Chapter 96

Chapter 96

The Deepening Darkness (2)

“Huh...”

Magredo, who was following behind me, let out a sigh at the carnage that had unfolded in the gambling den.

I had cleaned up the gambling den neatly.

I knew through the game what kind of organization they were. Criminal organizations like this were fairly common.

Because bastards like these existed, black mages and blood mages could safely build their power.

A vicious cycle.

As for the spectators who had been with me, I handed them roughly enough to cover what they had lost and sent them out of the gambling den. Once I showed them the knight order badge, controlling them was easy.

I told them not to touch gambling again, though whether they would listen even that far, I did not know.

I swept all the money left in the gambling den, and the money in the safe, into the subspace pouch. Calling the knight order and having it confiscated would have been a decent method too, but I still had no way to contact them.

And there were not many chances to obtain this much money.

“...By the way, have you and I ever met before?”

Magredo, glancing at the bodies of the organization members cut down in a single stroke, asked that.

Sierra also looked curious.

The answer to this was already decided.

There had been one great incident he caused several years ago.

“Ah, once in the Empire...”

“...You mean the casino. Tch, not a pleasant memory.”

“Haha, it was quite a huge commotion, after all.”

I roughly played along.

“How did he ever think to cheat in a casino of that enormous scale...”

I could not understand it.

Like that, I left the gambling den with Magredo.

Judging by the moon in the sky, it seemed to be dawn now.

After stepping out of the gambling den, Magredo inhaled the cold dawn air. He wore the expression of someone who had dramatically escaped from prison.

“I suppose it was dramatic, in its own way.”

Soon, Magredo raised his head and looked at the sky, then opened his mouth.

“Right. You said you wanted to learn sealing. But is there really any need for you to learn it?”

“I have heard there is no end to learning.”

“Hmph, you are greedy. I do not dislike it. My house is nearby, so how about we speak more there?”

“That sounds good.”

I answered with a bright smile.

Well, things were flowing just as I had seen in the game.

To learn Spirit Sealing from Magredo, one had to rescue him from prison.

It was not an especially difficult process.

The criminal organization running the gambling den was not especially high level.

It was simply that Magredo was too weak to wipe them all out, and so he had been caught.

Had his spirits been taken away by high-ranking spirit summoners? He had been entangled in many incidents and had enemies in many ways.

I moved with Magredo to his house.

He did not seem fascinated by how I, with bandages over my eyes, could follow him so well. Since I had brought down the gambling den organization alone, he seemed to have guessed on his own that I must possess some special power.

Like that, I learned Spirit Sealing from Magredo.

...As a result, although I did not know about him as a spirit summoner, Magredo was a good person as a teacher.

Despite having only just escaped from prison, he showed no signs of fatigue and, absorbed in his own theory, passionately taught me Spirit Sealing.

Starting from basic theory about spirits, we even reached a discussion about why Spirit Sealing had value.

Spirit Sealing.

Unlike ordinary spirit arts, it is not greatly affected by spirit affinity.

After examining my body, Magredo gave me a compliment that was not quite a compliment, saying I had terrible spirit affinity and was therefore a good body for learning Spirit Sealing.

He said that not being able to see would not be a major problem as long as I could sense the energy of the summoned spirit.

Unlike spirit arts, which control spirits like familiars, Spirit Sealing seals part of a spirit inside the body and makes it possible to directly use the spirit’s power.

The benefits born from that were beyond words.

Spirit summoners were fundamentally able to handle spirits better the higher their spirit affinity was.

To put it simply, if one’s affinity was high, the spirits listened well.

Then for spirit summoners, the key question would be how to raise spirit affinity.

However, there was no such method.

There was no way to intentionally raise affinity.

Spirit affinity was an ability purely innate.

“Though in truth, it is not as if there is no method at all...”

In any case, generally speaking, that was how it was.

As one could tell from the fact that Magredo used the bizarre spirit art called Spirit Sealing, his spirit affinity was low.

Greatly dissatisfied with this, what he discovered was a spirit art lost in the past: Spirit Sealing.

A spirit art that forcibly seals the summoned spirit’s power into one’s body by reciting the spirit’s “true name.”

