Season 4: Chapter 22. Oni (1)
White smoke rose from the talisman stuck to the earthbound spirit’s forehead.
‘Huh? It died?’
Bubblegum stared in disbelief, his mouth agape.
‘What the hell? I wandered around here for like three hours.’
Normally, it was impossible to enter through the front doors at this stage. The player had to find another route. The standard method was to use a barrier or something and enter through a window.
‘Back then, I got in around the third floor.’
Even entering that way didn’t completely solve the problem. The earthbound spirit had overwhelming control over its domain. Eventually, the player would have to fight it inside the school building, which was an exhausting ordeal.
Tako once said the whole thing was designed to deliberately frustrate the player.
“It’s made so you hit a wall and die multiple times here. It teaches the game mechanics, and weaker players get funneled into other buildings. It makes the player actively think about their next move...”
The earthbound spirit’s job in the game was to introduce the game’s tone and force players to explore nearby terrain. In the case of struggling players, it redirected them toward other content. This enemy character had an essential role.
‘But it just died without doing anything?’
In this parallel world where Blessed Almond had descended, no one would ever realize what that role was supposed to be.