If anything, this phenomenon is making the writing go faster.
Chapter 187: As Comfortable as a Private Booth at an Internet Cafe
Spirits. In many ways, they're an even bigger-name staple than chimeras—a mega-veteran fantasy race that stands shoulder to shoulder with dragons, angels, and demons. There are all sorts of spirits, of course, but the major ones include fire, water, wind, and earth elemental spirits, or the Arabian-style djinn like the genie of the lamp. And swords named Excalibur have a pretty high probability of involving a "Lady of the Lake" or some such.
Depending on the game, or rather the whims of the person who wrote the setting, they might have a physical form or not, look utterly inhuman or "is that just cosplay?", or on the flip side, be so faithfully true to the source material they just look like a grimy lizard. In the worst cases, an ifrit gets treated as a fire spirit, even though that guy isn't even from European lore.
Well, enough talk about other games. In the world of SLF, a "spirit" is, to put it very simply, "a sentient tornado." Not in the sense of indiscriminately scattering destruction—rather, "a being where something resembling a consciousness has taken up residence in a concentrated mass of a specific element." That's how this world defines a spirit. The tornado analogy comes from this very nature. Spirits aren't lifeforms; they're consciousnesses born in places where magic has pooled. Which means, given enough time, they disperse and vanish—like a tornado that has spent all its energy unraveling and fading away. And that "consciousness" isn't anything as grandiose as a personality. It's a childish self-awareness, barely enough to distinguish between itself and everything else. Most spirits either use up their power without thinking and vanish, or fizzle out having no idea what to do with themselves.
Still, the person who designed SLF's setting isn't so stupid as to slap the big-name label of "spirit" onto a half-assed natural disaster. Though spirits lead lives more fleeting than fireflies or cicadas, on extremely rare occasions, one will manifest a solid, definable personality and the ability to stabilize its own existence by absorbing ambient magic of its own element. From a player's perspective, those are what you'd actually call "spirits." Sentient natural phenomena. Self-aware clumps of elemental energy. Call it whatever you want. Sometimes, they're boss monsters. Sometimes, they're NPCs tied to a Unique Scenario.
Sunraku: "So, what’s this Igaguri Dentsuu thing?"
Araba: "Existents. Spirits that lack power... You know that spirits unable to gain enough strength eventually fade away, right?"
Sunraku: "I know it as general knowledge."
Emul: "That's because I just explained it to you, wa..."
Sorry, I don't read strategy sites that obsessively.
Araba: "The Dwarf clan took notice of this. If they lack the power to sustain their own bodies, then why not provide them with a vessel and sustenance from the outside?"
Sunraku: "And that’s a Child-Rearing State?"
Araba: "Existents—Those Who Gained Existence! Sunraku, are you doing this on purpose?"
Sunraku: "Eh, who cares? Keep going."
Araba's face looks like he's chewing on a bitter bug, but since he owes me about three or four favors, he apparently can't push too hard. Though, personally, I consider the debt fully paid after he saved me from the orca bastard.
Araba: "She was such a spirit as well. She had a sense of self, but could not learn the art of drawing in magic on her own. She was on the verge of vanishing."
The blue-skinned spirit—Nereis, or whatever her name was—who should, if their story is true, be a washout of a spirit, to put it bluntly, shows none of the precarious fragility of something about to blink out of existence. Her skin, her hair, her eyes—everything has a bluish tint. She wears water that oddly refuses to let the other side show through, like a celestial robe, in lieu of clothing. The sight is rather stimulating, but the way her entire body's outline occasionally wavers and blurs... the way the ends of her hair and limbs sometimes dissolve past human contours into liquid... it all indicates that what composes her is not protein, but water and magic.
Sunraku: "Ah, I've pretty much pieced it together. You couldn't just leave her like that, so you somehow got her to the Dwarves, and they sealed her inside a weapon... no, she seems to have agreed to it, so she moved in, so to speak. Something like that?"
Araba: "Have you... been watching us since ages long past...?"
Sunraku: "Yeah, no."
It was just intuition. Mix "boy meets girl" with a bunch of other elements, and this is about what you get.
