episode_0151

“Hurry up! Go and make a contract quickly! Lillis, you have plenty of magic power, so you can easily contract with an intermediate spirit!”

“….”

“I came to the academy following Lillis because it was fate to meet that child! So go quickly and seduce her, Lillis!”

Sally, who loudly exclaimed in excitement upon encountering a failed spirit in Professor Erin’s secret garden.

Upon seeing the sudden change in the guy’s attitude, Lily felt a momentary surge of disbelief towards him.

“If you make a contract with that child, you’ll be able to see her every time you’re with Lillis! Go and make the contract quickly! Hurry….”

“Are you crazy?”

“….Huh?”

“Why are you suddenly insulting me in the middle of my spirit contract? There’s a limit even to your audacity.”

“So what?! It’s a well-known fact that wind and fire spirits go well together! That child will undoubtedly boost my power as well! It’s not a bad thing for you either, Lillis!”

Despite being blatantly called audacious to her face, Sally seemed clueless about what she had done wrong, coming across as if she didn’t understand.

Until now, Lily had thought she was just a bit noisy but somewhat decent guy, but with that last statement, her good impression of her completely flipped.

“A pedophile like you.”

“W-what are you talking about?! Spirits live much longer than humans, you know?! I’ve lived for decades longer than you, Lillis, and that child is at least 200 years old….”

“So, according to your spirit age standards, anyone under 400 years old is like a child to you. Do you think I wouldn’t know that?”

“H-how does Lillis know… N-no! It’s not like that?! Don’t just say whatever! You’re not even a spirit!”

“Then go ask the professor right now. Being a half-pulling and the one who originally cultivated this garden, she should know much better than me.”

“N-no! Okay, I admit it! I was wrong!!”

It seemed that Sally didn’t want to be exposed as someone who felt embarrassed by her appearance.

Anyway, why tell such obvious lies that would easily be exposed with a little probing?

The guy who had just revealed how pathetic she had been was burning with anger. Literally, because he was a fire spirit.

“I-I admit that she’s a child! B-but the term ‘pedophile’ is wrong! It’s true that I feel love for that child, but it’s absolutely not a sexual feeling!”

“Well, you spirits don’t have reproductive functions, so it’s natural.”

“And it’s not like I specifically like young spirits! It just so happened that the child caught my eye because she happened to be a young spirit!”

“Don’t spirits have wardens? Who’s supposed to take away weirdos like you? Huh?”

“You’re being too harsh!”

She would know who was really being harsh if she saw herself reflected in the water.

Well, it was a fact that fire spirits were naturally attracted to wind spirits, and wind spirits liked water spirits, and water spirits wanted to be with earth spirits. It was a kind of natural phenomenon.

My discomfort with Sally was a completely different issue from that natural phenomenon.

It was just that I couldn’t understand her shameless attitude towards an intermediate spirit who was still like a child in the eyes of high-ranking spirits, and her fanatical obsession with a spirit she had just met fifteen minutes ago.

And of course, I had no reason to indulge in Sally’s nonsense.

“If you like that kid, go approach her yourself. Don’t ask me to do it.”

“What nonsense are you talking about! If I approach her, she’ll probably run away first! Do you think a fearless salamander like Sally will just stand by and watch as someone approaches her?!”

“You know well. You have plenty of reasons to give up.”

“Don’t say that, please! Lirlys, you can easily seduce her! Your magical power is so delicious that if you set your mind to it, you could easily attract any intermediate spirit!”

…Well, considering Lirlys’ charm level, it wasn’t entirely impossible.

In a while, with almost three digits of charm and the corresponding increase in spirit affinity, it was reasonable to think that contracting with a naive spirit like Failfeed was quite possible.

However, from the start, I didn’t feel like just going along with the seemingly impure intentions of this Sallymander.

“Your intentions seem too impure for me to go along with. Wouldn’t that naive child be much happier not knowing that you exist? For the sake of each other’s happiness, wouldn’t it be better to just give up?”

“Why, why?! I’m not trying to do anything weird! Just watching from the sidelines is fine! If you think your magical power might be lacking due to the contract, then I’ll just consume less!’

“Your magical power is always abundant, so whether you consume less or more doesn’t really matter.”

“Then let’s make the contract now! If you contract with that kid, I’ll contract with you too! Huh?!”

“No, it’s impossible for you, a high-level spirit, to contract with me in the first place.”

