Chapter 51
Chapter 51
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 51
Chapter Title: Saved by the Wish Spirit
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“Farewell!”
“Take care, Duchess!”
About ten bank employees had all come out to the entrance, bowing at ninety degrees to see me off.
“Yes, thank you for your hard work.”
I smiled in satisfaction as I acknowledged their farewells.
“Miss, shall we head to the ducal residence now?”
“Yeah, we should.”
One of the escorts asked, and I naturally headed toward the carriage waiting outside the bank.
That was when it happened.
“Kyaaah!”
“Watch out!”
“P-Please move!”
“……?”
Ten meters ahead on the main street.
A cargo wagon was barreling toward me at tremendous speed.
‘Crazy. What the hell is that?’
Neigh—!
For some reason, the rampaging horse, eyes rolled back, was charging straight at the sidewalk.
It was too close to dodge.
“Miss!”
One of the escorts beside me hurriedly wrapped me in his arms, but I could instinctively tell.
‘Whoa, this is it. I’m dead.’
At best, crippled. At worst, dead. It was like getting smashed head-on by a small truck with failed brakes.
However.
Neigh—!
Thud.
“Oh, my God…….”
“O Lord!”
A huge commotion erupted behind the escort who had me in his arms.
‘What?’
I had squeezed my eyes shut, but I quickly shoved him away and checked the situation.
For some reason, the horse had lost its balance and collapsed right in front of my nose, just before colliding with me.
As if some forceful power had blocked it, stopping unnaturally……
“W-What’s going on?!”
“Good heavens…….”
“Are you all right, Miss?”
“Y-Yeah, I’m fine…….”
The clamor around me and the escorts’ shocked voices reached my ears, but I had no time to pay attention.
The wildly excited horse had stopped right in front of my nose in this bizarre situation, and something felt off.
‘Wishit.’
Instinctively scanning the surroundings, sure enough, there was Wishit not far from the overturned cargo wagon on the ground.
He had been watching the startled fallen horse and now whipped around to look at me.
[You okay?]
Wishit’s telepathy echoed in my head.
‘Yeah, there’s no explaining this unless you intervened, Wishit.’
I thought to myself, then casually brushed off my skirt and smiled at him.
[Good. Thanks for the help.]
Wishit froze for a moment at the ‘thanks for the help’ I tacked on, but I pretended not to notice and turned away.
* * *
Wishit.
The Wish Spirit.
Almost treated as legend in the Decard Empire, summoned only once since its founding.
‘……Or so they say?’
I thought as I read and reread the very first page of the open book.
Long ago, in an era of chaos where magical beasts claimed half the world.
There were two great heroes who roamed the world, battling the beasts: Decard and Diorus.
The two heroes saved a parched land ruled by beasts, and there lay the ‘Spirit Spring.’
At last, countless oppressed spirits were freed.
Impressed, the Spirit King made a pledge of blessing with the brave and righteous heroes.
[I bless you, and promise eternal protection extending to your descendants and their descendants.]
As proof of the great pledge, the Spirit King’s most beloved ‘Earth Spirit’ Randian and ‘Wish Spirit’ Wishit became familial spirits to each of the two heroes.
Decard the First, Earth Spirit User, soon proclaimed a great nation upon that once-barren land.
And it was called the Empire of ‘Decard.’
[Great Empire, Decard]
Prologue, Founding Myth
“You wanted to read this?”
“Huh.”
A somewhat bored voice came from beside me.
Turning my head, I saw Lizbet, the 5th Princess.
I’d been able to enter the imperial library, off-limits to most, all thanks to Lizbet.
‘Could’ve asked Lark, but he’s sharp as a tack…….’
The day after the carriage accident.
I’d come out to investigate the highly suspicious Wishit, my spirit.
‘……If Lark finds out I’m digging into the Wish Spirit, he’ll definitely get suspicious.’
Lizbet peeked at the book I was reading and said pityingly.
“You really want a spirit, huh…….”
“Ah, it’s not exactly that.”
“No, you can be honest with me.”
Lizbet, who knew my story as a spirit user from a spirit-using family yet without a spirit, shook her head sympathetically.
“Rubette, you’ve been to the Spirit Spring, right?”
“Yeah.”
“How was it?”
“It was the most amazing place I’d ever seen.”
I recalled the Spirit Spring, which I’d visited for the first time earlier this year to make a contract.
“A place you can only see in dreams, so of course it was.”
To contract, you go to the spirit altar in the imperial palace, drink tea infused with spirit grass, and fall asleep. That’s when contractors dream.
The spirits’ homeland, visible only in dreams: the Spirit Spring.
It was beautiful enough to call a utopia.
