Second Semester Classes (2)
Two weeks had passed since I ended up partnered with Agnes in the Spirit Affinity lecture.
Before I knew it, this third session of Communicating with Spirits—taken together with her—was already underway.
"Alright, everyone~! Today we're going to have some hands-on time actually meeting spirits in the field~!"
""""Yes~!""""
Professor Erin Esilda, the female professor of Spirit Studies, guided the academy's students along with an innocent, kindergarten-teacher expression, as if she were leading a class of five-year-olds.
Perhaps because of her way of speaking, even some of the students taking the class seemed to be unconsciously matching her energy.
Then again, I was willing to bet she was older than most of the professors at this academy, no matter how she looked. She was a half-blood of Pulling—fairy folk—and human, after all.
Going by the curriculum Professor Erin had laid out on the first day, earning grades in this class was simple. Students who hadn't yet contracted a spirit had one job: somehow, by the end of the semester, contract a lower-rank spirit.
And those who'd already made contracts were expected to deepen their bond with their existing spirit. That was the stated goal of the course.
Whether that intimacy had actually grown or not, of course, would be judged at the sole discretion of Professor Erin over there.
But since she was half fairy and could converse freely even with lower-rank spirits, there'd be no grounds for disputing whatever grade she handed down.
Not that it matters in my case—I can already talk to Sally just fine.
Wait, hold on. I hadn't even formally contracted with Sally, so how exactly was my grade going to be measured?
Eh, Professor Erin will figure something out. It's not like I get to set the grading criteria myself.
For the record, any student who still hadn't contracted a spirit by the end of the semester received the lowest possible mark in this 'Communicating with Spirits' lecture.
Well, the class is literally named Communicating with Spirits—if you can't even acquire a spirit to talk to, you're obviously out.
"Some of you are still getting used to the very concept of spirits, so today we'll start by simply becoming familiar with their existence~!"
""""Yes~!""""
"Spirits usually keep themselves hidden, but they are always by our side, you know~! The academy grounds are crowded with people, so they tend not to show themselves here—but my secret garden is full of them. So we're going to meet them face to face and practice how one actually speaks with a spirit~!"
"Professor! If someone hasn't contracted a spirit yet, are we allowed to contract with one we meet out there?"
"If the spirit wishes it, absolutely~! Although most of the spirits in my garden are intermediate rank or above, so I'm afraid it won't be all that easy~!"
Out of the thirty students sitting in this class right now, maybe four or five at most had the maximum mana capacity to contract an intermediate spirit.
And most of those were already bonded to lower-rank spirits, which meant that realistically, the only ones in this room who could actually contract an intermediate spirit were me and Agnes.
As I'd mentioned before, Sally and I had no contract between us, so forming a new one wouldn't interfere with anything anyway.
Not that I was thinking about contracts in the first place—my goal here wasn't to bond with some new spirit, but simply to build a little more closeness with Sally.
"Intermediate spirits... theoretically, that's enough on paper. Rather than fumbling around with lower-rank spirits I can't even hold a conversation with, attempting this route is the smarter play..."
...The problem isn't me, though. It's that spirit-obsessed lunatic Agnes over there.
Watching her spout nonsense about contracting an intermediate spirit "in theory" while lower-rank spirits treat her like dirt, I could tell this semester was shaping up to be a genuine uphill battle for Agnes when it came to spirit contracts.
If she were the only one suffering for it, I couldn't have cared less what she did. If that had been all there was to it, I never would have gotten worked up about this damn professor pairing me with Agnes as partners in the first place.
But a partner's class performance factors directly into the evaluation.
Thirty percent of the total grade, no less—which meant I absolutely could not sit back and watch Agnes drive our shared score into the ground.
Fortunately, handing Agnes a spirit before the end of her first year wasn't outright impossible. It just so happened that I'd never once pulled it off in the game.
After all, back then I never even took the orthodox route when romancing Agnes.
If you wanted to see her true-love ending properly, the canonical path was: enroll in the Magic Department, defeat Agnes in the first-semester final evaluation tournament of year one, then dive headlong into a full rivals-to-lovers dynamic full of bickering. That was the most standard strategy I knew of.
So this Communicating with Spirits class—the one that gets a spirit attached to Agnes—would be a cakewalk for anyone playing the Agnes route. Unfortunately, in both my past life and this one, this was effectively my first time ever taking the course.
As I've said before, I didn't romantically care for Agnes in my previous life. I only romanced her on a whim—some huge affection event happened to clear itself by accident, and I figured I may as well complete every heroine route while I was at it.
