Kansutoppu!

I was worried about how we were going to navigate, but it turned out from the entrance it had been an entirely straight path. Unfortunately, that same type of monster kept attacking us over and over, but I took care of them. I was mostly worried about protecting Roel and Torepo from their ranged magic. If I fought them all alone, their magic wouldn"t matter.

"Ryua… too strong…" Torepo was only paying attention to me.

Maybe she would have believed me about the Caverns? Either way, we didn"t have the time to get into it. We continued until we finally came upon an extremely old looking door.

"Is this the end of the line?" I said.

"Going to open it? Will it open? It is already open?" Roel had her arms completely wrapped around my waist, hiding her face in my back, so I had to gently remove them before I could move. I was kind of worried we still hadn"t seen that ghost girl again after Roel had hugged her.

"This… is it…"

Torepo seemed very sure. So while I could feel the tension from Roel, I went forward and pulled the door open.

None of us were ready for the sight on the other side. Francoise was hanging from the ceiling. The rope had been tied around her neck and had stretched it out to an inhuman length. There was vomit crusted on her chin that had dribbled from her mouth. From the bottom of her skirt to her freely hanging legs was feces, which had dripped all the way down her legs and piled up on the floor below.

Roel screamed, so afraid that she had finally let go of me to cower in the corner. I wasn"t even able to hide my own surprise at the scene and unintentionally stepped back into Torepo. She was just standing there looking at the corpse thinking about… who knew what.

A bit farther into the room was the mummified corpse of a little girl and a bunch of white bones in the shape of a man. There was no doubt in my mind they were the remains of the little girl who clung to me and the man who guided us here. What in the world had happened? Why had Francoise killed herself? Most importantly, could we finish the commission with nothing but mysteries to show for our time?

"What do we do..." I said.

"... Wait…"

Torepo was pointing at the body of Francoise. Her body had started to sway, and her head came to life shortly after.

I accidentally let out a shriek.

Her head turned towards us. With her tongue loosely dangling from her mouth, her eyes began rolling around in her head. Her neck was so long it looked like a snail coming out of its sh.e.l.l. Francoise snapped the rope and landed with her feet turned in toward one another, tilting her head to the side to gaze directly at us. Immediately, she elongated her arm and sent it hurtling towards us.

[ Francoise appeared! Francoise suddenly attacked! ]

I stepped in front of Torepo to shield her, knocking away the arm with my right hand. The arm hit the ground and Francoise slowly began to retract it back toward herself.

"Wh-wh-what…" Roel was tightly gripping her staff with tears in her eyes.

No matter what, I wouldn"t let her get close to them. But blocking her blow had felt like when I hit the girl before, and it seemed to do no damage. It was like hitting rubber. If she were the same as the little girl, the fight was going to be difficult.

"Kahnshentreyt on shtadiezzzz..." Francoise was gushing blood from her mouth as she spoke.

"Ah bahd chald dasn"t geht fooooood…" Francoise continued to attempt to speak as Torepo cast a spell.

[ Torepo cast Blaze Shot! ]

A large ball of flames landed a direct hit on Francoise, but it didn"t send her flying. She just stood in place, on fire, as if nothing had happened. Before long, the flames went away, and Francoise returned to just as she was before.

[ Francoise receives no damage! HP 0/0 ]

"This… vengeful ghost… no use…"

"Vengeful ghost?" I didn"t know what that meant. Was it not a ghost-type monster?

"Vengeful ghost… different from… monster…. It"s before… becomes ghost… type…"

So vengeful ghosts turned into ghost-type monsters, if I understood her correctly. In other words, they weren"t a monster and I wasn"t able to do anything to them.

"This is a first for me…" I had become somewhat disheartened, and Roel had dropped her staff. I looked at Roel, who was visibly shaking, and thought about calling it quits then and there. I had promised to protect her, and yet I couldn"t do anything. She should have been able to fight without worrying, and I couldn"t do that for her.

Francoise was advancing on us while slapping her slightly extended arm on the ground like a child throwing a fit.

"Are you going to kill me? You can try, but you have no chance whatsoever." I would do whatever I could to take the attention off the others, so I tried to provoke it.

