Chapter 104: Chubby Little Arytte

When I heard about the spirit, what I imagined was a beautiful doll-like, butterfly-winged, ephemeral existence. However, what’s currently in my hand is a plump and impressionable little fairy. How can I say this… She seems to have some strange ‌air of dignity to her? How exactly did I not see her the first time?

「Hey, I’ll ask just in case, but you’re the spirit of travels, right?」 『Spirit of travels? What the heck is that? I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’re right about me being a spirit! Or more like, aren’t you a bit rude? You should introduce yourself before you ask people about something!』

Woah, I never thought I’d have someone tell me about the etiquette of self-introduction here. Still, I can’t deny that my curiosity got ahead of me.

「Pardon my manners. I am Lily, an apprentice sorceress and a house guest of the Iglesio household. I would like to thank you for granting our carriage protection on this occasion.」 『Hmh~m! My name is Arytte! I’m a high spirit of the 29th rank!』

According to this plump fairy- ehem… spirit, Arytte, there are currently about 3000 spirits existing in this continent. And it seems even among them, Arytte is a spirit quite superior in power. Well, the 29th rank thing somehow seems kind of legit at least.

『Hmhm~! Do you understand my greatness now? At my level, well! Something like this becomes possible!』

With an audible poof, Arytte became much bigger. Naturally, since I can’t fit her in my hand anymore, Arytte then nimbly moves on top of my lap.

「A little girl on Lily’s lap!?」 「My lady……? Have you perhaps gotten tired of me already……?1」 「Waitwaitwait! Why immediately jump to that conclusion!? Rather, they can see you?」 「Well, obviously! With just a bit of my power, I can make even my form visible!」

Arytte, previously only visible via 【Magic Sight】, now seems to be visible to Urania and Est as well. How does that even work? Since there wasn’t any sign of change in her magic power, I assume that it’s not ‌magic. Still, ‌I can feel some life essence from her. She shouldn’t be any different from a regular human now.

First‌, since I could only see Arytte’s original form with 【Magic Sight】, this means ‌she’s an existence that is composed of the normally invisible magic power, if not mana. And in this world, there definitely are creatures that are composed out of this invisible power.

「A monster……?」 「Hey! Stop that! That’s the biggest insult you can give to us spirits, okay!? Don’t you lump us together with those!」

I made her angry. It seems like confusing spirits with monsters is the worst kind of insult to them.

「Geez! Seriously, don’t do that, okay!?」 「My bad. I don’t know any other creatures composed of magic power.」 「Haa~… Starting from there, huh~… Geez, humankind sure is behind the times~ Fine then, I’ll teach you about it! Eh, ah, kyaa!?」

Arytte stood on my lap and smugly puffed her chest. And since she put too much power behind her puffing, she toppled herself, and nearly fell from my lap when Est supported her just in time.

「Be careful, okay……」 「A-Anybody can make mistakes, alright! Listen now! First, I’ll teach you about monsters. Did you know that monsters originally didn’t exist in this world?」 「Nn, I heard about it. They were originally beings created by god to serve as trials, and could only exist inside dungeons.」

It was my first time hearing about it, but the studious Uraina seems to have heard it before.

「You’re quite well learned! You have my praise! That’s right, monsters were originally creatures created by the Creator God that originated from his own divinity. The divinity is a potent force, and it’s said that the primal monsters were immeasurably more powerful than the monsters of the present day. Naturally, since they exhaust that divinity just by existing, they can only live inside the dungeons as these are packed with divinity.

However, that’s only a thing of the past! Because of a little incident, the divinity inside the dungeon leaked out and blended with the outside world. And to resolve that incident, the Goddess of Victory, Lady Vytoria, and us spirits combined our strength to transform the divinity into a milder form, mana.

By that time, the dungeons’ function as divine trials basically lost its meaning2, and there were suggestions of just trashing the dungeons altogether, but since it was observed that the monsters have more affinity with mana than with divinity, it was deemed dangerous to leave the monsters to their own devices. Thus, the dungeons were left for the sake of managing the monsters!」

After explaining all of this in one breath, Arytte deliciously gulped down the cup of tea served by Est, and sat on the seat opposite of mine. Seeing her swinging her legs while stuffing herself with chocolate, she looks just like a normal little girl. A slightly chubby one. Rather, she’s eating again…….3

「M~m, this snack is seriously delicious!」 「Savour it, okay? That’s the last of it, after all.」 「Lies! I saw you hide the other ones over there, you know!」 「Those are for Est and Hans.」 「Hmph…… Then it can’t be helped……」

Oh? She gave up pretty easily. It seems like while she is pretty gluttonous, she might have a more understanding personality than I expected. She’s quite honest and upfront too.

「Hmm, where was I? Ah, right, that. So because of that, monsters are now spawned from the dungeon’s mana, and can now also leave for the outside world. Though obviously, most monsters remain in the dungeons they’re used to living in.

And then there are magic beasts, animals that were transformed and influenced by the divinity during that overflow. An example would be how lizards and snakes turned into dragons and such, I guess? Oh, and don’t you ever call dragons as lizards or snakes, alright! Just like us spirits, they too take pride in their current forms, so they’re going to be absolutely livid if you do that!4

Now, about these magic beasts, they are intelligent in most cases. Although for those with blood that thinned out over ‌generations, like the Chasseur Dragons pulling this carriage, they don’t really have much intelligence per se. Though, they can still do a lot of things if you teach them.」

It seems like that’s the biggest difference between monsters and magic beasts. Being originally born to serve as divine trials, monsters only exist for that purpose. 「To attack people」 was their only purpose, nothing more, nothing less. So does that mean that those monsters that take intelligent actions like making traps, disguising themselves, or even using people to reproduce themselves, were only made to act like that and not out of true intelligence?

Arytte looks like a chubby little girl, but she knows about things that even Urania doesn’t know. Or rather, she even speaks like she saw it all happen.5 I wonder, is this little girl older than how she appears?