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“Huh?”
The noise I made sounded like it belonged to someone else.
Before me was my staff. The staff, having taken a blow from a magibeast’s battle-axe, had been split in half. The pieces hit the ground and rolled. Each sickening smack resounded in my ears.
“Hey,” I said, my voice trembling. I called to him, the guy inside the staff. “Hey! Answer me!”
But I didn’t need to hear anything to know the truth. This was something I had explored already.
Unlike a normal spirit, he had reincarnated into the staff itself. The staff was his flesh and blood. That was why he couldn’t move to another staff when I used it to pray.
A human with their body split in half couldn’t survive. He was dead.
“Iron wall, iron wall, iron wall...!”
Feena was chanting prayer after prayer to stop the magibeast, but it was a high-grade monster; it tore apart the iron like paper.
Still sitting, I looked up at the empty air. The world was dark. It was like I was lost again, as I had been before I met him. This was just going back to how things had been, but for some reason, it was far darker than before; I couldn’t see anything.
“Give...back...”
Words came bubbling out of my throat. I could still hear his voice ringing in my ears.
An otaku’s dream is the dream of their idol! An otaku is happy when their idol is happy!
We had just decided to be together forever.
He was the first person to say he liked me.
He was my first spirit.
He was my first...
“GRAAAAAAAAAAH!”
The magibeast lifted its axe in the air. Feena, her knees weak, collapsed and hugged me.
“I’m sorry, Stella... My walls can’t do anything...”
The thick blade was coming for my life next.
But I wasn’t scared.
My head was filled with hot sparks.
I glared up at the magibeast and made my demand.
“Give him back.”
Loss became despair, despair became grief, grief became rage, and rage became prayer...
The world was to be twisted beyond all forms of reasons...
The wrist holding the magibeast’s axe was blown off.
Not even the magibeast understood what had happened. A moment later, it roared out in anger.
But that was wrong. I was the one who was angry.
“Give him back, give him back, give him back...!”
I screamed as my rage demanded. This was a chant. What was once a mere phrase became cloaked by intense wishes, which in turn transformed into raw power.
Fists which came flying exploded.
Legs which came stomping exploded.
Heads which came chomping exploded.
Explode. Explode. Explode.
The chunks of blood and meat rained down, dyeing everything red.
It took mere seconds for all the magibeasts to perish.
“I-Is that a high-level miracle...?! You saved us, Stella! Now the professors will surely come to rescue us!”
Feena’s joy reached me, but I didn’t respond.
After all, he wasn’t coming back.
What did it matter that the magibeasts were dead? That didn’t mean anything to me.
I grabbed and hugged the pieces of the broken staff, now empty shells.
I could see black chains. They multiplied from my hands like disgusting sins being committed one after another.
I couldn’t stop my overflowing wish.
“Give him back, give him back, GIVE HIM BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK...!”
My screams echoed through the labyrinth, shattering its ceiling, walls, and floor.
✦ ✦ ✦
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At first it was just the sound of crumbling.
“What’s that sound...?”
The first-years were having their final exam. Hamiel was mingling with the professors on the edge of the courtyard and watching footage of the inside of the dungeon, only to suddenly hear what sounded like collapsing stone.
She had seen the object of her curiosity, Stella, slay the tree magibeasts with miracles. She even had made a friend to fight alongside. In other words, she had gotten a spirit like everyone else.
That was a relief for Hamiel.
The fear she had felt back must have all been an illusion. She had just felt a bit overwhelmed by the girl’s intensity. Running with that conclusion was the safest option.
Now, though, a terrible chill was running down Hamiel’s spine.
The ground creaked as if screaming, and the sturdy outer walls of the dungeon began crumbling into dust.
Speranza was the first to cry out. “What is happening?! The dungeon is collapsing! We must maintain—”
“I can’t...! The spirits, they aren’t responding!”
The dungeon was made through several professors casting high-level miracles together. Losing control of the spirits meant the dungeon would collapse in no time, putting the students within in danger.
Hamiel took her staff and stood.
“May holy winds come with the grace of the Goddess. Winaria Sein...!”
She planned to mobilize all the Wind spirits to contain the destruction of the dungeon. That’d be simple with the power of a Grand Spirit...or rather, it should have been.
Hamiel looked up at the sky in a daze.
There wasn’t even a light breeze.
“Impossible. What’s happening?”
She couldn’t use any miracles. That had never happened once in Hamiel’s entire life.
No... It had happened once before—when Stella had grabbed her staff. The same thing was happening now, right before her eyes.
There was nothing more powerless than a saint with no control over a spirit. The professors panicked and floundered every which way, but time marched mercilessly on with no resolution in sight.
Amid all of this chaos, a single, small-framed professor gazed at the dungeon in delight.
“At last...the cup has overflowed. Aha!”
Finally, the dungeon collapsed in an explosive cacophony.