Chapter 98
Chapter 98
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 98
Chapter Title: Spirit Affinity: Akerunar (2)
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Akerunar had been a half-baked elf from birth.
She couldn’t understand the sensation of being loved by others.
No one loved her.
Her fellow elves, the spirits who loved elves, the humans who feared otherworldly beings—everyone was the same.
All of them shunned her, feared her, and tried to reject her.
Every relationship Akerunar had ever built was twisted, warped, and doomed to fall apart.
So why had someone like her only ever yearned for normal relationships with spirits?
It was a question even she herself pondered.
If she had discarded that contradictory affection long ago, she wouldn’t have spent so much time in such profound loneliness.
In other words, she had dithered and circled endlessly around problems she could have solved with sheer force from the start.
“Haaak, hek……!”
- Cheep, chirp……!
Ragged breaths echoed across the desk.
Akerunar’s gaze fixed on the pure white sparrow spirit lying before her.
After a prolonged struggle for dominance with the sparrow spirit, Akerunar had finally seized the upper hand.
Hoo—
Was it the aftermath of pouring mana into each other for so long in a battle of wills?
Atop the desk, cracked and split, the sparrow spirit lay wheezing as it caught its breath.
“If… we’d done this from the start, haak… it would’ve been easier for both of us……!”
- Chirp……!
Having successfully pinned down a top-tier spirit through raw power, Akerunar flashed a satisfied smile despite her weary expression.
Naturally, the one who had subdued a top-tier spirit wasn’t in great shape either, not by any stretch.
Hek, haa—
Her fatigued face was slick with sweat, strands of hair plastered to her skin.
Her labored breathing and utterly depleted mana.
Her mind, pushed to its limits, cried out from the exhaustion of the drawn-out fight.
“Huu, huu…….”
Was it because she didn’t possess power on par with the library’s master?
Even mimicking Johan, subduing a top-tier spirit with ease was beyond her.
Had the fight dragged on just a bit longer, Akerunar would have collapsed from exhaustion herself.
But though it had taken some time, she had succeeded in imitating Johan’s feat.
From her perspective, it was a satisfactory accomplishment.
“From now on, you’re contracting with me……!”
- Cheeeep……!
Swish—
Akerunar gently lifted the fallen sparrow spirit onto her palm.
Thanks to imprinting her superiority through the recent battle?
The sparrow spirit no longer resisted her touch.
It simply lay limp in her palm as if drained of energy, wheezing up at her.
“Well, it looks like the contract succeeded, regardless.”
Johan, who had watched their fight from the beginning, offered his commentary with a somewhat complicated expression.
Akerunar’s radical approach.
His evaluation of it was exceedingly simple.
“No matter the method, as long as the result isn’t bad, it’s fine.”
“……Yeah.”
He was right.
Setting aside the means, she had succeeded in obtaining the spirit she had longed for all this time.
Moreover, it wasn’t some middling spirit—it was a top-tier one.
A being capable of wielding immense influence even outside the spirit realm—
She had gained an entity that could assist her of its own accord.
“You finally have the spirit you desired so much. Satisfied?”
Leaning back in his chair to catch his breath, Johan asked Akerunar for her thoughts.
Her feelings on acquiring a spirit—
Caught off guard by the unexpected question, Akerunar fell into contemplation.
‘My kin despised me solely because I wasn’t chosen by a spirit.’
It was a dream she had truly yearned for over so many years.
There had been times when she believed her kin would acknowledge her if she just succeeded in contracting a spirit.
Times when she dreamed of no longer being treated as a half-breed by her own people.
But now that she had obtained what she had so desperately wanted, for some reason, her heart felt hollow and empty.
Was the dream she had chased all this time truly this futile?
A complex, bitter aftertaste lingered in her mouth.
“I don’t know… not really.”
Slumped over the desk, Akerunar gazed wistfully at the little white spirit.
The dream of her immature youth had come true.
Yet the void in her heart could no longer be filled by anything.
It was surely because she knew she could never return to the days when she had yearned for it.
The dream of living among kin who loved her in the Great Forest—
Even knowing such a moment had never once come to pass.
“To think something I could obtain this easily… was what I failed to grasp and wandered lost over…….”
“…….”
“That fact feels… somehow embarrassing and awkward—”
Turning her head, Akerunar’s gaze met Johan’s.
There sat a mage who seemed somehow inhuman.
And here was an elf unworthy of the name, looking up at him.
“Quite a convoluted sentiment—”
The pure girl of her youth had long vanished amid life’s tempests.
In her place was a frail, foolish elf branded a criminal.
Swish—
A bitter smile tugged at her lips as her eyes turned to Johan.
Black hair like the strands clinging to her cheek adorned him.
And beneath it, black eyes gleamed with a cold resolve that sought only magic, fixed upon her.
“But haven’t you realized at least one important thing?”
“……One important thing?”
Akerunar’s eyes narrowed slyly at the library’s master.
It was immensely arrogant.
The sage, wrapped in an aura of arrogance, regarded her as if it were only natural and spoke.
“Didn’t you prove it with your own hands? That paltry spirit arts can’t even touch true magic.”
“Is that… how it is……?”
“Even an entity called a top-tier spirit bowed before you. There’s no need to cling to spirit arts any longer.”
Akerunar’s eyes widened at Johan’s words.
She had wondered why he’d watched her antics, but it seemed he had his own purpose after all.
“In other words, a traveler of the magical path has no need to cower before the judgments of those too blind to recognize true value.”
With that, Johan’s words ended.
