Spirit Migration Chapter 1

Chapter 01: The girls lost item

Some time had pa.s.sed since ‘he’ possessed an earwig-like monster and got crushed by the wary adventurer’s attack. After ‘he’ got used to possessing big rats, small rats, and bugs,

it was as if he had learned the ropes of it and he was able to control them at his own will.

[He……re…….. Here we go.]

‘He’ who is flying through the corridor while trying to maintain his balance, is now possessing a large bat that lives inside the dungeon.

The living beings that live inside this dungeon change because of the magic power within it, becoming enlarged or going berserk. Since from time to time an adventurer party pa.s.ses by, he was able to find out about the history and workings of the dungeon.

It seems like even humans will be affected if they stay too long inside the dungeon. By the way, ‘he’ also tried to possess a human, but it didn’t go well.    

[However this bat, because its body is so big, it takes a while to get back up high if it falls once.]

The big mutant bat was located before a normal bat, like a normal one, it was hanging upside down on the ceiling while resting, it drops well by sliding it’s leg. What ´he´ was possessing was also a bat, he got the idea when he saw one going towards him when he was possessing a rat.

The balance may be bad, but his mobility had increased because it can fly. Thanks to that, he was able to find many things on this floor, like the exit to the dungeon and, furthermore, he was able to find the stairs leading deeper down the dungeon. He tried to leave the dungeon once through the exit, however something like a barrier stopped him and he couldn’t get out.

For that reason, today ‘he’ who didn’t do anything in particular and was just floating there, and thus, was just hovering around the ceiling of the exit of the dungeon, while thinking: ‘won’t anyone pa.s.s by~’, just hovering. If he was in a place where he stood out, things like arrows or fireb.a.l.l.s or ice shards would come flying towards him, so he was floating in a place where he didn’t stand out.

[Oh?]

Yesterday, the teacher of an adventurer party led them to the dungeon in the town of Bara.s.s. ‘The first floor is safe, there isn’t anything scary’ a pet.i.te human presence kept telling herself that with timid steps in the pa.s.sage. Because of some circ.u.mstances, she came alone today.  

She, who had just become an adventurer apprentice, was a normal teenage girl if you left out the battle training she had and her knowledge as an adventurer.

She wore normal town clothes and a thick coat meant for long journeys, her weapons were a knife provided by the adventurer’s society and a short bow with an arrow. Since the first floor of the dungeon had lights, so her hands were free, she had an arrow nocked so that she could attack from a safe distance.  

“I-It’s okay, it’s okay. I just have to look around the area I was yesterday, even if monsters come out, I should be able to beat them on my own.”

She was nervously muttering that, confirming she had her knife on her belt, she grasped her short bow and began walking through the pa.s.sage.

From the ceiling ‘He’ who was looking at the girl who was a nooby adventurer no matter how you looked at it, was concentrating his consciousness on the girl, he controlled the possessed bat and slipped from the ceiling. ‘He’ was trying to observe the girl closely, but he didn’t make it in time to spread his wings.

To the black ma.s.s that simply fell down in front of her eyes, the surprised girl readied her bow in a hurry. But, she didn’t have an arrow readied yet.

Impatiently she tried to grab an arrow, by the time she had loaded the arrow on her bow and fixed her stance, the black ma.s.s had stood back up and looked at her. She involuntarily felt a chill down her spine. However, the black ma.s.s didn’t make any moves to attack and just kept looking at her with its eyes that looked like gla.s.s beads.

“……Bat?”

“Kyi.”

‘He’ tried to tried to simply answer the girl. Even if the monsters he possessed were to be pierced by an arrow or slashed by a sword, ‘he’ himself didn’t get particularly affected by it, there weren’t any problems with facing adventurers.

Since ‘He’ would get hunted no matter what, ‘He’ acts stealthily around humans.

“Could it be that you fell down?”

“Kiki.”

The girl looked up to the ceiling once, then she returned her gaze to the big bat that was standing perched in the pa.s.sage, the bat answered her gaze by gazing back. It’s a monster that is tentatively called ‘man-eating bat’, but the girl calmed down noticing that this bat didn’t have any ill will.

It seems like the fangs and claws of a bat are some kind of valuable material, so from time to time adventurers or merchants come to hunt them down. Basically it’s a monster you don’t have to be wary of.    

“You’re a klutz aren’t you.”

“Kyi~”

When the girl puts the short bow on her back she fearfully approached the large bat, after knowing that there wasn’t any danger she lifted him up, in a confusing way she started her search in the dungeon while hugging him as if he were a stuffed doll.

“That’s why-, I think I dropped it around here yesterday when I pa.s.sed through.”

“Kyi.”

“I cherished it since it was a present that I liked, but to think I would drop it in a place like this……”

“Kyi.”

A strange conversation between a human and a monster resounded in the pa.s.sage of the underground dungeon. ‘He’ was happy to have some communication with a human, even if he couldn’t answer her, he could still respond to her, he was enjoying listening to the girl’s words which became close to complaining.

According to the girls story, the cherished brooch she got from her male childhood friend who was always being dragged around by his adventurer parents, it seems like she dropped it yesterday when she fell while being trained here, so she came back in order to find it. She just entered the training school of the adventurers society so she didn’t have any friends who would come with her to the dungeon in order to find her lost item, and she can’t tell the guy ‘I dropped it’ since it’d be awkward. Thinking it’d be alright if it was just the first floor, she summoned up her courage and came down.

She took the route which they picked with her party yesterday, while looking if she dropped her brooch anywhere, but there wasn’t anything that looked like that’d be it.

“Nothing……. maybe someone picked it up or something.”

“Kyi.”

“There’s no way that a monster picked it up right-“

“Kiki?”

Not really. Were the words that ‘he’ couldn’t say, since from time to time he sees the big rats and earwigs pick up dropped coins or shards of gems and carry them somewhere within the dungeon.  

When ‘He’ is in his spirit form he was able to see the flow of magic power after it had reached a certain point. Gems are able to absorb magic power easily, the gems and metal ores inside the dungeon are covered in the magic power it gives off, so they absorb it. It seems like the large rat that got mutated by the magic power of the dungeon, gets attracted to objects that have magic power within it.

“If it’s inside a monster’s body then it’ll become troublesome to find it.”

From within the girl’s arm ‘He’ was looking around the area to help her find her lost item, then he saw a large rat in the wall in front of them. The girl was looking the other way so she hadn’t noticed it yet. It seems like the large rat has gone into a berserk state from hunger. ‘He’ informed the girl about the danger.

“Kyikyi!”

“What happened? So suddenly— ~tsu!”

The girl who looked at the wall in front of her became silent. Noticing that the large rat was obviously aiming for her, she put down the bat in her arms and took her short bow into her hand. Since she came here with the adventurer party last time, this’ll be her first real battle. The large rat that exposed its fangs against her.

She fires her arrow immediately at the lunging rat, but her accuracy against the target puppets at training was only 70%, so with her skills it was too hard to hit a moving opponent, so she missed and her arrow hit the floor. When she was going to fire her next arrow the rat had already come close to her face and aimed its fangs at her throat.

“Hi……~tsu.”

Because she was so overcome with fear, the girl couldn’t even draw her knife and froze in place. At that moment a black ma.s.s appeared, and threw himself in front of the girl. With fangs sharp enough to cut through stone, the rat pierced the large bats body. The large rat thought that it’d be okay with whatever it had, so it began to prey on the large bat.

“Kou-chan!”

[Eh, you already gave me a name!?]

After feeling the death throes of the bat ‘He’ switched to the large rat that was preying on the large bat he was just in, he checked his surroundings to see the girl. He checked both the girls well being, as well as his means of transportation.

Thinking it’d be better to leave this place for now ‘He’ jumped into a small hole within the wall. From the back he heard the sobbing sounds of the girl saying “sorry, I’m so sorry” while holding the half eaten bat, Kou-chan.

It’s probably because she was a nooby adventurer, but this was the first time ‘He’ had seen a human this close when he was inside a monster. Neither young nor old, none of them had any mercy in their heart for monsters.  

“So she’s a gentle child.”

‘He’ thought that he should do something for the first human girl he was able to communicate with, so he used the body of the large rat to explore the area. He doesn’t know what kind of item the girls dropped broche was, but if it contained precious metals or gems then as long as it was inside the dungeon ‘He’ would be able to see it from his perspective.

Then after moving around within the wall for a while, he found a source of a ma.s.s of magic power coming from inside a large rat. Even though these rat’s don’t form packs since they’re mutations, they are still territorial, if another rat entered its territory it’ll try to expel it.

Against the large rat that was baring its fangs, ‘He’ used the human wisdom he had. Picking up a rock of the right size within the useful paws of the rat, he just casually approached the other rat. Maybe because he got stimulated by the smell of the blood of the rat’s previous prey, the large rat got p.i.s.sed off and lunged at him.  

The large rat that attacked, was gifted a stone to its mouth. The large rat vigorously bit on the stone, but noticing its fangs couldn’t break it, it spit out the stone and moved back. But, before it could do that he pressed the stone further in.

The large rat rolled onto its back with its face becoming pale because of the stone in its mouth,

while fidgeting around the rat’s abdomen got impaled by another rat’s fangs. Since it was the same as the feeling when he bit through some meat, he didn’t feel anything in particular because of it. Then from the abdomen of the large rat he found a brooch which was emitting small amounts of magic power

“Is this it? The thing that child lost.”

Thinking it should be given immediately ‘He’ ran back toward the pa.s.sage he just came from.

“Would she still be there?”

The girl was already gone when he returned to the site, not knowing from where they suddenly popped up from, the large bat’s body was being eaten away by a swarm of small insects that were like the cleanup crew of the dungeon. Then he saw a human’s appearance from afar so he tried to approach it, then saw an adventurer like boy soothing a girl while walking to the exit.

“But, but even though it was something you gave me……”

“I’ll buy something like that anytime you want.”

Actually the boy who was originally against the girl going to the adventurers a.s.sociation’s school, was now reminding her that she shouldn’t do something dangerous like this next time.

“Also it was just coincidence that the bat protected you.”

“But, Kou-chan was….”

The adventurer boy gave a lecture to the girl about monsters, after she said that she wanted to bring back the large bat’s corpse and make a grave for it.

Basically, monsters that live inside the dungeon are infected by the malice and grudges of souls that became intertwined, and act based on that. On the lower floors the mutated animals may move differently because of their instincts from when they were normal animals, but when they are monsters they all act with the same principle in mind.

Because of the collective consciousness inside the dungeon, they won’t get hugged by humans, and they also can’t be fed, which has been shown to you in the lessons.

“Seriously, you ar-, because you think you can do what you want, I was worried about you.”

“Uhh, I’m sorry.”

Behind the two that were conversing with each other, a large rat was following after them with a bloodstained brooch. Since one of his hands was occupied he couldn’t run very well, by the time he finally caught up to them, they were already walking up the stairs to the exit. Because the barrier prevents monsters from leaving, with the body of a large rat he was prevented from even taking one step. In the end, ‘He’ wasn’t able to give the lost item to the girl whose name he didn’t even know.

Before meeting any other adventurers ‘He’ went into a nearby hole, and attached the brooch to his fur so he wouldn’t lose it.

[This, what should I do with it.]

I can’t keep it with my spirit form since it can’t touch solid things. While thinking that, he let out half his spirit form and made a grabbing gesture toward the brooch. When ‘his’ hand slipped past the brooch, he felt his hand overlap with it in spirit form.

[Hmm?]

Feeling as if he obtained a faint sense of touch, ‘he’ tried to focus his consciousness on the brooch. With the image of having the brooch in his hand, he had the feeling as if it got closer, when he noticed it, the brooch was in his hand. To be precise he summoned it from his own dimension.

Moving from another dimension where the spirit form is to the other dimension where the real form is. In order to try it out with a random pebble he made an image where he was holding it, then just like the brooch, he was able to summon it to his own dimension. When he touched it, it wasn’t like the vague feelings he had before, it had a firm feel. The concept of distance seems vague, when summoning it to his hand it’ll be there, if he imagines it to go far away it’ll go far away. Thinking of it as a storage place it’s a very useful infinite place.  

[So I was able to do such things…. hmm, with this I’ll be able to hold onto it without worry.]

‘He’ who thought that he should return it to the girl for when they meet again, stored the brooch in another dimension. Having obtained a way to touch other things, he ran into the dungeon while thinking of things he wanted to touch.