Chapter 21
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 021
Chapter Title: The Mare in the Mist
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A desolate sky hung heavy with thick fog.
Elin glanced around at the enveloping mist with fearful eyes before jolting in surprise.
“Mila?”
A boy in suspenders and a beret pushed through the fog and emerged.
He scanned Elin’s disheveled state, swallowed hard, and extended a hand to the fallen girl.
—I’m sorry I couldn’t appear sooner after becoming your contracted spirit.
Though he took human form, the boy called Mila was the mid-tier earth spirit Elin had contracted with.
She’d been calling him inwardly for a while but got no response, so she’d assumed the barrier was blocking him…
For him to stay hidden until now and suddenly burst out of the fog?
Spirits had no fixed appearance.
Even adopting a human form was just to match their contractor.
He’d originally been a massive earth dragon before becoming a spirit, or so he said.
Mila jogged her memory, then grumbled right away.
—I’d planned to come out the moment you were in danger, but that one insisted on watching over you, so I was late.
That old-fashioned tone and manner of speech didn’t fit his youthful look—it came from his true age.
Despite appearances, Mila was a spirit who’d lived at least a few centuries.
Elin nodded as if she understood, then turned her attention elsewhere.
‘That one?’
As if answering her question, an animal—no, a horse—that had been drifting through the fog gazed down sternly.
“Who are you?”
—My mountain is overrun by beasts. Are they yours?
Elin scowled fiercely at the spirit, who continued without a care for her question.
“What the hell, man?”
She glared at the horse in front of her, seething.
It took the form of a horse, but its body was entirely made of water.
Like a shape sculpted from clear lake water, it reflected everything like a transparent mirror.
Sunlight was no exception, casting a bright glow within its body.
But that glow didn’t last long—it flickered and faded.
Here in the dense fog, no sunlight could penetrate.
Even so, the way it shimmered until the very end was eerily beautiful yet sinister.
The dampness made it feel clammy, too.
Somehow taboo, perhaps.
A mix of awe and dread toward the unknown crept up simultaneously.
‘But what do you want me to do about it?’
“…Magic wolves? They’re mine? I almost died because of them!”
Seeing red, Elin spat out thorny words.
Mila brushed his cheek, as if he’d expected as much.
“What bullshit. If you had any brains, you wouldn’t say crap like—”
—Elin, mind your language. It’s a personal request.
Mila pleaded so earnestly that Elin stared at him.
Her eyes asked why he was groveling like that.
—So they’re not yours, then.
It was a deep, feminine voice.
Mila would never sound like that—it came from the mare.
Elin narrowed her eyes at the mare as she turned her gaze.
—You’ll die soon if things continue.
“Ah, thanks for the heads-up. Anything else you wanna add…?”
—However, since they’re not yours, there’s no issue if they’re killed. But if I punish them myself, my territory might flood—that could be a problem.
As it spoke, the spirit that had merely trailed fog began to amplify its presence.
It grew into something formidable before the mare finally mentioned itself, seemingly satisfied with the attention.
—Neither witch nor elf, just a half-breed. If you become my limb and deal with these worthless beasts, I’ll gladly lend you my aid.
“Who the hell are you?”
The mare looked down at her as if to say she should answer its question first, ignoring Elin’s wary line in the sand.
Outraged by the dismissive gaze, Elin bit her lip.
‘I need to survive, but also save my senior and the others.’
To do that…
She’d have to rely on this suspicious mare after all.
‘Mila vouches for it, so maybe it’s fine.’
She’d never heard of this spirit before.
Suspicious all the same, but with Mila following it so loyally, it didn’t seem all bad.
‘Though it looks kinda sleazy inside.’
“Fine. I’ll handle those things for you… so lend me your power.”
The mare, having gotten the answer it wanted, sank into the fog and gradually dispersed into mist.
—Very well, my new contractor. My name is Elise. I am the long-time ruler of the land you call the imperial capital, and the lord who lent this territory to the country bumpkin Donapart by Radon’s decree.
“What?”
Donapart was the name of the imperial capital—and the emperor.
Country bumpkin?
She was about to demand what nonsense that was when the fog lifted, returning her to the forest.
Behind her lay wolves torn to shreds and scattered on the ground.
The moment she turned back, the gruesome sight made Elin pinch her nose.
The fishy stench of entrails.
Organs oozing out like slime.
A squishy texture that would yield at the slightest touch.
Their glossy appearance.
Everything triggered a visceral revulsion.
She suppressed the urge to vomit again and stood up.
“That damn mare didn’t have to chop them up this fine…”
The cuts were clearly from a blade, but Elin’s stomach couldn’t handle inspecting the corpses closely.
That led her to misjudge it as the arrogant spirit’s doing.
Which, in turn, made her mutter complaints.
Elin snapped her head up.
“Senior, the senior… no.”
Her senior would’ve escaped just fine.
She had to have.
‘Can’t track without a medium here.’
So where had her fleeing senior gone?
‘The clearing.’
Definitely toward the clearing.
Then she needed to head there too.
That’s where they’d meet.
“I have to get to the clearing.”
She had to save the students.
She wasn’t particularly close to them.
She’d always been on the outskirts anyway, and while they didn’t outright shun her, she wasn’t blind to the subtle distance.
