Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 7 - Chapter 21

Chapter 21: A Second Visit to Town

After our unexpected encounter with the Misty Lodge, our group was now all back together. We descended the Kitrus Mountains and headed once more to Diospyro. Even though we’d already gotten the runestone we needed from there, we were revisiting the town because it was a stopover on the way to Shiran and Kei’s hometown.

We arrived according to schedule. Our goal was to resupply and offer our thanks to the former Alliance Knight Adolf for helping us get a runestone the last time we were here. Unlike when we stayed in the suburbs of Serrata, we couldn’t possibly rent an entire house, so we’d left Gerbera and Ayame to watch the manamobile while we handled things in town, since they couldn’t afford to be seen.

Much like last time, Shiran, Kei, Katou, and Rose accompanied me. Lily wanted to come with us, but since she could fight while maintaining a human form, I asked her to stay behind with the manamobile too, just in case.

Once we entered Diospyro, we immediately made an appointment with Adolf. He told us that he was a little busy today, so he’d rather we come tomorrow. He’d also been busy the last time we came, so this wasn’t unexpected. We got a room at an inn and decided to start by resupplying.

The following morning, I found myself alone in one of the inn’s rooms with Shiran. We’d rented two rooms here. My guard Rose, her friend Katou, and I shared one room. Shiran and Kei shared the other. Everyone else was currently in the other room while Shiran taught me how to handle spirits until our appointment with Adolf.

The process for activating spiritual magic differed a little from normal magic. In principle, a caster could only use one magic at a time. That was because they could only construct a single glyph at a time. Spiritual magic was a different matter, though. The spirit constructed the glyph, leaving the caster to construct their own glyph independent of the spirit. That was how spiritualists could wield multiple magics at once.

However, the spirit just made the glyph. The mana still came from the spiritualist themself. In short, it was like adding faucets to the same water tank. The spiritualist wouldn’t need to construct the glyph, but they still had to deliver their mana to the spirit. That was the technique I was currently learning.

“Are you ready, Takahiro? Please focus your senses.”

I sat across from Shiran, my hand held out on top of a small table. She took my hand and got to work. Using the same trick Katou used to learn magic—through touch—I could cultivate my ability to sense the flow of mana to the spirit. I could sense the mana flowing from Shiran to her happy-go-lucky dancing spirit.

At the same time...I felt how cold Shiran’s hand was. All life in her body had come to a stop, so she generated no heat. Obviously, this drained my body temperature when I touched her. Not that I really felt anything out of place about it. Rose was made of wood, so she didn’t generate heat either. Her hand simply felt cold.

“We should get going soon.”

After about an hour, around the time Shiran’s hand had warmed up from my touch, my training ended.

“I must say, you improve very quickly, Takahiro. I’m impressed,” Shiran said with a delighted smile, perhaps feeling like a teacher proud of their student.

“Well, more than half of it is exactly the same as what I’ve been doing already,” I said.

According to Shiran, after a spiritualist formed a contract with a spirit, they usually spent around half a year to a year learning how to get their spirit to use magic for them. Even Shiran, who was considerably talented, had taken three months to reach that stage.

For all that, a good seventy percent of that time was spent feeling for the connection with the spirit and heightening one’s sensitivity to that sensation. When I contracted with Salvia, I’d found that the connection with a spirit was much like my connection to my servants through the mental path. I’d already spent the last four months getting used to this sensation, so I didn’t need training to sense it. I’d also already increased my sensitivity by training with Asarina to communicate through the mental path without speaking, so that we could act in concert.

It was fortunate that the senses and techniques a spiritualist used were very similar to those I used as a monster tamer. It was also a little amusing. In any case, since I could already do those things, the only thing I had to learn was how to send my mana to the spirit. I was grateful that Shiran had agreed to teach this to me.

After I made a contract with Salvia in the Misty Lodge’s world, I’d told Shiran and Kei that spirits and monsters were fundamentally the same beings. If I hadn’t told them, then it wouldn’t have made sense for me to ask Shiran to teach me how to use a spirit so that I could use the Misty Lodge’s power.