Sunraku: "From what I've heard, that katana houses a spirit, and the wielder supplies it with magic... No, the weapon itself gathers magic to some degree, or perhaps the spirit gains the means to supply itself with magic the moment it takes up residence in the weapon. That's my read."
Heh heh. Looks like I'm right on the mark. A weapon housing a supernatural being—that's such a classic fantasy staple I've seen it a million times. For me, this level of deduction is a piece of cake. I can cook rice with my navel as easily as boil tea. Hell, I could make ochazuke. Speaking of which, I'm getting hungry. I'll make some when I log out. I think I still have some salmon flakes left.
Araba: "That said, it seems it's not something so easily accomplished. One must synchronize with the fading spirit and obtain its consent. You can't just forcibly seal it into a weapon, apparently."
Sunraku: "Ah, that sounds all kinds of impressive... So the endgame is shoving a ton of spirits into one to make a weapon of mass destruction, huh."
Araba: "WHAT?!"
I just cleared a game with a similar story the other day. It was called Fearia Chronicle Online... ugh, my head.
Sunraku: "Joke. It's a joke. The Dwarves aren't the kind of bastards who'd do something that cruel, right?"
Araba: "Of course not! They're a bit rough around the edges, but they're all good-hearted folk!"
If they're all heavy drinkers with old-man faces, that's a yakuman hand. If they live in mines or underground, that's bonus points.
Araba: "When I first arrived here, I was attacked by those creatures and lost hold of her... To have found her again, truly...!"
Nereis: "When that thing ate me... I was really scared."
Sunraku: "Ah, so it really did eat you, huh."
Tentacles. Female spirit. Predation and absorption... Hmm. Be glad SLF isn’t rated R-18, Araba. Hell, in a worst-case scenario, Kaisen-Oh could have turned into a spirit... That was close. Too close. If she were a ghost-type spirit body, the Decapitation Sword might work, but whether a spirit counts as one is iffy at best.
Nereis: "Thank you, bird person. Nereis will give you a reward, okay?"
Sunraku: "If you wanna thank me, give it everything you've got as Araba's weapon. Otherwise, we’re all octopus food."
Whether Ctarnidd, who seems like he's already got one foot in the god category, would casually eat people is questionable. But Araba—who's pretty damn strong even barehanded (plus fangs)—if he's recovered his original weapon, we can officially count him as a combat asset now. That makes a mixed party of eight players and NPCs, excluding Stude. That's a solid number for tackling a raid boss. At least it's a hell of a lot more reassuring than challenging a level-down-debuffing Unique Monster with three people.
Nereis: "I understand. I'll do my best. Nereis will protect Araba and the bird person. Also... the white, squishy sea-urchin-looking thing."
Emul: "I'm not even being called a Vorpal Bunny anymore, wa!?"
Maybe because Vorpal Bunnies haven't expanded into marine environments. Well, whatever.
Sunraku: "Calm down, Emurchin—ow! Stop pecking the top of my head!"
Emul: "Puuaahh—!!"
If she were one of those scumbags, she'd laugh and fire back. What a short fuse. Here, I'll tug your ears right back.
Emul: "Fubyaahh—!?"
Look, you know what? In terms of overall chuuni-factor, you've been completely crushed by Nereis. A spiritual entity dwelling in a sword rivals even a demonic eye in chuuni power. A mascot character can't compete with that.
Sunraku: "Well, whatever. Araba—we're going Clione hunting. Right now."
Araba: "You truly do act without warning, don't you!?"
We can't level up anyway. Hunting for items doesn't spark any interest. If that's the case, the only thing left is boss-slaying. That Clione has the trait of completely shutting out all magic. At the very least, a spirit-possessed weapon, even if it's just physically swung around, shouldn't be useless.
(...Well, I won't deny I've got an ulterior motive: checking boss drops while the other players aren't around.)
I mean, there are four bosses. Surely just one is fine?
Sunraku: "Ah, Emul, you're staying here."
Emul: "Pwehh!?"
I mean, a magic user is worth about as much as an ornament or a meat shield here...
As all you sharp readers have no doubt already realized... I already depicted the Clione-san fight at the beginning of this arc... so... I’m Yuzapa-ing it...! (meaning: cutting it)
Existents — Possessed-Spirit Weapon Recipe
Required: