Ch.215215. Friend or Foe (1)

“…I’m sorry, okay.”

“Hmph, no matter how much I help you with your desperate efforts, all I hear is the voice of a contractor who only thinks about that stupid Elvis instead of cute Tania.”

Tania’s tiny hand, which was holding my head while riding on my shoulders, twitched.

“You’re not liiistening at aaall─”

Suddenly she started pulling my hair or hitting me with her small fists. Tania was taking out her anger on me.

She had certainly been forcibly unsummoned once, and then helped me by gathering her own power. My little spirit who had given those cultists a good lesson with such a spectacular exit.

Since I was undoubtedly the one who had wronged her first, I kept my mouth shut and quietly accepted all her tantrums.

“Sigh… no reaction, and I can’t really kill you either.”

However, I couldn’t help but feel a little scared when Tania occasionally grabbed my neck, shook it, and quietly muttered complaints. She lowered her voice and made the will-o’-wisps behind her back glow more eerily as she mumbled.

Even though she had the form of a small girl, a fairy, Tania was still a high-ranking spirit. Honestly, it’s impossible not to be a little afraid.

Eventually, Tania shook her head and said in a tone of resignation:

“Haah… so why are you looking for Elvis again?”

“Well.”

I paused before answering and thought about it.

Elvis—a nickname now more familiar than his real name. My original wind spirit from before Orna.

The reason for seeking that originally highest-ranked spirit was simple.

What I needed now wasn’t another big attack like what Tania could show, but rather a spirit who could support me—still lacking in all aspects—in various ways with relatively low Mana consumption.

“Because my body isn’t complete yet.”

I still have physical abilities that are incomparably weaker compared to my past body. Not only is my Mana in the same state, but even the sharpness of my senses is clearly diminished.

In a situation where even properly utilizing Tania is taxing, if those Demonkin keep appearing like before, I would certainly find myself in difficult situations. Tania can annihilate enemies or change the environment favorably through strong fire, but she cannot dramatically enhance the physical abilities or senses of her contractor.

Even the support method of creating pillars of fire and destroying the surrounding environment to create a battlefield advantageous to me… consumes enough Mana to be quite burdensome for me right now.

Tania was a powerful weapon and a spirit who could be an ace in the hole, but she wasn’t exactly fuel-efficient, was she?

…Honestly, seeing chunks of Mana drain away each time makes me sigh deeply.

However, if I were to bluntly say that Elvis would be much more helpful than Tania right now—

“……”

Since the will-o’-wisps that hadn’t completely died down yet looked like they might engulf me.

I conveyed my meaning with the prettiest packaging of words possible.

“Your flames need to be handled after I’m more prepared, so they can shine much more beautifully.”

“Hmm.”

She seemed to like that line quite a bit. Tania nodded obediently with her arms crossed.

“But Elvis’s wind is somewhat more versatile compared to your flames. Orna lacks experience… and if Elvis were here, future battles would become much easier.”

It would be more than just easier.

No matter how much he’s teased as a crybaby Elvis, he is a highest-ranked wind spirit.

Not only can he assist his contractor, but his pure attack power is also extremely impressive. Though he might be inferior to Tania, he’s more than enough to land effective attacks on those Demonkin from before.

To be honest, if I could have moved faster and more nimbly with Elvis’s support reducing the Mana burden, perhaps my leg wouldn’t have been pierced by that Demonkin’s sword.

“Then what about that cotton ball?”

“Orna is the youngest and lowest-ranked, so she can’t use spirit magic as skillfully as you or Elvis yet.”

I stroked Tania’s head while speaking.

“Besides… that’s not the only thing Elvis is good at.”

The moment I mentioned what Elvis was best at, Tania finally nodded as if she understood and sighed.

“…You should know you’re lucky with your spirits. If it were other fire spirits, they would have thrown their contractor into lava regardless of the contract.”

“So—”

Tania said with a dejected expression, yet also with a look that suggested she was somehow looking forward to something, grinning:

“I’ll call him for you, Elvis. But—”

Tania finally abandoned her sulky, aloof expression and showed her true self—a mischievous, impish expression.

The excited girl floated in the air with her hands behind her back, giggling.

“You’ll have to deal with the aftermath all by yourself, Shinwoo. Got it?”

But why?

The brighter Tania’s expression became, the more I felt that the aftermath would be much more troublesome than expected.

* * *

“From now on, we’ll quickly exit the Eastern Forest! Stay alert as we don’t know when or where attacks might come!”

At the forest keeper’s shout, who appeared to be from Ianet, the scattered people instantly gathered to form a line for retreat.

Tania had returned to the spirit realm to talk with Elvis, and Diolia and Sione were also doing something separately. The elves, who kept their mouths tightly shut and maintained intense vigilance while scanning their surroundings, were not people I felt comfortable approaching.

Until Sione and Diolia came looking for me, all I could do was keep my mouth shut and observe the situation around me. So I focused on confirming with my own eyes the current state of the unit that I had heard about through Sione.

‘Their numbers have definitely decreased.’

When we encountered the Demon before, and even until just a little while ago today, the battle was said to have been intense with heavy casualties.

The size of the unit had certainly decreased compared to when we first entered the Eastern Forest. With 30-40% reduced, and many of the remaining being severely wounded.

Effectively, only about 40% of the original force was capable of engaging in combat.

‘They really took a beating.’

I never expected the unit of forest keepers, who had boasted so much about their skills, to suffer such heavy losses.

Well, those Demonkin were much stronger than expected, which must have played a part.

The important thing is—

‘Ianet, is it just my paranoia that makes things look suspicious?’

Compared to Arielt and Chelnis, where people with minor and major injuries were everywhere, those bearing Ianet’s emblem on their armor…

Most of them had only minor scratches. Despite facing the same situation and fighting the same battles, they mysteriously had fewer injuries, wounded, and severely wounded, and their wounds were clearly less deep.

While I was thinking about this and observing the unit…

“It’s been a while, Ray.”

A woman who had approached me from behind without making a sound placed her hand on my shoulder.

Turning my head at the sound of her voice, I saw a blonde elf looking at me with a faint smile on her not-so-good complexion.

“Seeing you walking like this, it seems your physical condition is better than I expected. On my first day after waking up, I couldn’t do anything but lie down.”

“…It’s been a while, Lady Friel.”

“To think you’d be asleep longer than me with my slashed chest… do you know how much Lady Sione worried because of you?”

“Lady Friel?”

“She always came to me asking if I had any spare potions to lend her, which was quite troublesome. I didn’t even have enough for myself.”

However, after greeting me, she just continued talking on her own, rambling incomprehensibly.

When I closed my mouth and stared at her, Friel quickly rolled her eyes around to check something and then whispered softly:

“Piel, now.”

—……!

At that moment, Friel’s spirit Piel appeared and used spirit magic.

“Finally, Ianet’s eyes are off us… everyone around is Arielt’s forest keepers… and Piel has ensured that important conversations won’t be carried by the wind to reach the other side—”

Pale complexion. Her body still lacked blood and vitality, perhaps not fully healed yet, but those green eyes were shining more clearly than ever.

“Now, we can talk comfortably.”

Those green eyes focused directly on me.

“Ray, you must have many questions. You probably don’t know how long you were lying down. I heard you didn’t have enough time to talk with Lady Sione after waking up.”

“……”

“I’ll tell you. I’ve been excluded from combat for a long time anyway since I can’t do much besides walking and running. But before talking about what happened, there’s something you need to be careful about first.”

“What do you mean by being careful…?”

What could it be that made her set up this atmosphere before speaking?

When I asked, Friel twisted the corners of her mouth upward and answered:

“Don’t separate from Lady Sione, the knight, and our Arielt forest keepers who will soon come here.”

Friel suddenly began to exude a deep, low atmosphere like the head of House Arielt.

“Lying in bed and thinking about it, it seems that Ianet’s crazy servants are up to no good.”

I could feel from her words and atmosphere that Friel was properly angered.

“So I’m sorry for coming to you with this kind of talk right after you woke up… but I want to discuss Ianet with you. Is that alright, Ray?”

The situation was heading toward catastrophe faster than I had thought.

If I could, I’d want to pretend to be crazy and just overturn everything.