“Voice-san, you’re a god?!” Kurushimi shouted out in shock. When she decided to take in Atelier, one of her goals was seeing if they could find anything out about Voice-san. However, before they had even conveyed so much as a word with each other, Atelier had recognized Voice-san to be an unknown god!

“I’m just as shocked as you are.” Voice-san replied.

“You don’t sound very shocked…” Kurushimi said with visible doubt. Despite being the main topic of this sudden revelation, Voice-san still sounded as monotone and tone deaf as ever. Kurushimi felt that if she hadn’t heard Voice-san raise her voice before this, there would be reason to suspect she isn’t capable of changing her tone at all.

“So your name is Voice-san and you didn’t already know you were a god?” Atelier asked curiously, before continuing, “I assume you aren’t a god that has gone under the radar but one that was only born recently then? It would explain why I don’t recognize you even after hearing a name…”

“Voice-san and I suspect she was born as I came into this world.” Kurushimi explained. This was what they had concluded for now, basing it on how Voice-san didn’t have any memories prior to Kurushimi’s arrival. “I arrived something under a week ago so… She is under a week old?” she guessed, although she found it strange to think Voice-san was but a week old…

“Aw, like a baby~” Atelier commented.

“Quiet.” Voice-san cut in, her tone finally showing a little change. As they began to bicker, Kurushimi had already walked off and stood herself before one of the large crystals. Their properties were very strange, making her unable to use camouflage and even managing to hold a god in place for such a long time.

“What are these crystals anyway?” Kurushimi asked, causing the two bickering gods to stop.

“Condensed mana crystallized. As you probably know, monsters kill each other constantly here, making this forest an incredibly dangerous place even among all the locations in this world. When those monsters die, the mana collects in the soil until crystals grow out of the ground.” Atelier passed by Kurushimi, standing by the large crystal as she explained what it was.

“They generally don’t do anything but when they get this big… They get all sorts of new properties. Like seeing through what can’t be seen, being able to trap me and enraging the monsters that are exposed to it for too long.” Atelier continued her explanation, but Kurushimi realised something was off.

“Wait, you can still walk around?” Kurushimi asked, seeing Atelier casually standing in front of her. She was in her spirit form like earlier, but shouldn’t she be attached by the spectator mode right now?

“Yep, I can still walk around freely as long as I don’t go too far away from you. Voice-san should be able to do it too. Her state isn’t exactly the same as mine, but she should be able to separate herself.” Atelier said before returning back to Kurushimi’s body.

“Voice-san can too? And what do you mean by ‘her state isn’t the same as yours’?” Kurushimi asked. If Voice-san could really separate herself like Atelier could, Kurushimi finally had a way to see what she actually looked like. The thought of that majorly interested Kurushimi, who had only known of the bodiless voice.

Atelier answered, “It’s different as in… How do I explain? You two are much more thoroughly connected than me and you. It is honestly strange how interlinked your souls are. Even so, Voice-san should be able to separate herself like I can with enough effort.”

“Do you want to give it a try, V-” Kurushimi was about to ask Voice-san until she was cut off. A distorted voice coming from somewhere else resounded over her voice, making Kurushimi lose her smile. As she turned to the source of the noise, she said, “We might need to try that later…”

A black but shiny humanoid creature stood about twenty metres away, looking straight at Kurushimi. Or it was presumably looking at her, for it lacked eyes and any other facial features at that. Centering mana in her eye, she quickly appraised the creature.

[???]

“Huh?” However, she received an unexpected response from her appraisal. Unlike the appraisal being rejected when Atelier had challenged it, the appraisal had gone through but only gotten question marks back as a response. Even the Lvl. 120 Karshak had given a reading back after appraisal. Furrowing her brows, she asked, “What is that?”

“Ah, I forgot to mention. That… is the main reason I couldn’t escape.” Atelier responded, confusing Kurushimi even more. She had thought the reason Atelier couldn’t escape was because of the crystals. Nothing had been mentioned about this!

“If it was just the crystals, I wouldn’t have had so much trouble escaping y’know? I would have been able to get away with using any random monster to escape with if so.” Kurushimi felt a little annoyed by Atelier’s explanation. If there was more to it, she would have liked to have known about it! However, there was nothing that could be done about it now.

