Fran’s two hands, which had become wind and were fluttering about, were dyed red.
As if he himself hadn’t seen it, he shrugged and looked this way.
“This is what I mean about him. Sometimes he says he’s hungry and just eats stuff like that. Even though he won’t so much as touch actual food.”
“Fran, you.......”
“Hold on, let me get some water.”
The moment Fran lifted the bottle to drink water.
Chiiiiik!
The bottle melted down, and then—peooong!
The water, boiling up in an instant, splashed in every direction.
『Wind Shield』
Fran, who had been staring blankly as Oscar hurriedly used magic, asked.
“Wh-what the hell. Why did that suddenly explode? Was it defective?”
“You okay?”
“Ah, yeah. Thanks to you, I’m not really hurt anywhere.”
“That’s not what I mean. Your hands. Are they okay?”
“My hands?”
Only then did Fran look down at his own hands and jump in surprise.
“Wh-what the hell! Why are my hands like this!”
“Stay still for a second.”
Grab!
Oscar reached out and wrapped his hand around the guy’s red hand.
Then, he felt a burning heat across his entire palm.
‘......Even with the breeze there, it’s this hot?’
If he had grabbed it with his bare hand, he would have suffered a terrible burn.
Oscar let go of his hand and said.
“Looks like we found it.”
“Found what?”
“How to use Mu.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Mu ate the torch and turned red. Then, when he rubbed his body against your hands, the color drained from him, and conversely, your hands turned red.”
“Which means.......”
“Maybe that’s the ability possessed by a colorless spirit.”
Judging only by the sequence of events, there was a possibility that its ability was absorbing and transferring attributes.
If this hypothesis was true, the ways to make use of Mu would become truly boundless.
‘Especially in the case of this guy, who can turn his entire body into wind through Lord of Wind.......’
It was to the point where he could not even estimate what kinds of things he might be capable of doing.
Oscar calmed the excitement that had boiled up in him for the first time in a while and opened his mouth.
“We’ll have to research this a little first. Fran.”
“Got it!”
Now, one word was enough.
Fran knew what he had to do, and changed both his hands into Lord of Wind.
“Good. You stay on standby just like that, and Mu, try eating that torch.”
-Hah-eup.
Mu took a huge bite out of the torch.
However, unlike before, his body did not turn red or anything of the sort.
A situation where they had run into difficulty from the very beginning.
“Oscar, why is the result different?”
“Good question.”
Oscar, resting his chin on his hand, sank into thought.
Generally, when conducting a magic experiment, the most important thing to pay attention to was the environment.
Only by experimenting under the same environment could one obtain consistent values.
‘What’s different compared to before?’
Oscar first tried adding more firewood to the torch.
But the result was the same.
“Hmm. In that case, could it be that emotional exchange has to be taken into account too?”
“But if that’s the condition, I don’t think it’d be possible to use in actual combat.”
That was true.
In actual combat, where every second counted, there would be no leisure to sit around receiving comfort.
-Correction. The way I see it, that is not what is important.
“Then?”
At Fran’s words, Mu replied with a sullen expression.
-The problem is that I am full.
“......What?”
-I was hungry before. So the moment I saw the torch, I thought I wanted to eat it, and so I ate it.
Could it be that there was a capacity he could eat at one time?
“Then you can’t eat at all right now?”
-If I force myself, I can eat, but the feeling is completely different.
“What’s different, and how?”
-It feels like it goes into a different stomach.
“......It’s not like you have a separate stomach for meals and a separate stomach for dessert.”
But if Mu felt that way, then that was probably the closest thing to the truth.
With problems like this, what the person himself felt was often the correct answer.
“Then for now, let’s wait until you get hungry again.”
After the two of them sat in front of the torch and chatted quietly for a while.
Mu suddenly opened his mouth.
-Now! I have become hungry!
“Oh, Oscar! The time?”
“About thirty minutes.”
“That’s totally fine, isn’t it? We could even use it in actual combat!”
Oscar threw cold water on the delighted Fran.
“It’s too early to be happy. The time may differ depending on the amount eaten and the type of attribute.”
“Ah, true.......”
Fran, realizing that he had been too hasty, nodded.
“Then what should we experiment with first?”
“There’s a lot to do.”
Eat different amounts at one time and check the time it takes to digest them.
Record the differences between when the absorbed attribute is transferred to Fran and when it is not.
Calculate the difference in digestion time according to the two cases above.
Finally, repeat numbers 1 through 3 above with different attributes.
Fran’s face darkened after hearing Oscar’s words.
“Uh, I’ve never done this kind of magic research before. Even just hearing that roughly, it doesn’t sound like it’ll be over in a day or two?”
“You’ve got good instincts.”
At minimum, five days.
That was the “first research period” Oscar had in mind.
Under Oscar’s guidance and instruction, the research proceeded smoothly.
Of course, that was strictly from Oscar’s point of view.
-......Do I have to eat again?
“You should be hungry around now, though?”
-Do humans unconditionally shove something into their mouths whenever they are hungry?
“What are you talking about? There are even people who habitually shove stuff in even when they’re not hungry. Anyway, eat all of that first.”
Fran watched Mu, who was trudging off dejectedly to eat fire, and then spoke in a roundabout way.
“Oscar.”
“Yeah, what?”
“About Mu. While we’ve been doing this research, hasn’t he gotten a little...... fat?”
“Hm? Spirits don’t have fat in the first place, so what are you talking about?”
“No, it’s just that he seems to have gotten a bit bigger.”
Only then did Oscar look at Mu.
......Had he gotten a little fat? No, it was not a difference so large that one could feel it like that.
“Hmm. It does seem like he’s gotten slightly bigger. In human terms, roughly about 2.2 to 4.5 pounds.”
“......How much is that supposed to be?”
“1 kg to 2 kg. Not enough to be noticeable.”
But he had definitely gotten bigger compared to when they first saw him.
‘Does that mean, in the process of absorbing and transferring attributes, a little residue remains behind each time?’
That residue might be increasing Mu’s body class itself.
Oscar stared intently at the research records.
Then he reached one conclusion.
“Ah, definitely.”
As time passed, the amount Mu could absorb at once was increasing.
At first, he had simply thought Mu was getting used to the act of eating itself, but after hearing Fran’s words, that might not be the case.
‘Did he just get fat, and so he’s able to eat more?’
A spirit shouldn’t even have a stomach, so it was fascinating.
If he wrote this up as a thesis and presented it, he might receive heated interest from the spirit studies world.
-I ate it.
Mu, whose entire body had turned red, approached.
When Oscar gave him a glance, Fran nodded.
“Lord of Wind.”
Fran’s entire body became wind and scattered.
Then Mu naturally approached and came into contact with his hand.
Hwareureureuk!
Fran’s entire body, transformed into wind, turned red.
“How is it? A flame man! Cool, right?”
“Strictly speaking, you’re not a flame man. You’re still wind, after all.”
If he had to explain it, he was probably closer to a wind man containing fire.
On top of that, he had absorbed flames and become hot.
“Try summoning wind in that state. Oh...... the state of your body is applied even to the wind you summon.”
Oscar, having firmly obtained the information he wanted, nodded.
“Good. Let’s end this line of research here.”
“......Huh? Seriously?”
-Is that true, human?
“Have you ever seen me lie?”
“But...... it’s only been about three days since we started the research?”
-Contractor, please close your mouth. What will you do if that human changes his mind?
He understood why those guys were feeling doubtful.
It was true that the research had ended faster than even he had expected.
Oscar smiled broadly.
“I told you. This line of research ends here.”
He looked at the tower standing tall below the cliff, then turned his gaze to Mu.
“You must be getting tired of the taste of torches by now, right?”
-......Human. Surely you are not telling me to eat every disaster in that tower, are you?
“Oh, you’re finally getting a little easier to talk to.”
-Reverse summon! Reverse summon! Contractor, reverse summon!
Oscar tucked the convulsing Mu under his arm and beckoned to Fran.
“Let’s go, to the tower.”
The dungeon’s clear condition, [Reach it].
He felt like he could vaguely understand it now.
When he first arrived at the top floor of the tower with Fran, a question had suddenly occurred to him.
‘Even if the first floor is empty because it’s a lobby, why is the tenth floor empty too?’
In contrast to floors 2 through 9, which were plastered with all kinds of attributes, that place was exceedingly peaceful.
The reason he had felt, from the first time he visited, that “it felt like they had to do something there” was because of that as well.
“Maybe the answer was there from the start.”
“I don’t get it, so explain. Why is the tenth floor empty, then?”
“......If what I’m thinking is right, I’ll explain it when we get there.”
Honestly, he still wasn’t sure.
‘If I were the one who made this dungeon, I’d definitely have set the clear condition that way.’
When he thought about it, Veronica’s dungeon and Killian’s dungeon had both been like that too.
-I am curious. How exactly are you able to pick out only the parts they need like that?
The Guide had asked him directly.
To that extent, he had provided decisive help in clearing their dungeons.
He had brushed it off as nothing much at the time, but now, he was slightly suspicious.
‘It may not be a simple coincidence.’
That was why he wanted to check even more.
Just how far the designer of this dungeon was “thinking similarly to him.”
“......scar, Oscar! I’m opening it?”
Oscar, coming back to his senses at Fran’s words, nodded.
“Open it.”
“Heave-ho!”
The thick iron door opened, and the two of them entered the second floor, the floor of storms.
Normally, they would have quickly gone up the stairs, but Oscar steadied his body’s center of gravity and shouted.
“Mu! Eat!”
-......I miss the spirit world particularly badly today.
Mu grumbled, but still opened his mouth wide.
Then the raging storm began to be sucked toward his mouth.
After quite some time passed, the guy, his two cheeks puffed out, looked at him in dissatisfaction.
“Good. Your stomach really has gotten bigger than at first. To think you can eat all the storm on the second floor in one bite.”
“It is strange. He’s a spirit, so there’s no way he has a stomach.”
-......It feels like my belly is going to burst.
“Just endure it a little, Mu.”
While Fran soothed Mu, Oscar looked around the now-clean second floor and opened his mouth.
“But I am curious.”
He naturally turned to Fran, who used Lord of Wind.
“Lord of Wind is already wind to begin with, so what happens if you overlay the storm attribute on top of that?”
“I know, right. Does the wind get stronger?”
Fran, laughing lightly, placed his hand on Mu’s head.
At that moment.
Kwaaaaaaaaa!
The entire space began to shake.
“Krgh...... Power is overflowing from my whole body.”
“That much?”
“Yeah, it almost feels like this is what it would be like if I became an enhancement-type knight?”
Fran swallowed and slightly furrowed his brow.
“It feels like it’ll be hard to control right away, but once I get used to it, I don’t think I’d particularly lose even if I fought knights.”
In fact, Fran lightly kicked off the floor and slammed his body wildly into the walls and ceiling of the second floor.
His speed truly could not even be compared to usual.
Sseuk, sseuk.
Oscar recorded the phenomenon in his research journal and opened his mouth.
“Get ready. As soon as his stomach empties, we’re going straight up to the next floor.”
“What about adapting?”
“You can do that on your own after we leave the dungeon.”
There were seven floors remaining.
It would probably take Mu around two days to digest this amount of attribute.
Oscar, mentally tapping away at a calculator, muttered.
“It’ll take roughly fifteen days to go up.”
And after about that much time actually passed, the three of them reached the tenth floor.

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