Point of Contact
Point of Contact
Riding through the dawn mist and air was quite chilly.
We'd worked out that it would take nearly four hours on horseback to reach the abandoned dungeon, so we kept the pace moderate to conserve as much stamina as possible. It was still cold enough to bite. No wonder everyone but me had put on a thick-looking cloak before mounting up.
I tried to grit my teeth and endure until the sun was fully up, but that wasn't easy. Keenly feeling how my lack of experience had left me underprepared, I finally summoned a spirit for the first time in a while. Honestly, making it a full hour without a word of complaint in that cold felt worthy of praise.
But no sooner had I begun raising my body temperature with the spirit's help than a shocked exclamation rang out.
"Huh?! A spirit?!"
"What? A spirit?"
The owners of the shrill cries were Yekaterina and Rellie. Perhaps due to her unusual spirit affinity, Yekaterina reacted instantly even though she was clearly riding ahead of me. Soon, both Yekaterina and Rellie drew closer, matching my pace with faces full of fascination. Even Gaendal and Gin didn't manage to hide their surprise entirely, though they seemed to leave it at that.
"What? What? Spirit magic? For real?"
"No way, it's real? Ega, you can use spirit magic too?"
"Uh, well. It's something I learned from the elf who raised me. Just a little..."
"What?! An elf raised you?!"
"Wow! You're even more interesting than the rumors made you sound!"
I had no idea what stories about me she'd been picking up, but unlike Rellie, whose eyes shone with simple interest rather than scholarly curiosity, Yekaterina began displaying enough eager curiosity to make me uncomfortable.
"Eldmia, could you communicate with spirits from childhood or something? Is that why the elf was able to bring out your talent?"
"No. I just lived with her, and at some point, I found I could communicate."
At that answer, Rellie was surprised once more and spoke up.
"Really? So you originally couldn't sense spirits at all?"
"Yeah. I didn't even understand what it meant to 'sense' a spirit. More importantly, Yekaterina, you sensed me summon one just now, didn't you? Can't you use spirit magic too?"
"Not at all! I can only sense them."
I was just thinking that was a fascinating case in its own right when Rellie beside me offered further explanation.
"Sensing Mana and using magic are separate things, right? Spirit magic is the same: sensing spirits and actually using spirit magic are different abilities. With an elf as your teacher, the possibility probably never even occurred to you, so you may never have heard about it, but it's extremely common among humans."
"Ah! So you can't talk with spirits?"
I'd struggled with that exact problem early on myself, so I understood immediately. Sure enough, Yekaterina nodded and clicked her tongue as if genuinely regretful.
"Actually, where I'm from, anyone who can commune with spirits is held in extremely high regard. Maybe it's because the land is so barren, but it's especially difficult there. I only realized after leaving the country that our whole concept of spirit magic is centuries behind other nations."
According to Yekaterina, spirit magic in Ravil was a concept closer to shamanism, relying almost purely on the intuition of those with high affinity.
And yet, she said that those skilled in spirit magic were nearly all geniuses. While the country lacked theoretical concepts of spirit magic compared to others, the practical ability of its users was vastly superior. Clearly, Ravil was a nation close to the wild, both physically and mentally.
A country that kept producing talented freaks who could do through sheer 'Huh? It just works' what everyone else had to study was definitely something else. That alone would've told me there was something unusual about the place.
Anyway, Yekaterina, having grown up in such a Ravil, took great pride in her spirit affinity but was frustrated that she couldn't actually utilize it.
"Come to think of it, I haven't heard a single rumor about you using spirit magic, Ega."
"Of course not. I don't use it in combat."
"Why not?"
"Worried it'll upset the spirits."
I'd had plenty of exposure to the chaotic, scatterbrained way spirits thought while living with Asilie. Unlike her, whenever I asked them for help with anything combat-related, the trouble they put me through could have put every hardship story from my military service to shame.
"I don't know if it's because my own spirit affinity isn't very high, but whenever I ask for help in a fight, they get particularly prickly. So I just don't use them in combat."
"...? Isn't it just a matter of ordering them?"
"Don't say something so terrifying. How am I supposed to order around beings stronger than I am?"
Whether they manifested was up to them. Aside from mundane favors, whether they helped was mostly up to them too. I was a mere human who had enough trouble keeping myself alive—what kind of nerve would it take to order them around?
I thought I'd said something perfectly obvious, but Rellie merely murmured something like 'Huh? Strange?' to herself, a question mark practically floating over her head.
"Your teacher didn't say anything about that?"
"She said it was a good mindset."
Granted, the first time she heard me say it, Asilie had burst out laughing—something she rarely did. After that, though, she hadn't said much beyond noting that humility was a good attitude when dealing with beings of nature.
Thinking back, it was a rather absurd thing. If someone holds a gun to your head, isn't being humble toward them just the normal response?
"Hmm. Well, I haven't met many spirit mages myself, so I'm not one to judge. If your teacher said so, it must be correct."
Rellie nodded, apparently satisfied with that, and I found her attitude admirable. Anyone who understood the difference between 'wrong' and merely 'different' was worth keeping close. I hoped we'd stay on good terms even after this request.
"That's a lesson I've never heard from the spirit mages I've met before, either. Eldmia, by any chance, do you have any advice of your own about communing with spirits?"
Yekaterina clearly wanted to know too. Heh. And as it happened, I had a killer tip on this subject—one good enough to shock even Asilie. For the sake of getting along with my new party, I could afford to share the wealth.
