Chapter 76 - Fire Elemental

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

... In stark contrast to Aiden’s spirited declaration, both Noel and Katya looked profoundly miserable.

The main reason was, of course, that thing: the fire elemental in the scorching zone.

Commonly known among players as the fire dog, this challenge boss was one of the biggest headaches in the entire game in terms of combat difficulty. The fact that simply defeating it earned you a trophy said it all.

Well, to list just a few of its traits:

Complete immunity to physical attacks.

High resistance to Mana-based attacks.

Flame-generation abilities powerful enough to single-handedly trigger a volcanic eruption.

Its attacks were manageable enough, but the traits listed above alone were enough to make you complain, “Are we even supposed to be able to kill this thing?”

“... I did encounter something similar during the Coalition War,” Noel began, looking as though her head hurt.

“It was a monster that created an inferno like this all on its own, even in a country covered in snow. It took an entire knight corps to bring it down, and only barely.”

Apparently, the prospect of hunting another one now made her head spin. Dismay was written all over her face.

“... Honestly, taking it down by ourselves, unless we call in help from the Magic Kingdom...”

The words “sheer recklessness” must have been knocking insistently at her vocal cords.

Of course, that aside, Aiden clearly saw things very differently.

“It’s reckless.”

“...”

“But sometimes you can’t back down, even knowing that.”

He was entirely serious about taking that thing down here. Act 3 was just around the corner. He couldn’t possibly grow stronger too quickly.

“Then let’s do it, I guess...”

No sooner had he given that firm answer than a resigned voice replied nearby. It belonged to Katya, who had already learned there was little point trying to stop him when he was like this.

“Well, you’d probably go through with it even if we said no...”

“...”

“You’ve always had some pretty dangerous ideas.”

... Even Noel nodded along with that added comment. By now, she looked tired of raising objections.

“So, what insane stunt are you planning this time?”

“...”

Noel’s casually delivered words drove straight into Aiden’s heart.

He was gradually giving up on managing his image, but she didn’t have to be quite so blunt. Not that he intended to deny how bizarre his methods were.

“... First, we’ll need supplies.”

“Supplies?”

And what he needed for that was...

“...”

“...”

“...”

As Aiden’s gaze lingered on her, Katya blinked blankly.

“...?”

At last, she raised a finger and pointed at herself, looking dazed.

“... Me?”

“... Yes.”

“... I’m the supplies?”

“... Yes.”

Katya blinked vacantly, plainly wondering what on earth he was planning that required using her as supplies. Aiden sighed and began to explain.

“Do you know which part of the body is the hardest to toughen up?”

“... What?”

“The internal organs. The organs.”

Of course, it was hard to expect a dog that spewed fire from its entire body to possess ordinary anatomy. But it certainly had organs that served similar purposes—organs essential to keeping it alive.

Inside its chest was a tiny “core” supplying it with Mana. All magical beasts had one, and common sense suggested that a dog with such an enormous body would naturally have a correspondingly enormous core.

‘... Except it doesn’t.’

That was the reasonable assumption, but unfortunately, this fire elemental’s weak point had been made extraordinarily small.

It felt downright malicious, as though the developers had laid that trap in advance specifically to make it impossible to kill...

So, while that weakness was normally almost impossible to target, with Katya here, there was something worth trying.

“Katya.”

“Yes?”

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

“No, you haven’t. I was starting to think you were being a little mean.”

By “paying attention,” he meant tearing her to pieces and killing her so she could feel something.

... Even he thought it sounded catastrophic, but Katya herself wanted it and kept pestering him, so what could he do?

“You can think of this as my way of making it up to you.”

“...”

Katya’s face lit up, while Noel’s expression instantly turned peculiar.

▣

“I knew you were strange, but...”

The words came from Katya in a muffled mumble. With tape wrapped over her mouth, her speech was bound to sound distorted.

“This is really creative.”

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

Her attempt to speak had made Aiden realize there was still some “unused space” left in her body.

He peeled off the tape and carefully packed the remaining “compound” into Katya’s mouth. He had already slathered it all over her body and secured it with tape, but he might as well use up the rest...

It worked on a similar principle to the stakes he had previously imbued with divinity: liquids configured to release dharmic power after a delay.

In other words, it was like installing a delayed fuse in a bomb.

The compound infused with dharmic power was merely a solvent for supernatural power and did little on its own. But when imbued with another effect, it more than doubled that effect’s power.

