I Was the One Who Met Her First
After catching a bit of shut-eye and doing some light stretching, Sein finally woke up. The moment his eyes fluttered open, Undine, who had been floating aimlessly in the air, immediately flew to his side and began chattering away to pass the time.
We choked down a quick meal of simple rations. It was time to start scouting the colony. I repeated the plan I had laid out for Sein last night. Now that his pain had subsided somewhat and he had calmed down, he didn't seem to have any major objections to me moving out with Undine.
Persuading Sein was easy enough, but Undine was a different story.
"No way! Why do I have to go with you?!"
"Now that we've found the herbs, Sein can rest easy without you hovering. In the meantime, we need to find an exit."
"It would be much faster to just guard this path, hunt some goblins, and form a contract with Sein!"
"Easier said than done. There might not even be any goblins left here. Besides, if we're going to hunt them anyway, it's much easier to do it while scouting the path. Why are you trying so hard to avoid it?"
"I don't care! I'm not listening! Sein is hurt, and if I go with you, he'll be all alone! What if he gets lonely?!"
"I know what it's like to be left all alone in a pond. Being lonely is the worst!"
I glanced at Sein, silently urging him to rein in the throwing-a-tantrum spirit, but the bastard just shrugged and shook his head as if his hands were tied. It seemed Undine was deeply reluctant to leave Sein behind, especially now that his broken legs kept him completely immobilized. But seriously, all this punk has to do is tell her to go with me, and it'd be over. Why is he keeping his mouth shut?
"If we clear the path quickly and secure a safe zone, Sein will be much safer," I reasoned. "And the safer it is, the sooner we can all stay together without having to split up!"
"Ugh... but still..."
Undine twiddled her translucent fingers, looking back and forth between us. Sein, after casting a cautious glance in my direction, finally gestured for Undine to come closer.
"I'll be fine, Undine. Go find the path and gather some magic stones. I'm counting on you."
"Counting on me...? Mmm... okay..."
Slumping dejectedly, Undine drifted slowly toward me. It wasn't like we were going to be separated for days; she was being incredibly dramatic. Sein, seemingly reassured by her devotion, looked much calmer than he had yesterday.
"Seiiin... I'll be back...!"
"Be careful, Undine! You too, brother!"
"Right. Oh, and keep a close eye on that mana bead the merchant group gave us. There might be a response. Remember, if you press and hold it four times, it sends a rescue signal..."
"Ah, yes!"
Though Henold had put on a brave face, he was undoubtedly grinding his teeth on his way back to the city. He had already suffered massive losses, and with three mercenaries deserting on top of that, he must have been furious. I could easily picture the earful he'd get from the Mercenary Guild once he returned.
We dismantled a portion of the wall of corpses to slip through, then sealed it shut behind us. The passage was darker than it had been yesterday. It seemed that with the goblin shaman dead, the torches lining the walls had all gone out. Fortunately, it wasn't pitch black, so we could still navigate without much trouble.
"Sigh... I can't believe I have to go with such a hateful human~~~"
"Hateful? I haven't even done anything to you."
"You talk back to me every single time, and you're always trying to separate me from Sein! You're a hateful human!"
I couldn't help but chuckle dryly at her lingering resentment. She was a total tomboy, with a personality that was childish to a fault. Still, her antics were cute enough that I didn't find her particularly annoying yet.
"I wonder what Sein is doing... He must be so bored all by himself..."
"He'll find something to do. Sein is a grown man."
"Sein is a grown-up...?"
Undine tilted her head in confusion. The sight was so endearing that I reached out and pinched her cheek, pulling it. The watery flesh stretched slightly, feeling exactly like the toy slimes I used to play with as a kid. Startled by the sudden touch, her eyes went wide, and she struggled frantically to break free from my grip.
"Don't just touch me without permission!"
"I was just curious. So you actually have a physical form?"
"It's only because there are still traces of the magic stone's power left in me! Ahhh, I wanted to play with Sein so much today~"
With a huff, Undine floated past me to take the lead. She talked tough, but the way she kept glancing back to make sure I was keeping up showed that she was good-natured at heart.
The passage seemed endless, with no forks in sight. As the monotony of our march began to wear on me, my eyes naturally drifted to Undine's backside. For a mid-grade spirit, her form was remarkably human, possessing the voluptuous curves of a fully matured woman. With her ample breasts and plump, round hips, she had a body that was practically built for fucking.