Even so…
‘Letting them die right beside me is different.’
This was basic human compassion.
Even if a stranger’s death far away hurt less than a scratch on her own hand, she couldn’t ignore a slaughter unfolding before her eyes.
Even with no ties to them, she hoped they wouldn’t die.
Because she didn’t want to bear the moral weight of looking away after seeing it.
That terrified her.
With labored breaths, she dragged her body toward the clearing.
Her hair tangled like seaweed, dirt from rolling on the ground clung to her sweat-soaked skin.
Her clothes were drenched, sticking clammily to her.
The sticky feel of her skin amplified her disgust.
She wanted to wash up, sleep, rest.
“Ugh. Ha. Hah.”
Each breath felt like a hole punched in her lungs, her chest aching.
She wiped tears from her eyes and took slow steps forward.
Please, let the worst not have happened.
That hope crumbled soon enough.
Grrrrowl.
A wolf—among them, the alpha that had seemed uninterested from its perch atop the pack.
It bared its teeth directly now.
But something was off about it.
Its size—like two grown men combined—or its massive bulk, or the mane-like fur, none fully captured Elin’s gaze.
Just that…
‘One front leg is missing.’
The spot where its right foreleg should be was empty, as if severed by someone.
It limped from other wounds too, it seemed.
No ordinary injury.
Teetering on the edge of fatal, the alpha let out a threatening howl.
“You were running away, huh.”
No need to ask from whom.
Not many could’ve done that.
She pictured the blond, mediocre professor in her mind.
‘That professor’s annoying, sure…’
“But you annoyed me more. Perfect. That cocky attitude—I’ve been dying to crush it.”
Elin slowly drew up a stream of water.
“Let’s see if you die or I do, you damn wolf pup.”
She shed her cowering demeanor and boiled over with fighting spirit.
From across the way, watching the scene… no, I squeezed my eyes shut.
Elin had started facing off against the magic wolf for no good reason.
Encountering it meant fighting—no issue there—but her momentum was unusual.
Did she know I was here?
But without blatantly wounding it like that, she still wasn’t its match.
I rubbed my face.
“My influence?”
The wolves were stronger than usual.
Normally, only the alpha would be a magic wolf, the rest plain wolves—but now they were all magic wolves.
The alpha among them was a chimera.
Obvious who tampered with them.
The heretical mages.
If I’d let it be, everyone except Elin would’ve died.
Maybe even Elin.
I watched the water streams spraying from afar.
Elin had properly contracted with the resident spirit of Spirit Mountain.
Relief washed over me at that, but worries tangled my mind.
High spirit Elise.
Born an upper-tier spirit, she’d ruled this place for over a millennium—the true master.
Spirits roamed freely regardless of rank.
To cycle through nature.
But a tiny few rejected that duty and settled in one spot.
Spirits who infused their energy continuously into a fixed area.
In those regions, they could draw power one purity level higher than other spirits.
Thus, spirit mages dubbed them “high” spirits—between top and upper tier.
Elise was a high spirit who’d dominated this land before it became the imperial capital.
She’d surely grant Elin exponential growth…
“But without the trigger, she’s still weak.”
A lucky encounter wouldn’t wrap it up.
For Elin to become the spirit mage from the original story who commanded legions alone, this fell far short.
“So I had to let her see that scene after all.”
Heading to the clearing with hope, only to find the group reduced to the wolves’ meal.
Elin’s awakening needed that despair as fertilizer, rage as fuel to fully ignite.
I’d stopped it.
Right now, Elin wasn’t even tapping Elise’s true power—just skimming the surface.
Her awakening… half-complete at best.
Below standard.
Then she couldn’t shine in the burrow arc like in the original.
The academy grounds breached by hordes of monsters.
The first signal of the academy being truly targeted—and the heretical mages’ bold move.
Magic beasts pouring from Snowfield Magic Tower on top, a pincer attack leaving the academy in unprecedented crisis.
In the original, awakened Elin summoned a spirit legion alongside the professors to repel them.
“Not now.”
Elin’s awakening wasn’t full.
Even if she gradually unlocked her potential, she wouldn’t reach completion by the burrow.
So the gap in her power…
“I’ll have to fill it.”
Since I’d twisted the original story.
* * *
Elin yelled and sprayed water streams.
Each one pierced the alpha as a fatal blow, but even with its head half-smashed, it charged at Elin.
The chimera’s influence.
Its tenacious vitality meant it wouldn’t die from half a severed head.
It had the drawback of short natural lifespan, but…
‘Disposable anyway.’
In a one-off battle, it could overwhelm with spectacle, thrash, and die.
Unleashing the savage ferocity of a wild beast, ignoring its wounds in a reckless charge, Elin closed her eyes.
She braced her crumbling body.
“Damn it.”
If only she were a bit more used to it!
The power was newly gained, hard to wield smoothly.
And that proved decisive—she failed to control it at the critical moment.
Failed to pulverize its head, only half-blowing it off. The wounded beast roars mercilessly, glaring venomously.
Only then did Elin instinctively realize her last strike had been a fatal mistake.
No second chances.
The wolf would use its massive bulk to snatch and tear her apart.
Elin closed her eyes.
And before her, the blond professor—uncertain when he’d arrived—slowly drew his rapier.
White feathers scattered, as if to hush the world into silence.