“Okay, sure. We’ll pretend you’re not totally wasted. Now drink this.” I handed the intoxicated Olto a recovery item. At least he had no problems drinking it.
At first, the only status effects the boss inflicted were Poison, Paralysis, and Bleeding. But as the battle went on, more status ailments were introduced. In addition to the first three, we now had a chance of being inflicted with Sleep, Burn, Freeze, Blind, and now Intoxication.
Intoxication impaired a player or monster’s ability to attack and there was also a chance they would attack their teammates. Luckily Olto wasn’t a strong fighter, so his attempt to attack me hadn’t done much damage. I was really glad that Olto had been the one to get Intoxicated.
“I’m pretty sure I remember that Charm will be thrown in next,” I said.
“Hamakaze said that she respawned four times because of Charm!”
When Hamakaze had challenged the Demonic Ghost with her party, her Charmed teammates had turned on one another and wiped the party.
In order to ensure a welcoming atmosphere, it usually wasn’t possible to deal friendly fire in this game. I supposed there had to be some kindhearted people among the management team, for them to have come to that decision.
However, during boss battles, it was possible to attack your teammates when Charmed or Intoxicated. It made things really difficult. No one was ever keeping a close watch on their teammates’ attacks, so someone getting hit with Charm could throw even a top party into chaos. Not many enemies used Charm either, so there wasn’t yet a well-known strategy for coping with it.
If a decent attacker used one of their strongest moves, they could easily take out a backliner with one hit. Yeesh. Just the thought gave me chills.
In my party’s case, we’d have big problems if someone like Drimo were charmed. There’d be no question that I’d be dead meat if he used Dragon Blood Awakening on me. Bear Bear would be bad too. One slash of those sharp claws and I was a goner.
“Maybe I’ll swap them out.”
We weren’t supposed to harm the boss anyway, so I decided to reform my party with our weakest attackers: Olto, Reflet, Eine, Himka, Fau, and Carro. Even if worse came to worst and they became charmed, any damage they could do would be minimal.
Since we were just going to evade the boss and not attack it, this plan could work, not that it was a method that would be favored by players who didn’t care about forming a friendship with the boss and just wanted to defeat it to get drops. Still, I felt bad having to send Bear Bear away so soon after summoning them in!
“Aaaah!” the Demonic Ghost wailed.
“Hmmm!”
“Here we go!”
Himka got charmed! He came at me with punches, but he didn’t actually deal much damage. Though that smug look on his face was kind of annoying!
Changing up my party had been a good idea after all. The battle went on for a bit longer, until the Demonic Ghost let out her loudest shriek yet.
“Aaa-aaah-aaaaah!”
“Here comes her final move! Duck!”
“H-Hmmm!”
“Tra-la-la!”
The Demonic Ghost spewed out ten shots of ectoplasm at once. We guarded against them as well as we could, and after we had managed to hold out against the attack without anyone dying, the Demonic Ghost underwent her final change. In a heartbeat, she went from being a horror movie monster to a beautiful woman. Though she still wore white burial clothes and a white triangle headband, making her look similar to Oiwa, a character from “Yotsuya Kaiden,” a famous classic ghost story.
She stared at me with a piercing gaze. She had dark shadows under her eyes, and I could see the whites surrounding her iris. But despite her threatening appearance, the marker above her didn’t label her as an enemy anymore, and she had stopped attacking us.
“The battle against the Demonic Ghost is over.”
“Phew,” I breathed. “We did it.”
“Good work,” Akari sighed.
Although we hadn’t taken much damage, it had been an exhausting fight. Plus, even though the battle was over, the event was not.
“Yuto, she’s coming towards us!” Akari cried in a panic.
“C-Calm down, Akari. We already knew this would happen.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that it’s scary!”
The Demonic Ghost, who now had the appearance of a beautiful, melancholic woman, flew over to us without making a sound, just as the Kappa had approached me after the last battle. It was a bit shocking to watch a transparent, floating ghost come towards us so quickly, though.
“Oaaah,” the ghost moaned.
“Um, would you like this?”
“Ah.”
I guess this is what she wants. The item I handed the ghost was, according to the Quick-Eared Cats, her favored item, but it was startling to see her actually look happy. I had given her a high-quality poison. Obake also enjoyed eating poison mushrooms, so I guessed ghostlike creatures liked poison.
