Chapter 29 - Spirit Evolution

“SPIRIT EVOLUTION!”

I said, then the option to use the skill popped out. I immediately chose [Yes] and then, my SP went down like crazy. I felt like my SP was being sucked out into the Spirit Gauntlet.

The Spirit Gauntlet on my left arm shines, and it releases some light particles that flew to Kon, circling him.

The wolf waited patiently, but it smiled so widely. Like, he’s enjoying this.

And when enough light envelops Kon, it becomes spherical and expands.

I took a few steps back because the size of the sphere is getting bigger and bigger.

“Hnff!” The wolf stepped back a bit too, but still looked almighty.

Then, the sphere circling Kon dispersed… and what came to my sight was…

One, two, three, four… a white with a tint of red Giant Nine Tailed Fox, appears out of the light sphere.

White flame circling around its neck, looking like a giant kitsune youkai.

But that pattern… It's the same as Kon’s. Now that I think of it, I don’t even need to ask for confirmation if I looked at the pattern carefully.

[Nine-Tailed Inari Fox - Level 10(+10)]

Kon… evolved. He’s about the same size as the wolf. Is that

“I guess I should say thank you for the wait… though you’re thinking of fighting a strong individual to get even stronger, aren’t you?”

The wolf looked so excited, like he’s been waiting for this moment to come.

I see… so that’s the reason the wolf waited? He somehow knew Kon would come back and get even stronger?

“Wait, Kon! How could the wolf know such things will happen!?”

“From what it said, I think someone is telling it. I’m not sure who, since it didn’t spill it and kept looking like it had everything going well for it.”

“Someone…?”

Then… it came to my mind…

“Did the Self-Proclaimed God say something to the wolf!?”

“I don’t know, but that’s not important right now. Yuuma, use my exclusive spirit magic.”

Exclusive spirit magic? I looked up on the gauntlet, and it gave me the notification.

[Spirit Magic: Nine-Tailed Fox Install] Add one of Nine-Tailed Fox’s statuses to your equipment. Consume MP gradually.

So anything related to spirit things will come to the gauntlet, huh?

I also found the explanation of [Spirit Evolution], it evolves the spirit of my choice and adds 10 levels to it. It consumes my SP gradually, so I guess there is a time limit and I shouldn’t have taken my time reading everything.

I of course chose Kon’s attack point, and implemented it on the knife Hiromu-san left.

“Let’s go, Kon!”

Even though it will consume SP, I used Dash to be able to make some momentum, and managed to graze the wolf leg for a little.

“Grr!?” I guess it didn’t expect that I would get stronger too, huh?

Even though it’s 9 levels higher than both of us, the attack power I got from combining my own, high-quality knife, and Kon’s attack power is having an effect!

“Divine Fox Fire!” Kon from a distance, launched some white flames from all of his tails, giving another great hit to the wolf.

The wolf HP went down by 5 percent with our two attacks just now, we can do this!

“GRRRR!!!” The wolf started losing composure, and growled really hard.

“No, it’s because you’ve underestimated us!” Kon taunted it.

The wolf then dashed and tackled Kon, opening its mouth and bit Kon by the neck.

I saw Kon’s HP decreased by like 20%.

“KON!!!”

“Divine Sun.”

The white flames circling around Kon’s neck shined and exploded, burning the wolf’s mouth. The flame isn’t going out, and kept decreasing its HP.

“As long as I am in this form, that flame will keep burning you. So, you better finish me off.” Kon taunted it again…

Since when did Kon have such a personality? I’d like to think it’s just towards the wolf.

“Flame Haze.” Kon said calmly.

The wolf started to use its claw to swing and hit Kon, but what it hit was just an illusion.

From my side, I was able to tell for some reason… Maybe because Kon is my Familiar Spirit?

“Flame Haze, consecutive.” Kon multiplied using the illusion magic so much.

The wolf started getting angry, and attacked each one of the illusion one by one. He’s panicking, because he didn’t hit Kon at all.

Of course, it’s because Kon sneakily walked to my side.

I can see the wolf’s HP hits 60 percent now, then he realized… that he could just attack me, the one who is helping Kon with the [Spirit Evolution].

And when it came to me, I… readied myself, used [Dash] upwards to make me jump higher.

I’m on the same level as its eyes, so making use its own momentum, I stabbed it right in the eye.

I let go of the knife, and grabbed my old stone knife, used the same spirit magic and stabbed its front right leg. Wasn’t as effective as Hiromu-san’s knife, but we finally made its HP drop to 50%.

But then… I got a sudden suffocation.

“Yuuma! Flame Haze!” Kon casted Flame Haze on the two of us.

I soon found the reason why… I’m close to using all of my SP. But if that happens, then Kon’s Spirit Evolution will be undone and the burning damage from Divine Sun won’t continue…

I hurriedly took out the SP potion (s) and drank it to recover a small amount of my SP, but it is still not enough to put an end to it.

Not to mention, I also almost ran out of MP… should I use my HP too like Yumemi did?

“Wait, come to think of it, where is Yumemi!?”

“I’m here. Point Supply!”

[Connected to Yumemi. Receiving MP and SP from Yumemi.]

“Huh? Ah, Yu–”

“Let’s keep that for later, Yuu-kun!”

“She’s right, Yuuma!”

“Ah… okay. Let’s go, you two!”

Yumemi put a distance to keep supplying MP and SP to me. Kon and I rushed towards the wolf, Kon used his claws and I picked up some random rubble and added Kon’s attack power into it before I threw it at the wolf.

We’re still in the Flame Haze, so the wolf wasn’t able to see us.

We made it drop to 40%. It started circling around and attacked its surroundings without clear aim, throwing rubbles everywhere.

“Divine Laser!” Kon decreased another 20% from the wolf, making it drop to the red.

“Ah, Yuuma… I ran out of MP.”

The flame burning the wolf’s mouth stopped because Kon ran out of MP. Yeah, I had a guess that it was running on MP.

Unlike us, Kon can’t convert his HP to cast magic.

Well, even if the continuous damage is off now, Kon still has high attack power.

“Use your fangs!”

“On it!”

Kon rushed to the wolf and bit its neck, crunching it so hard that I could hear its bone getting crushed. Just how strong did Kon become!?

I see the wolf HP gradually drops, and… it finally reaches 0.

The wolf completely stopped moving.

[Shindou Yuuma - Level 20] x5

[Mikazuki Yumemi - Level 14] x6

[Kon - Level 20]

“You’ve lost because you underestimated us.” Kon said, before lights went out from his body and he became a small anime mascot-like fox again.

“WE WON!! YUU-KUN! KON-CHAN!”

Yumemi ran to us and hugged us.

“I’m glad you two are alive… huh? Kon-chan? What happened to you!? And how can you speak!?”

She really was pushing aside her questions, huh.

We briefly told her about what happened, and she told us that she just woke up and found out I am running out of SP and MP, so she thought of a new magic in that instant and aided us.

This is a feat that we won’t be able to achieve, if it wasn’t the three of us working together hand in hand in full trust.

But suddenly, a notification popped out.

[Congratulations, [Irregular Hero] Shindou Yuuma. You have survived and cleared the trial. You have earned the right to return to the real world. This Trial Dungeon will be closed in 60 minutes.]

Yumemi also had the same look as me, so she must’ve got something similar.

But for Kon…

“You two… I see, it’s time for us to part, isn’t it? You two don’t belong here after all.”

“No! We can’t go without you, Kon-chan! To me, you are already a friend that can’t be replaced! I won’t leave you here alone to disappear along with the dungeon!”

“Yumemi… but I have already died, you know? Disappearing with this dungeon, you said? It’s nothing much different.”

“DON’T SAY SUCH THINGS! LET’S GO TOGETHER, TO OUR WORLD!”

“But… how–”

“I just checked the system, and it seems like the Familiar Spirit inside this gauntlet can come along with me across worlds,” I interrupted the two, to be honest, I already saw something like that when I was reading Spirit Gauntlet for the first time.

“For real, Yuuma!?” Kon looked so surprised but excited.

“Yeah, I’ll introduce you to my little sister and my mom, so be prepared for a spoiled lifestyle!”

“Yup!”

…

And so, I made Kon enter my gauntlet, and I went to raise my level up. Unlike Yumemi, I didn’t have to go to sleep because I had already regained all my memories.

I was chatting with Kon in the gauntlet about things that will make him interested, while waiting for Yumemi to wake up again.

And when she woke up, she hugged me tight looking so happy. I guess she remembered that we’re engaged and that relieves her more than anything.

The one minute countdown started. We held hand like a couple, and stared at the timer together.

“Yuu-kun.”

“What is it, Yumemi?”

“I love you~”

“Me too.”

And thus… the trial dungeon closes.