Through Spirit Sealing, one becomes able to fully handle a spirit’s power regardless of affinity.

The process of Spirit Sealing itself was fairly easy and simple. Perhaps because of that, I was also able to acquire the skill quickly.

However, the fact that one had to recite the true name was a major problem.

How could a human, no more than a mayfly compared to spirits, possibly learn a spirit’s true name?

Magredo had no choice but to scour ancient documents related to spirits.

Perhaps because of that, his house contained a tremendous number of old, worn books.

However, even Magredo, who had devoted his entire life to it, had only discovered the true names of a few intermediate spirits and a few lower spirits.

But if one could discover the true name.

In Magredo’s words, one would be able to handle “mighty power far beyond one’s station.”

It was not without penalty.

Sealing an existence possessing the foreign energy called a spirit inside a human body was itself a difficult matter.

Originally, for a spirit that should live in the Spirit Realm to maintain its form in the Human Realm, a spirit summoner’s mana would be consumed. But in Spirit Sealing, instead of mana being consumed, the body, that is, life force, would be gnawed away.

It did not mean lifespan was shaved off.

After all, Magredo himself had to be considered an old man who had lived long in this dangerous world.

He merely said that because stamina was shaved away, one had to live with potions always at hand. Perhaps because of that, as soon as Magredo returned home, he drank about three bottles of cheap health potion.

This was information I knew through the game.

I had the bracelet, so it did not matter to me.

Though the problem was when I would return this bracelet to Reina.

After teaching me a few more things about sealing, Magredo said there was practically nothing more he could teach me.

No matter what, he had no intention of teaching me the true names of spirits he had spent his entire life discovering.

When he asked whether I knew spirit summoning, I said I did.

Naturally, I did not know anything like spirit summoning, but with my affinity being a bust, it did not seem likely that good spirits would come out through summoning anyway... and since I had the whistle, there was no need to learn summoning.

This was enough.

All of this was merely a process to engrave the skill into the status window.

Like that, after listening to Magredo’s chatter for quite some time, since he had found a conversation partner after so long, I was only able to leave his house around the time the moon was setting.

After leaving Magredo’s house, I immediately climbed into a carriage.

As expected, not much time was needed.

***

After getting off the carriage, I was walking through a forest with few people around.

Beyond there, a fence indicating the academy’s grounds could be seen.

[ Hmm... ]

Sierra, floating through the air as she followed beside me, was letting out a hum.

“Do you have something on your mind?”

I turned my head to her and asked.

[...The spirit you said you would seal. I wondered whether that creature might be able to recognize my existence. ]

...When I had said I would learn Spirit Sealing, Sierra had been bewildered and asked why I suddenly needed a spirit.

To be precise, she said, [ You have my swordsmanship, so would you truly need something like a spirit’s power? ]

Then, after hearing Magredo’s explanation of Spirit Sealing, she had exclaimed in admiration and approved.

She said she liked that it was not a power swayed by spirits, but one that seized the spirits instead.

“Whether it can communicate with you, Master... Who knows. For now, you said you could see the spirits around Magredo, yes?”

I answered Sierra’s question that way and scratched my head.

I did not know the answer precisely either.

“Since they are both spiritual bodies, could they interact? Or would it be impossible because the nature of their energies differs...”

According to Magredo’s explanation, sealing a spirit did not mean the spirit’s existence vanished completely.

It was simply that it changed from a human form into the form of a beast, unable to hold any particular conversation.

[ Yes. Perhaps because they were lower spirits, they were small creatures. They did not seem to recognize me. ]

So Magredo’s spirits had not recognized Sierra.

If it was a spirit sealed inside my body, might it not be able to interact with Sierra, who was “bound” to me?

Soon, as I walked through the forest, I decided this spot should be suitable and stopped.

“We can find out what we are curious about from now on.”

I murmured that to Sierra and put my hand into the subspace pouch, taking out the whistle.

[ Mm...? Why the whistle all of a sudden...? ]

Sierra questioned my action.

I had told Sierra in a previous conversation that this was the “Spirit King’s Whistle.”

Hidden pieces, and my actions as well.

Sierra often said I might be a “prophet.”

...I neither affirmed nor denied anything.

