Chapter 10 — I Am Always in the Shadows, Protecting My Charge Unseen
“So this is Takatou’s one weakness...or at least that’s what it looks like, but it’s not really a weakness, is it?” Tomochika said, watching Yogiri sleeping peacefully on the couch.
Indeed. If you shake him, he will wake as usual, and even while asleep, he will automatically use his power to defend himself.
According to Yogiri, using his power tired him out. That said, he didn’t have a real limit to it. He could use his power as much as he liked. When exhausted, he had a tendency to sleep for days, but he would wake up normally if you tried to wake him, so it wasn’t much of a problem.
“Well, if he’s that tired, I’d like to let him sleep...but I’m impressed he can in a place like this.” Though Yogiri didn’t seem to mind, this place gave Tomochika the creeps. Despite the light coming in through the windows, the house was dark. It felt unnaturally cold and was creaking all over.
“Hmm...I did say we should avoid entering this place...” Despite being a dragon and thus incredibly strong, Atila seemed equally uneasy.
“There are no ghosts, are there?” Tomochika looked around. The building was creepy enough that ghosts would feel right at home there, but she couldn’t see any. Then again, she didn’t have the talent for seeing ghosts, so they may have just been invisible to her.
I am right here...
Tomochika and Yogiri could see Mokomoko, but that was only because they knew about her. She was very much the exception.
“That’s true... Why am I suddenly afraid of ghosts?” Tomochika had grown so used to having Mokomoko around that she had stopped thinking of her as a ghost, but if other ghosts were like her, it seemed stupid to be afraid of them.
You make a good point, but still, I would prefer that you were more wary of them.
“Anyway, letting him sleep is fine, but we should try to decide what we’re going to do when he wakes up.”
“Do you intend to continue collecting the stones?” Atila didn’t know much about their situation, but she had figured out they were after the Philosopher’s Stones.
“I’m not sure there’s a point.” They had thought that collecting the stones would allow them to revive Luu, who could send them home, but after reviving, Luu had gone off on her own. It was up in the air whether she’d be willing to help them, so collecting the stones might have been pointless.
It appears we will need to consider other methods of returning home.
“You can’t reach that robot anymore, can you?”
She was talking about the robotic Aggressor they had encountered before the reset. It had claimed that if they could find the coordinates of their home world and a sufficient source of energy, it could give them advice on getting home.
It appeared to be fighting the Sages. If we were to ask Sion, she might be able to tell us where it is...but that robot was after the Philosopher’s Stones as well. It may no longer have any intention of cooperating with us.
If Yogiri and Tomochika hadn’t known the true nature of the Philosopher’s Stones, they would have traded them for the Aggressor’s help. But since they knew the stones were parts of the goddess Luu, they couldn’t just hand them over even if they found more.
“Hmmm...Kouryu said he had a way for us to get home too, right? We’ve defeated quite a few Sages, so maybe he’ll help us out now.”
Kouryu was a boy they had met who claimed to have once been the god of this world. He’d said there was a way for them to get home without using the stones, but he hadn’t told them what it was since he had wanted them to defeat the Sages for him.
He also said he had some gripe with the Great Sage. Now that the Great Sage has picked a fight with the young man, it seems Kouryu will be getting his wish, though he may simply ignore any attempts on our part to contact him.
“Either way, we won’t find a way home in Cavern Quest, will we?”
Indeed. We were only here searching for the Philosopher’s Stones in the first place.
“So we can just leave, right?”
I suppose so. Either way, it seems we intend to face Lasbo.
Every day, the cost of the Life Tax increased. Lasbo needed to be defeated so that it could be reset. Eventually, someone would have to challenge him, and to do that, they would need the Philosopher’s Stones. In other words, if their group took the quest to fight the last boss and waited in his area, the stones would eventually come to them. That was one of the plans they had considered.
“Which means, we will also have to consider defeating Lasbo ourselves,” Atila replied.
“Yeah. I don’t know any other way to get out of here.”
Although Atila had started out on the monsters’ side, her objective was no different from theirs. And if they cleared Cavern Quest, Van would grant any wish that was within his power. As far as Tomochika knew, that wish was the only way for them to leave the game.