“It’s probably spring all year round there?”
Endless warm pastel spring landscapes.
Vibrant forests filled with swaying flower stems at every step and pleasant birdsong.
Towering sheer cliffs like paintings, with diamond-sparkling waterfalls cascading down.
That fantastical world overflowed with spirits in all sorts of forms.
“Lots of spirits, right?”
“Tons. And they all look totally different. There were super pretty spirit beauties, spirits handsomer than Riki, too.”
“No way.”
“Totally. And spirits with pretty butterfly wings. Oh, and one that looked like a pink-furred rabbit.”
“Wow…….”
Lizbet’s eyes sparkled cutely, making me chuckle.
“What spirit did you want?”
“Me? Eh, nothing specific…….”
“You wanted the Wish Spirit, I bet.”
Lizbet glanced again at the book I was reading and shook her head.
She must’ve thought so because I kept rereading only the prologue where the Wish Spirit Wishit appears in the empire’s founding myth.
Truthfully, what I wanted wasn’t this ordinary imperial history book available even in my family’s library……
‘Came all the way to the imperial library, but no useful books.’
I let out a sigh, and Lizbet clicked her tongue.
“Big dreams. The Wish Spirit, of all things. That’s why no spirit contracts with you—too greedy.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re right.”
I replied half-heartedly, and Lizbet propped her chin, lecturing.
“The Wish Spirit isn’t easy to meet, you know?”
“Why not?”
“Read more of this book, and you’ll see. But Diolus the First, Wishit’s first contractor, worried humans would abuse its powers, so before dying, he asked Wishit to…….”
“Oh, I know. Don’t reveal you’re the Wish Spirit—pretend to have lame powers.”
“Exactly.”
It was a story anyone who studied imperial history knew.
That’s why imperial royals entering the Spirit Spring hunting for Wishit often contracted low-grade spirits with ridiculous abilities.
Of course, me—no, Rubette too……
‘Fell for that ridiculous lie. And I didn’t even pick Wishit on purpose!’
Suddenly indignant, I clenched my fist under the table.
‘If Wishit hadn’t lied, we never would’ve crossed paths. Rubette had zero greed—she’d never contract with Wishit.’
The Spirit Spring brimmed with spirits, all differently beautiful, impossible to look away from.
Rubette wandered in ecstasy for a long time……
‘And met the con artist.’
Recalling it, I gritted my teeth in dizziness.
“Eek, you scared me!”
A monstrous-looking spirit hiding behind what seemed a ten-meter-wide tree.
No eyeballs, just two nostrils for a nose, pitch-black skin that looked sticky to touch—it was utterly repulsive, unlike the other spirits.
Didn’t even want to talk, but kind Rubette politely asked the same question she’d asked every spirit she met.
“W-What kind of spirit are you?”
And the con artist replied.
“I am…… the spirit of happiness.”
A name a billion light-years from its appearance.
“Sorry, but I have no special powers. I can only make my contractor happy.”
“You can make me happy?”
“Yes. Even if betrayed, you won’t get angry but feel joy. Even starving with only dry bread and a sip of water, you’ll think positively and feel happy.”
‘No way, are you kidding?’
But thirsting for happiness, Rubette marveled at those utterly useless powers and contracted with Wishit without looking back.
Unaware it was the ‘Wish Spirit,’ classified as dangerous by the palace, endangering contractors’ lives, limited to exactly three wishes.
“Sigh…….”
Lizbet looked at sighing me pityingly, patted my shoulder comfortingly.
“It’s okay. Humans are greedy animals.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I’m greedy too. Can’t wait to enter the Spirit Spring. Two more years, though…….”
“What spirit do you want to contract with, Your Highness?”
“Me? I’ll roam the Spirit Spring forever until I meet ‘that’ one.”
“No way, the Wish Spirit?”
Already taken by me, though.
“No, no.”
Lizbet shook her head, then grinned slyly.
She soon leaned to my ear and whispered softly.
“The Spirit King.”
“……Pardon?”
The unexpected answer startled me.
“The Spirit King?”
“Yeah. The Spirit King must live in the Spirit Spring, right?”
“……Probably?”
“But from what the older siblings who went first said, no one’s seen the Spirit King.”
Lizbet pointed to the open book.
“It says here the Spirit King exists. The empire’s under spirits’ protection because of the Spirit King’s blessing.”
“Right.”
“Think about it. King of all spirits—what powers! It can do anything, right?”
Hearing Lizbet, realization struck like lightning.
“Haha…… Yeah, true?”
I nodded slowly, meeting Lizbet’s eyes.
“Your Highness is right…… It can do anything. The Spirit King.”
“You get it!”