Well, now I'm fated to complete the route whether I like it or not.
But since it had become something I had to do, I had no intention of doing it half-heartedly. Which meant one thing: before her first year ended, I was getting that girl a spirit. Period.
I might not have known Agnes's route, but I knew spirit-capturing methods inside and out. No matter how low her charm stat scraped the floor, if she just did exactly as I told her, failure wasn't an option.
...Though whether this girl—who'd started off on the wrong foot with me from day one—would actually listen to a word I said, I couldn't promise.
"Contracting with a spirit isn't all that difficult, Miss Blaze."
"......"
"A spirit will naturally come to you on its own, so long as you stay calm and wait patiently, without getting anxious."
"......"
"And it's best not to waste your energy daydreaming about jumping straight to an intermediate spirit from the start. For someone like you, with low spirit affinity, that's nothing but a waste of time—"
"...Stop your yapping and mind your own business. You're loud."
"...I'm sorry, what?"
"I'll handle my spirit contract myself, so you stay out of it. It's my business, which means you've got no reason to stick your nose in."
...No reason? You've got to be kidding me. Your grade directly affects mine, remember?
Honestly, if someone asked me to name the most selfish person alive, this girl would be a strong contender—her thinking was self-centered down to the marrow. And the fact that she couldn't even see that about herself went without saying.
Just because she was decent at magic, she thought she was some all-around entertainer who could master spirits too.
Thank goodness my patience was on the generous side. No matter how irritating her attitude toward me got, I had no intention of backing down easily.
"That's exactly my point—when you approach spirits with that kind of desperation oozing off you, they can all sense it. The key to contracting a spirit is to empty your mind and approach calmly. When you broadcast your contract-me-now desperation as openly as you do, Miss Blaze, the spirits naturally keep their distance."
"Lower spirits might, sure. But intermediate spirits are fine."
"Even a lower-rank spirit can sense what kind of energy a human carries when they approach. And frankly, I have no idea where you even got the confidence that intermediate spirits are 'fine.' Spirits have eyes too, you know—do you really think they'll just come bounding over to sign a contract with you without a second thought?"
"...What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means spirits have their own standards of beauty, within what they can perceive. A large mana pool alone doesn't make contracting easy. Yes, a higher maximum mana makes communication smoother and does help the process along—but there's a problem you need to solve before any of that matters."
"......"
"Right now, from a spirit's point of view, you smell like food that's gone badly off, Miss Blaze. A spirit might grit its teeth, force down one bite, and discover you're actually tasty—but the point is that getting them to take that first bite is the hard part. If you want them to feel even a flicker of curiosity, you'll need to fix that attitude of yours, which is about as appealing as unsold stock sitting on a shelf—"
-DADADAK!
"Hey—hold on, Miss Blaze! Where do you think you're going all of a sudden?!"
For a moment there I'd actually thought she was listening quietly, paying attention—and then she whirled her head around and started walking away from me.
As I felt my irritation rise at her utterly unpredictable behavior and moved to chase after her, Sally suddenly started calling for me in a panic.
'Lilith! Lilith! Look over there, over there!!'
"Not now, Sally. I need to go drag Agnes back to reality—"
'That's not important right now, I said! Just look over there, pleeease~!!'
"Over where? What's over there?"
She was a fire spirit, all right—one moment of wanting my attention and she was carrying on like a roaring blaze, making every racket imaginable.
Sighing at her relentless pestering, I quietly shifted my gaze—and there, a spirit of a kind I'd seen countless times in the game of my past life was drifting along.
A tiny girl in a thin, translucent dress, floating slowly through the air as though surrendering her body to the passing breeze.
The moment I saw that familiar silhouette, I knew instantly: a wind spirit.
'A Sylph? No, she'd still be intermediate rank, so is that a Sylphid?'
Wind spirits only earned the name Sylph at the higher ranks, so I was probably right. And a spirit with no visible master wouldn't be carrying any proper proper-noun name of its own.
Besides, this was Professor Erin's private garden, already crawling with spirits besides this one—so honestly, seeing a Sylphid didn't feel like anything special.
"It's just a Sylphid, isn't it? Why all the sudden commotion—"
'C-contract with that girl, Lilith!'
"...I'm sorry, what?"
'I—I just got a feeling! The moment I looked at her, I felt destiny coming off her in waves!'
"Oh."
'Contract with her! Lilith! Quickly! Quickllyyyyy!!'
...You goddamn lolicon spirit.