Chapter 73: Water Basin

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I poured water into a huge black basin.

「 Alright, can you show it to me? 」
Even though there was not a trace of wind in the air, the water surface suddenly rippled as soon as my voice fell.
After it calmed down, a scenery was reflected on the surface, and it wasn’t the interior of my room.

The reflection was very clear and unbroken, even though all I did was entrust everything to the spirits.
The spirits fleeting in and out of the picture was unexpected, and it’s hard to see properly every time a spirit crossed the scene.
Well, I guess it can’t be helped; there are more spirits in the forest than in the city, after all.

When I tried tuning out the spirits, the image reflected on the water basin also disappeared.
Maybe I could fine tune this ability further once I get used to it with more practice.

I poured water into a huge black basin.

「 Alright, can you show it to me? 」

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Even though there was not a trace of wind in the air, the water surface suddenly rippled as soon as my voice fell.
After it calmed down, a scenery was reflected on the surface, and it wasn’t the interior of my room.

The reflection was very clear and unbroken, even though all I did was entrust everything to the spirits.
The spirits fleeting in and out of the picture was unexpected, and it’s hard to see properly every time a spirit crossed the scene.
Well, I guess it can’t be helped; there are more spirits in the forest than in the city, after all.

When I tried tuning out the spirits, the image reflected on the water basin also disappeared.
Maybe I could fine tune this ability further once I get used to it with more practice.

The black spirits were also captured in the reflection, but the ones in this area are small, similar to the normal spirits, so even if they did something, it wasn’t a big deal.
Az and the jaw spirit displayed different behavior which were the effects of being made to do the same thing for a long period of time.

An adventurer I never saw before is scowling over the burner.
He is clicking his tongue, probably in frustration because he couldn’t get the fire going the way he wanted.

It is probably because the normal spirits are hiding whenever the black spirits appear.
It should be okay even if the spirits aren’t right beside him as long as they had a tiny bit of connection, but their traces also disappeared, maybe so they won’t be discovered.
.
If fire spirits aren’t there, then it’d be hard to light a fire, and if the wind spirits also disappear, the air will be stagnant.
When I went there, the black spirits had been scared so they didn’t come near me — but it seems difficult staying there with this situation.

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I expected that they would have already crossed the breeding grounds, and had reached a new place, but their progress seems slow, since they are still in the lizard breeding grounds campsite that even I know.

Unfamiliar people ate meat around the campsite that we had fixed before.
A burly man sat cross-legged, while a woman clad in a robe leaned on him with a hand on his knee.
Another woman sat on his other side, holding something in her hands and grinning as she ate.

The three of them looked like they also had spirits.
They are probably the Gold ranked adventurers.
Yeah, and they look like winners in life, right? Their spirits are the largest that I’d seen so far among the spirits who possessed people.
Their presence is probably the reason why folks are safe from the influence of the black spirits as long as they are near the Gold ranks.

Ash’s group and the others chose to sit together by the same campfire.
Az, the jaw-lover spirit and the stinky fetish spirit are also gathered together.
Butler’s spirit must be somewhere nearby, too.
One of the spirits I requested to be a lookout was stroking Retze’s beard……

Don’t make my spirit have some weird fetish, for goodness sake.
It’s actually hard that I can’t say that to Retze.

I peeked again at noontime.
Ash and the other four are walking together as a group.
Why did the five of them have to move together, when pairing up was already enough? Did something happen?

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On the other side, the three Gold ranks were tackling a lizard.
The guy slashed it into half with just a single stroke.
I’m not sure if that’s a Spirit Sword, or if his strength has been enhanced thanks to his spirit.
I wonder which one it is.

This world is so hard to live in, strangely enough, and yet the fantasy elements would pop out here and there, catching me off guard when I encountered them.
I wouldn’t be surprised now if orichalcum and scarletite existed here.
I’m not sure if the reason why his attack had been so strong was because he had been using either of the two, or if it was because the spirit was holding his hand on the hilt as they swung the sword together.

The robed woman is shooting off magic spells.
Her spirit looked so serious as it held the staff with her, the effect was comical.

The woman’s spirit looked like a little girl with golden hair, and she started to glow while the woman was chanting.
She probably belongs to the family of light spirits.
The other spirits — mostly light spirits with some fire spirits participating, too— began to lend their powers to her halfway through the incantation.
Most of the fire spirits are war freaks, it seems.

I can’t see the other woman — oh, there she is, she’s an archer, huh.
She aimed for the lizard’s eye from a short distance away.
Since she is far from the others, won’t another lizard attack her then?

Hers is probably a spirit of wind and verdure.
The tree branch spirit wrapped itself on her bow.
Judging from this, she is probably a user of a Spirit Weapon rather than being a Spirit Possessor.
They seem to share great affinity with each other, since the tree branch also extended itself towards the woman.

Then we had the burly man’s spirit.
It is a prairie dog, no matter how you look at it.
What continent did it come from? Does it live in this land? The prairie dog’s butt is so cute.

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I could no longer use his sword style as reference.
I had wanted to imitate his style just a while ago, but…well, memorizing his moves still had its own merits, I guess.
It might come in handy if there came a time that I needed to wield a huge, broadsword.

Well, I’m living peacefully now, so I don’t think I’ll have opportunities to fight seriously, even if I get entangled in some kind of discord.

Alright, let’s get some snacks first — I prepared some smoked walnuts coated in maple syrup, cookies and coffee before returning to the water basin and continuing my scrying.
A bubble-like water spirit bobbed up and down in the water from time to time.

I continued watching them slay the lizards, when a person suddenly acted abnormally.
He bolted towards the archer and attempted to slash her down — the woman acted as if she already expected it.
She twisted around and decisively stabbed him in the flank with a dagger.

Whoa, Gold ranks are scary! She used her left hand to swiftly unsheath the dagger on her waist, and she didn’t even hesitate one bit as she skillfully tackled him.

Did something trigger that possession? Or did that woman do something?

I’m positive Ash and Butler — and that archer woman, too — can see the black spirits.
That’s probably why Ash’s group are moving together.