CH 15

20/09/2022PC

“It can use telepathy?”, muttered Allison. [Yeah, though I seldom use it with humans. Anyway, thank you for saving me. A year ago, it was the same man who attacked and injured me.] The griffin looked at Allison and continued, [When I first saw you I thought that you were his comrade too.] Allison smiled wryly in response and said, “He’s my brother, though I wish he weren’t.”

[Yes, I gathered.], said the griffin opening and closing its beak repeatedly. Is it laughing? [That time my wounds were healed thanks to the dragon egg, but I was constantly low on mana. That made my situation very precarious, I’ve been living weakened for over a year now.] Hearing the griffin lament about the dragon egg, Allison looked at me. “If it’s about the egg, I’ve already hatched it.” When I said that, the griffin turned its head sharply to peer at me. [You hatched that egg!? An elf did take it from me, but….], said the griffin unbelieving. “Yeah, and I was asked to help out with it.”

The griffin looked pretty shocked, it peered at me for a long breath and said, [I noticed that your mana pool was big, but I didn’t realise that it was so huge.] It then turned to Allison and said, [I’d like to give something in return for your help. Is there something in particular you wish for? I’ll grant it if it’s within my power.] Allison was pondering for quite a while, so I whispered to her, “Why not ask it to form a taming contract with you?” Allison frowned and replied, “There’s no way I can ask it to do so much!”

[A taming contract would be difficult. I am pretty old after all. If I were 50 years younger, I might have accepted it.], said the griffin regretfully. [It’s not like there are no other prospects though. But it might be troublesome.], added the griffin. “Really!?”, shouted Allison in hope and disbelief stepping right up to the griffin’s face. [Y-Yeah. There’s supposed to be a tamer on an island called Nordia. You could learn more about taming from him. Once I am fully recovered, I could fly you there as a thank you.] The griffin then turned to me and said, [I can only carry one person at a time. A Servant is fine, but it’ll be difficult to take you too.]

Allison flashed me a worried look and asked the griffin, “Only one person? What if we went halfway by carriage or boat…” The griffin interrupted saying, [Impossible. After all, Nordia is a floating island. There are only a few monsters who can make that trip while carrying a human. And I don’t want to make multiple such trips.] Allison made a pained expression at the griffin’s declaration. [Whatever you decide, it’ll have to be after my recovery. So you have time to think about it.] She looked up at that and nodded gratefully.

In the carriage on our way back, Allison was looking outside the whole time and hadn’t said a single word. I wanted to call out to her, but Cornelia forestalled me from doing so. When we returned to the guild, the guild master approached us. “Hey, good work out there. Looks like you guys ran into some trouble with Jason and his party.”

“How’d you learn about that?” When asked that, the guild master smiled wryly and replied, “Jason told us himself. ‘I lost to Allison, so I’m quitting the guild’ or something to that effect. He didn’t give us any details, what exactly happened?” I then explained the day’s events in detail to the guild master. Allison had kept her peace through it all. “Is that so, they tried attacking the griffin again. You guys really helped us out, thank you.” The guild master thanked us, and gave the reward for completing the request.

◇

The next day I was training my magic as usual. I still had no idea how to cast the second grade water attribute spell. I was trying to shape a water ball into a blade, but it wasn’t working well. While it was pliable like wet clay, it refused to assume any rigid shape. Come to think of it, didn’t Jason clad an ordinary sword, which wasn’t his Servant, with lightning? Though Riley did something similar with Nadia in her sword form.

So the tool doesn’t have to be a Servant? I took the leather bag in hand and checked its contents. A simple iron sword would work, but I was looking to see if there was a sword made of a material that was good at conducting mana. There were different types of swords inside, but I didn’t know much else about them. I took out the swords one by one and lined them up on the ground.

One was a black sword in an equally black sheath. The blade glimmered with a black lustre under the sun. Another looked to be a regular sword at a glance, but had something red, hard and transparent embedded in the middle of the flat portion of the blade. The next one was small enough to be called a knife, it looked more like an ornamental piece than a weapon. There were about five other swords but none of them were ‘normal’. The black sword was the only one that seemed usable to me.

Putting all the other swords back in the magic bag, I wore the black sword on my waist and drew it. It felt heavy, but that wasn’t an issue with Body Strengthening. I wasn’t sure how to proceed, I’d observed Riley’s swordplay from afar, but I’d never swung a sword myself. I simply swung it down from above. Feels off… Oh well, I’m not practising my swordplay now anyway.

As a preliminary step to cladding the black sword with water, I tried cladding it with my mana. Suddenly, ominous black mist began surrounding the sword, surprised I immediately stopped the flow of mana. What the hell was that? That’s scary. It wasn’t water or lightning, it was some kind of aura I’d never seen before. Its very presence made me feel uneasy. Curious and wanting to get a better look at it this time, I poured my mana in to the sword again and made the black mist appear. No way, this one is too frightening. I sheathed the black sword and put it away.

