BSS 95

Chapter 95

Compared to Rai and Undine, who could read my intentions without a word and respond swiftly, Ador was lacking in that regard.

I wondered if it was because he lacked affinity with me, so I tried summoning him often—but that wasn’t the problem.

The decisive issue was that Ador was far too scatterbrained.

“Focus on me.”

No matter how usable his attack power was, if I had to issue commands one by one in a battle where every moment counted, he was worse than useless.

“Now, what do you think I want?”

[To kill the ogre.]

“……See! Even a passing Undine knows that!”

[Ah! Kill it?]

The ogre, which had been thrashing wildly inside the water droplet, went limp without even a sound when Ador’s electric shock coursed through the water.

When water and electricity met, the effect was doubled, and if used properly, even an ogre could be killed in an instant.

The problem was that Ador, who held such an important role, just couldn’t understand what I was saying.

[Like this!]

“Haa… when am I ever going to teach you?”

[Then why put yourself through all this trouble? You could just say it.]

“Don’t act like I don’t know that!”

By nature, spirits couldn’t manifest their power without orders.

They only moved when there was certainty in a command. That was the established rule and system.

It might look easy for Undine or Rai to move exactly as I wished without explicit commands, but in truth, that was a fairly advanced technique.

For that to happen, several conditions had to be met.

First, my mental strength had to be strong enough to convey intent, and second, the spirit had to share a deep, genuine bond with me—deep enough to perceive that intent.

Certainly, with a scatterbrained fellow like Ador who couldn’t even notice my will, speaking aloud might be faster.

But the problem was—

“If I start giving verbal commands to several of you at once, I’ll be dead.”

Above all else, the focus of my training over the past nine years had been speed—how quickly I could manifest techniques.

Attacking or defending even one second faster.

The reason for that was the shadow of Robenin Pedri that loomed so vividly before my eyes whenever I stood in the training hall.

My imaginary opponent who tormented me was always him, without exception.

Not because I wanted it that way.

I just couldn’t forget.

My fight with him inevitably became my benchmark.

The lightning-fast tip of his sword, the chilling approach, the merciless methods.

If I wanted to avoid losing when all of that came crashing down on me again, I had to become faster—just a little bit more.

Not me, but the spirits.

[Master, you know, most spirit mages provide support from the rear.]

“So what?”

[If you’re not directly fighting a close-combat specialist, there’s no need for speed… but then again, Master had a swordsman you were grinding your teeth over, didn’t you.]

“Yanmar! If you’re my spirit, you can’t forget that bastard! My enemy is your enemy too!”

[Not really…]

The fatal weakness of spirit magic was that humans were the ones controlling the spirits, so there was inevitably a long gap between issuing a command and its manifestation.

On top of that, I was a water spirit mage, whose attacks were relatively slow.

Wind or earth spirit mages could use what was already around them, but I had to go through the process of summoning water first.

Calling forth the spirit, issuing the command, summoning water, and then using it to attack—there was far too much delay.

The only way to overcome it was training.

Faster. More. Stronger and more precise.

[Still, there aren’t many humans who can handle water spirits as quickly as Master does… though there probably aren’t many who force water spirits to be fast either.]

Sometimes, doubts crept in.

Was I being too greedy? Was I overworking the spirits?

It wasn’t as if I’d never thought about it.

“Well, once you’ve contracted with me, it can’t be helped.”

[Hey.]

“Isn’t what I want the same as what you want?”

[No.]

“Thanks for trusting me and following along.”

[This is why I say I chose the wrong master.]

Ador was openly lazy and disliked being worked hard, but as long as he was my spirit, he had no choice but to obey my commands.

Unless one of us died or disappeared, our contract would never end—and thinking about that, it was easy to understand why Rai so strongly rejected Magikos’s passionate advances.

No one wanted a ten-thousand-year slave contract with a dragon.

“Undine, put me down.”

[Yes, Master.]

Unlike Ador, the electric spirit who was noisy, scatterbrained, and hard to control, Undine was always calm and composed.

If he were human, he’d feel like a capable, intelligent office worker.

Water spirits, possessing healing powers, generally had the great advantage of gentle temperaments.

I stepped down from Undine’s back and pointed at the ogre.

“It’s definitely dead, right?”

[Definitely. It’s not breathing.]

“Then take it out and put it on the ground. Magikos complains that meat soaked in magic tastes bad.”

Because it had been electrocuted while trapped in water, the ogre was warm, like it had been lightly steamed.

When it came out of the water droplet, steam rose from it…

“If Magikos saw this, he’d say it’s cooked just right.”

As I looked at the ogre lying thoroughly done on the grass, memories from the past surfaced.

Back when I was a child who couldn’t kill an ogre alone.

The time I got lost and traveled briefly with the Shabel Mercenary Group. Back then, even when the whole group charged together, it was hard to take down just one of these.

“……Rai, do you think I’m strong now?”

[He’s not here.]

“Oh, right.”

He was being held by Magikos. Without him constantly at my side, things felt strangely empty.

“Ador, what do you think?”

[You’re asking me?]

“Yeah. Be honest.”

[I do not serve the weak!]

“……You eagerly contracted with me when I was ten years old, you fraud.”

[That was because I saw potential in you, Master!]

“Oh? I see.”

I snorted and walked toward the dead ogre.

Why did it look so small?

It was easily ten times larger than me, yet it felt insignificant.

Probably because I’d seen the true body of that scatterbrained dragon so many times.

Thud, thud—I stepped on the ogre’s hand, climbed up its arm, and stood on its back, yet all I could think was how weak I still was.

Was it because losing to Robenin, or being kidnapped by a dragon, weighed so heavily on me? I felt endlessly weak and powerless.

No matter how many monsters like this I killed, it didn’t satisfy me.

“Grrr!”

Lost in thought, I heard rustling, and several wolves emerged from the bushes.

Near areas dense with magic, there were many small and medium monsters, but also animals like rabbits and deer. It formed a perfect food chain, you could say.

And wolves that traveled in packs were among the most dangerous creatures—excluding monsters, that is.

Unless you were Jinny Crowell.

“What are these things?”

At first, I thought there were three, but before I knew it, more than seven had appeared, surrounding me as they prowled and gleamed with predatory eyes.

“Grrrr.”

“Krrraaah!”

Having lived among fierce monsters, these wolves were more savage, violent, and intelligent than ordinary ones.

Naturally, they were larger too.

Many of them, if they stood upright, looked several times bigger than me.

One particularly large one—the apparent leader—bared its fangs straight at me.

The others followed suit.

They moved into my blind spots, growling menacingly.

Not that they posed any threat—that was the problem.

“They don’t seriously think I’m food, do they?”

[Seems like it.]

“Haha! Now even wolf pups see me as a snack.”