Sadly, this truth was devastating for elves. Shiran hadn’t been able to hide her shock. And, of course, Kei had also been shocked. But as Kei sat down in a daze, Gerbera had peered in behind her and asked, “Is that some kind of problem?” Following that, Ayame had crawled on top of Kei’s knees and licked her chin. Kei had yelped and blinked as if waking up from a bad dream. She’d looked up at Gerbera, then hugged the little blowfox on her lap and laughed, saying, “I guess it isn’t.”

Her smile at the time left quite the impression on me. I remembered how depressed she’d been when the child from that reclamation village at the entrance of the Kitrus Mountains had pointed out that her ears resembled a monster’s. Kei had an inferiority complex about her race, so spending time with my servants, who were quite different from humans, had definitely been a good influence on her.

By the time Kei recovered, Shiran had also overcome her shock and forced a smile. After that, she’d gladly accepted my request to guide me in the ways of a spiritualist.

“I must say, it’s rather strange that I am teaching you this, Takahiro,” Shiran commented.

“How so?”

“The Misty Lodge is far more ancient than the legendary Great White Spider. Her elaborate use of mana, capable of fabricating another world, clearly classifies her as a grand spirit. That is to say, you’ve established a contract with a grand spirit, so you’re a spiritualist to be celebrated in legends now,” she said in an uncharacteristically joking manner. “So to have a humble spiritualist like me guiding you seems somewhat absurd, doesn’t it?”

“Stop that. I’m nothing like a legendary spiritualist,” I replied with a frown.

“My apologies. I took my joke too far,” she said with a giggle.

I forced a smile, then asked, “By the way, you mentioned grand spirits. Do they exist?” I looked at Shiran’s contracted spirit. “I’ve been wondering for a while now. The spirits you’re contracted to are sprites, right? Does that mean there are other types?”

“There are. Come to think of it, I’ve never explained it. Immediately after they form a contract, spirits are called sprites. From there, after several decades, when they are charged with far more power, they become full-fledged spirits. Elves have very long lifespans, so in the past, there were many who had contracts with true spirits. At present, there are pretty much no such spiritualists or spirits, so the term is used more broadly.”

“How come there are so few?”

“This world is too harsh, so those with a talent for battle cannot stay idle. As a result, many die at a young age. Not that elves are unique in this regard.”

Even though their lifespans were longer than those of normal humans, it didn’t change anything if they died young. These words felt especially heavy coming from someone who’d already died.

“The term grand spirit is used to refer to the Spirit of Origins that appears in the elven legend, The First Spiritualist.”

“An elven legend? Does it have anything to do with saviors?”

“It doesn’t. Elves do not appear in the savior legends, but we do have tales of our own. The First Spiritualist is one of them. It is said that, on their deathbed, the one who formed a contract with the Spirit of Origins asked it to watch over the fate of all elves. Ever since then, elves have been able to form contracts with spirits.”

“Hmm. That’s a neat story.”

Now that I thought about it, it did seem a little strange that only elves could form contracts with spirits. According to this legend, an elf with a unique ability showed up and became the first spiritualist. When he entrusted their race to the spirit, they all gained the privilege to form contracts. That is, if the legends were true, at least.

After thinking it over, I returned my gaze to Shiran and watched her for a short while. Her eye then met mine, and she stared back at me blankly.

“Takahiro?” At times like these, I could really see the blood relation between her and Kei through her expression. “What is it? Is there something on my face?”

“No. Ummm... Not your face.”

She looked bewildered. I scratched my cheek, wondering how she hadn’t noticed. It was a little awkward, but I had to point it out. I lowered my eyes to the table, where she still firmly held my hand with hers.

“Practice is over, so, um, your hand...”

“Ah.”

Though our practice had ended, Shiran had been gripping my hand the entire time we’d been talking about spirits.

“Forgive me,” she said, letting go.

She didn’t jerk her hand back. Instead, she kept a light hold on my hand and slowly pulled away. Her fingers slid across the back of mine. To me, it looked like there was longing and regret in that gesture.

“Well then. I’m going to head out to see Adolf,” she said, lightly clenching that same hand and standing up as if nothing had happened.

“Okay, I guess I’ll head over to see the others,” I replied, following her out of the room and into the corridor.

“I believe I should be back just past noon.”

“Got it. Thanks for today.”

“It was nothing. Then, excuse me.”

Shiran turned her back to me and walked off briskly. Even after I could no longer see her, I remained standing in the hallway for a while.

