Records of a Failed Spirit Mage
"Well then, this is where we part ways!"
"See you again sometime!"
I watched Sion and Chloe set off with bright faces after breakfast, and then—
"Eeep…"
—I lay sprawled across the desert sand, clutching both legs, which had long since gone past numbness into a lingering pins-and-needles buzz.
"Honestly. You really are such a drama queen."
"…The leg you were sitting on still has no feeling, you know."
For someone whose head alone clearly weighed two or three times what Sion's did, she sure was acting like none of this was her fault.
I locked eyes with Lucy, who stood there with her arms folded and the most shameless look on her face, and we held a silent staring contest for a while.
"All right, all right. Settle down, both of you. If walking's too hard, want me to carry you?"
Huey stretched a hand toward me, grinning as he asked.
"That actually sounds like a pretty good idea."
"…For real?"
I nodded, partly just to mess with him.
"Don't even think about brushing this off as a joke. Heh."
Apparently he had never once imagined I would actually say yes. He hesitated, looking thoroughly cornered.
"You said you'd carry me."
"I mean—are you sure you're okay with that?"
I stayed seated and stretched my wings forward, wordlessly telling him to hurry up and get on with it. Only then did he reluctantly approach, carefully pointing toward his chest.
"Oh, for crying out loud. What, you want me to let you touch them?"
"Well, if you're offering, I'd gratefully—"
"Master. If being buried alive is your life's ambition, just say so. I'll handle it."
"…I was kidding. Ahem."
This bastard… Before, he at least made an effort to pretend he wasn't thinking about it. Now he didn't even bother hiding his desires.
"Anyway, my arms are getting tired, so just carry me already."
"…You're the one who said it was fine, okay?"
Even after that, he asked me if I was sure a few more times. Only after I kicked him once in the shin did he finally turn his back to me, looking distinctly uneasy about the whole arrangement.
"You should've just done that from the start."
"If you can kick me, you can walk."
"Don't wanna."
I leaned against Huey's back, already looking forward to a comfortable ride—and that was the exact moment it happened.
"Eeep—!?"
The instant Huey's hand touched my thigh, a sensation I had no words for shot through me like a jolt of lightning, racing straight to the top of my skull. My face burned so hot I didn't need a mirror to know it had gone scarlet. The feeling was equal parts mortifying and ticklish.
"Wha—!"
"Wow. I didn't know a person could jump that high."
Without thinking, I shoved off with my hips, kicked Huey's back, and put distance between us. Then I stood there panting hard, trying to cool the heat flooding through my body.
"Ren, you okay?"
"Please just brush the sand out of your hair, Master."
Ugh, seriously… My shoulders and wings had been fine. But one little touch on the thigh and I reacted like that? I wasn't some blushing virgin.
…I was definitely going to have to be careful about my stomach.
"Ah, sorry. I'm still not fully used to this either—caught me off guard. Are you okay?"
"Me? I just ate a little sand, that's all."
"Sorry about that."
Only after apologizing to Huey several more times was I able to set out on my own two feet. And roughly two weeks after that, I would come to realize that something had gone very, very wrong.
By the time we made it back to the inn in Ribe, three full days had passed—unlike the trip out.
"I'm gonna go wash up and rest first."
"Sure."
"See you later, then, Master."
…Damn that Frederica. If she was going to make a compass, she could've at least set it up to work for the return trip too.
"Ahhh—! A bed!"
I was about to fling myself onto the inn bed the moment we arrived when—
"Stop right there."
"Huh?"
Lucy's arms locked around my waist. In the next instant, the world tipped backward.
—Thud!
"Cheep!"
"You are not getting into that bed looking like that."
"What the hell are you doing!?"
I protested the sudden ambush, but Lucy only threatened that she would not stand for the bed being buried in sand.
"Hey, that's my bed! Your room is next door!"
"…Ren's bed is public property."
"Why!?"
Apparently, after borrowing my wings every night lately, she had fully intended to sneak into my room today and claim them for herself.
"Ugh, my bed…"
"Now go wash up. Quickly."
With eyes unusually full of anticipation, Lucy shoved me into the room she'd prepared ahead of time.
"I'll have a change of clothes ready while you bathe."
"Sigh."
"Wash thoroughly so the wings come out nice and fluffy… Ahem. Never mind."
In the end, I stripped down, climbed into the tub of warm water I'd asked the innkeeper to prepare, and made a firm resolution: tonight, under no circumstances, was I giving up my wings.
"This is ridiculous…"
I was soaking in the warm water, grumbling to myself, when a voice drifted through my mind.
—That girl is right, you know. Wings really should be washed properly.
"…Shut up. Stay out of it. And stop yammering inside someone else's head."
—How mean. We finally get to talk—why not enjoy it a little?
The lively, thoroughly mischievous woman's voice had been piping up like this every so often ever since we'd parted ways with Sion's group.
Annoying as hell.
—Oh my? Annoying? If it weren't for me, you lot would've ended up as that worm's pathetic little snacks.
That day—right after the gears deep within my soul had locked into place—this was clearly the one who had seized control of my body and moved it however she pleased.
—Fufu. I'm happy, though. I never imagined someone like you would become my successor.
The voice was unmistakably different in tone from the one that had spoken in that frozen stretch of time. For three straight days she had chattered without pause, marveling that her successor had turned out to be someone with a will strong enough to awaken the self she had buried so deep it was never meant to rise again.
"Hmph. Who's a successor? I distinctly said I had no intention of following any god."
—For now, maybe. But once you meet Father in person, I'm sure you'll change your mind.
She went on and on about how magnificent the god she believed in was, how beautiful his form, and so on without ever stopping for breath.
"…Ugh. So loud."
The second I asked about anything useful—like how to turn my body back—she went dead silent, playing dead. But the moment it was time to chatter about nonsense, she wouldn't shut up.
—Knock, knock.
"Ren? Are you still in there?"
"Coming out now."
I shoved the voice still monologuing inside my head as far back into the corners of my consciousness as I could, climbed out of the tub, and set my wings alight.
—Fwoosh.
In an instant the water on my body and wings evaporated. I pulled on the clothes Lucy had laid out and stepped out of the room—
"Ooooh… so fluffy…"
—only to find Lucy staring at my wings with eyes far brighter than before.
"Who said I was covering you with them?"
I hugged both arms tight around myself, shielding my wings, and sidestepped away from her.
"Hhk."
She just stared at me with the expression of someone who had lost everything in the world.
—Pfft—pffhah! That's really Ella's successor? Ahahaha! She's adorable!
Escaping Lucy's line of sight, I headed downstairs for a cold drink—and found Huey already there.
"Oh, you're here."
"What are you doing down here?"
"Probably the same thing you are."
"Fair enough. Hey, mister! One of those drinks from last time!"
Huey was sitting with a towel draped over his still-damp hair, reading a book—clearly fresh from a bath himself.
"That's the journal Osmon gave us last time."
"Yeah. We've got some free time for once, so I figured I'd take it slow and actually read through it."
"Free time?"
I'd assumed we were leaving first thing tomorrow. Apparently something had come up.
"Yeah. All the carriages heading toward Swinford left today."
"Ah. Really?"
"They said the next ones won't come through for about two weeks."
Even by carriage, that stretch had taken a full ten days. Walking it was out of the question.
"Like we talked about before—the earthquakes cut the number of carriages coming this way way down. Here, your drink."
"Thanks, mister."
Right. I remembered hearing about that.
"Took you long enough that I was starting to worry. Glad you made it back in one piece."
"Of course we did."
"Find anything good out there?"
He must have been genuinely worried. The innkeeper looked at me with a long sigh of relief.
Since the occasion called for it, I decided to give him some good news.
"Well. We didn't exactly find anything good—but at least there shouldn't be any more earthquakes."
"Oh. Is that true?"
The mutant sandworm that had been causing them was already dead, after all. When I told him that, his face lit up and he laughed that the drinks were on the house.
"Aw, that's pretty stingy."
"The man's got to make a living too, you know."
Huey scolded me for joking about free extras, and I listened with half an ear.
"Well, I'll enjoy it then."
"Hahaha! In exchange, this old man'll put some real effort into dinner tonight!"
"Oh, nice. Should I look forward to it?"
"Of course!"
He must have been carrying a lot of stress through all of this. I politely pretended not to notice the tears glistening at the corners of his eyes as he sniffled and headed for the kitchen.
After watching him go for a moment, I turned back to Huey, who had been glued to the journal this whole time, and took a long pull of the sweet-tart drink.
"So? What's written in that journal?"
How interesting could it possibly be that he couldn't tear his eyes away?
"Hypotheses on methods for crossing between worlds."
"Oh."
"Looks like he traveled around with someone named Kevin, searching for a way back to his original world."
Kevin? That name rang a bell somehow…
Well, it wasn't exactly a rare name. Probably nothing.
"Everything from verifying circulating rumors to hypotheses that would be hard to test but still have some real credibility. There's quite a lot of methods in here."
"Yeah?"
I was listening to Huey when I felt a presence coming down the stairs.
"It seems you have something interesting to discuss."
Lucy approached with damp hair and a languid expression. At that, Huey launched into the story in earnest.
"So, the methods go something like this…"