Contracting with a spirit is similar to a lease agreement. It operates on a principle similar to creating a nest around one’s body with magical power, and the cost of creating these spirit contracts is quite high. To contract with a spirit, one must have a high maximum magical power, a concept derived from this place.

Creating a magical power nest requires consuming a large amount of magical power (security deposit) at once, and once it is created, only the maintenance cost (rent) is required to sustain it, making it essentially a lease agreement.

Naturally, higher-level spirits require a significant amount of magical power to create this nest, limiting the beings that can contract with them.

Titles like Sage or Archmage, or even the owner of a magic tower, are required.

Even for someone like me who has crazily increased their maximum magical power at a low level, reaching level 3-40 was necessary. Trying to attempt it before that would just waste immature magical power and lead to exhaustion.

Well, while the offer of contracting with a high-level spirit was attractive, it was ultimately a meaningless offer to me in my current state.

“If I had enough magical power to contract with you, I would have considered it, but no matter how much I think about it, it’s not a meaningful offer for me right now, right?”

“If it’s a temporary contract, it’s possible! It’s not as consuming as a formal contract, and it’s much easier to change to a formal contract later!”

“Hmm….”

“Please! It’s my lifelong wish! If you just contract with her, I’ll listen to you from now on! I won’t wake you up at night!”

…Not waking up at night while sleeping was quite an attractive offer.

And the temporary contract proposal itself was honestly too good of a condition.

Even though he was a noisy lolicon, he was still a high-level spirit. If I contracted with him, there would be some way to use him.

Especially since Lirlys, who still had a disappointing hit rate, had one way to overcome her persistent problem by using a spirit for attack.

Feeding magical power to the spirit and making the spirit directly attack would help me overcome one of my chronic issues.

“Alright, then. Let’s give it a try.”

“Really?!”

“But don’t complain just because things aren’t going well. Just because my magic is good doesn’t mean I can easily contract with all spirits.”

“Yeah, yeah! Got it!”

“I’ll be back in a moment, so Sally, please stay away from me for a while.”

After distancing Sally from me so she wouldn’t be scared for no reason, I slowly walked towards the intermediate spirit floating in the wind without any particular expectations.

With a light heart, hoping for a lucky contract, but accepting it if it doesn’t happen.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

Agnes Elizabeth Blaze.

The illegitimate daughter of the Blaze family, and the head of the magic department at the Luminor Academy.

Also, she was currently suppressing her melancholy emotions in a corner of the garden.

“…Sigh.”

In truth, she knew it herself.

Although her maximum magic capacity was high, her affinity with spirits was not that great.

Even though theoretically it was possible to contract with an intermediate spirit, in reality, even lower spirits hesitated to contract with her.

And she was well aware that she was getting impatient with the spirit contracts.

“Do you think the spirits will just contract with Miss Blaze without any thoughts?”

“The spirits probably see Miss Blaze’s magic as a very unpleasant smell, like spoiled food. If she wants the spirits to at least be curious, she needs to fix her attitude, which is like unsold inventory…”

“…There’s no need to go that far.”

Spoiled food? Unsold inventory?

For her, who had grown up with all kinds of expectations as a promising member of the Elizabeth family, it was a scathing evaluation she had never heard before.

To be able to say such things without hesitation to someone who looked pretty and innocent on the outside.

Moreover, the fact that she couldn’t refute the content only stabbed her heart even more, making her feel even more desolate.

“I know that too.”

After secretly wiping away her tears in the corner, Agnes was finally able to calm down her complex emotions.

And she also realized how childish she had been in her argument with Lillis.

Anyway, she didn’t say those things to torment herself. If she couldn’t contract with a spirit, Lillis would also suffer consequences.

The advice was sincere concern. She just lost her composure momentarily because the advice was too strong.

Anyway, she was a woman with a high understanding of spirits, enough to walk around with a high-level spirit without a contract.

If she just followed her words obediently, she could easily contract with at least a lower spirit.

Agnes, who needed to contract with a spirit no matter what to avoid falling behind in the succession competition among the Elizabeth family’s numerous branches, could easily put in as many childish and sentimental emotions as she needed for that.

“That woman hasn’t officially contracted with a salamander yet.”

It was clear that she couldn’t easily contract with a lower spirit in order to contract with a higher spirit.

If she managed to contract with a lower spirit before that woman did, she could at least claim that she had won.

This gloomy thought became the driving force that made Agnes get up from her seat again.

It was only after a while that she met Lillis, who had just finished contracting with an intermediate spirit, while she was away.