Otome Game no Heroine de Saikyou Survival [WN] - Chapter 39
Mad Spirit
Could the monster not be human but [Monster]? Based on the remaining magical elements and the situation, I bought information from the Adventurer’s Guild and thought it was a crazy [water spirit], not a water monster that haunted this area.
It was a prediction that I would wish to be wrong about if possible, but as every bad hunch worked, they often came true.
[Low-Rank Water Spirit].
[Magic Power: 337/503]
[Total Combat Power: 371/553]
[State: Madness]
Even at the lower ranks, spirits were very troublesome enemies.
Normally, spirits that controlled the reason of the world were rarely hostile, but when they get separated from the source of their attributes, as in this case, or when the summoner died, and they could not return to the spirit world, they would enter a state of [madness] and began to attack humans and other living creatures to steal their magical elements.
A normal Low-Rank Spirit had a Total Combat Power of around 500, which was equivalent to a [Rank 3] in terms of Monster, but in the case of Spirits, the difficulty of defeating them was equivalent to [Rank 4], and even the Adventurers’ Guild recommended a Rank 3 party including two or more sorcerers to defeat them. The Adventurers’ Guild also recommended a Rank 3 party of two or more magicians to defeat the spirits.
This was because physical attacks had almost no effect on spirits, which were not creatures of the material world but spirit life forms.
Even so, the attacker’s will to defeat and mental power could inflict about 10% damage, but the spirit’s magical power, which should be called its physical strength, recovered one point per second, so there was no way for a warrior-type party to counter it except by pushing it with their numbers.
Even with attribute magic, the spirit’s attributes were completely nullified, and its magical power was conversely restored.
Therefore, when fighting a spirit, it was necessary to gather magicians who could use offensive magic other than that spirit’s attribute and defeat it within a shortest decisive battle by force.
Therefore, I had no intention of involving my soldiers in this battle. Even if they could pass about 10% damage, low-level attacks would not do any damage.
I might be able to use them as a mere wall, but it would be more troublesome if the soldiers were to recover the magical power of the spirits that I had reduced by attacking them, or if my traps were crushed by frightened soldiers who moved as they wished.
I did not want to make things worse for Maria’s engagement, so I avoided gathering a large force or causing too many casualties.
Well, I did not expect them to move their troops based on a child’s reasoning in the first place.
I would rather not want to fight them aggressively, either. However, I checked the magical power of the spirits and was able to confirm that their magical power had not recovered as I had expected.
If it wanted magic power to attack someone, it must have been consuming magic power to maintain its spiritual form and did not have time to recover its power.
If my guess was right, even I could fight it. If I could find out who it was and had at least a day to make preparations, then I could make some useful plans and traps for it to fall into.
[—-!]
Water gushed out from the mouth of the fat drowned body in which the water spirit was hiding.
Probably a magical version of level 1 water magic like [Splash]. It was easy to use, with medium speed and both physical and magical attack power, but the attack power was only enough to defend against the wooden planks I had used to quickly hide behind.
I had no way to damage a spirit whose physical attacks were ineffective, and whose magic was mainly illusions and recovery. But I had knowledge and wisdom to use it.
“–[Harden] –“
I cast [Harden], a life magic, on the clay knife I had hidden behind the wooden plank and threw it out.
[—-!]
The water spirit must have known what it was because it manipulated the drowned body stuck to the wall, leaving a blood-soaked handprint on the wall and dodging the attack in time.
I was convinced that this attack was effective because it dodged the first stone thrown at it and the clay knife.
The woman’s knowledge was based on the five elements.
Water extinguishes fire, fire melts gold, gold cuts wood, tree roots gouge earth, and earth dams water.
Not everything applied to this world, but even in the world of magic, the opposing attribute of fire was water, and as it was said that light and darkness mutually nullified each other, I thought that the opposing attribute of water could inflict damage even with little magic power.
I didn’t remember any earth attribute magic, but I could use [Harden], a life magic. A knife with a shorter effect time and a stronger earth attribute should be able to reduce the water spirit’s magic power slowly.
I picked up a clay knife, cast [Harden] on it, and threw it again towards the water spirit. The water spirit, which was trapped in a shell of flesh, could not dodge the knife in the air, but as I damaged it, reducing its existence, a shot of [Splash] was fired again. The moment I dodged it, the water spirit had escaped, but I simply had to know the direction where it went.
I was not in a rush, so I didn’t pursue it too deeply. I didn’t get in the enemy’s way.
Unlike human magicians who played tricks or had manipulated the situation to trick me, a spirit was a much simpler target. As long as there was a distance between me and the water spirit, I could barely avoid the attack magic that it fired at me continuously.
The magic power of the maddened water spirit was reduced by nearly 40% when I looked at it with an appraisal.
The amount of magic power that could be cut with a clay knife was about five units.
[——!!!]
Strong magical power emanated from the Water Spirit’s entire body; feeling the same magical power as when the Female Thief used Level 3 magic, I moved away immediately and at the same time, the Water Spirit’s magic was released.
A water ball with a diameter of two meters was shot out, knocking down the trees in the beautifully landscaped garden.
Although I was not directly hit, I was also caught in the splashing water and was swept several meters away.
Was this a water version of the [FireBall] spell? It didn’t do as much damage as the fireball, but the ground instantly became muddy, and prevented one from moving.
[—-]
“[Harden]!”