Next I tried the sword with the hard red substance embedded in it. Thinking that this one wouldn’t be so bad, I tried circulating my mana in it. It caught fire! “Hot!!” I panicked and dropped the sword and the ground began to burn too! “Oh shit!!” I made a huge ball of water and dropped it on the sword and the flames went out slowly. And I’m drenched. Again.

I picked up the sword again and let my mana trickle into it producing a more manageable flame, which I used to dry myself. Cornelia arrived at that time. “Hey. Where’s Allison?”, I asked spotting only her. “Still sleeping. She was up half the night thinking.”, she replied. “I see.”, so she still couldn’t decide. “Forget that. What’s with the flames? Do you have the fire attribute too?”, she asked pointing at the flaming sword in my hand.

“No. This is some kind of magic tool. If I circulate mana, it catches on fire on its own.” The black sword was probably something similar too. Only a more frightening variety. “Really now.”, said Cornelia as she peered closely at the sword. “I wonder if Servants could be given such an effect like a magic tool? Then the human and Servant combined could wield two attributes, similar to what me and Allison do with your help.”, said Cornelia tilting her head to one side in thought.

“No, I suppose that wouldn’t be possible.”, she said answering her own question. “You can’t cast water ball with that sword right? Doesn’t it just turn all the mana you supply into flames?”, she asked. I tried it out, and she was right, all my mana was just turned into flames. “It’s not like you’re thinking ‘Open a rent in space to create a place for all the things I want to deposit’ when you use the magic bag right? It simply works when you supply it with mana. So even if you try to change it to do something else while supplying mana it wouldn’t change, and would only work as it was designed to.” I nodded in agreement to her statement and said, “You’re right. If a Servant was given an effect like a magic tool, then they would only be able to use one kind of magic.”

“Yeah. They wouldn’t be able to mix two attributes and use composite magic like you and Allison do now. That just goes to show that the relationship you both currently share is precious and rare.”, said Cornelia looking meaningfully at me. “What?”, I asked brusquely. “What do you think about Allison?”, she asked.

“I think that I want to help her.”, I replied non-committally. Cornelia sighed heavily and said, “Not that. What do you think about her? Recently, you even hugged her tightly right?” Didn’t we do that because you told us to? I thought back and remembered how comfortable it felt to hold her in my arms. What do I think about her? Of course “She is very dear to me. Someone I can walk beside without worry.” Cornelia folded her arms and stared hard at me. “Can you swear to me that you will never hurt her? That you will never betray her?”

I finally figured out what she was getting at. She’s worried about me forming a party with someone else while Allison would be away. She’d looked pretty worried when I was invited to another party too. I looked back at Cornelia and nodded with conviction. “Yes. I’ll never betray her. I’ll wait until she returns.” Cornelia smiled satisfied with my reply.

When she returned to the town, I drew the normal sword that hung at my waist1. There’s no meaning in magic training if I use a magic tool. I first clad the blade with my mana, and then granted it the water attribute. The blade was then immediately covered by a loose jacket of water. It sort of looks like I’ve stabbed the blade into a slime. I tried swinging my sword but nothing happened. The water would undulate with my swing, but it wouldn’t fly forward as a slashing attack like it did when Riley swung Nadia. Even when I used Body Strengthening and swung with all my might, the only things that launched forward were droplets of water.

In the first place, what does ‘launching a flying water slash’ even mean? Until now, to create water balls in midair, I used the experience gained from Sense Strengthening to release my mana outside. However, I didn’t try to cause any kind of motion or movement with that mana. I simply released the mana outside my body, and then transformed the released mana into a ball of water.

That means, to launch a ‘Flying water slash’ it’s not enough to just release mana. I need to somehow drive that released mana or release it at speed, and then transform it into water. Okay, how do I do that? I mulled over it for a long time, but I couldn’t come up with anything good.

◇

The next day, when I went to the guild I found Allison there. She had a very determined look on her face. “Have you made a decision then?”, I asked after I sat across from her. Allison nodded and said, “I am going to accept the griffin’s offer. I’ll go to Nordia and learn more about taming.” I see. “It’ll get pretty lonely without you around.” I closed my mouth shocked by my own words. I never imagined saying something like that. Allison smiled shyly and muttered, “Thank you.”

“I’ll definitely return. But I don’t know how long it will take, that’s why Nicola, please…” Allison took my hands in hers and continued, “Please, I want you to form a party with me again once I return. I want to be beside you again.” I squeezed her hands in return and said, “Of course.” Allison smiled back with tears in her eyes.

T/N Notes: