle the storm that follows if you say something else.
"That's why the academy always tells you to communicate with the spirits often. They want you to become so habituated that you can communicate with the spirits even if you lose your reason."
That's why Spirit Contractors always devoted a part of their mind to monitoring the spirits.
At first it was really hard, but once the habit formed, it became fine, I guess.
Later, even when catching my daughter, I reached the level where I directly practiced the Christian life of always feeling like the Lord is watching.
Easy to explain.
No matter, the Lord has seen everything since I was born, so what's to be ashamed of? Instead, I caught her openly in front of Him.
...Wait, is this some kind of dark evolution? That means communicating with the spirits so often.
"Th-then! ...The training itself is exactly the same as last time, right...?"
"What do you mean?"
"U-um, communication with the spirits is important, right? So, to communicate with the spirits..."
Same as last time.
Yeonhwa took a wet slap like beating a dog in summer heat.
Harin rolled around like a cat, doing cat cosplay.
Sujin enjoyed World of Warcraft with a headset, playing as otter and dolphin.
...Now, after watching Sujin's desperate struggle to survive, I was at the point of feeling admiration.
But first, let's answer the question.
"Just looking at the results, they're similar."
"That means..."
I answered with a smile.
"Training to maintain mental state even in front of enemies you absolutely can't beat."
"...N-ne?"
Sujin's face hardened.
"Training to maintain reason even in extreme hunger."
"Training to communicate with the spirits even when falling into status ailments."
"Training to control the spirits when stress reaches its limit."
"Even training to convert the spirits into mana to prepare for the worst case."
"...U-um. Isn't it going to be impossible if we don't do it?"
Will it?
Still, I had no intention of doing all of this right now.
"You're not going to war, not going to raid, and not clearing a small dungeon—why would you need anything so grand?"
"That means..."
"If you can control the spirits even after getting hit by me, even normal cases will be covered."
".........."
There was no paradise in the place I ran to.
Finally, Sujin closed her eyes tightly and sobbed soundlessly.
Truly, this was a mind that hated working with all her heart.
"Coach. So, are we going to keep dueling forever?"
"Exactly. It's going to be the three of you dueling together against me."
"Hee... What if we end up like last time?"
Subtle provocation.
But that word no longer carried weight.
"If it can be endured, it's fine. Don't worry."
".......Tsk."
Nox was there, accepting my shortcomings as well.
I had also gained enlightenment and achieved some growth.
It wasn't in a bad condition like last time—in fact, looking at the condition, it was better than perfect.
Perhaps I should be worried that I might not even be able to dust off the dust on a rainy day.
"Ah, still, don't worry too much. I’ll only be doing it with one spirit, so I’ll test my newly acquired abilities."
"...One. Just one spirit."
Harin immediately entered analysis mode.
She quickly gathered the remaining two and started whispering something.
'The brain of this team is Harin.'
If Sujin was the one to handle it, communication disorder would be a problem, and if it was Yeonhwa, it would be charge and just shouting forward.
In that sense, Harin was quite capable as a leader.
Her personality had no rough edges,
She had some execution ability and leadership,
Plus the variable of a lightning spirit.
"Hmm."
One of them was really correct as a human.
As a Spirit Contractor, it was the worst,
But...
..
.
Let’s start with the first step.
"Oraaaaaat!!!"
Yeonhwa charged forward.
A blazing sword wrapped in fire.
Even just looking at the flickering air around it, it looked dangerous.
But.
"『Seiren』"
[Don’t swing that dangerous thing!]
Sujin. Hyper-compression.
A water orb compressed to the size of a bean shot toward the sword.
─Bang!
"Kuk...!"
The force compressed into a small dot.
It couldn't stop the sword completely, but it could at least disturb the sword's trajectory.
"M-many!"
[Piiiiit!]
Yeonhwa's opening.
Followed by Sujin's follow-up.
But──as I said before,
[You... will become a bad kid?]
[P-piiiit....]
"M-many?!"
Spirits had a strict hierarchy.
Even if it was like last time where my condition was bad, using Sujin as a follow-up in this situation was a double no-no.
Ultimately, Sujin, who retreated backward in panic and didn't know what to do, received a water orb from me toward the many.
─Boom!
"Kyaah?!"
[Pikkiit!!]
Since it was the same water spirit, water-attribute attacks had some resistance.
So, with a bit more power, Sujin floated a little into the air.
From now on, don't rely too much on the spirits and equip at least minimal armor and equipment!
Yes.
For example.
─Sparrrrrk!
"...Harin. You really prepared properly, huh?"
"I can't always just ask for help!"
Jeon Harin.
Wearing thin chain armor instead of the rough leather armor like last time.
And the weapon wasn't just a sword──a coin? Why a coin here?
"Nitro! Charge five chur!"
[Nyaaaaaang!]
Gathering lightning.
Soon it began to gather at the tips of her fingers on the coins.
"Eh.... Eh! That’s copyright! Copyright mi──"
"─Magnetic Port!"
"Ahah."
Not a super X port, but magnetic.
I thought she would go without a hitch, so I was shocked.
But... what should I say.
'She did something cute.'
The coins shooting toward me strongly.
But. That was all it was.
─Bang!
"...I thought you were going to block it."
"Harinharin. I didn’t think you’d try that trick."
Shooting the coin with self-propulsion.
Simply put, causing a phenomenon similar to a railgun.
This may look easy to say, but this world, especially Spirit Contractors, follows the laws of nature thoroughly.
"You thought you could just ignore the operating principle of a railgun and hit it with electricity? Does the world look that simple to you?"
Railgun.
No one tries to control the lightning spirit without attempting it.
But most people give up on that trick.
The reason is simple.
It was because the operating principle of the railgun was too much for a human to do.
Positioning the self-propulsion. Generating the current. If the control to gather it in one place malfunctions and sends the current elsewhere, its power decreases greatly in an instant.
That’s why firearms still exist in the human era.
Better to entrust it to machines without variables, clean, and efficient, rather than breaking human limits.
And
"Huuuueuueueup!"
Behind my back.
Blazing flames.
No need to say, Seiren bounced it with a water orb.
"Kuk.... This is really!"
"Where is there anyone who attacks so brazenly in a sneak attack."
p>One step back, but she swung the sword again.
From top to bottom. Diagonal. This time, aiming at the leg with her foot.
Did you have experience in hand-to-hand combat? As a B-class awakener with dungeon experience, there was definitely something different.
But
─Drip.... Crackle...!
"What...?"
After all, it was battle as an Awakener, not as a Spirit Contractor.
"Harin, I said this to you too, but the power of Spirit Contractors follows the laws of nature thoroughly, right?"
The sword wrapped in flames creaked every time it was hit by water.
The reason was simple.
"...Thermal expansion?"
"O-Oh... How did you know?"
"I used it when catching lava lizards. This thing got damaged like this."
"You had experience."
Yeonhwa's sword with flame.
To that, I threw water orbs as defense.
Exactly one point. I defended by spraying water at just one single point.
The result of that was
"Only a specific part contracts. Other parts continue to expand. If a crack is created between them and combined with the attack power of the water orb itself..."
"...The duel is really dirty!"
The weapon itself would break.
That's why fire-attribute Spirit Contractors must choose good weapons.
Not just because they were good, but they had to consider durability and heat resistance.
Therefore, the academy teaches all of this in my time...
─Clang!
"Damn....!"
...It was something Yeonhwa, who had just become a Spirit Contractor, couldn't know even if she wanted to.
Yeonhwa, chewing her lips while holding the sword bag uselessly.
I thought that was mostly the end... but.
─Sparrrrrk!
"This is another level."
The cracked iron sword I broke earlier.
Strong electricity flowed through it, soon becoming an electric field prison that wrapped around me.
"This... is our victory!"
She didn't let go of the match until the end.
Excellent spirit as a lightning Spirit Contractor.
Good spirit as an awakener,
Good spirit as one who would enter a dungeon and fight monsters.
But.
From earlier, as I keep saying,
"So. What. What are you going to do about it."
"....Eh."
The power of the spirits follows natural laws thoroughly.
I walked out from beyond the electric field prison with a thin membrane of water on my entire body.
"Eh... How?"
How is there how? Pure water doesn't conduct electricity.
Didn't you learn this in middle school science class?
"...I was a humanities major."
"From now on, do science."
Study enough to get one electrical engineer certification.
Slap.
"Kyaahaaaah...!!"
The duel ended with a wet slap on Harin's butt.
By the way.
"Sujin. Let's have a separate personal interview."
"Ugh...!"
She probably already knew the reason herself, I thought.