Ch. 276

Then I passed out.

I didn’t remember anything after lying down. I brushed the straw off my cheek and rubbed my sleepy eyes.

I must have fallen asleep without realizing it.

[Master! You’re awake!]

“I need a Blanket Spirit…….”

[There’s no such Spirit! If there was, my position would be in danger! More importantly, can I turn into a wolf now?]

Rai, curled up by my head, was still in snake form.

“No.”

[Why!]

I finished the rest in my head, in case there were men outside the door.

[I haven’t decided yet whether to tell Zekarda that you’re a Metal Spirit. He’s a Spirit Mage, so I don’t think I can get away with it like Ash or Rovenin.]

There was another big piece of straw stuck to my other cheek, too. When I felt around, there was a clear mark where it had been pressed.

[Ugh…… No! No! I’m done being Rai the secret weapon! Why can’t I proudly say that I am a Metal Spirit!]

[Oh? Then the only option is to cancel the contract before it gets annoying…….]

[My name is Rai! Being a secret weapon suits me.]

Rai seemed more used to his wolf form than his snake form now.

He wanted to be a wolf as much as possible.

Of course, running on four legs was more mobile than slithering, and it was far more convenient in terms of activity.

[Don’t be sad, Rai. Maybe I’ll reveal you someday if I get thirsty for people’s attention?]

[……You’re already sick of the unwanted attention you’re getting!]

[Well…… there might be tens of thousands of people lining up to get gold from every direction, and people begging me to get rid of weapons in the world. If I feel like I can handle that…… heck, I might shout that I have a Metal Spirit!]

[Yeah, yeah, like that day will ever come!]

I stroked Rai’s head with my still-sleepy hand.

If I kept petting him, he’d feel good and start wagging his tail, but when he was a snake, I couldn’t even tell where his tail was, so I couldn’t help but laugh.

I petted him a little more, then got off the bed and stretched.

After loosening up my stiff body, I left the room, brushing straw off my clothes.

It was a small house, so there was nowhere besides the room and the kitchen. I could see at a glance who was there.

Only Zekarda was inside.

[Where’s Ash?]

[He seemed to leave early in the morning?]

[Did he take Rovenin with him?]

[He seemed to be telling him to get firewood.]

“Unexpected. He listens surprisingly well…….”

After looking around the chilly house, I turned to Zekarda.

He was sitting by the window with his eyes closed, deeply focused. At first, I thought he was doing Mana training, but when I looked closer, he was muttering in an unknown language.

It was a language I’d never heard before, and with his Wind Spirit out, it looked like he was speaking to his own kind through the Spirit. The Wind Spirit was making me jealous of that.

Even a low-level Spirit was useful for communication, but a mid-level Spirit could transmit voices in real time.

If both sides handled mid-level Wind Spirits, two-way communication was possible.

According to Master Yael Roenin, the maximum range varied depending on the summoner’s ability, but they could talk even if they were on opposite sides of the continent.

Anywhere the wind blows…….

‘I’ve only heard about things like that. Master Yael Roenin also handled mid-level Wind Spirits, but…… all he ever showed me was sending notes with low-level Spirits.’

He’d have Spirits deliver fragmentary voices.

– “Where are you? Class has started. I’ll make you regret skipping.”

‘Well, it would be ridiculous to summon a mid-level Spirit just to track down a runaway ten-year-old disciple.’

I was fascinated by the sight of real-time communication through a Wind Spirit—something I’d only learned about in theory—so I sat down near Zekarda.

It seemed like a trivial act, but from the perspective of another Spirit Mage, it was a rare sight.

First of all, it was almost impossible to see a human Spirit Mage doing something like that.

Gathering two mid-level Wind Spirit Mages was hundreds of times harder than finding two Mages who knew Communication Magic.

‘There’s one Spirit Mage for every three hundred Mages…… three hundred times? No, plenty of Mages know Communication Magic, but not all Spirit Mages are Wind Spirit Mages, and mid-level Mages are even rarer…… Ah. I hate math. That’s why I became a Spirit Mage. I don’t know.’

I watched for a while, but it seemed like it would take a long time, so I started my own morning training.

I sat comfortably and gathered Mana, organizing the flow inside my body, steadying my breathing, and waking my mind.

It always felt like the day truly started only after Mana training, so unless something major happened, I tried to keep it simple.

I finished earlier than usual because Zekarda kept hovering nearby, and I could feel him using Magic.

When I opened my eyes, Zekarda was lighting the fireplace with Magic.

Fire Magic was a simple basic spell, but I couldn’t use it.

Because I was human, and a Spirit Mage.

“You’re awake.”

“You too.”

“You’re an unusual human…….”

“I hear that often.”

