Chapter 76

Fire Spirit

“Alright, shall we take down the first big one?”

Despite Aiden’s energetic declaration, both Noel and Katya wore distinctly gloomy expressions. They were well aware of the terrifying monster that awaited them: the Fire Spirit dwelling inside the Scorched Zone.

Among players of the original game, the challenge boss was more commonly known as the Flame Hound. In terms of sheer battle difficulty, it was infamous for being one of the most troublesome enemies in the entire game.

The simple fact that defeating it awarded a unique trophy said enough.

To list only a few of its traits, it was completely immune to physical attacks, possessed extremely high resistance against magical energy, and could generate flames powerful enough to trigger a volcanic eruption single-handedly. Its raw attack power was dangerous enough, but those passive defenses alone were enough to make players complain that the developers had never intended anyone to actually kill it.

“…I encountered something similar during the Coalition War.” Noel spoke with a tired expression, clearly already feeling a headache coming on. “It was a monster that created a land of roaring fire around itself, even in a country buried under snow. An entire knight order had to mobilize before we finally managed to subjugate it.”

The fact that they were now expected to hunt something comparable with only the three of them made her deeply uneasy.

“…If you seriously intend for just us to defeat it, then unless we call in reinforcements from the Magic Kingdom…”

The word recklessness was practically pounding against Noel’s teeth.

Aiden, however, was thinking along a completely different line. “It is reckless.”

“…”

“But there are times when you know something is reckless and still can’t afford to retreat.”

He meant every word. Chapter 3 was almost upon them, and no matter how much speed he added to his growth, it never felt like enough.

“If that’s what you’re saying, then…” Katya’s resigned voice came from beside him almost immediately. By this point, she had already learned that trying to stop Aiden when he reached this state was completely futile. “I mean, you look like you’re going to do it whether we say no or not.”

“…”

“You’ve always had a dangerous way of thinking.”

Even Noel added her own agreement with a slow nod. She looked too exhausted to argue any further. “So what insane thing are you planning this time?”

“…”

Noel’s completely casual question struck Aiden straight in the heart. He was gradually reaching the stage where he had given up trying to protect his pristine image, but hearing her say it so openly still hurt.

He had no intention of denying that the method itself was unorthodox. “…First, we need our materials.”

“Materials?”

And what they needed for that was…

“…”

“…”

“…”

When Aiden’s gaze remained fixed on Katya for far too long, she blinked blankly. “…?”

Then she raised a hesitant finger and pointed at herself. “…Me?”

“…Yes.”

“…I’m the material?”

“…Yes.”

Katya stared at him in a daze, clearly wondering what kind of plan could possibly involve using her as a raw material.

Aiden let out a quiet sigh before finally beginning his explanation. “Do you know which part of the body is the hardest to train?”

“…What?”

“The internal organs.”

Of course, expecting a demonic hound capable of spewing fire from its entire body to possess the biology of an ordinary living creature would be unreasonable. Even so, it still had internal structures performing equivalent functions—organs essential to maintaining its life.

Inside its chest was a tiny ‘core’ that supplied magical energy throughout its body. All demonic beasts possessed something similar, and common sense would suggest that a hound with a body that massive should have a correspondingly enormous core.

‘It doesn’t, though.’

Common sense suggested that, but the Flame Spirit’s weakness had been deliberately designed to be extremely small. The game mechanics felt malicious, as though the developers had intentionally planted a trap to make the boss nearly impossible to hit.

Under ordinary circumstances, aiming for that tiny weak point was almost impossible. But Katya was here, which made the otherwise unreachable target worth trying to exploit.

“Katya.”

“Yeah?”

“I haven’t been paying much attention to you lately, have I?”

“Right? I was starting to think you were being pretty mean.”

By “paying attention,” they meant Aiden tearing her body apart and killing her so that she could experience physical sensation. Even thinking about it himself, the relationship was completely twisted. Still, Katya was the one who constantly begged him for it, so there was not much he could do.

“Think of this as compensation for that.”

“…”

Katya’s expression immediately brightened, while Noel’s, on the other hand, turned utterly bewildered.

✦ ✦ ✦

“I already thought you were a strange person.” Katya’s words came out muffled because Aiden had wrapped heavy tape around her mouth. “But this is genuinely creative.”

“Oh, right. I almost forgot the most important part.”

The fact that Katya had managed to speak reminded Aiden that there was still some “empty space” left inside her body. He peeled back the tape and carefully packed the remainder of the liquid compound into her mouth.

He had already smeared the substance all over her body and secured it in place with tape, but if there was any left, there was no reason to waste it.

The principle was similar to the stakes into which Aiden had previously planted divine power. These liquids had been prepared so that Law Force would be released after a set delay. In simple terms, it was like installing a delayed fuse inside a bomb.

The compound itself was merely a supernatural medium with almost no inherent power of its own. Once another property was bestowed upon it, however, it acted as an amplifier that could multiply that property’s force several times over.