“What is it then?” Kurushimi asked.

“It has no name, as you could see by your appraisal.” As the black creature slowly started to move, Kurushimi could see its motions were also weirdly distorted. It would pause then suddenly snap forward, as if its limbs were teleporting forward rather than normal movements. As it got closer, Atelier continued, “It is essentially the opposite of a god and is very unstable. As gods exist, so will they. So it is a god's responsibility to slay them. However, I’ve been unable to in this form, so they have laid dormant until now. I hadn’t seen them in such a long time, so I made a little slip-up in forgetting to mention them.”

“So I need to kill it then?” Based on Atelier’s words, Kurushimi guessed what she had to do now was kill it in her place. Unsheathing her katana from her hoodie which she had wrapped around her waist, she readied herself to take it on. It was sudden, but new monsters to fight were always welcome. A new monster presented many opportunities that she wished to try out and the creature also seemed eager to meet her.

Kurushimi ran forward and slashed down towards the creature, carving its body clean in half. The black, shiny substance that its body composed of moved about rapidly in the space that was created by her katana. A searing noise was created as the crimson sword aura interacted with the substance.

“Huh, that was easy!” Kurushimi said confidently as she observed the broken body of the creature in front of her. Because it was something created in opposition to a god, she had expected it to be a hard fight. But she had done it in one go, without any challenge. In the end, it seemed to only be a problem for Atelier since she had no way to fight it in her current form...

“Kurushimi, step back! It isn’t dead yet!” Atelier shouted hurriedly. Even though the creature had been cut clean and half, it moved it’s arm with ease and lunged at Kurushimi. The sharp and uneven claws vibrated intensely.

EVADE. BATTLE INSTINCT. The two simultaneously activated as the creature’s claw drew near her face. Only with Atelier’s warning and those activating was Kurushimi just barely able to jump back in time. However, even though she had kicked away as fast as possible using fleet footwork, the line of blood that trailed along her path showed the creature had still managed to catch her face with it’s claw.

“Ow, tch.” Kurushimi clicked her tongue as she raised her hand up to her face, feeling the cheek that had been slashed by the creature. She had barely been touched by it and had been cut fairly deep. Not deep enough to be fatal, but a good amount of blood was running down her cheek now. “Faster than expected… And it’s claw…” She looked towards the claw of the creature once more before continuing, “What’s up with the vibrations?”

“As I said before, it’s unstable. Using that, it centres the vibrations around its claw to make a weapon. Put in your terms, it would be similar to having a few mini chainsaws attached to its hands.” Atelier explained. Kurushimi didn’t know exactly how to feel knowing the enemy essentially had chainsaws for fingers, but she did know that she needed to avoid them.

“Anything else I need to look out for?” Kurushimi asked. However, she didn’t get her answer from Atelier as she had expected.

“How about that?” Voice-san casually alluded to the creature, who had been left unlooked at for a few seconds. The black substance was moving even more rapidly between the space where it had been cut in half. But most notably, the sides were furiously grabbing at each other and pulling themselves closer.

“Ah, it’s regenerating!” Kurushimi shouted, pointing towards the creature. The halves of its body were being sealed as they came into contact. With a few more seconds of violent twitching, it looked as good as new. One who had just arrived wouldn’t even be able to tell it had been cut in half. Simply put, it was like the living armour’s regeneration… but on crack.

“That is another ability it has.” As Atelier spoke, the creature slowly began to walk towards Kurushimi. The eerie way it moved its limbs and how it would suddenly snap forward unnerved her. “But this one’s regeneration is a little different…” Atelier continued as the creature’s distorted voice rang out, “It is unkillable.”

“Wait, what do you mean unkilla-ahh?!” Kurushimi said before the creature suddenly flung its claw at her again. As she dodged to the side, she could feel the vibrations pass through the air and hit against her face. “Ha!” with a shout, she slashed upwards. The arm of the creature flew off.

But that was short-lived as the black substance from the stub of its arm sprung out and grabbed the arm, pulling it back into place. “How is that fair?!” Kurushimi shouted as she blinked back with short-distance teleportation, avoiding another strike from the creature. Planting her feet on the ground, she swung her sword and directed the blood from her face to crystallize and pierce the legs of the creature.

