episode_0177

“Wow, wow….”

The wind spirits.

The water spirits.

The earth spirits.

As Agnes watched the various spirits gather and dance in a spectacular display, she was captivated and lost in their movements.

Encountering so many spirits in front of her was truly a first for her.

Even in Professor Erin’s secret garden, she had never encountered this many spirits. Of course, the spirits she had met then were mostly intermediate spirits, so in terms of hierarchy, the spirits she saw now were probably stronger, but…

The colorful exchange of beautifully shining spirits, as if all the stars in the night sky had gathered in this pond.

For Agnes, who had been obsessed with contracting with spirits for a long time, the sight before her was so enchanting that she momentarily lost sight of her own purpose.

“…This is not the time for this.”

She couldn’t help but want to watch the fairy-tale-like scene of newly born young spirits coming together and mingling.

But if she just stood there, mesmerized by the sight, she would waste the precious opportunity she had worked so hard to obtain.

On this dark night, the reason she had overcome her fear and come this far was to make an elemental contract.

According to Reilis, today was the most favorable day to make a spirit contract, a day that only comes once every hundred years.

“I don’t believe everything that guy says, but…”

It wouldn’t be easy to find a day with conditions as favorable as today.

Of course, she was well aware, through bone-chilling education, that her presence would not be warmly welcomed among the spirits.

And that if she tried to awkwardly mingle with the spirits, she would only be rejected.

So, while it felt a bit selfish for her, who had recently been born, to manipulate the gathering of young spirits for her own benefit, Agnes was more afraid of never being able to make a contract as a magician or of squandering the opportunity given to her by someone else due to her own incompetence.

Above all, she didn’t want to fail the communication class with the spirits that would take place this semester.

-Woong.

-Pasak!

-Thud, thud.

Following what she had learned, Agnes suppressed the flow of magic from her body and took steps into the midst of the still incomplete spirits.

A considerable number of unfamiliar and new beings took an interest in her appearance.

Agnes felt as if she were making a ‘choice’ against the spirits for the first time.

…Of course, it was only for a moment, and the spirits’ reactions to her remained cold, but…

“Um, excuse me…”

-Whoosh!

The wind spirits, most sensitive to the flow of air, quickly mixed into the air and concealed their forms as soon as she opened her mouth.

“Ho, maybe you could make a contract with me…”

-Tok!

The water spirits also burst into droplets and disappeared as soon as Agnes touched them even slightly.

“Just make a contract, just make a contract with me…!”

-Tat, tat, tat!

Even the earth spirit, who managed to continue the conversation until just before the contract, quickly fled after tasting a bit of its own magic power for the contract.

“…Ugh.”

It was a somewhat harsh trial for a girl who had just become an adult.

Agnes couldn’t hold back the tears that had been building up from being constantly rejected.

Whether it was a spirit or anything else, nothing in front of her appealed to her.

No matter how beautiful or how many spirits there were, not a single one of these many children would be her partner.

She didn’t want to be born with magic power that even newly born spirits couldn’t be proud of.

Agnes felt so insignificant and pitiful, unable to even confidently attract the attention of newly born spirits.

On one side of the pond, Agnes sat hugging her knees, her heart easily broken and hesitant.

“… Should I just go back?”

She didn’t feel like there was a better future waiting for her here anyway.

Instead of staying here and facing all the remaining spirits, it might be better to move on now while there was still some fuel left in the lantern.

After all, when she had to go back on the dark night road, she would have to navigate this forest alone again.

With these thoughts in mind, Agnes, who was about to move her steps outside the spirit pond with the lantern she brought, was suddenly interrupted.

-Thud.

“Ouch!”

“…Huh?”

As she reached out to grab the glass lantern she had placed on the ground, her gaze naturally shifted inside the lantern.

-Woosh.

“…It hurts! Can’t you move gently?!”

A small flame spirit, the size of a fist, was looking back at her from inside the glass lantern.

It was the appearance of a newly born small flame spirit inside the lantern.

***

About an hour after sending Agnes off into the depths of the Black Forest.

“She should have arrived by now.”

Muttering to myself while looking up at the night sky, I thought she would have arrived at the spirit pond by now.

She’s a character with strong willpower, so she probably didn’t give up halfway.

Even though Agnes is afraid of the darkness, I still believed that she was stronger than that.