“If we plan on beating the game, we should probably go soon...” Tomochika looked at Yogiri. He seemed so peaceful, it was hard for her to wake him up.
I do not believe there is any need to rush. Dai possesses one of the stones, after all.
No one could reach the last boss until all of the Philosopher’s Stones, or the people who had previously housed the stones that had since disappeared, were collected. In other words, there was no chance of someone killing the boss before they got there.
“There’s the problem of who gets there first, still, but...I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”
The first ten people who reached the final area would gain any power they wished. Those aiming for it were likely thinking of some way to defeat Yogiri. Normally, one would try to figure out how to stop them, but Tomochika felt the same way Mokomoko did. No matter what power they had, she just couldn’t imagine anyone defeating Yogiri.
◇ ◇ ◇
Yachika had the latent talent to become a ghost. When most humans died, that was the end of them. There was no way for them to stay in this world with their consciousness and memories intact.
On top of her rare talent for persisting after death, she also had a talent for manipulating puppets. Normal ghosts couldn’t interact with the material world, nor could they do much more than make an area feel creepy. Yachika, though, could use her magic just as well as when she was alive.
Ghosts generally required a tremendous level of hatred or malice to be able to move physical objects, but Yachika could control puppets with her magic. She could easily affect the world of the living. So when she’d died, she had immediately killed the man who had murdered her: her former lover.
He had been incredibly surprised. He had stabbed her in the heart and cut off her head, but she’d just stood back up and attacked him. If anyone could become a vengeful ghost after their death, it would be a rather common story, but in reality it was a fairly rare occurrence.
Very few people were capable of becoming ghosts after they died. In most cases, the soul dissipated on death, leaving nothing behind. There had to be something different, something unique about them in order for a ghost to maintain its mind and memories after dying.
For the most part, ghosts didn’t change after their deaths. They couldn’t learn new information, and would be locked into whatever feelings they were experiencing when they died. However, Yachika was talented for a ghost. Despite having no physical body, she could think the same way she did in life. Most of her thoughts were consumed by her desire for revenge, though, so she wasn’t exactly as she’d been while alive. The anger she had felt at the time of her death persisted within her. Killing her murderer and devouring his soul hadn’t calmed her down, so she had lost the ability to think rationally.
Her hatred for her former lover extended to all men, to all people, to all living things, but she never realized there was anything strange about that. Her desire to destroy everything was coupled with a calm, calculating nature.
As a ghost, she was weak. She could use her magic to manipulate things shaped like people, but the only appropriate vessel she had was her own headless corpse. If she went on a rampage, she would only kill a few others at best. First, she needed more power. She needed more objects shaped like people.
Yachika fully invested herself in the rather plain work. She began by attacking someone weak, someone she could definitely kill. She absorbed their soul and turned their body into a pawn. Luckily, even though she was inside Cavern Quest, she was an exception to the rules. The Sage who had created the game reset everyone’s abilities and took back their items each time the season changed, but she wasn’t affected. She maintained her strength from season to season, and the bodies she collected, along with the dolls she made them create, were not taken away from her. As a ghost, it seemed the game didn’t recognize her as a player.
In Cavern Quest, players going out for adventures and failing to come home were the norm, so the population of the town had to be supplemented from time to time. This meant that even when the population of the town decreased substantially, she was never discovered.
Yachika’s current objective was to kill the Sage in charge of Cavern Quest and take his place. Doing so would require a huge amount of time, but being dead, her sense of time had already grown so vague that she wasn’t bothered by it. As the seasons came and went, Yachika continued to grow in strength. She killed, she devoured, she stole, she created. She repeated the cycle tirelessly. When she came to the point of being able to destroy a city on her own, uninvited guests began entering her domain.
At first, she was surprised, but she immediately regained her calm. The current season had barely started, so none of the players should have been strong enough to beat her. And this was Yachika’s territory. No matter who came here, she would kill them, consume their souls, and add their bodies to her collection like all the others. The unexpected intrusion was a bit irritating, but in the end it would only help her to grow stronger, so it wasn’t that bad.
She would start by having the dolls attack them while they waited in the living room. As she considered that, a sudden intense pressure in her head stopped her.