As they stabbed through the black substance, they rooted it into the ground. With its movements stopped for a moment, Kurushimi could take a breather. Or at least, she thought she could. The creature moved its leg anyway, allowing it to be torn apart by the crystallized blood that held it. But that didn’t matter! Because as soon as the leg was free, it re-shaped back into its original form.

“How about this then?!” With another shout, the shadow under Kurushimi started to writhe about before forming into many ropes. The shadow ropes flew out and wrapped around the creature, restraining its body. It’s movement was stopped temporarily. But the ropes couldn’t hold it when its whole body began to vibrate, causing them to rip apart.

Kurushimi was rapidly running out of options. Sword aura only cut it apart temporarily, she couldn’t hold it in place with her blood and shadows were too weak to withstand the unstable vibration. There also simply wasn’t enough time to create the shadow-blood her katana and glaive were made of and make ropes out of that.

“This is what I mean, it is unkillable.” As Atelier spoke, the creature once again spoke in its distorted fashion. “But, that is only for mortals. It is the opposite of a god, so what do you think will be able to kill it?”

“I dunno! I’d appreciate it if you told me!” Kurushimi hurriedly shouted as she blinked away with short-distance teleportation, this time avoiding her belly being minced by the vibrating claws. By how Atelier was talking, it seemed she had an idea on how to beat it. But Kurushimi wished she would just get to the point already!

“Divine power.” Atelier said, as Kurushimi’s katana suddenly glowed with an emerald green and imposing aura. It looked quite similar to sword aura, but different. And before long, she noticed the emerald aura had also covered her own body as well as her katana.

“Eh? What, did you do this Atelier?” Kurushimi puzzledly asked, looking at the aura that surrounded her.

“Yep, do you think my only use was going to be a tour guide~? If that was all I could do, I wouldn’t be much better than any other random resident of this world. A disgrace of a god.” Atelier said with cheerily but a slightly mocking tone. Voice-san, who was listening, felt a little annoyed but didn’t say anything.

“What’s this do then?” Kurushimi asked.

“It is the aura of a god. Other than a minor boost of your stats, it can also allow you to damage that creature.” As Atelier spoke, Kurushimi continued to avoid the creature's attacks until she slashed back. Unlike before, it distortedly screamed in response to its body being cut apart and the substance failed to re-attach. “This state only works for a few minutes at most and will be unavailable for a long while, so don’t waste time.” Atelier warned.

As Kurushimi opened her status, she looked at her stats briefly and smiled in nervous awe. “Haha, a few minutes. I will only need a few seconds.” ‘HP: 297 → 594, STR: 264 → 528, END: 262 → 524, SP: 197 → 394, AGI: 273 → 546, MP: 176 → 352’ She had only really been having trouble because of the regeneration, but now that was gone and all her stats had been increased by 100%. A supposedly ‘minor’ boost!

Kurushimi lunged forward and slashed downwards onto the creature. The crimson sword aura and the emerald divine aura mixed into a brilliant show of colours as it was split apart from head to toes. The black substance quickly disintegrated as a result. “Whoo~ Finally over…” Kurushimi breathed out, finally done with the creature.

“It’s not over yet.” Atelier suddenly said, making Kurushimi quickly look up. At first she was relieved to see that the creature hadn’t gotten back up. However, she quickly changed to wishing that was what had happened as she witnessed the sight before her. “I’ve been here a while, so they accumulated a fair bit.” Atelier said with a playful giggle.

“You gotta be kidding me!” Kurushimi shouted. Not one, not two. Not three. But what looked like twenty seven of those creatures after a quick count surrounded her.

“You have a few minutes, so you gotta kill them quickly.” Atelier laughed as she said so.

“Dammit, I thought you were nice!” Kurushimi exclaimed as she ran into the creatures while the divine aura was still wrapped around her. Three minutes to kill twenty seven meant she had to kill one every six seconds. She felt that Voice-san had teased her a lot before and had been cold to her a fair bit, but today she found out that it was child’s play. Voice-san never put her in a situation like this!