Whoosh—
Gathering his grimoire, he turned his back to her.
Having achieved the spirit contract he’d aimed for from the start, he was now moving on to his own research.
Akerunar’s eyes captured his retreating figure.
“You… really love magic, don’t you…….”
It was just a brief exchange, but it was enough to feel his affection for this library.
Akerunar was a mage.
Though both walked the path of magic, she and Johan pursued utterly different goals.
Hers, to cloak her frailty through magic; his, seeing magic as the sole answer to illuminate his way—
At the stark contrast between them, a faint smile graced Akerunar’s lips.
- Chirp……!
He truly loved this library.
In the ears of an elf watching the great mage, the faint cry of a sparrow spirit echoed softly.
* * * * * *
Morning arrived.
After a night in Celestia, the black-haired elf always faced a solitary dawn.
The dreamlike time spent in a library brimming with magic came to an end, leaving only the branded outcast in cold reality.
For that reason, Akerunar’s mornings always began in silence and stillness.
At least, until yesterday.
- Chirp chirp chirp chirp—!
But the morning Akerunar faced today was far noisier than usual.
Perched proudly on the shoulder of her robed form was a single pure white sparrow spirit.
Flutter, flap—
The spirit flapped its wings this way and that, chattering away.
The light spirit she had newly contracted was now fully settling into the space around her.
“You still don’t like me much, do you…….”
- Chirp—!
Of course, even if the sparrow spirit had accepted the contract with Akerunar, it hadn’t suddenly grown fond of her overnight.
It had merely acknowledged her existence as its contractor through last night’s fierce battle.
It didn’t like her, but at least it respected her.
From Akerunar’s perspective, that was perfectly understandable.
It wasn’t easy to go from hating someone to liking them in a single day.
For now, she was content that the light spirit at least didn’t hate her.
“Mm—”
After checking on the spirit, Akerunar’s gaze shifted to the weathered map in her hand.
While the dwarf assistant worked on producing the parts she had commissioned, Akerunar had set out on her own errand.
For a long time, her base had been a massive fortress floating in the skies.
However, that didn’t mean she had no foothold on the ground.
Before she herself had ascended to the heavens—over a century ago—she had prepared a hidden shelter on the surface.
A workshop once used to craft the mobile fortress.
Today, after a very long time, she had come to check on the equipment still remaining in her old workshop.
“Could you scout if you know where this terrain leads?”
- Chirp—?
Flutter—
Akerunar, staring at the map in her hand, soon addressed the spirit perched on her shoulder.
In the old days, she could have reached her destination in an instant via the mobile fortress.
But with the mobile fortress destroyed?
Like anyone else, Akerunar now had to get there on foot.
Thus, she needed to borrow another’s aid to survey from the skies.
- Chirp chirp……?
“Polaris Zero, you mean? Once we find the workshop, I plan to launch one here in place of a marker.”
- Chirp—!
“You’re not outright rejecting me anymore. Thanks.”
Fortunately, the sparrow spirit didn’t flatly refuse her request.
It might be hard to grow close, but some cooperation seemed possible.
Phew—
Relieved, Akerunar began explaining to the spirit, pointing out several spots on the map.
She wanted it to locate the original site amid terrain changed over a century.
- Chirp chirp……!
Flutter, flap—
It was just as the sparrow spirit prepared to take to the skies.
Clank, clank—
An alien sound drifted into the sensitive elf’s ears.
From afar, the jangling clash of metal began to ring out.
Beyond the road where Akerunar stood.
Human presence emanated from that direction.
“…….”
The gaze of the robed Akerunar turned toward the source.
At the far end of the road she stood on.
A group of people was approaching.
Leading the crowd drawing near were figures all too familiar to Akerunar.
“Move it, you stupid slaves—faster!”
“Kyaaak……!”
A booming, coarse shout rang in her ears.
Frowning, Akerunar scrutinized the approaching group.
One burly man cracking a whip as he walked.
And one robed mage watching him.
In their hands, a pair of elves was dragged along by collars.
—Elf slaves.
Akerunar’s face hardened as she identified the newcomers from afar.
‘Elves sold from the Great Forest have made it all the way here?’
It seemed the buyers of these elf slaves were passing near Akerunar by chance.
She watched her kin for a moment, lost in thought.
But soon, one of the elves being whipped and dragged spotted the spirit flying overhead and widened her eyes.
“Th-that spirit……!”
“……What?”
“It’s a light spirit… one of our kin is nearby……!”
At the sudden voice, the elf walking beside her looked up in shock.
The pair of elves stared at Akerunar’s spirit.
A top-tier spirit brimming with immense power.
True to elves long accustomed to spirits, they quickly discerned its nature.
“A spirit? You mean another elf is nearby?”
The robed mage, overhearing the elves, looked up in disbelief at the unexpected news.
But the elves cried out heedless of him.
“Great kin chosen by the noble spirit! Please save us from these wicked humans!”
“We beg you! If you are a child of the Mother Tree, save us, please!”
They beseeched Akerunar for rescue.
Ha—
Akerunar’s gaze turned to her pleading kin with troubled eyes.
Child of the Mother Tree? She had never once entertained such a notion.
Even if it were true, she was undoubtedly the child the World Tree had cast out.
She wanted to retort to her kin right then.
But regrettably, the ones she faced now weren’t her kin.
“What luck! To think a lone elf would walk right into our midst—!”
“…….”
The greed-filled mage eyed her eagerly.
It seemed she had gotten tangled in something troublesome.