What was that?
Yachika was a ghost, so she didn’t truly have a head in the first place. She shouldn’t have had any physical senses at all, and yet she felt an incredible pain, like something was constricting her head. She searched her surroundings. Although her existence was abstract, there was a general area she could be said to inhabit. Right now, that was at the center of a room in the basement, where she suddenly noticed another person. It was a spirit so dense she had mistaken it for a human. That spirit had Yachika’s head in her hand and was squeezing it. The moment she realized that, her existence converged into the form of a body.
“I do not know what you are planning, nor do I have any grudge against you. You may think me cruel for visiting this fate upon you...but your existence is a threat to us. As a guardian spirit, I cannot ignore you.”
“What?! What’s happening?!” Yachika attempted to throw off the mysterious spirit’s grip. Though she struggled violently, she couldn’t make the hand gripping her head move so much as an inch.
Yachika decided to unleash all the power she had built up. It frustrated her to have to spend it all in a place like this, but her existence was on the line. Yet, no matter how much power she used, the grip on her head didn’t loosen. Instead, it grew tighter, as if the other ghost was trying to crush her.
“Such is the difference in our age, I suppose. No matter what hatred you feel or grudge you bear, against my raw power, you stand no chance.”
“Let go! Let go of me! I don’t have time for this! I have to kill them!” Her mind, her memories were going dark. She couldn’t recall what had made her so furious, so full of malice.
“Calm yourself. I do not have the power to erase you. The most I can do is scatter your form. As long as you persist in this world, you will eventually be able to start over. I have no quarrel with you. Just start again somewhere far from us.”
There was nothing to be crushed, but Yachika felt something crunch inside of her. Something within her had broken, and she was now dissipating, scattering.
“Just like this, I am always in the shadows, protecting my charge unseen. A bizarre thing for me to say about myself, I know...”
As Yachika’s consciousness faded, the last thing she heard was the strange spirit grumbling.
◇ ◇ ◇
“There is definitely something here!” Tomochika finally burst out as she and Atila sat idly on the couch.
I looked over the building and found nothing, Mokomoko stated.
“Really?” Tomochika had felt something in the air ever since they had stepped inside.
Perhaps it is a cousin to the Simulacra Phenomenon, but instead of seeing faces, you are feeling the gaze of others who do not exist.
“Are you sure? It doesn’t feel like it’s just my imagination. Okay, I guess it is just a gut feeling.”
Atila looked at her coldly. “You are the one who broke into their house uninvited. Are you really going to complain about feeling someone else here?”
“I mean, you’re not wrong, but...”
If you are so concerned, why not take a look around the house yourself? If you do not mind traipsing around another’s property like that.
“In for a penny, in for a pound, right?”
I do not believe now is the time for such optimism.
Tomochika stood up.
“I am not coming with you, you know,” Atila announced.
“Are you sure? This feels like the kind of situation where we’d be attacked if we split up...”
“I have Takatou and the dog here.”
“Oh, so yeah, you’re totally fine.”
There was no real need for Atila to go with her, so Tomochika and Mokomoko went to explore the house themselves. The first floor had a living room, bath, toilet, and kitchen. They could see most of it from the living room, so their exploration was mainly on the second floor.
Tomochika didn’t expect to find anything upstairs. “Hmm. It’s just my gut feeling, but I feel like whatever it is is probably below us.”
Oh? There is a basement, I suppose.
“That’s totally suspicious!”
Is it? I think it is perfectly ordinary for a house to have a cellar.
The entrance to the basement was in the kitchen. Opening a door in the floor, Tomochika descended the stairs.
“I mean, considering what was upstairs, I can’t really say I’m surprised.”
The basement housed tons of dolls. Unlike the ones on the ground, many were naked or had their parts scattered about. There was also some furniture, so it was perhaps a sort of workshop for making the dolls.
“It doesn’t look like anyone’s hiding here.” Tomochika looked around but didn’t find anything strange.
So there is nothing after all.
“Sorry! I guess I was worrying over nothing!”
Just in case, she checked the second floor as well, but as expected, it was empty. And at some point during her search, the creepy feeling that had been bothering her had vanished.
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