CH 17

Chapter Title: Valley of the Wind

「Elt, come here. Hurry up.」

A few hours later. Serena and I were heading east of the village in search of a strong spirit.

「Wait a minute… My vision is so bright that I can’t see Serena very well.」

Ever since I became able to see spirits, I have been seeing the microspirits flying around me. Because of this, my vision is obscured and I almost fall when I walk on a bad platform.

「I see…. Oh, by the way, I never taught Elt how to suppress his aura.」

「How to suppress my aura?」

I tilted my head as I heard Serena’s words.

「We don’t always give off auras, but when we do micro-spirits like to gather around us, right? When they do that, we have to use our eyes, and we quickly get tired. That’s why we suppress our aura when we don’t need it.」

「But didn’t all the elves have glow around them when I got my spirit vision?」

I nodded my head at Serena’s explanation. When my spirit vision opened, they were all covered in an aura, and there were micro-spirits floating around everywhere.

「That was for Elt. You needed to see a lot of spirits to learn how to see them. All the elves in our village who could use spirit vision were gathering micro-spirits by giving off auras so that Elt could easily get the spirit vision.」

That explanation convinced me. I needed micro-spirits to learn how to seem them, but it seems that everyone was secretly helping me.

「I owe everyone a thank you.」

A warmth flows through me. I thanked them in my heart.

「Don’t thank us. Everyone seems to be having a good time since Elt arrived. The other day, you prepared a lot of food for us. You’ve been good to us too, so we’re even.」

I naturally smiled and asked Serena a question.

「So how do I suppress my aura?」

「You can see the aura coming out of your body right now, right? Try to imagine that aura is coming out from your whole body and try to keep it inside your body.」

I do as I’m told. Then….

「Yeah, that’s good. Your aura is getting smaller.」

With Serena’s words, the micro-spirit faded from my sight and disappeared.

「Leave it at that for now. If you remove too much of the aura, it will take a long time to summon the spirits in case of emergency.」

Well, I guess I’ll have to get used to this aura.

「Then we’ll go again when you’ve gotten more comfortable with it.」

I followed Serena and walked through the lost forest.

「This is the place they call the Valley of the Wind.」

It was a place where the spiral staircase went on forever and it was very deep, and at the first glance, you couldn’t see the bottom.

「Are there any powerful spirits here?」

「This is where the wind spirits like to live. The lower you go, the stronger the wind blows, and there’s a good chance you’ll even meet some of the higher spirits here.」

From below, I could hear the sound of the wind whistling through the air. If I look closely, I could see greenish objects flying around. Each one of them must be a spirit of the wind.

「Okay, Elt? This is a place where no elf has confirmed how deep it is. If we go down and decide that it’s impossible to go down, we’ll go back, okay?」

Serena warned me as she turned her serious eyes on me. I nodded to her.

「Ah, okay. I promise to abide by Serena’s decision.」

I think I can find a good spirit here.

「Good. Let’s go then..」

Satisfied that I had nodded, Serena took my hand in hers and started going down the stairs.

★★★

『Has someone come to seek power once again?』

He opened his eyelids when he sensed the presence of an intruder in their territory.

『Humans are stupid. They arrogantly think that they can subdue us.』

It has been thousands of years since they first appeared in this world, and many elves have sought they power to reach the bottom of the valley.

『But only a few have made it.』

The lower you go, the stronger the spirits become, and the more the wind is blowing. You need to have extraordinary strength to avoid being blown away by it.

『Even if he gets here, that’s it.』

There have been many elves in the past who have made it all the way down to the bottom of the valley. But there, they encountered “it” and felt despair.

『Will the next intruder make it this fair?』

This was the end of his interest. He 1 couldn’t do anything about it, even if he reached him anyway.

『If you ask for power you don’t deserve, you will have to pay for it.』

Muttering so, he closed his eyes. He was called this name for thousands of years.

――Valzedi, King of the Wind Spirits――