Reborn As A Ghost: Time To Build My Undead Army!

Chapter 1204: Victory?

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Sofia's improvised attack, all thanks to Jonathan's' guidance, ended finishing off the strange Nightmare within seconds, piercing its head and its chest, and then exploding.

BOOOM! BOOOM!

Both explosions ended filling the Nightmare with thousands of metallic needles enhanced with holy light magic, which quickly made it fall into pieces from the inside out!

"Why... this damn... damn job... give me a... vacation..."

The overworked salaryman Nightmare groaned one last time, its eyes glaring at Sofia before shedding a tear, and then dissipating into black smoke.

"It's done..."

Sofia fell to her knees, gasping for air, she felt relieved the thing died, but at the same time, shocked to have learned so much out of nowhere.

"Jonathan... thanks," she said, smiling back at him. "I never thought I could do all of that before... I've been focusing too much on appearances I guess... maybe."

"I suppose it's because your familiar weapon is already very strong," Jonathan said. "So you never needed it to go even further or find new ways of using it."

"Right... Yeah," said Sofia, her eyes sparkled brightly. "How could I even repay my hero now~? I will give you anything you ask! I'm quite rich, you know? So just ask away, please~!"

"H-Huh? No thanks, I don't really need anything right now, Sofia," Jonathan felt a bit weird that a teen was interested in him romantically, and he tried to be as cold as possible, though it never worked.

"Aren't you too humble?" laughed Sofia. "I guess that's why you're often called a hero anyways!"

As the two talked, suddenly, the scream of the third Nightmare echoed.

"ENOUGH! PLEASE... NO MORE... DON'T BULLY MEEEEE!"

The giant mass of fat and flesh screamed in agony, as Partner kept stabbing it with her spear, piercing through its flesh and leaving countless holes.

"Just die already you bag of lard!"

With a furious, vampiric roar, Partner combined both spears into a giant spear of blood and darkness, firing it towards the Nightmare and then...

BOOOMMM!!!

It quickly exploded into pieces, splattering flesh, and acid everywhere, before everything turned into black smoke, and it finally disappeared.

"Hahh... this damn thing! Ugh, I'm almost naked now! My clothes!"

Her clothes were slowly regenerating, but it would take a couple of hours before completely going back to normal.

CRASH!

And in that moment, Maria arrived, breaking through the ceiling, and carrying with her a talking head... everyone gasped as she looked completely fine.

"Maria! You're fine!" Alma happily cried.

"Maria! Where?!" Emily even woke up after hearing her friend's name.

"She's really fine... and that head... Wait, the Nightmare Demon?!" Sofia screamed in horror. "Hey! Yeah I'm fine... So you defeated the big Nightmares? Nice, well done," Maria smiled, walking towards Partner, and giving her a head pat, before covering her body with shadow threads, creating a dress for her. "There! That'll do."

"Ah, thank you..." Partner sighed in relief, walking to Maria's side and hugging her tightly, asking for kisses.

"W-Wait, remember that we're..." Maria panicked.

"Ah... right..." Partner realized they couldn't just do whatever they wanted in front of these people.

Though the hug was nice, they quickly separated and walked back to their friends.

"Maria!"

"Not fair! I also wanted a hug!"

Alma and Emily hugged Maria tightly as well, only to scream the moment something tried to bite them.

"Oi, get off me you damn humans!"

It was the head of the Nightmare Demon! It was actually talking, and pretty much alive!

"Maria?! Why did you...?!" Alma panicked.

"How is that thing alive with just a single head?" wondered Emily.

The two girls hugged one another, mostly out of the fear they felt out of that thing.

It was honestly way too creepy.

"It's going to die soon, don't worry," Maria lied, throwing the head inside her shadows so it wouldn't create more problems.

"Hey, where are you bringing me to?! You damn-"

The Nightmare Demon's screams stopped as she was swallowed by Maria's shadows, making the girls believe it died.

Well, that was far from the truth, Maria was aiming to keep it around, and alive, to learn more about this world and the trial of the tower.

She was too intrigued to know more, and she had grown worried, just how many times this trial had been repeated.

And if the Nightmare Demon remembered it, does that means that there have been other participants replacing Maria and the rest of the crew?

There was too much to ask them, but for now, she wanted to get out of here.

"Well, I think we're done here, should we get going? Ah, don't worry about that nightmare demon, it's gone now," Maria sighed in relief. "It was an unexpected encounter, but still, a work well done is a work well done! Right?"

"Y-Yeah, I suppose so..." Emily nodded. "I also want to get out of here, I think we completed every requirement. We got a lot of Nightmare Stones as proof too, let's bring the big ones from the three Trauma Nightmares as well!"

"Yeah!" Alma nodded. "If we could sell those, we could make quite a lot of funds!"

"Well, to each their own," said Sofia. "I'll take the one I defeated on my own, you can split the

one you defeated together, and Partner can take the one she defeated."

"Makes sense to me," Maria nodded. "Alright, Jonathan, are you fine?"

"Ah, yeah, I'm fine, just a bit tired," nodded Jonathan. "Let's go."

Maria quickly analyzed what had happened to the other two parties through the egos she left with them. Apparently, they didn't encounter Nightmare Demons, but did encounter really strong Trauma-type Nightmares, as if someone had placed them there.

The party composed by most of her family easily took care of them even if they were three of them, while Emeraldine had quite a lot of difficulties, as she was the only very strong one of her party, the other elves were quite skittish and fearful.

At the end, while they escaped, Maria's ego appeared and managed to help Emeraldine defeat the Nightmares before she walked back to her team members carrying the Nightmare Stones.

When the three groups walked out of the Fractured Nightmare Realms and regrouped, they shared experiences and more, all while the professor congratulated them.

However, problems quickly arose again.

Some of the student parties weren't coming back.