The insistence that I was a mysterious person, which had continued since I first met her, still remained.

At best, she might reach reincarnation or regression or something of the sort.

In any case, perhaps because I had answered Magredo by saying I knew spirit summoning, she did not seem to have expected that I would use the whistle.

I brought the whistle to my lips.

Even I did not know what spirit would come out.

“An attribute related to me...?”

Honestly, I hoped it would not be one of the four elements. Would that not overlap with the four elemental families?

Even if one of the four elements came out, at least Lucia’s wind attribute, which was not especially helpful in combat, seemed like it would be good.

I immediately blew the whistle loudly.

—Hoooo...

Only the sound of weak wind came from the whistle.

However, nothing had gone wrong.

I had blown the whistle properly.

The sound of the whistle had probably rung loudly not here, but in the Spirit Realm.

At this, Sierra tilted her head.

[...There is no enemy, and the situation is not dangerous either, so what are you suddenly doing? ]

While waiting for the spirit that would soon appear, I began explaining to Sierra.

“There are spirits whose ‘names’ I know.”

At my answer, Sierra finally noticed my intention.

[ Surely... You said an upper spirit would appear, did you not? ]

“That is right.”

Around the time I was having that conversation with Sierra, the forest began to tremble.

Even though dawn was breaking, the surroundings instantly filled with fog and blocked the light.

Before long, a lump of black energy without a fixed form began to gather before my eyes.

“Black...?”

Something was flowing strangely.

Perhaps because of that, I could feel a chill around us.

Soon, the black energy took shape.

It was the shape of a human.

A spirit was appearing.

The spirit took on a complete form in an instant.

The moment I laid eyes on the dark-colored armor that appeared in the air, I sensed it.

Fog crept closer and wound around the spirit’s body.

The spirit, he, wore a stylish suit of ink-black full-body armor.

His red gaze stared steadily at me.

Then I heard his chilling voice... one that sounded like something being scraped raw.

“I, Shade of the Shadows, answer the call of the King’s Whistle...”

It was the moment my intuition proved correct.

Without any need to think about it, this was definitely a spirit of darkness.

Shade stopped in the middle of speaking and showed doubt.

“...Now that I look, you are human. A human summoned me... What a strange matter.”

“...”

I could not answer him at all.

Just as he said, darkness spirits were spirits commonly used by demons.

The fact that I had blown the whistle and a darkness spirit came out meant that something similar to demons had been detected from me.

...And it was not as if nothing came to mind.

“The Tear of the Dead, the cursed blade... To think it would be applied like this...”

I had been careless.

Most importantly, I did not know anything like the true name of a darkness spirit.

I could not use Spirit Sealing.

“More importantly, where is the enemy? I thought I might see blood after so long, yet there is nothing. Surely you did not blow the whistle without even knowing what kind of item it was?”

Shade, having looked around, expressed doubt once more.

Sierra beside me also tilted her head at my silence.

I blew the whistle loudly once again.

—Hoooo...

“...”

At my action, Shade was left speechless.

Naturally, there was no effect, but it had meant more that I wanted to deny reality.

“Haa...”

It was just when I lowered the whistle and let out a great sigh.

It was an action I had carried out casually... one that had recently become a habit.

I sent out a wave of Perception.

Soon, the wave reached Shade as well.

Then, something truly bizarre happened.

Normally, when a person was touched by the wave, the person’s name or information would enter my head.

But I had never experienced something like this even once.

Shade’s true name.

His “true name” as a spirit was transmitted into my head.

“...What is this?”

I could not understand the reason right away.

But.

“So you were some witless fool who did not even know the whistle’s effect... Humans... what a waste of time.”

Just as Shade was about to return to the Spirit Realm...

“Wait a moment.”

I hurriedly stopped Shade.

Then he, who had turned away, turned his head and glanced at me.

***

Before we knew it, the dense fog had vanished, and with dawn breaking, warm sunlight was shining through the forest.

[...What shall we name this one...? It should have a name, should it not? ]

Sierra pondered as she looked at the furball sitting on a rock.

“Krrrng...”

The black furball looked at Sierra and let out a cute cry.

Its red eyes were very charming.

“...Shady. How about Shady?”