A quick count surmounting to twenty seven of them. And the possibility of there being more she hadn’t spotted yet was also probable. Kurushimi looked around herself as the unstable entities moved around. According to Atelier, she had a few minutes - three minutes to be exact - to kill all of them, which meant...

“You have six seconds per aberrant.” Atelier stated. The first one had taken a lot more than six seconds to kill. However, most of that time was because she couldn’t kill it until she had been given the ‘kami state’, which Kurushimi had decided she would call it. If she could fight them one at a time, it wouldn’t be a problem. But she seriously doubted they would be so kind as to do that for her.

Atelier continued, “...and you’ve already wasted three seconds thinking~”

“Ah, dammit!” Kurushimi shouted, readying her katana and dashing into the crowd. There simply wasn’t time to brood over it. Anyway, what was the worst that could happen? Death? She had already done that five times! With the emerald green aura wrapping around her and her blade, she ignited it with her own sword aura slashed at the neck of an aberrant.

Immediately upon drawing back her katana, her perception of time slowed down and battle instinct procced from multiple directions. Without thinking, she ducked down to avoid the vibrating claws of the aberrants and swung out in an arc to cut two of them in half. She was able to kill them in a single good slash, which was definitely thanks to the insane buffs from the kami state.

‘If there were no stat buffs, I’d have probably just given up…’ Kurushimi thought as she blinked away, avoiding the ones she didn’t catch in the previous swing. Fighting these guys like this wasn’t something she would be capable of normally, but she had a good three minutes where she could. And having offed a few already in a few seconds, she was off to a good pace.

However, immediately after blinking away, she came face to face with a few more of them. Their numbers allowed them to be everywhere at once, so nowhere she blinked to would be safe. A claw approached her face before she had even touched the ground, the sound of grinding could be heard shortly after.

‘I wanted to avoid using my sword to block them, but I can’t do anything else here!’ Her katana and the aberrant's claw clamored against each other, black and red sparks flying out the contact point. Her katana had held out well so far, but in the end it was only made of condensed shadow and blood. The integrity would be lacking compared to a proper metal one at this moment, so whether it would hold up against the chainsaw-like claws…

Kurushimi quickly kicked the aberrant away, separating herself from it. Luckily, her katana was still in good enough shape… Although it had seen better days. Looking back up, she retired her katana into the golden light and pulled out her glaive. Thrusting it forward, she pierced the stomach of the aberrant before it could reach her.

As it broke apart and disintegrated, evade and battle instinct went off once again. Pulling the blade out of the it’s body, she held her glaive in preparation. Unlike before, there were more than just a few in her imminent radius. She had known this moment was bound to come when facing such numbers.

“They’ve completely surrounded me… I guess it’s time to see how far I can push them.” Kurushimi said, looking at the three skills in her status menu. The combination of evade, the living armour spectre and fleet footwork had held out really well against the creatures so far and was proving to be effective. But everything had a limit and Kurushimi felt there was a good chance she would find that limit now.

As they approached her, she ignited the blade with sword aura. About just over half of her total mana was left, even when she had gained more from the kami state. Otherwise, her HP was going strong. However, she was likely going to end up tanking some hits here… Gritting her teeth, she swiftly stepped back to avoid the first claw to come her way.

Stepping back down and thrusting forward, she slammed her palm into the head of the aberrant. Under the weight of her palm that had been doubled in strength, it instantly caved in on itself. Before even seeing the aberrant fall down limp, Kurushimi had already turned around and swung her glaive horizontally.

The blade carved through two more aberrants. In a similar pattern, she continued to dodge them with continuous activations of evade, battle instinct and fleet footwork. Even as Kurushimi got hit and bled out, her blade glowed crimson with sword aura, the aberrants were cut up or had their head caved in and the blood they made her spill only ended up being weaponized against them.

In the end, she was left on the ground on all fours. Her breathing ragged, her HP, SP and MP all low and the emerald aura waned before disappearing completely. “Haha… This… Is the most injured I’ve been… Without dying.” She said, struggling to get her words out between breaths and coughing.

“Damn.” Kurushimi barely managed to stand herself up, gritting her teeth in disdain. She had killed most of them. Emphasis on ‘most’. Only a few stood out of the field of black left over from the dead aberrants. However, she couldn’t kill them as the kami state had run out. She could run away either, she could barely stand after all. Let alone run. Letting out a long sigh, she closed her eyes, “Guess I’m dead.”

After a second passed, Kurushimi suddenly felt something strange. She instantly shot her eyes open and stood upright. “The kami state ended, didn't it?” she said with a confused look on her face. The feeling was very similar to before, when the kami state was still active. As she watched her HP, SP, MP and other stats rise again, she noticed one major difference.

“It’s no longer green…” Kurushimi stated. The emerald green aura that Atelier had given her had been replaced by a purple one.

“Kurushimi, I can’t hold it for long so kill them quickly.” A voice that sounded as if they were struggling resounded in her head. The owner of said voice was absolutely unmistakable, the one who had been with her since the beginning; Voice-san.

“Voice-san, did you do this?!” Kurushimi shouted with amazement. The only other possible source of the kami state would be Voice-san, who was recently discovered to be a god. But she hadn’t expected her to be able to actually do it, especially without the guidance of Atelier first.

“Just… go! I can only last 15 more seconds at most!” Voice-san impatiently commanded, clearly sounding irritated by Kurushimi’s slowness of catching on. Hearing her, Kurushimi quickly nodded and scrambled herself to pick up the glaive she had dropped after being unable to hold it any longer. With the extra 15 seconds of kami state given by Voice-san, she made short work of the residual aberrants.

As the kami state wore off immediately after Voice-san stopped it, Kurushimi noticed she didn’t lose the HP, SP and MP given by the kami state. Her total stats went back to normal, but to her relief, she didn’t go back to being injured, out of mana and out of stamina. And right on cue, the god that was the cause of all this to begin with manifested herself.

“Well done, you did great!” Atelier praised, clapping her hands with a smile on her face. Kurushimi didn’t really know how to feel seeing this. All she knew was that even though her SP had been regained, she was too mentally tired right now to get angry. However, as she briefly opened her mouth to reply, she was unexpectedly interrupted.

“Oi, what do you mean ‘you did great’? Kurushimi nearly died because you didn’t mention anything about these aberrations until it was too late.” Voice-san’s genuine anger was a surprise in and of itself, but Kurushimi was completely focused on the shocking sight before her. Like Atelier, Voice-san had manifested herself and had become more than just a detached voice.

Long, flowy dark hair. Deep purple irises and a cold but stern expression befitting of Voice-san. Currently, she faced Atelier with visible anger on her face. Kurushimi never would have guessed this to be the first expression she would see on Voice-san’s face, who had never actually gotten angry till now.

“I knew she would make it out alive.” Atelier casually said, looking over towards Kurushimi briefly before looking back.

“She only survived because I was able to give her my aura.” Voice-san replied. In the end, the only reason she had managed to survive was because Voice-san was able to buff her, so it didn’t make sense for Atelier to say that.

Atelier: “Like I said, I knew she would make it out alive in the end.”

“You knew this was going to...” A look of realisation briefly flashed across Voice-san’s voice before falling silent. Could she have actually known what would happen, known Voice-san would end up awakening the ability to give the kami state and instigated the situation to happen? “But even so, you put Kurushimi in unnecessary danger. There was no way you could have known it would work for su-!” As she spoke, Voice-san was suddenly cut off by rapidly approaching footsteps.

“Voice-san, you got an actual body!” Kurushimi shouted.

Flustered by the abrupt approach of Kurushimi who had spread her arms out wide to presumably hug her, Voice-san quickly tried to warn Kurushimi to no avail, “Don’t, you’ll fa-” Mid sentence, Kurushimi fell through Voice-san’s body and flopped to the ground. Just like the case with Atelier, she ended up getting a mouthful of dirt rather than the skin contact she'd expected.

Sighing, Voice-san explained, “I’m also in a spirit form like Atelier is, naturally you won’t be able to touch me…” Kurushimi slowly got herself up again and wiped off the dirt she had gotten on herself to the best of her ability. Once she looked back towards Voice-san, Kurushimi gazed at her face in silence for a few moments.

Voice-san furrowed her brows before letting out a brief, “What?”

Kurushimi: “You look how I expected!”

“What is that supposed to mean..? Anyway, you need to say something to Atelier yourself.” Confused by Kurushimi’s comment, Voice-san changed the subject back to the previous one. Most importantly, she wanted Kurushimi to say something to Atelier as the victim of the situation. Seeing Kurushimi’s lack of care annoyed her a little.

“Ah-! Thank you, Atelier.” Kurushimi said with a slight bow of appreciation.

Atelier: “You’re welcome.”

“Don’t say ‘You’re welcome’! And you, why are you thanking her?” Voice-san was no longer feeling a little annoyed but very annoyed. Atelier was still acting as if she had done nothing wrong. Meanwhile, Kurushimi wasn’t getting angry but thanking her?

“Well… Think about it. This has been nothing but good in the end. I got access to the kami state, a 100% stat increase. Then you got a body and unlocked the kami state. And don’t you remember why we came here in the first place? To level up and get farm stats. From killing these aberrants alone, I leveled up eight times and I’ll have a lot of stats to steal when I suck their blood. I see this as an absolute win!” Kurushimi explained, listing a lot of benefits from the situation. She had gained a lot for little in return, which she felt was a good enough reason to forgive Atelier.

Voice-san sighed once again, “Ha.. Fine, but will you actually be able to steal the aberrant’s stats? They don’t seem to have blood…”

Kurushimi looked around herself and realised the problem. For her skill, ‘what’s yours is mine’ to work, she needed to suck the blood of a dead creature using ‘fangs’. The only thing was that she needed to suck their blood. So what if they didn’t have blood? The remains of the aberrants around her was a mass of the black unstable substance. It certainly didn’t look like they had blood.

“The… Black substance is kind of like blood? Maybe I can ‘drink’ that and it’ll work…” There was the possibility that it didn’t necessarily need to be ‘blood’, but what was ‘blood’ to the creature. Whatever the case, she had gotten a fair amount of levels from them, so it would be understandable if they also had good stats. It really would be a huge waste to not try…

“Oh-! Atelier, do you know if it's safe to consume the black substance?” Kurushimi remembered she and Voice-san no longer needed to guess things since they now had someone from this world in the party. There was an even better chance of Atelier knowing the answer here, since this was about the aberrations after all!

“I don’t know.” Atelier bluntly said.

Kurushimi: “You don’t know?”

“Tell me, how many people do you think saw the aberrants and tried to eat them?” Hearing Atelier, Kurushimi realised she had a good point. Who in their right mind would actually try to eat it normally? Let alone how it would taste, it doesn’t look very edible… But stats are important and in the end, the worst that could happen is death!

Kurushimi walked up to one of the corpses and grabbed a handful of the substance. As she looked down at it, she scrunched her face and thought long and hard about defeating the rock golems that had painfully killed her twice before biting down.