I wanted to go with her out of worry, but it was clear that it wouldn’t be possible.

If I stayed by her side, the aggro from the spirits she had to face would likely turn towards me, including the ‘flame spirit’ that would be born from her hands.

“I guess she’ll come back soon with a child who looks just like me.”

“Yeah. It must have been so difficult to teach her how to contract with a spirit on this date over the past few months.”

“I never thought I would have to give the lantern made from the sparks I shed to that child. As expected, my chosen owner has a good head on her shoulders!”

“…Well, I don’t want Blaze to come and take it out on me just because she failed.”

And since she is likely to become the main dealer of the hero party, I also wanted to make sure to upgrade her specs as much as possible.

The lantern I handed to Agnes from the beginning was not just an ordinary lantern.

It was a lantern lit by the sparks that fell from Sally’s body. In other words, it was a lantern with a slightly high ‘spirit affinity’.

Of course, having a lantern with high spirit affinity did not affect the owner, so Agnes probably wouldn’t receive good treatment from the spirits.

Still, if she managed to protect the lantern until she reached the spirit pond, then the rest would likely proceed smoothly.

A bond with the spirits.

Normally, it was not easy to build emotions before contracting with a spirit. Unless something miraculous happened and things worked out well, like when I and Sally cleared out the demons.

But if she explored the dark forest alone for an hour with the lantern nurtured from the small flame with spirit power.

It was only natural that she would feel some connection to the flame spirit that would be born from the spark inside the lantern.

Moreover, since it was Sally’s spark, it would be easy for the unstable magic to gather and take shape as a spirit.

As Agnes faced the energy of various spirits gathered at the Spirit Pond, it was essentially a system where she could definitively obtain the spirits she could contract.

“Man, breaking one more quest is damn difficult.”

Most likely, when playing as the protagonist, they would have walked together to the Spirit Pond and then taught her how to contract with the spirits on the spot.

No matter how much Agnes was, with the protagonist blessed by the protection of the goddess by her side, the spirits naturally felt curious and approached her.

From there, just by handling things well in front of Agnes, she would easily contract with one or two young spirits.

The problem was that as a release, it was impossible for me to use the same method as the protagonist.

If I went with Agnes to the Spirit Pond, most of the spirits would gather around me alone.

Why would a spirit with strange tastes choose to eat rotten eggs when there was a moist steamed egg next to it?

If I foolishly interfered with Agnes, boasting about the difference in charm we each possessed in front of her, it would be a disaster.

Repeatedly, I taught Agnes how to contract with spirits on her own, and a little harshly, I pushed her into the midnight forest of darkness.

In the current situation, the only way for me to hand Agnes the spirits was this.

And above all, if I used this method…

“Agnes can start her first contract with a fire spirit.”

Among the methods available in the game, a fire spirit was the best choice to enhance Agnes’s potential, as it had good synergy with fire magic.

Next would be an earth spirit, which was also usable. In this case, Agnes would have to play a supporting role, though.

And the water spirit had the worst compatibility. Unless both the spirit and Agnes grew to the point where they perfectly matched, their attacks would hinder each other.

However, the fire spirit, which had the best compatibility with a fire mage, was apparently not available for contract at the Spirit Pond. I don’t know for sure since I’ve never played that part.

I assumed the reason was that there were no seeds for a fire spirit near the Spirit Pond.

It would be a natural phenomenon for seeds of earth, water, and wind spirits to form in a small pond where human feet rarely touched.

But the seeds of a fire spirit, which could only be found in the ever-burning flames, would likely be found in rare places like the Black Rock Canyon where dwarves lived or the lair of a fire dragon.

…Or perhaps, they would emerge from the bodies of high-ranking spirits who had lived for so long.

“This time, having Sally with us was definitely helpful.”

With that thought in mind, as I absentmindedly watched the entrance of the dark forest, a woman with red twin tails quietly walked out from the depths of the forest.

By her side, a fire spirit, which clearly seemed to have completed a contract, endlessly circled around her.

“Agnes! I’ll be counting on you from now on! The name you came up with is so cool! You’re the best!”

“…Yeah. I’ll be counting on you too. Infernosylia.”

“Yeah! I’ll be counting on you! Agnes!”

Their middle school syndrome-like naming sense had not been abandoned even at the moment of spirit contract.

…As long as they liked it themselves, it didn’t really matter.