“Ooaaah.”
The Demonic Ghost held the bottle of poison up high and made an expression that looked like a smile. I was starting to worry what she planned to use it for. Her whole vibe screamed that she was going to use it for revenge or something. She isn’t, is she?
“You have formed a bond of friendship with the Demonic Ghost. Certain skills have been unlocked.”
“Oh, nice! I got the announcement!” I said triumphantly.
“Me too.”
The Demonic Ghost was now registered to my encyclopedia and I had unlocked two new skills.
“I unlocked Wail and Demonic Ghost Hand.”
Wail was the move that the Demonic Ghost used on us. The user unleashed a shout that inflicted a status ailment on any enemy that heard it. My party used status ailments often, so this would be a welcome addition. Though I’d be kind of embarrassed to scream in the middle of battle.
Demonic Ghost Hand was a skill that dealt damage while ignoring defense, like an imitation of ghost-type enemies’ attacks. It wasn’t very strong, so I was on the fence about acquiring it. Plus it had a short range, so it didn’t seem like something I personally would be able to effectively use.
And with that, I had five entries in my yokai encyclopedia. The Hanami Vandal, the Tea Kettle Tanuki, the Sunekosuri, the Kappa, and the Demonic Ghost. I thought something might happen when I registered five of them... But nope!
I stared disappointedly at my encyclopedia when I heard Akari groan at her screen.
“Hmm.”
“What’s wrong, Akari?”
“Well, I registered the ghost to my encyclopedia, but now I’m wondering if I even want to learn this skill.”
“Yokai Summoning?”
“Yes, that one.”
Just as other job classes besides Tamer and Summoner could learn Tame and Summon, anyone could learn the Onmyoji skill called Yokai Summoning. However, there was a skill exclusive to tamers—Monster Taming—and likewise, Talisman skills were exclusive to Onmyoji.
Talisman skills allowed an Onmyoji to seal the power of a yokai into a talisman for later use. Various types of abilities could be sealed, not just attacks, so it was actually a pretty versatile skill. Without Talisman skills, the only thing you could do with yokai was summon them into battle to fight.
“Unless you get more yokai, I don’t think it’ll be a very useful skill,” I told Akari.
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. Are you going to bother acquiring it?”
“I’m still trying to decide.”
“I’m right there with you.”
The thing that was holding me back was how few yokai I currently had. If I had at least ten yokai I could summon, then I could see myself regularly using the skill, though...
While I was ruminating, Akari nodded to herself with a decisive look on her face.
“I’m going to learn Yokai Summoning!” she declared.
“Huh? You are?”
Akari had even fewer yokai than I did. It would be way more practical to learn another magic technique or something...
“I plan on learning it at some point anyway, so it’s probably better that I start using it now to level the skill up,” Akari explained.
“Ah, good point.”
Akari opened my eyes to the light. She was right. I was going to acquire the skill at some point too, so what difference did it make if I got it now?
“Hmm, you know, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” I said.
“Right? This skill will let me summon adorable yokai whenever I want. I absolutely need to have it!”
I was pretty sure the only yokai Akari had that could be considered cute was the Sunekosuri.
“It probably is better to start leveling up Yokai Summoning a little at a time now instead of rushing to do so after getting more yokai,” I reasoned aloud.
“Exactly!” Akari agreed.
We nodded at each other determinedly when Olto tugged on the hem of my robe, looking very bored. Everyone else did too—they were gathering around me, clambering over one another and being generally noisy. They started pulling on my robe too. A bit too hard, in fact. They were practically jerking me back and forth.
“Mm-mmm.”
“Hmmm.”
“What’s up with you guys? Are you bored? It won’t be long now. Oh, wanna give your input? Should I learn Yokai Summoning?”
“Tra-la?”
“Hum-hum!”
“Neigh!”
That sounded like a resounding yes. Reflet made some sort of hand signal and Carro pretended to get hit by an attack. Are they playing pretend Onmyoji? My other monsters cheered at the show. Fau even started strumming some slow, traditional song.
“Laaa-di-laaa. ♪”
That must have been one of the songs I bought at the music convention. I was happy to see her put it to use so quickly.
I think it’s safe to say all my monsters are fully on board with the idea.
“All right, that settles it!” I exclaimed. “Okay, I learned it.”
“Me too!”
“Should we try it out?”
“Good idea.”