He stuffed every last bit into Katya’s mouth until her cheeks bulged, inserted the all-important “remote transmitter,” then taped her mouth shut again to seal it.

“...”

As Katya tilted her head, cheeks puffed out like a hamster’s, Noel spoke in a voice laden with all the regret in the world.

“... Aiden.”

“Yes?”

“You know I’m always firmly on your side.”

“Yes.”

“But are you actually out of your mind...?”

“...”

Well, he deserved that.

But...

“... Dame Noel.”

“Yes?”

“I’ve done much worse than this on many occasions because Her Highness asked me to.”

“...”

“... It’s not as if I want to do this, either.”

“...”

Hearing the sincerity in Aiden’s voice, Noel’s expression shifted oddly. She heaved a sigh that conveyed her realization: he had his share of everyday hardships, too.

At least she clearly understood that he wasn’t simply tormenting Katya...

... Though even Aiden had trouble deciding whether being looked at that way was a good thing or a bad thing.

Well, anyway.

“Shall we begin?”

As he murmured a mantra under his breath, brilliant light burst forth around him. It was all dharmic power that needed to be condensed into cores, and he deftly shaped it into three spheres.

When he infused them into the compound on Katya’s body, its color became even stranger. It wasn’t particularly pleasant to look at, but it indicated that supernatural power had taken hold within it.

According to the original game’s lore, elemental affinities formed a clearly interlocking system, like rock-paper-scissors.

Thus, people who already had a primary supernatural power generally learned dharmic power to enhance it further. It allowed them to amplify that power’s potency.

And Aiden could use such a “primary supernatural power” more efficiently than anyone else.

When he added Guardian’s Flame, the solvent coating her body began radiating the light it held even more intensely.

And this was a “cold flame,” created by “inverting” Guardian’s Flame.

Reversing an attribute through dharmic power like this was undoubtedly an exceedingly difficult feat, but it wasn’t all that hard for Aiden.

More precisely...

‘... The solvent is top-grade to begin with.’

That liquid was the ectoplasm left over after setting aside the portion he would give Ganesha for crafting his equipment. A supernatural-power solvent rivaling Star Iron made tricks like this easy with only a little manipulation.

“... All right, here goes.”

Noel raised her spear accordingly.

“Hah!”

Judging by the speed of the spear she hurled with that shout, she had certainly lived up to expectations.

The spear hurtled forward and scattered the fire elemental’s body of flame. The strike’s power was beyond reproach, but the creature was completely immune to physical attacks.

Clearly unharmed, it turned toward them, its yellow eyes shining ominously.

Normally, this would mark the beginning of a horrendously difficult fight.

But they had prepared a finishing move specifically for this creature.

“... Shall I?”

“Go ahead.”

With that, Noel hurled Katya with all her might. She sailed through the air every bit as fast as the spear before her.

“...”

“...”

Both Noel and Aiden found themselves questioning their lives just from witnessing this spectacle, but once they had started, they had to see it through.

Ignoring the reaction he sensed beside him, Aiden raised a hand and began adjusting the flow of supernatural power more fluidly.

Just as Katya reached the fire elemental, whose flaming body had been “scattered” by the physical attack, he detonated the dharmic power.

There was a reason he had plastered that solvent all over Katya’s body and even inserted a remote fuse. With only a slight adjustment, she could serve as a remote-controlled bomb.

The remote transmitter he had put in her mouth acted as the detonator. Starting with her head, Katya’s body exploded into pieces, sending the Mana solvent spreading throughout the fire elemental’s entire body.

Imbued with intense cold, the Mana solvent sprayed outward with enough force to seemingly freeze the very air.

“Whoa.”

The sight drew an involuntary exclamation.

In human terms, it was like tossing a small poison-dispersing bomb inside someone’s body.

No matter how insanely powerful the fire elemental was, as long as it had a core that functioned as its internal organs, it couldn’t withstand cold shoved directly into it like this.

The flaming dog, which had been spewing fierce fire all around it, crumbled in an instant. A sphere wreathed in flame protruded from the center of its chest: the “core” Aiden had been aiming for—the elemental fragment.

“... Wooow.”

He heard Noel exclaim beside him.

Objectively speaking, what they had done was exceedingly bizarre, but seeing an elemental that powerful blown apart in a single hit was a magnificent spectacle in its own right.

“Hahahahahahaha! This is fun!”

“...”

“...”

Though it was rather hard to keep reacting that way when Katya was cackling in genuine delight as the shattered pieces of her body flew through the air.