Insane Spirit

Perhaps the true identity of the monstrous person was a 『monster』 instead of a human? I hypothesized that based on the residual magic particles and situation, then I bought information from the adventurer guild. From there I thought that the culprit wasn’t the water monsters that appeared around here but a mad 『water spirit』. It was a guess that I hoped was wrong if possible, but the worse a prediction was the bigger the chance it came true it seemed.

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▼ Low Ranked Water Spirit

【Magic Power : 337/503】

【Overall Combat Strenght : 371/533】

【Status : Madness】

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Even low ranked, a spirit was still a very troublesome opponent. Normally opposing a spirit that governed the principle of the world was just not done, but in a case like this where the spirit went 『insane』 because it was cut off from its base element or its summoner died and it became unable to return to the spirit world, it would start attacking human and living creature in order to take away their magic particle.

In the case of normal low ranked spirit, they had overall combat strength around 500. Monster with such combat strength would be considered as rank 3 or above, but in the case of spirit, the difficulty of its subjugation would be considered as rank 4. The adventurer guild would also recommend that the party taking care of it had a rank higher than 3 and included two sorcerers among their number.

It was because physical attack was mostly ineffective against spirit that wasn’t a creature of the material world but a spiritual life form.

Even so with the willpower and mental strength of the attacker to 『defeat』 the spirit, it was possible to deal around ten percent of how the damage should be to the spirit, even so the spirit’s magic power that also functioned as their stamina would recover by 1 point each few seconds, so warrior type fighter had no way to oppose a spirit.

Even using elemental sorcery, sorcery with the same element of the spirit would be completely neutralized and it would even strengthen the spirit’s magic power. Therefore when fighting a spirit, it was necessary to gather sorcerers who could use attack magic with different element from the spirit and settled the battle decisively with brute force in a short period of time.

That was why I didn’t plan to involve the soldiers of this city into this battle. Even if they could deal ten percent of their usual damage to the spirit, a low level attack wouldn’t give any damage. Perhaps they could be used simply as a meat wall, but doing that would allow the spirit to regain its magic power by attacking the soldiers even though it was already hard to shave off its magic power. And it would be troublesome if the soldiers moved around in panic disorderly and destroyed my trap. Even so defeating the spirit would be manageable somehow if I could gather enough number, but the baron house didn’t want this matter to be blown up out of proportion for the sake of Maria’s engagement, so I didn’t want to gather too many people and for the battle to result in many injured people.

I also didn’t want to proactively challenge this kind of opponent. But, I was able to check the spirit’s magic power capacity and confirmed that its magic power wasn’t recovering just as I thought. It went as far as attacking someone else because it wanted their magic power, that must meant that it couldn’t recover magic power in the amount that surpassed the amount it used to maintain its existence. In that case even I who couldn’t use attack magic had a way to fight it. Because as long as the opponent’s true identity had come to light and I had more than one day, I could make a lot of preparation.

『────!』

The water spirit fired out water strongly from the mouth of the fat drowned corpse it was hiding in.

Perhaps it was the magic version of the level 1 water sorcery Splash. It had mid level speed and its attack power had both physical and magical properties. It was easy to use it only had attack power at the level that could be blocked by the tree that I immediately hid behind.

Against spirit that had powerful resistance against physical attack, I whose fighting method was focused on sorcery and illusion and healing had no way to damage it. But I had the “knowledge” and the “intelligence” to use what was in my possession.

「──Hard──」

I applied the daily life magic Hard to a clay knife that I hid under a shrubbery and threw it.

『────!』

The water spirit also noticed what “it” was. It manipulated the drowned corpse clinging on the wall and left behind bloody wet handprints on the wall while dodging it. Seeing it dodging the rock that I threw at it at the beginning and the clay knife too, I became convinced that this “attack” was effective.

There was the philosophy of 『five elements』 in the knowledge of that woman. Water erased fire, fire melted metal, metal cut wood, wood’s root gouged earth, and earth kept back water. It wasn’t wholly applicable to this world, but even in the world of sorcery, the opposite element of fire was water, and like how it was said that light and darkness opposed each other, I hypothesized that it was possible to inflict damage to the spirit even with a little magic power if I used the opposing element of water.

I didn’t learn earth element sorcery, but I could use the daily life magic Hard. If I used clay weapon with earth element that I had strengthened, I should be able to shave off the water spirit’s magic power bit by bit even though Hard’s activation time was short.

I picked up a clay knife, applied Hard on it, and threw it. The water spirit that was locked in the flesh shell couldn’t dodge the knife at midair. The water spirit fired Splash once more after its existence got whittled by the knife, but I rolled to dodge it.

Don’t hurry. Don’t chase too deeply. Don’t enter the opponent’s range too. Unlike facing human sorcerer who would use tactic, the water spirit was only shooting water in monotone pattern. As long as there was distance between us, I could dodge its attack magic just barely.

When I looked with appraisal, the insane water spirit’s magic power had decreased by nearly a fourth. The magic point that was whittled by the clay knife was around 5 points. Even if I made the water spirit used magic, it only consumed around 10 points, even so it wasn’t an unreachable number.

『──────!!』

Powerful magic power was radiated from the water spirit’s whole body. I sensed magic power that rivaled the time when the female thief used level 3 sorcery and took distance. At the same time the water spirit launched its magic.

A water sphere with diameter around 2 meters was fired. The garden’s shrubberies that were tidily lined up got mowed down.

It didn’t hit me directly, but I got swallowed by the splashing water torrent and washed away for several meters.

Was it the water sorcery version of Fire Ball from fire sorcery? It had no wide range damage like Fire Ball, but the ground was turned into a quagmire instantly which hindered my movement.

『────!』

「──Hard──!」

The water spirit fired Splash at me who couldn’t move. I immediately hardened the ground under my feet with Hard and dodged the water even while being covered in mud.

I was steadily getting damaged. There was almost no outer wound on my body, but feeling wise around twenty or thirty percent of my stamina had been whittled down. The clay knives that I created also vanished into the mud. However, the water spirit should have its magic power reduced until only half remaining after using such large magic.

My skirt was clinging wetly on my legs, so I tore it vertically from above my thigh until the bottom. I checked that there was no pain in my body’s muscles and tendons while hardening my foothold to escape from the quagmire. It was then I heard multiple voices coming from the mansion.

「What’s with the ruckus!」

「The garden……」

「Aria-!」

That water magic’s sound was louder than expected. Not only the gate guards, even Rody was coming here. Although this place was the likeliest spot that I could lure the spirit into, we were found out faster than I expected.

I had told Rody to not come here, but it might cause the opposite effect to happen instead. If possible I wanted to weaken the spirit a bit more before other people discovered us, but it couldn’t be helped. It was a bit early but I moved on to the second phase of my strategy.

「……Water……」

When I used Water with shortened effective time to make the water element around me thicker, the drowned corpse that was heading toward the intruders turned toward me. Everything would come to nothing if Rody or Maria got attacked here. I climbed up the wall while trickling water. Then I turned around just for a moment and shook my head at Rody to tell him 『don’t follow me』. Right after that I showed off water particles as I climbed over the fence. I sensed the water spirit’s presence chasing behind me.

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I went around the completely dark city late at night and climbed to a roof at an area where there was no people. I gulped down a magic power recovery potion. Since my fight against that female thief, I decided to always bring at least one bottle of magic power recovery potion with me, but one bottle of this cost three silver coins, so I didn’t want to gulp it down. Even so by drinking this, my magic power should steadily recover for around one hour.

I cut off my skirt from the area above the knee because it was dirtied by mud and became heavy. It was then the water spirit’s drowned corpse caught up.

「──Hard──」

I threw away the skirt’s part that I cut off to the drowned corpse that climbed up on the roof, obstructing the magic it was going to fire. There was no need to destroy its “shell” the drowned corpse. The drowned corpse kept the water spirit’s magic particle consumption within limit, but at the same time it also held back the water spirit’s movement as a prison that prevented it from running away.

『──────!!』

The water spirit let out a wordless scream. I couldn’t comprehend whether it was a scream of rage toward me or a scream of hunger, I also had no intention to try to understand the feeling of non living thing when I couldn’t even comprehend human’s feeling.

But at the very least, if you were struggling in order to live, I’d accompany you till you died.

The water spirit finally noticed that I dodged the Splash and used Water Ball once more. It had wide range and hard to dodge. Such magic would definitely deal damage to me, but that judgment was a bad move. What did it think the reason I climbed up on the roof?

The two meter water sphere was fired, but when it was that big it was slower than Splash due to the water’s weight. Also there was a chimney made from brick on the roof. I could avoid direct hit if I hid there. I also wouldn’t get washed away, and the overflowing water would also immediately flow down the roof.

This was the limit of an insane non living thing that couldn’t assess the situation. No matter how overwhelming the magic power and magic it had compared to human, it wasn’t that much of a threat if it had no battle experience and situational assessment.

But as expected, I too couldn’t get away unscathed from this battle. At this rate even if the water spirit used up its magic power from firing powerful magic in succession, it would also give me greater damage, so I started my counterattack.

The clay knife that I created together with Rody had vanished into the mud. But I still had another weapon.

*Hyun!!*

The pendulum I threw grazed the forehead of the drowned corpse. The earth element and water element magic particles shaved off each other.

Hard’s effect on the pendulum that was created from a lump of bronze was weak. But I had baked clay into a ceramic blade and replaced one of the two blades with it.

Even clay that had been baked could still be affected by Hard. Even the ceramic blade that would break easily if it collided on something hard would become a weapon with the toughness of iron if Hard was used on it.

『────!!』

I reapplied Hard on the pendulum while shaving off the water spirit’s existence.

The water spirit also fired magic in order to survive. Sometimes it would even tackle at me.

The magic power of the water spirit should also have decreased until around thirty percent, but my stamina and magic power had decreased until nearly half. If I got hit by even a single attack of the water spirit, I would definitely become unable to fight.

Don’t let your guard down. Don’t get greedy too. Simply calmly and methodically continue to shave off the enemy with strictness. There was my only way to win. But, it was then──

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「──Vorpal Blade──」

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A sword attack of light suddenly surged out. The Battle Skill that I didn’t know tore apart the water spirit’s drowned corpse into pieces.

The drowned corpse fell down from the roof while leaking out great amount of water from the cut surfaces. From the darkness behind it, a man wearing travelling clothes and holding a one-handed sword that was tinged with magic power, Grave appeared before me.

Why was a high ranked butler like him here? From his personality, it was unthinkable that he appeared here as reinforcement. ……No, more importantly.

「That was my “enemy” though?」

「I see. But, just leave something like that to the adventurer guild or wherever.」

Grave answered without care at the dissatisfaction that I uttered to him. He pointed his sword straight at me without sheathing it back.

「Aria. “Who” are you?」