Spirit Affinity Lecture (2)
The moment I heard Agnes — who had tried to slander me as a crazy bitch from our very first meeting — open her mouth, a good dozen choice insults instantly bubbled up in my head.
Arrogant brat. Overly self-conscious. Compulsive liar. Attention seeker. Obsessive. Zero social skills. Loner. 145 centimeters tall. A-cup.
On top of those, every nasty word in the dictionary practically leapt to my tongue — but thankfully, the curses swirling in my head never actually came pouring out at the Agnes standing before me.
I had approached her in the first place to build a friendship, not to trade petty insults and trade punches. Even for the sake of improving our relationship naturally, the smartest move here was to pretend I hadn't heard a thing.
"…I'm sorry, what was that, Miss Blaze? I didn't quite catch it."
"The crazy bitch who used Mana Blast in the evaluation match."
…I go to the trouble of pretending not to hear, and she just has to open her mouth again.
Well, I couldn't exactly blame her for the misunderstanding. Only Ethan and I knew that the method I'd used in that evaluation match was the only way I could have beaten Luke.
For an ordinary student to assume I'd used a big flashy spell like Mana Blast instead of ending things quickly with a mana arrow out of sheer arrogance wasn't a strange conclusion at all.
Still, I'd figured that Agnes — who went around calling herself the next Red Tower Master — might at least catch on to why I'd won that way. Apparently she wasn't quite at that level yet.
"…I would have expected the next Red Tower Master to understand why I won that way, but it seems you're not quite at that level yet, Miss Blaze."
"What did you just say?"
…Oops. That was supposed to stay in my head.
Well, it wasn't exactly sensitive information, so whatever. If she heard it and it stung, that was her problem.
After all, between the two of us, Agnes had been the one to pick the fight first — and I'm the kind of person who can't rest until I give a reason to anyone who screws with me for no reason at all.
"What did you just say to me?"
"Did you really expect a pleasant answer after calling someone a crazy bitch to their face the first time you met them? I may be Young Master Ethan's maid, but I'm certainly not yours. Which means I have absolutely no obligation to be polite to you, Miss Blaze."
"……"
"You recognized the Mana Blast but not the reason behind it — so much for the top student of the Magic Department. Doesn't seem like you're actually all that impressive."
"Ugh… nngh…."
Agnes glared at me, seething at my answer, but with nothing to actually say, her mouth simply clamped shut.
Then came the visible chewing-over of my words, her brow furrowed in thought.
Given her fiercely prideful personality, Agnes's defining trait was that when it came to something she didn't know, she'd stay up all night tearing through books until she found the answer. So even my throwaway remark would gnaw at her for a good while.
Of course, I had no intention of teaching her that Mana Blast was the only finisher I had. Revealing the reason would have been the same as revealing my weakness.
"…Hmph. You must have used a spell that big because that woman from the Techniques Department picked a fight with you and it pissed you off. What other reason could there be?"
"Believe whatever you like."
"…It also served as an example of what happens when you come at me — getting crushed that thoroughly. It's obvious at a glance."
"For the top student of the Magic Department, your thinking doesn't stray very far beyond the average student's, does it?"
"……Uuurgh!"
Gently prodding at Agnes as she pretended to know everything while guessing at candidate answers one by one — the reactions I got back were pretty satisfying.
Yep~. Glare all you want with those eyes~. I am never telling you~.
It might have seemed foolish to provoke Agnes, who every evaluation match picked out the runner-up of her own department and crushed them with overwhelming force. But I had my own trump card to lean on.
As her middle name suggested, Agnes hailed from a branch family of House Elizabeth, a lineage of mages.
It was a family utterly obsessed with magic — one that selected the finest seedlings from its many branch lines to carry on the main house's legacy, to the point that even a child of the main family would be struck from the list of heir candidates without exception if their magical ability fell short.
And Agnes, a daughter of that branch family, was one of the most talented children among all her peers. Meaning that even if I provoked her like this, she couldn't openly bring direct harm to me. …At least, not until the final evaluation match of next year's first semester.
The business of the final evaluation match next year? That was a problem for me-in-six-months to figure out.
'That girl's secretly a lot like you, personality-wise~. For some reason I think you two would get along great, Lilith!'
"That's going too far."
Meanwhile, Sally, who had been watching my war of words with Agnes while her gaze drifted oddly toward the girl, muttered something suspicious, and for some reason it rubbed me the wrong way, so I snapped back at her with a bit of irritation.
"You think our personalities are similar? Then forget the month you've spent with me and go crawl to her, why don't you?"
'Nooo~! But your mana tastes way better, Lilith! Hers just feels really gross for some reason!'
"…Well, if that's how you feel."
