As soon as I allowed Jupiter to join our party, I figured we’d have to deal with the “cleansing” of Keraunos eventually.
Cleansing is a general term for when a spirit user seeks to improve the terms of their pact by knocking some sense into their spirit.
In the original Dungeon Magia games, it was mostly used either as a system for gaining new skills or as a plot device to liven up a character’s story. But in the real world, cleansing basically boiled down to taking an arrogant spirit down a peg.
…Yeah, not exactly the most gentlemanly of practices.
The game’s official description of cleansing is “a demonstration of one’s power to a spirit in order to make way for new possibilities,” but that’s going way too far to dress it up, if you ask me.
For better or worse, cleansing is a method of getting what you want from a spirit by force. Before you start thinking of it in terms of right and wrong, though, I think it’s important to consider things like the purpose of the cleansing and the relationship between the spirit user and their spirit.
So let’s take a look at the relevant facts.
Keraunos was a Sublime Demis spirit belonging to Jupiter, one of our party members. It had the ability to create and manipulate black bolts of lightning. The bolts themselves had two attributes: lightning and miasma (aka poison). As a spirit, it had a high aptitude for offensive Astral Skills.
Of particular note was the sheer power of these skills. Keraunos’s lightning was a cut above that of other High-Demis spirits, due in part to the fact that it had been modified in a laboratory. Its maxed-out stats meant it was closer to a Supreme-Demis spirit, which was usually one rank above. There was no room for complaint in terms of its power. It certainly had the strength one would expect of a true-route miniboss.
The problem was the spirit’s personality and the pact it had forged with its partner, Jupiter. These were about as bad as you could get. Keraunos had a short fuse and was an unimaginably toxic father. It was a monster parent, through and through.
“It might sound good that Keraunos wants to take over as her parent, but its methods are waaay over the line.”
It was nighttime in the midpoint. These massive safe areas set up throughout dungeons were always comfortable no matter what time of day it was.
The temperature was perfect. The humidity was exactly right. The air was always refreshingly cool. There was never any of the rain I loathed so much, and there weren’t any bugs, either. The divine Yalda Series (aka, the Jigglies) who served as proxies of the dungeon’s god, and who created the town, had imbued the place with a mysterious magic that kept it comfortable for everyone.
Every day felt like a festival, complete with food stalls. The spicy scent of seasoned meats and the sugary smell of cotton candy wafted through the air. Squint, and you could see street performers competing for the attention of great throngs of passersby. Every night, it seemed there was a new event being held on the silvery outdoor stage of the entertainment district.
It was bustling. It was noisy. It was crowded. The scenery was a blend of Western and Eastern architecture. And yet there were no fancy-looking high-rises anywhere. And the ever-cheerful atmosphere brought to mind a small rural town’s summer festival.
Haruka and I stood up on an observation deck, staring out at the lively scene below. We were discussing how best to deal with our little situation.
Jupiter wasn’t with us. She was fast asleep in her bed in our midpoint rental home. Our battle with Keraunos had ended only a few hours prior. She must have been exhausted. She woke up just long enough for a short chat before quickly falling back to sleep.
We hadn’t planned to keep our discussion secret or anything, but Jupiter’s exhaustion had given Haruka and me the perfect chance to talk things over alone.
We left the rental house and found a bench outside to sit on. The situation with Jupiter was a delicate topic, and I think, more than anything, we just wanted to get a glimpse of the normal lives of others in the city.
Not even half a day had passed since our battles on the fifteenth floor. First, we’d taken care of the boss, Kamaku the Doomquill Condor. And then, as soon as it sensed its “daughter” was in danger, the black-lightning beast known as Keraunos had attacked us, and we’d fought to quell its rage.
After two tense back-to-back battles, we wanted to put our minds at ease. That was when the two of us remembered the festival-like atmosphere back at the first midpoint and agreed it was just the thing to raise our spirits… And that was how we ended up here.
But we didn’t feel right about leaving Jupiter behind, even if she was fast asleep. If she woke up to find that no one was home, she would probably feel left out. Worse, she might get some weird idea in her head and decide to run off on her own… We had to avoid that at all costs.
So, to prevent that scenario, we hired some jiggly creatures to keep an eye on her and alert us if she woke up. We’d paid the Yalda in spirit stones, and they were currently crowded into our rental home. If anything happened to her, they’d let us know right away.