It was a shame she lacked any visible genitalia. Could I somehow manifest them? Various thoughts swirled in my head. Suddenly, my face bumped into something soft and yielding, bringing me to an abrupt halt. I blinked, only to find Undine's bouncy, translucent rear filling my entire field of vision.
"Goblins!"
Realizing she had essentially backed her rear right into my face, Undine seemed to grow flustered, her fingers twiddling nervously.
"There are only three of them in sight."
"Just keep an eye on them."
"Hmph! I was going to do that anyway!"
Undine zipped past the goblins, flying right over their heads. They didn't seem to perceive her at all, showing absolutely no reaction. Instead, they spotted me standing in the distance and began dragging their clubs and rusted swords along the ground, closing the distance.
"Kieeeek!!!"
Confident in their numerical advantage, the goblins charged without a shred of hesitation. The lead goblin lunged forward, aiming for my waist. Without even bothering to draw my longsword, I thrust my leg straight out, delivering a brutal Spartan kick.
*Thwack!*
Though the creature wasn't exactly light, the sheer force of my kick sent it flying backward, crashing hard into its companions. They tumbled onto the cavern floor in a tangled, groaning heap. Unable to quickly regain their footing, they might as well have been begging me to slit their throats.
Drawing my longsword from my hip, I systematically decapitated the goblins as they scrambled to get back up. As I leaned down to harvest the magic stones from their spurting corpses, Undine fluttered down and stopped me.
"I don't feel any magic stone energy from them. It's a bust."
"Wait, you can detect magic stones?"
"Only when I have mana left! So let's hurry up and move while I still have some!"
Despite Undine tugging at my collar to urge me forward, my mind was racing. Back when I was with my old mercenary group, the spirits contracted to the spiritists had never shown such an ability. I couldn't tell if they had simply kept it hidden, or if Undine was uniquely gifted.
But if I asked her directly, and it turned out to be a special ability of hers, she wouldn't be able to keep her mouth shut. She'd definitely run back and blabber all about it to Sein.
I kept walking, tuning out her constant chatter about how much she missed Sein and how she wanted to find tons of magic stones quickly. Whenever I gave her a brief, half-hearted response, she took it as an invitation to babble even more.
"You know, for a hateful human, you might actually be kind of nice!"
"Me?"
"Yeah! Sein doesn't really like it when I talk too much."
"That's probably because he was worried about what the other mercenaries would think."
"Mmm... but I just wanted to talk to him."
"Spirits are rare and valuable. He was probably just trying to protect you."
Undine beamed. "Oh, really? Is that what it was? And here I thought he just hated my chattering~" Her tiny lips moved non-stop as she poured out story after story about Sein.
She told me about how they had met in her village, how he had kept coming back to see her when she was lonely, and how they had promised to travel together once they figured out how to form a contract. She even shared her dream of riding in a carriage with Sein to go see the ocean. She babbled on, sharing every trivial detail.
"But how can you maintain such a solid physical form without even having a contract?"
I asked out of pure curiosity, but strangely, Undine's eyes darted around nervously, and her voice wavered.
"W-Well, who knows? I'm not really sure~ Maybe I've just been like this ever since I gained self-awareness?"
"Then why didn't you contract with him sooner? If you could do it with magic stones, you could have done it ages ago."
"I only found out about that yesterday!!! It's all because of those awful humans! Those bastards!"
"Awful humans?"
Undine stomped her feet in frustration. The more she thought about it, the angrier she got, grinding her teeth before letting out a sharp shriek.
"Those horrible people who ordered Sein around! They only made him do chores!"
"So he had never actually hunted a monster before."
"Ever since we left our village and joined the mercenary group, Sein lived buried under piles of smelly laundry..."
"Poor Sein," she whimpered, sniffling. I had to suppress a snort. Seeing how desperately Sein clung to his desire to grow strong, I figured there was some grand tragic backstory, but it turned out he was just bitter about being a low-ranking grunt forced to do chores.
There were always kids like him. Immature brats who fled their backwater villages, harboring delusions of grandeur like, 'I must have some hidden talent,' or 'I'm going to become a mercenary and rake in piles of gold.' Every mercenary guild in every city was crawling with them.
And meeting Undine probably only fueled those delusions.
"What? What are you looking at?!"
Undine stuck her tongue out at me with a playful "Bleh!" and giggled merrily as she flitted around. It had been quite a while since we encountered that scouting party, but we hadn't seen a single goblin since. Eventually, Undine's remaining mana completely dried up, reducing her once again to a useless, floating water balloon.
She hadn't started whining about going back yet, but given her fickle nature, it was only a matter of time before she threw a tantrum to see Sein. It felt like a waste to turn back now, though... As I was weighing my options, Undine's excited shout pierced my ears.
"Ahhh!!! Water!"
Sure enough, tucked into a corner of the cavern was a pool of water—too small to be called a pond, but too large to be a mere puddle. Looking closely, I could see a fissure in the rock bed. It was likely a natural spring fed by groundwater.
During our march, Undine had complained of thirst, so I had offered her my canteen. She had only taken tiny, unsatisfied sips, so finding this water source made her squeal with childlike glee. She dove headfirst into the pool with a loud splash.
Perhaps it was because she was a water spirit, but she seemed to regain physical mass the moment she entered the water. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to splash around so vigorously as she swam.
The splashing water slowly soaked my clothes like a gentle drizzle. I considered scolding her, but decided to ignore it. Kneeling by the edge, I peered into the water. There were no visible impurities. Just to be safe, I asked her anyway.
"This is safe to drink, right?"
"Yep! Totally safe! Drink up!"
"And stop splashing me. I thought you said you were out of mana. Clearly, you still have some left."
"Are you stupid? Don't you even know that spirits can manifest their physical and spiritual forms at will?"
I had never heard of such a thing. If they could do that, spirits were a cheat-tier race. A wave of irritation at the sheer unfairness of the world welled up in my throat, but I suppressed it. Instead, I cupped some water in my hand and splashed it right at her.
*Splash!*
The water droplets arced through the air toward her, but they were instantly absorbed into her body upon impact, leaving no trace behind. Undine let out a playful shriek, then narrowed her half-lidded eyes, glaring at me with mock indignation.
"Hey! So that's how you want to play!"
*Splash!*
Scooping up water with her hands like a shovel, Undine turned her head away and began relentlessly splashing me. At first, I raised my cloak to block it, but the volume of water she was throwing quickly grew out of hand.
"Pfft...! Stop...! Stop it!!!"
"Hehehe! Foolish human, challenging a water spirit to a water fight!"
"I'm getting soaked! I'm completely drenched!"
"That's what you get for starting it~ Hehe! I guess I'll let you off the hook now."
The torrent of water that had been threatening to pierce right through my cloak finally ceased. I wrung out the sodden fabric and glared at Undine. Sensing my gaze, she giggled mischievously and swam circles in the pool.
"Ahhh~ so refreshing~~~ I'm so glad there's such nice water here!"
As Undine floated happily near me, I suddenly reached out, grabbed both of her cheeks, and shook them vigorously. Since she was in her physical form, my palms were met with a squishy, jelly-like texture, accompanied by a biting cold that felt like holding ice on the tip of my tongue.
"Uwaaaah~~ thtop~~ thtop it~~~"
When we had first set out, she had struggled desperately to escape my touch. But after our little water fight, it seemed my favorability in her eyes had risen quite a bit. Instead of pulling away, she giggled playfully and clung to my wrists.
After teasing her for a bit, I gently caressed her cheeks, feeling the pleasant chill radiating from her skin.
"Mmm..."
I meant it as an affectionate gesture, though I wasn't sure how Undine would perceive it. Still, seeing as she didn't swat my hands away or try to escape, she didn't seem to mind it too much.
"W-Well! Let's go back to Sein now!"
After staring blankly into space for a moment, Undine suddenly shook her head vigorously, brushed my hands away, and began fluttering around, urging me to leave. I had filled all our remaining canteens with water. By my estimate, it had taken us about two hours to get here from our base camp, so it seemed wiser to bring Sein over to this spot.
By now, the base camp must be reeking of rotting corpses, making it a living hell to stay in. Since there were no more enemies likely to appear near the entrance anyway, it made sense to move our camp forward as we progressed.
Of course, all these plans would be rendered useless the moment a rescue party responded to our signal. Praying that the merchant group hadn't abandoned us and was actively searching, I began the trek back to Sein, with Undine eagerly leading the way.