The Legendary Ghost Hunter

After retrieving the object from the chest, a portal opened up in front of the four. At first, they thought it was more Ghosts spawning in, but then realized there was no hostility.

"Uh… Fanatic? A portal just opened up in front of us. Can you check to see where it leads?" Octane asked through his earpiece.

"Don't be alarmed, the portal is safe," Fanatic replied. "From what I can see on the map here, a similar energy signature opened up back in the broken church, where Tarot should be waiting."

"Got it, thanks."

With this confirmed, the four stepped through the portal… and as expected, exited to see Jim waiting for them.

"Oh, yer back! Before the other team, too. And… it seems like ya got yerselves quite the loot. I forgot to tell ya about that — Dungeons and Palaces have awesome stuff hidden in them for us Ghost Hunters! Looks like I underestimated ya, huh?"

"The symbols…" Iris murmured, completely ignoring Jim's words. Indeed, of the three icons above the statue — soaring eagle, staring owl, and swooping falcon — the soaring eagle one now had a slash over it, signaling that it had been conquered.

"Good work," Jim chuckled, leaning against the pillar. "Take a seat, get some bloody rest. You'll need it."

The group did as told, each picking a spot to sit down. It wasn't comfortable by any means, but they had to make do.

Finn picked the corner, where he could lean back against the wall and just be alone without any distractions. Unfortunately, Iris ended up sitting beside him and falling asleep on his shoulder almost instantly.

"…" Finn wanted to push her away, but figured he should just let her sleep.

If those various symbols back there required the Eye of Omnipotence to see, she would be a necessary asset in the battle to come, being the only one with the Oculus Angelica here. Certainly, it wasn't a very offense-oriented power, but Finn had yet to see another Angelica that could beat this one in terms of utility.

Too bad, he couldn't use it — yet.

In the end, he decided to just take a short nap as well while contacting Zelestria to inquire about the power he just received — the power that she had deemed 'a must-have'.

'Zelestria. Are you there?'

[I'm always here, darling~ you want to know about the power you obtained from that Boss-level… Ghost, correct?]

'Yeah. Pull me.'

[Mkay, master~]

Finn felt his body being sucked into a different dimension as he could suddenly see again, faced with the familiar vaporwave background of the reality rift in which Zelestria resided in. No matter how many times this occurred, he could never get used to it.

"Welcome home, master," She said, performing a professional curtsy in a maid outfit.

Finn eyed her coldly, completely unaffected. She was calling him so many different kinky names now that he just couldn't be bothered to tell her to stop anymore. Instead, he merely ignored the comments and got down to business.

"I felt my body absorb that Ghost's blood, but I have no idea what the power I got actually is. Since you were the one who had me retrieve this skill no matter what… I would like an explanation."

Zelestria didn't seem hurt at all by his actions and instead folded her arms behind her back leisurely. "Fufu~ you see, it has to do with souls."

"Souls…?"

"Yes — the same Souls that I require to gain back my full power."

"I see… so what exactly can I do with Souls now?"

"You'll be able to extract Souls from Ghosts directly — this will kill them stealthily, of course, but there's a catch. It takes a while to channel. You can wipe out entire groups of them with this ability, but the channel time will also scale to be longer, naturally."

"In other words… I have to already be in stealth to use it."

"Of course. And there's a limit on the range of this power as well, but still powerful nonetheless, no?"

Finn sighed. "It certainly is a useful power to have, I won't deny that. But is this really a 'must-have' like you claimed it was?"

"Patience, darling… I'm not done explaining yet," Zelestria giggled softly. "The power I just described is only the active skill. The passive skill you gained is something far better — for both you and me."

"Oh? Let's hear it."

"Fufu…" She laughed darkly. "You'll be able to gain double the amount of Souls compared to now, every time you kill a Ghost. Truly a must-have if you want your eyes back as soon as possible, am I wrong?"

At this, Finn fell into thought. "Hm… that is a nice passive skill to have. I don't get it though — aren't the powers I gain from Ghosts supposed to be related to their original one?"

"It is, Finn. That Ghost you fought — Synia — controlled souls, though she isn't as strong as some other ones out there. She could've easily extracted your Souls and killed you — that's what the chanting she did was for."

"Huh. But why would she try to wipe all four of us out at once instead of just targeting us one at a time to throw us into chaos? That seems like a horrible strategy."

At this, Zelestria fell silent for a brief moment. Then, she spoke again.

"Finn… tell me. What is it do you think Ghosts are?"

"Uh… by definition, an apparition of a dead person which is believed to appear or become manifest to the living. But that is talking about the fantasy ghosts seen in movies and books — not the real ones we're fighting against today."

"Perhaps. But the concept is the same. Ghosts, darling, are dead people coming back to life after being corrupted by the paracausal. In other words… they used to be living humans as well. The more powerful that human once was, the more powerful their Ghost will be."

Finn wanted to ask, 'what does that have to do with anything', but refrained from it as Zelestria continued.

"You may not have seen it, but the Ghost you fought was the remnants of a priestess who once worked at this very church in the real world, who was later killed during an Outbreak. Now, normally, when humans die and are turned into Ghosts, they lose all memories of their original self and become mindless, bloodthirsty zombies. But priestesses, priests, and such…"

Finn didn't need her to finish the sentence to understand what she was trying to say.

"… They have some sort of resistance against this paracausal corruption and conversion process."

"Correct. In other words… she was trying desperately to let you all live, struggling against the evil that had polluted her mind and body."

'So that's why she said…' Finn thought, recalling the words he heard being whispered into his ear, as softly and gently as a butterfly — 'thank you'.

"This is an extremely easy Dungeon because of that fact, darling," Zelestria giggled once more. "You got lucky, fufu~"

That was true. Had this Dungeon not been a mirror reflection of a church in the real world, and the Ghosts here were not the paracausal reflections of holy figures like priests and priestesses… they might have all succumbed to death back there.

Still, this was quite a skill that Finn obtained. With this 'boost', getting his vision back shouldn't be a long ways off.

"Oh, by the way~" Zelestria suddenly said, disturbing his thoughts.

"What…?"

"You'll be getting a lot of Souls from this Dungeon, especially with this new boost. So…"

She stuck out her tongue and licked her lips seductively, gently raising up her maid outfit's skirt so Finn could see what was underneath.

"Fufu~ how about a 'transfer' soon~?"