We didn’t want to choose between Jupiter’s aching heart and our own worn-out nerves, and frankly, there was no reason for us to. We needed to make sure she wasn’t left alone and took some time away—both were necessary and right.
I watched the fireworks burst in the sky above us before replying to Haruka.
“Right? I know it wants to protect her, but it was going overboard.”
“Yeah, totally! That oversized puppy acts like it’s looking out for Jupi, but it’s doing a terrible job. If it keeps going berserk like that, it’ll only guarantee that Jupi ends up totally alone!” A second later, she added, “Not that I’d ever let her be alone, obviously.” It was a very Haruka thing to say.
She was wearing a navy-blue tank top and a sports jacket by a famous overseas brand. Haruka could make anything look good, mind you, but the airy pearl-white jacket really brought out the bold charm of the inner layer.
Her hair stood out even more. It was tied back into a high ponytail, making her the spitting image of her younger sister, Kanata Aono, one of the heroines of the first Dungeon Magia. But one close look at her face was enough to tell the difference.
Haruka’s features weren’t as sharp as her sister’s, nor did she have Kanata’s calm, serious demeanor. Her blue eyes were round, almost like a cat’s, and she always seemed ready for anything.
The biggest difference, however, was her rainbow of expressions. Watching her face was endlessly entertaining. When she was happy, she would grin from ear to ear. And when she was excited, her eyes would sparkle.
Watching her enjoy life with every ounce of her being never failed to cheer me up. Even as we stood there in the darkness, she was cramming a hot dog into her mouth like it was the most delicious thing in the world.
“Huh? What are you looking at?” she asked. “…Have I got ketchup or mustard on my face?”
“No. Your face is fine. You’ve always been a clean eater.”
“Why, thank you very much,” she said, taking another hot dog out of its wrapper and stuffing her face with it. I’d lost count of how many she’d eaten today.
My body was feeling oddly warm, so I grabbed the bottle of water I’d set down by my side and took a swig to cool off before resuming the conversation.
“What do you think we should do?” I asked.
Haruka’s brow furrowed as she thought this over. Her ponytail and the serious look on her face really made her look like Kanata. “Well, we’re obviously going to have to beat up that big pooch again. Aside from that, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I figure thrashing it the way we did is basically pointless.”
“I don’t know if I’d call it ‘pointless’ exactly, but you’re right that it doesn’t matter how many times we beat it up. It’s never going to be the same as a proper cleansing.”
The Keraunos we fought on the fifteenth floor was essentially just an avatar. While it was connected with the real spirit, it was merely a puppet created from Keraunos’s spiritual power.
Whenever certain conditions were met—in other words, when Jupiter’s stress levels crossed a certain threshold—Keraunos would create a virtual body and run amok.
As the silver-haired girl had said, that was the sort of pact they’d formed. Keraunos was acting to protect its beloved daughter from pain and suffering. To an outside observer, it might look like the beast was going berserk, but its actions all conformed to the internal logic of its pact with Jupiter. That was why it wouldn’t stop, no matter how much Jupiter pleaded with it.
After all, that was the sort of pact they’d formed.
A pact with a spirit was absolute. To spirits, such pacts were what connected our world to the Astral Plane—their pipeline, their power, and their obligation.
And so, as long as Jupiter’s “father-daughter pact” with Keraunos remained in effect, the beast was duty bound to bare its fangs at anyone who dared put its daughter at risk. And it would target almost anyone—including us. The only thing that mattered to Keraunos was keeping up its end of the deal by protecting its daughter. It was following the contract to the letter, using the vague wording as an excuse for its behavior. It certainly wasn’t going to listen to any rational arguments from us.
And its violent behavior was only creating a feedback loop. The more Keraunos went on a rampage, the more isolated Jupiter became. And the more she was isolated, the more stress she would feel.
Stress. Rampage. Isolation. Stress. Rampage. Isolation. Stress. Rampage. Isolation. Stress. Rampage. Isolation. It was a never-ending downward spiral. In the game, the stated reason for Jupiter turning evil was because an evil organization recruited her. But the root cause of her antisocial tendencies was this cycle of negativity—what you might call the “Keraunos cycle.”