Affection
Two middle-aged men were talking in the presidential residence.
“Hmm… So they didn’t reveal who it was at all?”
“No, sir. Even so, given how otherworlders are, it’s only a matter of time before it comes out—”
A bright chime cut him off.
The Floor 2 rankings have been updated.
“M-Mr. President! They say the second floor just updated as well!”
“Yes. It appeared right in front of me, too. This doesn’t look like Iron aptitude. Not with them climbing day after day.”
“No, sir! We believe it’s Bronze aptitude at a minimum. Even on the unranked floors, you’d need Bronze aptitude to climb every day without aftereffects.”
The Association President had even gone digging through other countries’ records. Seven seconds was, sure enough, the shortest time in the world.
Unfortunately, the climber wasn’t anyone affiliated with the Association. They had asked the otherworld residents as well, with all due courtesy, and that had only made the headache worse. Every last one of them insisted, without a shred of doubt, that it had to be one of their own people.
Even among the beastkin, a different species might as well have been a foreigner, and the insistence boiled over into an actual quarrel. Association staff went through hell breaking it up. Watching the scene, the Association President had nearly asked the Elf Vice-Captain for advice before thinking better of it, and he counted it a profound mercy that he had stopped himself.
After that, he gave orders to the staff monitoring the galleries. Anyone who set a record like this would normally post proof, but the staff searched through the night and found nothing that could serve as a lead.
A few people were suspicious, of course. The day before the first-floor record, several users had posted proof that they had awakened as summoners.
The most suspicious of them went by the gallery name WheelchairHunter. According to the staff, he had written a daily post every single day for hundreds of days without a miss—and peculiar posts at that, asking whether the status window had a second page.
If it really was him, there was a problem. Someone whose usual habit was strange talk like that ought to have been bragging about the ranking by now. Instead, a post had gone up denying it. He meant to hide who he was.
“What do you think, Association President?”
“We have to recruit them at once! An otherworlder this outstanding will demand a great deal of their summoner. A private individual would have trouble meeting those demands.”
“You want to make the summoner give up the summon.”
“Yes. Unless their affection is at Devotion, it should be possible. And there’s no way they built a relationship like that with an otherworld resident in only three days.”
“They may already have promised their summon something enormous as the reward for clearing the fifth floor.”
“Yes. Our terms would be welcome news to the summoner as well.”
If this summon was truly exceptional talent, they were only unranked for now—but otherworlders suffered no aftereffects, and they would reach the upper floors soon enough.
“Then let’s go ahead and announce it in these terms, Association President.”
“Yes! Understood.”
Confirmed: they are an Association hunter. Unless the person in question wishes otherwise, the matter will remain private. It will continue to be kept in absolute secrecy, with benefits worthy of the achievement so there is no cause to naturalize to another country, and if they have any further demands, the Association is willing to grant absolutely any request to the fullest extent possible.
After clearing the second floor, Clara and I returned home.
“Clara, this is my favorite anime. Want to watch it with me?”
“All right!”
Being alone together in my room felt like a bit much, so we came out to the living room and I turned on the TV. The world otherworlders came from wasn’t so different from modern Earth. Animation was already a familiar medium to her.
Click.
A trash villain shows up in episode one, and half the fun is waiting to see how they get wrecked. It really is a good time.
Watching Clara take in my favorite anime, eyes bright with interest, left me feeling proud in spite of myself. The living-room lights were glaring, so I quietly switched them off before they could get in the way.
What kind of reactions had gone up? Maybe I ought to take a look.
Huh? Since when had I become an Association hunter?
Ah.
I was fairly sure I understood why the Association had put out an announcement like that. They wanted me to name a price for my summon, the way ordinary summoners did. Most summoners gave up climbing the Tower and settled for exactly that. So right now, they were coming for Clara?
The nerve of them.
“Clara, is there anything you’d want as a reward for climbing the Tower?”
Most otherworlders wanted to serve their own king, or simply to raise their level. That was the usual answer. And yet Clara had never once said anything of the sort. No price, no demand, nothing.
“Whatever Husband wants is exactly what I want!”
Honestly, I’d gotten a little greedy. I’d already explained to Clara that I was climbing the Tower to heal my crippled lower body, but I wanted to keep climbing even after the fifth floor.
There was a particular reason that greed had taken hold.
“Clara, you’re level 5, but your stats are at level 11 or higher. You’re also a Mid-level Ability User, which normally isn’t possible until level 11.”
“I don’t really understand levels. Is that a good thing?”
“When you reach level 49, you become a High-level Ability User.”
“A High-level Ability User!? Then I can use the Prayer Like a Wildfire!”
Like a Wildfire? Was that the famous Elf Vice-Captain’s Prayer? Well, high-level Prayers weren’t widely known, so it was hard to say.
“You have more than double the stats of a normal level 5, so my guess is that at level 25 you’d have at least the stats of a level 49.”
“Then if we clear the twenty-fourth floor, I can become a High-level Ability User too?”
“Yes. I want to confirm it. I originally only meant to clear up to the fifth floor, but I want to see what happens after that. I think we’ll know once we watch your stats rise at level 6.”
“I agree!”
“And… there’s something else I’m curious about.”
“Ask me anything! I’ll tell you anything!”
It was a little embarrassing. It wasn’t much different from asking her to tell me how she felt about me.
It was about affection.
A summoner can see their summon’s affection. I explained that, then asked Clara’s permission.
“Eternal love, of course!”
There isn’t an affection rank like that…. Unless Clara is different?
Seven levels of affection were known so far.
Hostility, Dislike, Wariness, Indifference, Goodwill, Trust, and Devotion.
Of those, Devotion was said to be extremely difficult to reach. Only the wealthy, and only those with a few good-natured summons, could manage it. Even raising affection as far as Goodwill was generally considered a job well done. KnightsSquire from the gallery, the one who’d asked for summon advice before, was a fine example.
The reason their summon won’t even make them a squire is probably Indifference. Or maybe even lower than that.
“Anyway, so it’s all right if I look?”
“Yes, it is!”
“System window. Show me Clara’s affection.”
A clear chime rang.
?
“Mm! Exactly right! I’d gladly die for Husband!”
…Die?
The dream flickered through me all at once. In it, someone—someone had died, hadn’t they?
My heart hammered.
I seized her shoulders, turned her toward me, and spoke through a feeling so tight it nearly closed my throat.
“Don’t ever say that again. You absolutely cannot die. You can’t die for me.”
Why does the word die catch in my chest like this?
“I understand!”
Clara leaned into my hands where they held her shoulders.
“We’ll keep being together like this, won’t we?”
“Th-that’s right?”
She smiled, bright and a little shy.
“Uh… th-then shall we get back to the anime?”
A soft thump.
“I’d like that~”
I let go of her shoulders, but Clara rested her head against mine.
The air between us had gone suddenly, helplessly sweet.
And so I sat there unable to move a muscle, watching anime with Clara on and on and on.
What was I supposed to do with a mood this sweet? If I retreated to my room, she would only follow.
A bedroom would be even more dangerous…
Click. A thin electronic chirp—
The door flew open.
Someone was tapping a key card to the front door. I heard the lock release.
“Wh-what?”
They had stopped dead in the entryway, too startled to come the rest of the way in.
It was Saturday. My family-register roommate was home from the dorm.