How to Tame a Spirit (1)
Roy and his companions rode out on horseback.
In no time at all they had left Crown City behind them.
It had been a long while since any of them had come this far beyond the city walls. Late June was already drawing to a close; nearly two months had passed since Roy first arrived here.
"Ah, this is refreshing!"
"Riding in the open like this feels amazing. Even when you sweat, the wind just carries it off."
"Oh? I thought I smelled sweat. So that was you, Chloe?"
"What did you just say?! You idiot! You moron!"
"I'm joking. No need to overreact. Fine—ride behind me, then."
Roy had recently bought two horses—for use at the Knight Academy, of course—and one more as a spare. He had lent one to Jack, who had not owned a mount of his own, so now all four of them rode separately.
They were mounted, but the road was still thick with people and carriages, so they could not pick up much speed. Four young riders leaving the city on horseback drew every head along the roadside; not a single passerby failed to turn and stare with open curiosity.
"Still, why go all the way to a goblin dungeon for materials? Don't they sell that stuff at the market?"
The reason the others had been allowed to join this outing so easily was simple: their destination was a goblin cave. And not just any cave—one cleared long ago, complete with detailed maps of its interior. The sort of place where nothing dangerous could possibly happen.
The one thing that still bothered Roy was why a place like that would be under royal control at all.
Well, how much trouble could it really be?
"Chloe. You think I'd go to all this trouble just for goblin byproducts?"
"Probably not—but there are plenty of other dungeons."
"This is the only one we've been cleared to enter. If we can't come back from here in one piece, we won't even get a chance to try anywhere else."
"Really? Still feels kind of lame. Goblins, of all things."
"Agreed. I want something stronger. Maybe an ogre will show up—like the one Roy took down when he was little?"
"Anna, don't say things like that. If something like that thing from back then appeared, the four of us alone would have a hard time handling it. We don't even have a priest with us."
Roy still had not told any of them the full extent of his abilities.
Of course, if I went all out I could handle an ogre without much trouble. But revealing that already would be…
Having the Bacon family learn that he had grown even stronger these past few months by drinking the royal Dragon's Breath was inconvenient enough. Having them discover that Noah had awakened a new power was more than he could afford right now.
"There's no one from here on. All right—let's run!"
They had put a good stretch of road behind them after leaving the city when at last the stream of travelers and carriages vanished. All four urged their horses into a gallop.
The mountain they were heading for looked close enough to touch, yet the actual ride would take hours. They had planned the trip for one night and two days, so they wanted to make good time—find the dungeon's exact location before sundown and secure a safe campsite.
Finding a safe campsite will be easy enough with Gold Eyes.
"Did you call for me?"
"……"
"Why so quiet?"
Noah, perched in the front of the saddle, tipped her head all the way back to look up at Roy's face and asked again. Roy kept his teeth carefully clamped so he would not bite his tongue and answered.
"I didn't call you."
"Hmm? You seem cold today."
"Hey—what are you doing? That's dangerous!"
Noah suddenly twisted around, threw her arms around Roy's chest, and nuzzled into him. They were still galloping; one wrong move and she could have toppled straight off the horse.
"You make free use of my power, yet you treat me so coldly."
"What do you think you're doing in front of the others?!"
"Oh, come now. You said we were going to find a new mana vein this time, did you not? You will have to feed me until I am full again. Yes?"
"There's an important experiment I need to run there. If you go off on your own the way you did last time, don't expect so much as a scrap this round."
"Fine, fine. I shall behave. But you will feed me properly. Promise?"
"We'll see."
They rode hard for a long while before finally reaching the foot of the mountain. Signs forbidding entry were staked here and there—yet no one was actually enforcing them.
If I'd known it was like this, I would have just snuck out alone.
The professors had warned them that the area was restricted and off-limits, so Roy had assumed someone would be watching. Apparently not. There was no fence, and no guard post in sight either.
Well… it is only a goblin dungeon.
If goblins were all that lived inside, the mana vein was probably nothing to get excited about either.
"Well?"
Roy asked Noah. She could sense mana farther and more broadly than he could.
"Hmm? Hard to say just yet. There might be a scent of it."
"So the dungeon is still a fair distance from here?"
In the Witch's Forest, the presence of the mana vein had been detectable right around the witch's house. The mana there had been dense, and it had spread over a wide range.
"Noah—if the vein is thin and small, does that mean a new tail might not grow?"
"Of course. Do not underestimate my tails."
So that witch really didn't settle just anywhere.
It was not a serious problem. They had not come today to brew Dragon's Breath. This was only a visit for the experiment. If it worked, they could track down a proper mana vein afterward and draw the elixir properly.
Roy leaned in and whispered.
"Noah—when you said what we drank at the palace was worse than Yoh-jung's Liquor, was that because the mana vein under the palace is weak?"
"How should I know that? All I can say is that the mana I absorbed there carried the weight of long years."
So the quality of the vein around the royal palace is low, but they forced the density up over a very long time inside that sealed space?
Given why Roy had come here, his head was full of nothing else. Naturally, his three assistants were less than thrilled.
"What are you two doing?"
"Lady Noah, come here. I'll stroke your head for you."
Noah scampered off again without a second thought. She liked Chloe best of all. Getting called "Lady Noah" at the end of every sentence had thoroughly spoiled her—she had even tried to make Roy do the same, and gotten an earful for it.
"Where should we leave the horses? Do we ride them up to the mid-slope?"
"Doesn't look like there's a path for that."
According to the map the professor had given them, they needed to climb to the mountain's mid-slope. The problem was that no trail was visible anywhere. Apart from the occasional hunter, people had no reason to seek out a goblin dungeon—so of course no path had been worn. No one climbed a mountain posted with no-entry signs, and with no village nearby there was nowhere convenient to tie the horses.
"If we leave them here, nobody will steal them… right?"
"Roy. Aren't these horses insanely expensive?"
"They are—but selling one sword would cover the cost."
"Ah…"
Jack had been having frequent crises of financial perspective lately. He was staring at Roy now with his mouth hanging open.
"Ah, whatever."
In the end Roy used magic to raise an earthen shelter for the horses to wait in. He cut grass for them to eat until tomorrow and fetched water as well—not because he was especially fond of the animals, but because they would need a way home. Because of all that, night fell before they had even come close to the goblin cave.
Camping deep in the mountains with companions their own age had a flavor all its own. Born to lordly houses as they were, the three of them were feeling a whole range of new emotions—Roy excluded, of course.
No monsters of note around here, either.
Roy swept the surroundings with Gold Eyes. No monsters, no spirit beasts or fantasy herbs—not even a whisper of a mana vein.
"Wow, it's freezing. Hard to believe summer's almost here."
"Chloe, come sit closer. You'll catch a cold."
"Okay, unnie."
The two girls had become like sisters. Given their families' ranks it should have been unthinkable—but before Roy, the three assistants at the research institute had always been equals.
Excitement and anticipation. Fear and dread. Amid the tangle of feelings they lit a campfire and spent the night. It was only a single night's camping, so there was no need to hunt wild game; they ate the water and food they had brought with them.
Daylight came in what felt like no time at all.
"Hey, assistants. Get up. If we don't reach the heart of the cave and get back out by noon, we'll be spending another night on this mountain."
They had stayed up late talking by the fire, so morning hit them hard. The two girls in particular looked nothing like they had the day before. Roy said nothing about it—if he did, they might do something insane like go hunting for a stream to wash and fix their hair. Whatever the state of them, though, the experience had clearly drawn the four of them closer. That much was certain.
"Noah. You're sure?"
"Can you not see it with your own eyes?"
"That's the point. We're standing in front of a dungeon—why can't I feel a mana vein?"
Something about the place was wrong. Even finding the goblin cave had been Jack's accident—he had spotted a gap between the rocks by chance. Ordinarily Roy with Gold Eyes active, or Noah, should have found the mana first. Yet nowhere was there any dense concentration of it. Not even after they stepped inside the cave.
Coming up empty like this would be a real problem.
To light the pitch-black cave, Roy used the light-spirit summoning magic Lily had taught him. The three of them stared as he suddenly began murmuring in Elvish.
"What language was that just now?"
"Elvish."
"Are you an elf?"
"Do I look like an elf?"
"Yeah, fair. No way someone like Roy would be."
That was Chloe's reaction. Anna, on the other hand, latched onto him and wheedled to be taught as well. Such was the terror of siblings. Jack flushed at the perfectly natural physical affection and turned his face away.
"Anna. Back off a little. You're embarrassing Jack."
"Hey! Jack! You've never seen siblings act like this before?"
When Roy deliberately made a point of it, Anna rounded on Jack instead.
"All right, all right—enough fooling around. From here on it's a real dungeon delve. Keep your heads on straight."
They followed the cave walls, which glowed with a soft light from the elven magic. Roy had worried the goblin tunnels would be cramped, but the space was surprisingly vast—a natural cavern, not a warren the goblins had dug themselves.
They had gone a good way deeper when Noah finally reacted.
"Heh heh heh. There it is. There it is. Do you feel it too?"
Roy activated Gold Eyes and scanned the surroundings. Sure enough, a gentle wash of mana rose from beneath his feet. The vein itself might well sit far below, deep under the cave floor.
"Lady Noah—what about monsters? Are there goblins? Or can you not sense those?"
"I sense no other presence. Not even a scent of them yet."
"Aw, what the—?!"
The ground began to shake. Noah's expression changed in an instant.
"There! There! An enormous scent of mana! Master—do you feel it?"
"Yeah. But what is this all of a sudden?"
"It would seem this is no goblin cave after all."
"…!?"
Roy felt it a beat later—a colossal mass of magical power writhing deep beneath the ground.
"What is it?"
"The master of this place, it would seem. But you can handle it, can you not? Is that not so, Master?"
"Don't only call me Master when it's convenient."
Chloe, who had been shrieking at the tremors, cut in.
"Stop having a conversation only the two of you understand! Explain it to the rest of us!"
Roy answered with a grave face. The picnic was over.
"It looks like something enormous lives in this cave. And I mean something big."