◆ ◆ ◆

I looked out vacantly from a second-story window of the inn at the alley below, completely absorbed in my own thoughts. My mind was stuck on Shiran’s behavior right before she left to see Adolf.

I’d already felt something was off before this. Perhaps I’d started sensing it during that time in the Misty Lodge’s world. That world had the power to turn dreams into reality, and on that last night, Salvia had told me, “You, Mana, Ayame, and Kei didn’t change at all.”

Conversely, that meant everyone else, including Shiran, had changed. During our stay there, I’d ended up peeping on Shiran and Kei during their training. To be more precise, Salvia had arranged for me to see it. She’d gone out of her way to trick Shiran’s spirit so that I could watch them. That was because I’d mistaken Salvia’s glamor for an attack, and she had wanted to show me a scene where the mist turned a wish into reality, as proof of her lack of hostility.

To put it another way, that scene was only possible because of Salvia’s intervention, meaning Shiran couldn’t hug Kei in reality. When I thought of it like that, I realized something.

Outside the world of the Misty Lodge, I’d never seen Shiran and Kei’s skin come into contact. At the very least, I couldn’t remember a single instance of it happening. Kei kept a relatively small distance between herself and others, partly because she was still young. She’d tugged on my arm and even pressed against my chest several times now. Shiran was much closer to Kei than I was, and yet I’d never seen the two of them touch.

Had she skillfully been avoiding this? This didn’t only apply to Kei either. Shiran avoided touching anyone else. Lately, I was the one and only exception to this, so that she could teach me how to use a spirit. That was likely because she had no way of avoiding it. Nobody else could teach me what I needed to learn, after all.

I could guess why she was avoiding touching anyone. I recalled the coldness against my palm. Her body was that of the dead, having lost all heat. Even though Shiran acknowledged herself as a knight—as a sword and shield meant to protect humanity—she was not in fact made of cold steel. She was definitely distraught about her body’s current state.

If so, what would be the best thing for me to do? My belief was that she was worried about her undead body and didn’t want to touch others. She’d touched me because she was the only one who could fulfill my request, but if she really hated the idea...maybe I should reconsider taking lessons from her. It would slow down my progress, but I didn’t want to learn this stuff so badly that I had to hurt her for it.

There was a complication, however. Shiran also gave off the impression that she didn’t dislike it. I recalled her gesture from just moments ago. If she’d truly hated it, wouldn’t she have pulled her hand back right away? I didn’t have any positive proof, of course. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine Shiran’s current mental state. What thoughts went through someone’s head when they could no longer touch anyone, but then gained the opportunity to do so once more, even if forced to?

“This is a tough problem...”

I didn’t have enough facts to make a decision yet. Even if I were to stop our lessons, I needed a good excuse. If she found out I was doing it out of consideration, it could further damage that frailty in her heart. Actually, it was possible that telling her that she shouldn’t worry about her body would have the opposite effect. For the time being, I had no choice but to wait and see which way the dice fell while I thought of an excuse to stop our lessons.

“Is something the matter, Master?” Rose asked, bringing me back from my thoughts. Kei and Katou were also in the room and turned toward me. “Is there something troubling you?”

She had evidently heard me muttering to myself. I told her it was nothing and returned my gaze to the window.

“Oh.”

I spotted Shiran outside. It looked like she was on her way back from seeing Adolf. She was still a distance away, but she managed to spot me as well. She smiled, her expression half-covered by her eyepatch. But then she immediately withdrew her smile. Someone had blocked her path—a boy with black hair.

“That’s...”

I couldn’t see his face because he had his back turned to me, but I knew who it was based on his stature.

“Master, isn’t that...?”

“Yeah.”

It was the visitor we’d met the last time we were in Diospyro. The first time had been in the inn’s lobby, and the second while I was on my date with Rose. If I recalled correctly, his name was Fukatsu Aketora. I could also see the young man wearing the native clothing of northern Aker, Thaddeus.

Fukatsu had apparently called Shiran to a stop. They seemed to be talking about something, but I couldn’t hear from this distance. Still, I could tell right away that they were having some kind of dispute. I couldn’t stay here. I immediately dashed for the door.

“Senpai!”

“Katou, wait here with Kei. Rose, come with me,” I said.

“Right away,” Rose replied, immediately following me out of the room.

I suppressed the impatience swelling within me and ran out of the inn.