I handed it the bottle containing the monster—
the [ Droplet of Turmoil ].
=This is...!
The moment it saw it,
I felt Vimanar’s shock spike.
It had said it could obtain flesh-and-body by replacing the core of a lifeform that possessed a core.
It had never said only spirits could be the target.
“How is it? Just like you said—something with a core.”
Inside the bottle was something shaped like a slime,
and floating in its center—
a small core.
[ Droplet of Turmoil. ]
Back when our unit had only just come down to the surface—
when we were staggering because we couldn’t secure any food besides meat—
it was one of the very first monsters we ever managed to hunt.
‘Thinking how the kids who joined then are proper soldiers now... that really does feel like ages ago.’
The older sister’s now squad-leader class,
the younger brother’s growth was slower than hers but still became solid mage strength.
Truly, that makes it ancient history.
Back then, we pierced the cores of most droplets and finished them.
But in cases the mages blasted them with spells,
we managed to render them combat-incapable without destroying the core.
Our unit collected those left merely unconscious like that,
and we’ve kept them ever since.
And the important part is this:
These things can mimic other lifeforms—
their true form is closer to a slime—
and in that slime-like body, the weakness is none other than
the core at the center.
“Well? Is this good enough to make your body?”
=Of course. No—if anything...
The Spirit Core had no expression to show emotion,
but if it did, it would be gaping.
=It’s a magi-lifeform wrought with an astounding level of engineering.
“Huh? That much?”
=Comparable to Babylon, which made this fortress, yet developed in a different direction—on that level of technology...
Come to think of it,
these monsters were all survivors from some ruined world.
So this droplet too would be something made by another civilization that perished.
‘I don’t know where Earth’s tech ranks in that mix... but it’s not at the very front.’
If it’s war-related tech, maybe—
but in other areas, catching up to otherworldly stuff won’t be easy.
=You were correct, Lord.
Vimanar spoke like it was impressed.
=Beyond comparison to ordinary spirits... a superior flesh-and-body that even Babylon might struggle to produce despite pouring in staggering time...!
“Good. If you get it, then—”
=I will claim this body, beyond my station though it may be.
Pop.
I twisted off the bottle cap
and tilted the mouth toward it.
PAK!
The Spirit Core dove inside.
[!@$?!@?$!?]
Hunted by us back then,
yet alive all this time because its weak point—the [Core]—hadn’t been destroyed,
the Droplet of Turmoil convulsed hard, as if shocked by the sudden incursion of a Spirit Core.
A struggle I couldn’t perceive raged between core and core—
and a moment later:
—ding.
A familiar chime
rang in my ear.
[ Congratulations! ]
[ The fortress spirit has succeeded in acquiring a new flesh-and-body. ]
A message that Vimanar
had succeeded in seizing the droplet’s body.
And that wasn’t all.
[ The fortress spirit is designed to obey the Lord’s orders unconditionally. ]
“Eh?”
The status window continued:
[ A pledge of obedience that, for certain reasons, had not been perfectly set has now been fully re-established. ]
A pledge that hadn’t been perfect for certain reasons.
Those “reasons” would be the bit where it could act regardless of my will.
And I’d already corrected that
by ordering it to prevent it being a problem.
Now, at last,
that thing...
[ You acquire a Retainer! ]
[ Retainer — Legion’s Droplet, Vimanar ]
became my second retainer, after Ariella.
****
Prrrmm.
Poured fully out of the bottle,
the small droplet rippled when it touched the floor.
It had been close to silver before,
but now it looked closer to gray.
How to put it...
‘Looks like Vimana’s inner wall.’
Maybe because the fortress’s spirit had taken the body—
even the color felt like the fortress.
“Looks like it worked.”
=Yes, Lord.
Then the slime-like shape began to quiver—
and soon—
S t r e t c h...
It ballooned large
and swiftly assumed a single form.
“As you declared, Lord: an excellent flesh-and-body.”
“Huh? Uh...”
A human figure—
taller than me and quite strikingly handsome...
‘Why aren’t you wearing clothes, you punk.’
A naked man.
“...What’s with that look?”
“The flesh-and-body I seized... the [ Droplet of Turmoil ] possesses the ability to mimic its surroundings and reproduce the forms of other lifeforms.”
Unlike when it spoke as a Spirit Core,
it answered me in an unmistakably male voice.
“This form is one of the bodies this [ Droplet of Turmoil ] could mimic by consuming it. For now, I simply picked an arbitrary human body among those and transformed.”
Perhaps even Vimanar found its own appearance novel;
it turned its body this way and that.
“I had assumed I would acquire the body of another spirit at best... I did not imagine I would gain a flesh-and-body with such a curious capability. I cannot help but admire your insight, Lord.”
“Uh-huh.”
In the face of a man I’d never seen—
and worse,
“All right, enough. Put some clothes on.”
—having meaped full-on praise at me stark naked,
I’ll be honest, it was a little embarrassing.
“The one we fought back then had clothes. Why’s your default in the buff?”
“There was resistance from the original core when I hacked it. A degree of data loss was unavoidable. I judged the items the consumed lifeform had been wearing to be maximally unnecessary; if data must be lost anyway, it is proper to discard such data.”
“...Vampires! Get him a spare uniform.”
Shadows stirred, and vampires produced a spare uniform from the dark.
Vimanar picked it up and dressed.
Military uniforms are basic attire for all soldiers, regardless of sex or age.
For something that can take multiple forms, it’s a decent fit.
Only after I confirmed it was fully dressed did I turn my head away.
Anyway—
if this is one of the forms that [ Droplet of Turmoil ] could take,
‘Then it’s probably one of the humans it ate... most likely.’
Chances are high the original owner of that body no longer exists in this world.
By our inference,
a Droplet of Turmoil can only transform into the forms of beings it has swallowed.
“...Do you have any info on that body?”
“I do. Not very detailed, but I have the abilities and the name.”
“A name, huh. What was it?”
“A man named [ Lim Cheol ].”
Lim Cheol.
Lim Cheol...
“Age twenty-five. Level 4 as an Awakened; class Swordsman. Before Awakening, a café manager.”
At first I didn’t know who that name might be,
but as I dug through memory,
one guess surfaced.
‘The survivor group that was protecting Lee Suyeon and Lee Suhyeok.’
There were two Awakened among them,
and one of their names...
—Cheol oppa...
I think that’s what she called him.
“That ‘Cheol oppa,’ huh.”
The circumstances make it almost certain,
but just in case, I decided to check one more thing.
The group that protected the siblings—
the Awakened who acted as that group’s leader was, I’m sure,
Aunt Soon.
“Do you have a woman with the name Soon among your stored forms?”
“She exists.”
With that,
Vimanar changed shape.
And the face was unmistakably familiar.
‘Back then... the very face they transformed into at the market.’
Whether I gaped or not,
Vimanar kept explaining.
“Name Soon Nayeon. Twenty-nine years old. Level 6 as an Awakened, class Shieldbearer. Before Awakening, an employee at a marketing firm. A notable point: among the lifeforms this droplet can reproduce, she’s the strongest form.”
“So ‘Soon’ was the family name...”
I’d assumed “Aunt Soon” meant given name—
didn’t expect it to be the surname.
Anyway, with that,
it’s certain the forms it can take right now
are the members of the siblings’ group.
‘...I’d better brief those two in advance.’
Humans eaten by the droplet.
If the siblings who’d been in the same group saw these faces, who knows what might happen.
“...Hmm.”
“Hm?”
While I was mulling that over,
it seemed to be trying to feel something—
arms spread, eyes closed, exhaling evenly.
“This is most intriguing.”
“Intriguing how?”
“The sensation felt by beings born in this world and living in this world...”
It opened its eyes and murmured with a moved expression.
“As you know, Lord, I am a being created in another world. In an environment different from the one I lived in, on this planet, I felt dissonance.”
“Ah.”
“When I’m in this body, there is no dissonance at all.”
Come to think—
even I feel pain when I enter dungeons,
because the environment is so different.
Stat debuffs were baseline.
“On the contrary... I feel a sense of stability, like this is where I ought to be. It may be rude to real humans like you, Lord.”
So the reverse is natural, too.
For otherworldly beings, Earth is an alien environment.
Only those able to function to some degree survived—
but it must be uncomfortable.
‘...It might even be that every monster we’ve met so far was weaker here than in their own world.’
Vimanar now is the exception.
By using the [ Droplet ]’s ability
to reproduce a human body, it solved that problem.
“You were right, Lord. This droplet is the most suitable flesh-and-body for this world. It will be overwhelmingly more versatile than a spirit’s body.”
“Glad it’s useful.”
“In that case, I will return for now.”
“Huh? Return?”
With a little boing sound,
the Spirit Core popped out from inside the uniform.
“...Wait, the Spirit Core can come out and it’s fine?”
“It’s fine.”
=It’s fine.
“!?”
When the Spirit Core returned to the center of the comms room,
the spirit’s voice and the voice of the woman called Aunt Soon answered me in unison.
“What—how are you talking just fine after leaving the body?”
“As I said, rather than the Spirit Core ‘entering’ that flesh-and-body, it’s closer to hacking that body’s core and making it part of this fortress. The core the droplet had now belongs to the fortress. You can verify it.”
At that,
I opened the fortress info window.
[ Owned Forces ]
[ Inferior Dragon Fang Trooper — 250 ]
[ Legion’s Droplet — 1 ]
“Oh...”
Sure enough, just like it said—
the droplet itself is now judged to be a soldier attached to this fortress.
“Hold on—if that’s the case—”
“Do you have a question?”
“If a lifeform has a core, /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ we can affiliate however many with the fortress like this?”
If that’s possible—
‘There’s no way this is the only monster with a core.’
Bluntly, that spirit of darkness as well—
unfortunately we hunted it,
but if we could have captured it somehow, we could have made it your flesh-and-body.
Right.
If we specifically sought monsters with cores,
there would be no shortage of people willing to gather them in exchange for [ Combat Rations ].
Collecting core-bearing monsters wouldn’t be that hard.
‘And if we could affiliate every monster we gathered like that to this fortress...!’
Our unit
would gain tremendous power.