I was unable to move, and the water spirit fired a [Splash] at me, which I immediately avoided by using [Harden] to cover my feet and get covered in mud.
“…”
The damage was sobering. There was little external damage, but my senses told me that my strength had been reduced by 20-30%, and the clay knife I had made had also disappeared into the mud.
But even the water spirits who used big magic would have lost about half of its magic value.
I ripped the hem of the skirt that clings to my legs vertically up to the top of my thighs. As I gained my foothold and escaped from the muck, making sure there was no pain in the tendons and muscles of my body, I heard multiple voices coming from the mansion.
“What’s that noise!”
“The garden…”
“Aria!”
It seemed that not only the gatekeeper but also Rodie had arrived.
This location had the best chance of attracting the enemy, and they found me sooner than expected. I asked Rodie not to come, but it may have had the opposite effect.
I would have liked to reduce a little more of its power before the others found me if possible, but it couldn’t be helped. I was moving on to phase two, albeit a little early.
“…[Flowing Water]”
I used [Flowing Water], which had a shorter effect duration so that the water attribute would become more intense so it’d be easy to attract the spirit body, and it worked because the drowned body, which was facing the newly arrived intruders, slowly turned toward me.
If Rodie or Maria were to be targeted here, I would have no choice. I climbed up the wall so that the water would drip down, turned around, and shook my head at Rodie, whose eyes met mine for a moment, telling him [not to follow me].
As I climbed over the wall, showing off the magical element of water, I realized that the presence of the water spirit was tailing me from behind.
I went around the city in the dark at midnight, climbed up on a roof in an area with few people, and slurped down the magic recovery potion I had taken out of my pocket in one gulp.
Since the battle with the Female Thief, I’d been making sure to carry at least one bottle of the magic recovery potion with me, but since one bottle of these cost three silver coins, I didn’t want to guzzle it down. Even so, drinking this potion should restore my magic power at about one unit every minute for another hour or so.
I cut off my skirt, which had become heavy with mud, around the knee. By that time, the drowned body of the water spirit caught up with me.
“–[Harden]–“
I threw the hem of the muddy skirt I had cut off at the drowned corpse that had come up to the roof, blocking the magic he was about to unleash.
There was no need to destroy the shell of the drowned corpse. The dead body of the water spirit would reduce its consumption of magical elements, and at the same time, it would also serve as a cage that prevented the water spirit from moving and escaping.
[——!!!]
The water spirit raised an inarticulate cry. Was that anger toward me, or was it just screaming from hunger? I didn’t understand, and I didn’t intend to understand the feelings of non-living things when I couldn’t even understand human feelings.
Finally, the water spirit, realizing that I would be able to avoid its [Splash], used [Water Ball] magic again.
If the magic had a wide range and was hard to avoid, it would surely damage me, but that might be a poor decision. What did you think I climbed up on the roof for?
A [Water Ball] two meters in diameter was fired, but when it got that big, the weight of the water didn’t make it as fast as normal [Splash].
There was a chimney made of bricks on the roof. I could avoid a direct hit by hiding in there. As I had made use of the chimney, I was not swept away, and the overflowing water flowed right off the roof.
With that hit, it was the limit of the maddened non-living thing that could not assess the situation. No matter how much magical power and magic it had that overwhelmed humans, they were not much of a threat if it did not have combat experience and good judgment.
But I, too, could not take any damage. I could have continued to use my great magic in rapid succession to chip away at the water spirit’s magical power, but that would have caused too much damage to me, so I launched a counterattack.
The clay knife I made had disappeared into the mud. But I still had another weapon.
Hyun!!!
The blade of the pendulum I threw scratched the forehead of the drowned corpse, and the magical elements of the earth and water attributes nullified each other.
I could not use [Harden] on the blade of the pendulum that shaved the copper coin. But I had replaced the other crushed blade with a ceramic blade made of fired clay.
[Harden] could also be used with unglazed clay, and an unglazed blade, which easily broke when struck, became a weapon with the strength of steel when [Harden] was used.
[—-!!!]
While reapplying [Harden] to the pendulum, the water spirit’s form was chipped away.
The water spirit also tried to kill me by releasing magic to survive, and at times, it even tried to physically hit me.
I thought the remaining magic power of the water spirit was down to about 30%, but my strength and magic power were also down to almost half. And even though it may appear we were evenly matched, even a single direct blow from the water spirit would render me incapable of fighting.
I would not let my guard down. I would never let power get to my head and be greedy. The only way for me to win was to keep on grinding calmly and ruthlessly.
But then–
“–[Vorpal Blade] –“
Suddenly, a sword light flashed out, and an unknown [Combat Skill] sliced the water spirit’s drowned body in half.
The drowned body fell off the roof, spilling a large amount of water from its cross-section, and from the darkness behind it, a man in traveling clothes with a one-handed sword imbued with magic power appeared. Looking closely at his face, the intruder was unexpectedly Grave.
What was he, a senior butler, doing here? It was hard to believe that he had come to the rescue, given his personality. No, I believed it to be more than that.
“That was my enemy, you know?”
“I see. But you should give that thing to the Adventurers’ Guild.”
Grave replied to my dissatisfied response and pointed his sword straight at me without sheathing it.
“Aria, who are you?”
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Also check out my other novels: Reincarnated into a Game as the Hero’s Friend, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, and A Girl Who Was Told “You Have No Talent” Turned Out To Be A Talented Monster