Aiden kept stuffing the remaining material into Katya’s mouth until both her cheeks puffed up. Then he inserted the most important component: the remote signaler.

After that, he sealed her mouth shut with tape once more.

“…”

Katya, whose cheeks now looked like an overfilled hamster’s, tilted her head innocently.

Noel spoke in a voice carrying the weight of every regret in the world. “…Mr. Aiden.”

“Yes?”

“I really do support you most of the time.”

“Yes.”

“But are you actually sane…?”

“…”

Well, he could not exactly complain about being asked that. Even so, Aiden looked toward Noel with a defensive cough. “…Lady Noel.”

“Yes?”

“Her Highness has asked me to do much worse things to her than this before.”

“…”

“…I’m not doing this because I enjoy it.”

“…”

Noel’s expression turned deeply complicated as she heard the utter sincerity in Aiden’s voice. A long sigh escaped her, carrying the sudden realization that this man apparently suffered quite a bit in his everyday life as well. At least she now understood that he was not tormenting Katya for personal amusement.

Whether receiving that kind of pitying look was a good thing or a bad thing was difficult even for Aiden to decide.

In any case, it was time.

“Shall we begin?”

Aiden murmured an incantation beneath his breath, and an intense light burst into existence around him. It was all Law Force meant to be condensed into cores. He manipulated the energy with practiced movements until it gathered into three glowing spheres.

When he infused those spheres into the compound covering Katya’s body, the substance shifted into an even stranger color. It did not look pleasant, but that unnatural hue was proof that supernatural power was successfully stored inside it.

According to the original game’s mechanics, elemental attributes operated through clear counter-properties, almost like rock-paper-scissors. Because of that, warriors who specialized in one primary supernatural ability often learned Law Force specifically to reinforce or invert that main power.

Aiden could exploit that principle more efficiently than almost anyone else.

When he added Guardian’s Flame, the medium coating Katya began shining even more violently than before. Then came Cold Flame, created by completely reversing the nature of Guardian’s Flame.

Using Law Force to invert an attribute like this was an extremely difficult, high-level technique. For Aiden, however, it was not particularly troublesome. More precisely, the quality of his medium was simply absurdly high.

The liquid was ectoplasm left over after setting aside the amount he planned to give Ganesha for equipment forging. A supernatural medium nearly as valuable as Star Iron made tricks like this possible with only a little manipulation.

“…Then I’m starting!”

Noel raised her spear in response. “Hup!”

The speed at which the spear flew when Noel hurled it made it obvious the setup had worked exactly as expected. The weapon tore straight through the Fire Spirit’s body of flame, scattering its fiery form apart.

The impact itself was tremendous, but the Fire Spirit was completely immune to physical attacks. Having suffered no real damage, the creature reformed its body and turned toward them, its eyes glowing an ominous, burning yellow.

Normally, that would have been the beginning of an agonizingly difficult battle. Aiden, however, had prepared a custom finishing move specifically for this enemy.

“…Ready?”

“Let’s do it!”

With those words, Noel hurled Katya with all her physical strength.

Katya flew through the air at a speed almost equal to the spear from moments earlier.

“…”

“…”

Both Noel and Aiden felt a deep sense of absurdity about the fact that they were witnessing this scene at all. Still, once they had committed to the plan, they had to see it through to the end.

Ignoring the bizarre nature of the moment, Aiden raised one hand and began adjusting the flow of supernatural power with absolute focus.

The physical strike from Noel’s spear had scattered the Fire Spirit’s flaming body. Aiden timed Katya’s arrival to the exact second those flames were still dispersed, then detonated the Law Force as though setting off a precise explosive charge.

There was a reason he had smeared the medium all over Katya and inserted a remote trigger. With only a slight adjustment of energy, her body could function as a devastating remote bomb.

The signaler in her mouth served as the detonator.

BOOM!

Katya’s body burst apart from the head downward, scattering the supernatural medium throughout the Fire Spirit’s entire form. The medium, now imbued with an overwhelmingly powerful cold attribute, spread through the space with an absolute chill capable of freezing the very air.

“Whoa.” The exclamation escaped Aiden naturally as he watched the result unfold.

If one compared it to a human body, they had effectively thrown a compact bomb filled with lethal poison directly into the target’s internal organs.

No matter how absurdly powerful the Fire Spirit was, it possessed a core functioning as a vital organ. It could not withstand an absolute freeze driven directly into that vulnerable point.

The hound of flame that had been spewing overwhelming heat moments earlier collapsed almost instantly. A glowing, crystallizing sphere prodded out from the center of its shattered chest.

That was the core Aiden had been aiming for—the spirit fragment.

“…Wow.” Noel let out a dazed sound beside him.

Objectively speaking, what they had just done was unbelievably absurd. Even so, watching a high-level spirit boss explode in a single coordinated attack was impressive enough to inspire awe.

“Ahahahahaha! This is so much fun!”

“…”

“…”

It became somewhat harder to maintain that sense of grandeur while Katya laughed with genuine delight as her shattered body flew through the air.