I"m not really sure if it worked, but Francoise turned a single eyeball towards me. Really, it wasn"t a problem at all for me to hit this monster standing before me. The problem was is that she wasn"t a monster, and so my attacks wouldn"t do any damage. I thought it was pretty odd she was immortal even though she already died, but either way invincibility was annoying.

Francoise swung her long arm at me with her palm open as if she were going to slap me in the face.

"That"ll never work!"

I grabbed her arm with my right hand and twisted it right off, letting it fall to the floor. It didn"t appear to hurt her in the slightest.

The arm twitched slightly, then suddenly it jumped up my leg toward my head. At the same time I seized the arm, the hand grabbed hold of my throat.

"Ack… D-d.a.m.n it!"

"Ryua!"

It was the same as with the little girl. I tried to tear it off, but it held tight with a strength I couldn"t believe. Despite all my training in the Caverns of h.e.l.l, how come I was still so powerless against them?

Roel was tearing at the arm as if she were half crazed. "Get off! Get off!"

If it was impossible for me, there wasn"t much that Roel was going to be able to do, but I found myself appreciating her trying all the same. Torepo also joined in, but the hand kept its firm grip on my throat.

"What are you doing!? Let go of Ryua!"

Francoise"s long nails were sticking into my throat and making it very difficult to breathe. Her actual body was across the room, her head lolling back and forth. Feeling like she was taunting me back, I got angry and smashed her arm again, but it did nothing.

Was I going to die? I had so much left to do...

I wasn"t about to let a G.o.dd.a.m.n ghost kill me!

----------

Torepo couldn"t believe it. When Ryua had easily smashed those Mortal Ghosts, she had felt it a little, but the bloodl.u.s.t emanating from that girl was incomparable to anything she had ever felt before. During the day Ryua had seemed completely normal as she interacted with that other girl, Roel. As she watched her struggle, Ryua had become a completely different person. She wasn"t even sure she would call Ryua a human being anymore.

Torepo had no desire to be anywhere near a girl like that. She watched, awestruck, as Ryua forcibly tore the hand off her own neck.

----------

"Ryua?... Who…?" Torepo was backing away from me a few steps.

I managed to get my finger inside its hand and with all my might I tore it off my neck, launching it against the wall. The arm fell to the floor but immediately started to crawl back toward me. I stepped on it before it could try again.

"Heal!"

Roel desperately healed me. I was thankful, but I was concentrating more on the hand. Roel healed me again.

The arm"s motions changed beneath my feet. It was attempting to escape using its terrible strength, but it felt like it was getting weaker.

"Roel… more… healing…" Torepo sounded sure, like she was on to something. Roel continued healing, though I think she would have continued with all her heart anyway.

Francoise"s arm started to shake, eventually losing its power to escape. Before long, the healing light wrapped itself around the arm and it disappeared. Francoise let out a shrill yell while grasping at where the arm used to be on her body.

"The arm… it"s gone…" Roel seemed the most surprised, but I didn"t know what happened either.

"Heal… her…"

I didn"t really get it, but it seemed like she was weak to healing magic. "Right, she"s dead so healing magic has the opposite effect on her!"

"Roel… do it…"

"But, I can"t reach her from here…"

I was able to fix that. I dashed toward the vengeful ghost on the other side of the room. Francoise was in agony, but she still tried to defend herself using the same move as before. That wouldn"t work on me twice.

I kicked off from the floor and shot to her flank, where I kicked off again and was immediately behind her in under a second. Francoise was left completely defenseless, and I aimed a kick at her back that sent her flying. I chased after her and jumped into the air, landing with both feet on her head, sending her crashing into the ground.

"Ah, oh, wow, umm…" Roel was looking at me as I stood on top of Francoise"s head completely bewildered.

"Hurry!"

I probably wouldn"t have been able to stop her easily if she tried to move, so I might have shouted too roughly at Roel.

"R-right! … Heal!"

The vengeful ghost let out a moan loud enough to make me want to plug my ears. Roel looked so surprised I was afraid she was going to stop casting, so I shot her a look to make her keep going.

She continued to cast heal after heal on her until, just like the hand before, the whole body disappeared.

Or so we thought.