"This is one piece of advice I can give you with complete confidence. We've ended up working together, and Yekaterina happens to have strong spirit affinity, so let's call it fate. I'll tell you."
"For real?! What is it, what is it?"
"Spirits don't understand human language."
"Huh?"
"Eh?"
I kept explaining to the two of them, who seemed to have forgotten even to keep their horses moving.
"It's simple. We speak the Imperial common tongue, so we understand each other. But right now, Yekaterina, if you spoke in the Ravil tongue, I wouldn't understand a thing, would I?"
"I... suppose?"
"That's exactly how all communication between spirits and humans works. They don't understand words; they understand intent."
It was no exaggeration to call it an idea on par with Columbus's egg—a concept only possible for me, someone who had lived where spirits didn't even exist. Even Asilie, an elf, had given a standing ovation when she first heard it.
My spirit affinity had appeared out of nowhere after originally being nonexistent, so even the spirits had taken tremendous interest in me. Ordinary spirit mages had to work to attract a spirit's attention; having the spirits interested in me from the start was an enormous advantage.
And yet, we still couldn't communicate. After countless agonizing thoughts, I arrived at one conclusion.
When spirits interact with people, they don't treat them as just one among many humans. They deal with each individual solely as that one being. Because of that, the 'universality' of applying one person's method of communication to another is wholly absent in them. Asilie, Yekaterina, and I are all different people, so from their perspective, each requires a different communication method. Speaking to an ant the way you speak to a human won't work, so they are beings that learn new methods of communication as they newly approach each life form.
It was an utterly insane way of thinking and acting that respected individual personhood more thoroughly than any other race did.
"When a spirit manifests and communicates, it borrows the target's thoughts to speak, so at first glance it looks as though it completely understands language. But that's not what's happening at all. If someone who couldn't speak summoned one, I doubt the spirit would speak either."
Spoken language wasn't that person's primary means of communication, after all. That didn't mean they'd literally use sign language, but to everyone watching, it'd probably look as though the two were exchanging intentions without saying a word.
"Th-then, those called geniuses in spirit magic...?"
"They understand the spirits' language. Spirits do have a language of their own. They simply accommodate us instead."
It was like being born bilingual, except one of your two languages was Spirit. Of course you'd look as though you communicated with spirits effortlessly and received their help with ease.
"Whoa... I never even considered that idea."
It was an approach one would never try if they saw spirits not as a race but as a kind of divine being. That's why I was rather proud of my reasoning.
"So, when you want to convey something, acting it out might sometimes be faster than relying on words. My case is like that."
Spirits were everywhere and had always been everywhere. If someone who'd gone their whole life barely speaking suddenly started babbling away because they wanted to communicate with a spirit, they'd only confuse it.
The individual the spirits remembered was someone who didn't speak. Unless you were like me—so close to zero affinity that the spirits had never paid you any attention in the first place—you'd have an easier time communicating by approaching them the same way you normally behaved.
"So that's why you summoned the spirit just now without saying a word!"
Yekaterina had it exactly right, so I smiled and nodded. I'd first established communication with spirits entirely through body language. By now I could communicate with them in all sorts of ways, but maybe because gestures were how we'd started, they were still the clearest method for me.
"Wow, this seems like something we need to discuss more during our next break. That alright, Eldmia?"
"I don't mind, but why wait until later...?"
"Because some uninvited guests are blocking the road ahead."
I'd assumed Yekaterina was completely absorbed in the conversation, but I then realized her sharp gaze was fixed on something up ahead. Only then did I notice our pace had been slowing down little by little.
I followed her gaze and saw around fifteen rough-looking men blocking the forest road. They'd built a campfire right in the middle of the path and were sprawled around it. One glance was enough to tell me...
"They're obviously bandits. What do we do?"
Gaendal had drawn his horse alongside ours at some point, and at his question everyone slowed until we were barely moving faster than a walk, humming thoughtfully. Naturally, I assumed they were deciding how to wipe the bandits out as quickly as possible so we could get moving again. Gin was the first to speak, and what he said hadn't even crossed my mind.
"Wouldn't it be better to go around? At this distance, it'll be hard for them to recognize who we are. Since we're moving in secret, taking a little detour is better than colliding and leaving witnesses behind."
"Hmm. You're right. I'd rather not waste energy unnecessarily either."
It wasn't just Rellie agreeing—Gaendal and Yekaterina were the same.
"Ah. So that's why I was chosen."
"Hm? Did you say something?"
I'd thought they understood already, but apparently not. Gaendal's question made me realize something belatedly.
They were all higher-ranked adventurers than I was, but they clearly had less experience fighting groups of people. The fact that they were worried about leaving survivors against a half-assed bunch of bandits like these made that obvious.
It was perfectly understandable. The sense for fighting monsters and the sense for fighting people were bound to be different. And the higher the caliber of the adventurers around you, the more cautious you'd inevitably become in human combat. They must have been overestimating the enemy's abilities without realizing it.
But how could those bastards survive? They'd all die. Open field or not, common thugs couldn't possibly escape alive from an aura user.
"We're pressed for time. Who knows how long a detour would take? This seems like a good chance to show you why the guild leader hired me, so this time, just sit back and watch."
In any case, we'd end up fighting people in the dungeon eventually, so I figured this was a fine opportunity to adjust their judgment beforehand. I dismissed the spirits, then moved forward.