Ch. 294
[A scheme! I was purely asking you to please spare the bald wolf… grovel, grovel.]
“Purely, my ass. Are all the best Spirits dead?”
Just as I thought. Whenever Rai acted uncharacteristically clever, it meant he had something to hide.
He seemed to know full well that he was in danger for provoking me so much lately. At this rate, my patience would hit its limit within a week, and he would face capital punishment.
Since he could read my thoughts inside and out, he must’ve been sensing the approaching crisis with his whole being.
“…Fine. I’ll see how you do today. You were helpful, after all.”
[You really mean it? You know you couldn’t have opened the safe without me today, right? For something made by humans, this was quite well-made….]
“I get it, so just get out of here already. We don’t have time!”
According to the schedule, there were only two hours left until the next patrol.
I was in a rush. I needed every minute and second to find the book, read it all, and copy the Illusion Spirit Formation.
I hurried Rai out from behind the portrait and had him close the entrance.
As expected, complete darkness fell. With a hint of nervousness, I called the Spirit’s name.
“Ador?”
[Master! How long has it been? I almost forgot your face!]
“Careful!”
[Huh?]
Among the Spirits I possessed, Ador had the strongest combat ability, but he was also uncontrollably distractible. If I wasn’t careful—and then careful again—he was more than capable of burning every book in the safe.
“Don’t move. Make yourself as small as possible and come down here.”
[Huuuh?]
Just as I’d predicted, he tried to fly all over the place the moment he was summoned. I barely managed to calm him down and make him stop in front of me.
“Now, relax your whole body. Dim your light. And minimize the electricity.”
[Relaxing is hard, though?]
“Weaker! You can do it!”
[Ugh… Like this?]
“More, more, more! There. Perfect. Don’t do anything in that state. Your role today is to be a torch.”
Ador’s presence alone made the inside of the safe as bright as day, so I had him adjust to a suitable brightness in case any light leaked outside.
Shrunk to about a tenth of his summoned size, Ador trembled precariously, as if he might go out at any moment.
[…What is this!]
“Let’s call it low-heat mode. It’s necessary for delicate cooking.”
[Again! I have to stay still again!]
“Let’s see, the books aren’t in title order. Where could it be?”
[This is no fun! No fun! I want to destroy something!]
“It’s not on this side…”
There were more books than I expected, so I had to check them slowly from one end.
There were plenty that felt like forbidden texts—secrets of the Heidrike dynasty and the like—but they weren’t what I was after.
[What a strange master! When you were young, you were frustrating because you had no power! Now you’re overflowing with power, but you’re frustrating because you won’t let me use it!]
“Hah. Why are my Spirits so noisy?”
[Who would we take after, if not our master!]
“Fine, I’ll give you a job, too. Look for a book over there. The title is Non-elemental Spirit…”
[I can’t read human letters, though?]
I’d expected Ador to grumble, but his inability to read was surprising. Still, it made sense when I thought about it.
There would be no need for letters in the Spirit realm.
Especially not human letters.
“…Rai reads them just fine, though?”
[The metal one? You can’t compare me to him. The amount of experience is different.]
“That flighty guy…? It seemed like he hasn’t had that many contractors, even including me.”
[However many it is, that’s a lot. Most of us live our entire lives in the Spirit realm without a contractor, and on the rare occasion we meet a master, it ends with that one time.]
“What do you mean?”
[I’m saying that it’s almost unheard of for a Spirit to have multiple masters unless they’re Spirit king-level.]
Spirits were, when all was said and done, beings from another world. Even if you researched them your entire life, it was difficult to learn even a fraction about them.
The proof was that even though they had been studied since ancient times, there was still more we didn’t know.
They were full of secrets, even when they were right beside me.
Among them, Rai—who called himself peculiar—still had many inscrutable aspects.
What a mysterious guy.
“Undine can read a little too. What about that?”
[That’s not reading. She’s synchronized with her master, so she knows what her master knows. Would you understand if I said it’s sharing?]
“So you can’t read at all.”
[We’re not that close, are we? We’re not always stuck together like the metal one, nor am I the most precious Spirit to my master. Above all, you don’t even summon me often! Hmph! So how could we know each other!]
He was trying to show he was sulking as he aired his complaints, but as you could tell just from Ador and Rai, all Spirits had different personalities, different behaviors, and different desires. Trying to accommodate them all would leave none of my own temper intact.
I didn’t have the personality to humor others, so dealing with such individualistic Spirits only made my temper worse by the day.
The Spirit of Electricity, Ador, right in front of me, was particularly troublesome.
My head knew I needed to summon him often to get in sync, but he was so difficult to handle that I kept putting it off.
As the one with the strongest attack power, there was no Spirit better for combat, but he always burned something whenever I summoned him…
“Found it! Volume 2!”
[…You’re not listening to me!]
“No, I was listening. I really was.”
[Then tell me why I’m mad! Master! Tell me!]
I pulled out the book, tilted it toward Ador, and examined it closely.
「On the History and Value of Non-elemental Spirits, and How to Summon One of Them, the Illusion Spirit, Volume 2. Author _ Bemurim」
It was the original, not a copy, so the author’s name was properly printed.
Overcome with emotion, I stroked the cover, but Ador kept squawking nonstop, making a racket.
If he weren’t a mass of electricity, I would’ve punched him right in the face…
[To think a Spirit of which there are only 22 even in the Spirit realm would be treated like this! Hey! Me!]
“Could you please be quiet so I can read? Before I dunk you in water?”
[Keuk… This body! To be treated so poorly! I hope you wake up from static shock in your sleep! I hope you get a leg cramp and fall over!]
“I told you not to curse your master.”
He must’ve picked up that habit from Rai.
The rarer the Spirit, the stronger their tendency to consider themselves precious, because it meant the scope of power each individual possessed was that much broader.
Not being divided into lower and middle classes meant there was no limit to their domain of power.
To be infinite in oneself. That was the greatest advantage of classless Spirits.
It was also why I was searching for a non-elemental Spirit.
And in that sense, the conceitedness of Rai—of which only one existed—was worse than Ador’s right now.
He’d been more demure lately, since it didn’t work on me at all.
‘These guys need to be blatantly ignored.’
Whether it was the Spirit of Ice, Grufain, Ador, or Rai, after contracting with a few Spirits classified as non-elemental, I learned that they were all, without exception, haughty and arrogant.
That was part of the reason they were so tricky to handle.
[Summon me often, too! Cry for me if I get hurt! Pet me!]
“How am I supposed to touch you?”
[Make us a pair that understands each other instantly! Pour so much affection on me that it becomes a rumor in the Spirit realm!]
“Yeah, yeah. Next time.”
[Bad master!]
“I’m busy right now.”
Relying on the light from the thrashing Ador, I opened the book.
Until I turned the first page, it felt like I was taking a huge step forward, and my heart pounded like never before.
The anticipation for the new possibility called the Illusion Spirit, and the satisfaction that the risk I took by infiltrating the Royal Palace had not been in vain.
The excitement and pleasure of being able to show Rovenin something to fear…!
The rising premonition of victory!
“…What?”
[What’s wrong?]
“Why is it gone!”
Pleasure, my ass. The book was missing pages from the very beginning.
There were only torn-out marks.
“What… happened? It’s not here either! Or here?”
When I flipped through the rest, it was all the same.
Except for the basic content that anyone would know, everything had been torn out, making the book’s value completely different from what I’d expected.
The Illusion Spirit Formation was gone too.
I didn’t come all this way to see a tattered book like this.
The only thing I learned from frantically flipping through it was that someone—whoever they were—knew exactly what the core parts were and had torn out only those sections with precision.
“What son of a bitch…”
Someone had clearly entered this place before me and tampered with the book.
Only a Spirit Mage would do something like this.
Someone greedy—someone who knew the Illusion Spirit Formation existed, recognized its value, and didn’t want it to be known.
Could it be the work of the one who murdered the author?
No. Looking at the publication year on the back, it was made almost eight hundred years ago.
There was no way anyone related could still be alive.
‘In that case…?’
Just in case, I picked up Volume 1, which I’d already read as a copy.
That one looked fine on the outside too, but a significant portion of the inside had been torn out, its value lost long ago.
If I’d seen this damaged original first instead of the copy, I wouldn’t have felt any interest in the book at all.
That was how important the missing parts were.
Since they didn’t steal the book and only tore out pages, it seemed whoever did this also felt burdened by the idea of stealing property from the Royal Palace.
In that case, it was highly likely a noble.
‘Meaning it was someone who knows the royals just shove things away and never look at them.’
The manager of this place probably didn’t even know the book was damaged.
Who would ever look through this unless they were a Spirit Mage?
The branch manager at the general store had mentioned in passing that the copy was made two years ago.
That meant the original was damaged sometime after that.
It wasn’t that long ago.
“How dare they do this to my property!”
[…? What? Why are you looking at me?]
“…If it were Rai, he would’ve retorted that it’s not the master’s.”
[Was that it! Let’s do it again! Master! I’ll do it right this time!]
“Never mind.”
A helpless sigh escaped me.
Just when I thought things were going too well, they got seriously messed up.
If I’d known the book was in this state, I wouldn’t have bothered infiltrating the Royal Palace…
[Give me another chance!]
“Uh, my property, this kind of thing.”
[That wasn’t the vibe at all!]
The angrier I got, the more I needed to stay calm.
I solemnly flipped through Volume 2, page by page.
They couldn’t have torn everything out. If I looked carefully, there might still be something useful left.
I couldn’t come all this way and leave with nothing.