It was, in the end, a declaration that she intended to keep using me as her mana buffet — but it was still, in its own way, a flattering answer, so I couldn't stay mad.
She was a daily nuisance and an endless hassle, sure. But the little thing had some loyalty after all.
"Spi…rit?"
Meanwhile, Agnes, who had been quietly observing my exchange with Sally, murmured something under her breath in a dazed voice.
The moment Sally registered that reaction, she flitted right up to Agnes and struck up a conversation.
'What! You've never seen a spirit before in your life?'
"Y-you can talk…? Don't tell me — a high-ranking spirit…."
'Ohhh~? So you're one of those humans who can hear me, huh? I had a feeling your mana was the type!'
"H-how?! Contracting with a high-ranking spirit is utterly impossible at a first-year's mana level…. Even I'm still theoretically limited to intermediate spirits at most…."
"Sorry to interrupt, but Sally and I aren't actually in a contract or anything."
'Yeah, we're not contracted or anything! So don't go getting any weird ideas!'
"Wh-what…?"
Agnes was right that contracting with a high-ranking spirit was difficult at my current level. You generally needed to raise your level to at least around 20 before a stable contract became possible.
And besides, if I'd actually wanted a formal contract, I wouldn't have picked this noisy thing — I'd have gone with someone a little more demure.
Sally had simply followed me all the way from Greystone to here because she claimed my mana was delicious. There was no special bond between us or anything of the sort.
Agnes, for her part, only grew more flustered and astonished at the news that we weren't contracted.
"A high-ranking spirit follows a person around even without a contract…? That's impossible…. That's a lie…."
"……?"
"I trained in the Spirit Forest for a whole month just to contract with a low-ranking spirit, so why does that crazy bitch get to…."
Piecing her rambling together, it sounded like Agnes had visited the Spirit Forest over this summer break.
Well, it was a place nearly every high-ranking mage visited at least once in their lifetime, so nothing strange there. Mages and spirits had wonderful synergy — they made excellent partners for combined attacks, and above all, the relationship benefited both sides.
A mage could cast spells too difficult to use alone by borrowing a spirit's aid, while the spirit received a steady supply of delicious mana from a high-ranking mage. A textbook mutually beneficial arrangement — signing a contract and working together was entirely feasible.
Of course, in my case, I had no particular intention of using Sally to cast high-ranking spells. My number-one objective was the Luck +2 attached to the Blessing of the Fire Spirit.
"It's impossible…. Why am I the only one without a spirit? I'm the one who wants it most, so why does everyone else get one and not me…."
"……"
"And a high-ranking fire spirit, on top of that…? Following a person around without even a contract…? Why does she get…?"
Ever since laying eyes on Sally tagging along beside me, Agnes had been muttering to herself like her soul had left her body.
And as someone who had already played through Luminor Academy, I understood perfectly well why she was reacting this way.
Agnes's spirit affinity stat was abysmally low — so low that despite her overflowing mana pool, she couldn't manage a spirit contract for a very long time. She only barely began contracting with low-ranking spirits around the time she graduated the Academy.
As much as she wanted a contract, the spirits wanted nothing to do with her.
Spirit affinity, you see, was a trait heavily influenced by the Charm stat — and Agnes happened to be one of the heroines with the lowest Charm in the entire cast.
Now, the Charm stat wasn't simply a measure of a character's looks, so this didn't mean Agnes was ugly or anything.
But when a girl was short, flat-chested, and had a personality that couldn't exactly be called pleasant, it would be a little strange for her Charm to be high.
Besides, the only place Charm actually mattered in practical combat was the success rate of support magic — so for Agnes, who dealt almost exclusively in offensive spells, it was a stat she could have done without entirely.
But right here, right now, I'd just demonstrated before her very eyes that when it came to spirit contracts, I was leagues more capable than she was.
"Envious, are we?"
"Wh-what…?"
"To tell the truth, I had no intention of taking any spirit-related electives this semester. I never visited anywhere like the Spirit Forest because I wanted to make a contract, and I never studied the spirit language of the lower spirits either."
"……"
"But I decided it was worth learning a little if it meant getting closer to Sally. It wasn't something I wanted for myself, but it seemed like Sally and I were fated to spend quite a while together either way."
"N-nnngh…!"
At my shameless crowing, delivered right to her face, Agnes spat out envy so potent it bordered on pure rage.
If only she hadn't started our relationship by slandering me as a crazy bitch, I might have been willing to teach her a thing or two about befriending spirits. But having already failed at the friendship gambit, there was no longer any reason to lift a finger.
And what about facing that poison-laced lunatic in the final evaluation match next semester, you ask?
That was a problem for Future Me to deal with. Not something Present Me needed to lose sleep over.