“What kind of guts do you have to sit there and do Mana training?”

Mana training required absolute concentration inward, so you were bound to become dull to external threats.

Normally, you did it somewhere safe, where no one was around. That was common sense.

If you did Mana training with someone present, it meant you trusted them completely.

The Dark Elf with the crooked eyes looked like he couldn’t decide whether I trusted him that much.

“It’s not like you’re going to attack me, and you have no choice but to protect me anyway, right? Unless you want to die.”

I waggled the hand wearing the owner’s ring, like I was showing off an expensive engagement ring.

I trusted the Magic in this ring more than I trusted the misanthropic patient.

“Above all, there’s Rai too.”

[Ahem!]

“That snake…… was it a Spirit after all? A non-attribute.”

“Oh, you’re the first person to recognize it at a glance. Well, you’re a Dark Elf.”

“If it’s a Spirit but not one of the four elements, it’s obviously a non-attribute.”

“People don’t even know that much.”

It had been a long time since I’d met someone who could talk about Spirits this smoothly.

I could do it with Master Yael Roenin, but I had too many secrets from him, and conversations with him usually turned into lessons, so I avoided it on my end.

If I let my guard down even a little, he’d start quizzing me, and if I got something wrong, he’d nag.

“It’s common sense for us. There are still some who handle non-attribute Spirits, though not many.”

“……Really?”

“What reason would I have to lie about this?”

“That’s amazing……? Well, you guys are…… different from us…… then do you still use the ancient Spirit Seals?”

I had another reason to go to the Dark Elf village.

Different cultures meant the ancient legacies they preserved would be different, too.

I might even be able to meet a type of non-attribute Spirit I didn’t know about.

“We’re the same in that it’s almost extinct. It’s been thousands of years since Spirits stopped coming out of that Summoning Seal, so it only exists in name.”

“But there are Elves who handle them, right?”

“Most of them are elderly Elves who aren’t combatants.”

“What kind of non-attribute Spirits do those Elves handle……?”

“There was one who handled the Spirit of Light, one who handled the Spirit of the Lake, and another was the Spirit of Mud…… I don’t know more than that.”

“……Subtle, isn’t it?”

They sounded like Spirits that could easily be replaced by the four major Spirits.

I’d expected something more special.

“We’re different from humans. We don’t focus on training. Everyone only contracts as much as they need. So there’s no reason to summon a stronger Spirit. As long as it has a similar soul and accompanies us, that’s enough.”

Humans were greedy.

And in this world, I was the embodiment of greed.

“Hmm…… do you have the highest-level Water Spirit Seal there?”

“Of course.”

“I want to go.”

“There’s also the Spirit King’s Contract Seal. Our altar has a long history. I think it’s like a sanctuary for Spirit Mages.”

“When should we go? Contact them quickly and tell them you’re bringing me.”

There was the fatal flaw that I’d have to Warp to get there, but I could put up with it this once if it meant curing this chronic disease.

If I thought of it as the last time, the pain…… I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t control my greed.

“The conversation I just had was with my mother. She asked me to thank you. She said all her children have been greatly indebted to you, so they’ll treat you as a benefactor.”

“Okay. Tell your mothet I’ll take good care of you. I’m going to get my hands dirty.”

“Tuh.”

“Oh, how’s Daria doing? She’s my best friend.”

Zekarda was my friend’s older brother—and my slave. Slave felt like too much, so should I call him a hostage?

“She was worried about me. She said Spirits couldn’t reach me, so she thought I was dead.”

“Is it because of the Suppression tool? Does that block Spirits’ voices too?”

“For a Wind Spirit to transmit a voice, it has to search for the other party first. To do that, it needs an exact location, or the target has to be someone it’s met at least once and whose Mana wavelength it knows.”

She couldn’t find him because the Mana Suppression tool changed his Mana’s wavelength. I nodded, then asked again.

“You can use Magic besides Spirit Magic, right?”

“Only simple things.”

“That’s amazing. Do all Dark Elves do so many things like you?”

Humans couldn’t use Magic and Spirit Magic at the same time.

First of all, the body couldn’t withstand the burden, and talent rarely reached that far.

It was already rare to have even one kind of talent.

It had been possible in ancient times, when human talent bloomed without knowing its limits, but now it was the stuff of legend.

“As I said before, we don’t obsess over power. Most people only learn Spirit Magic lightly.”

“How ‘lightly’?”

“About one type of mid-level Spirit. If you don’t have greed, you might end up with one low-level Spirit for life.”

“I’m upset…….”

That’s your idea of ‘lightly’?

I was so upset it felt like a waste.

To be born a Dark Elf and squander your talent because you didn’t have greed.

‘Give me the remaining talent!’