Clues in a Damaged Book
"Aidan, why do you keep interrupting? Give it a rest. A section on the characteristics of spirits at each rank is bound to come up soon. Then we'll be able to compare and figure things out."
Aidan pouted at Eli's rebuke, but the moment Eli resumed reading, his mouth snapped shut.
"For reference, the rank of spirit a Spirit User can summon depends on the power they possess. The number of Spirit Users who have ever summoned a High Spirit can be counted on one hand. Naturally, the summoning of a Spirit King has never once been achieved. At the end of this book, I record the names of the great Spirit Users who succeeded in summoning High Spirits."
"So merely summoning a High Spirit earns you the title of great Spirit User? I'd love to know what kind of people they were. Though it's probably too long ago to find out."
"To summarize — below the Spirit King there are High, Intermediate, and Lower Spirits, and no Spirit User has ever summoned a Spirit King. Is that it?"
Eli nodded at Logan's tidy summary and continued reading.
"A Lower Spirit is typically entrusted with a single village. An Intermediate Spirit governs a larger domain, and a High Spirit oversees a region the size of a small kingdom. The Spirit King acts as the chief authority, receiving reports from the High Spirits of each nation and executing affairs accordingly. The Four Elemental Spirit Kings have always maintained the stability of the natural world through close, constant cooperation, ensuring that none of their domains encroached upon another's."
The page turned once more.
"Spirits of the same rank do not all possess identical abilities. Most spirits exercise roughly comparable power within the same range, but there is one remarkable exception — an Intermediate Spirit that displayed strength rivaling that of a High Spirit."
"Everywhere you look, there are prodigies."
Claiming that such a prodigy was none other than himself, Aidan thumped his own chest. Eli shot him a briefly incredulous look before returning to the book to explain.
Though the reason has yet to be uncovered, there was once a time when the Spirit King of Wind raged, and for ten days a typhoon battered the continent. Many nations were reduced to wasteland, and the Forest of Purification, where I reside, likewise suffered tremendous damage.
The devastated natural world fell into near paralysis, and restoration alone took a full year — such was the horror of that era.
Some have come to call those days the Twelve Months of Calamity.
"Whoa! Suddenly I have a bad feeling about this."
"Why? What now?"
"What if the Wind Spirit back then had a personality like the Spirit King's? How furious would someone have to be to lay waste to an entire continent?"
"What do we care what happened back then? It's ancient history anyway."
"If Innocent is the Wind Spirit, and that's why she keeps splashing us seven colors of ways, that's a little scary, isn't it? Could naive Bayul even keep her under control? She's a complete basket case of a temper."
"Save the chatter for later and just listen. This part sounds important."
Radiating the air of someone who would genuinely lose his temper if interrupted one more time, Eli fixed his attention back on the book.
The River Paulaner flowed through no fewer than five nations.
It was an Intermediate Spirit of Water — one charged with only a small city — who toured those five typhoon-ravaged countries, regulating the river's flow and force to prevent an even greater disaster.
For that achievement, the spirit was promoted from Intermediate to High Spirit — an astonishing case indeed.
A postscript: neither before nor since has such a thing ever occurred.]
"So spirits get promotions too."
"Shh."
Before Eli could scold him, Quinn kindly stepped in and silenced Aidan.
Somebody really ought to sew that mouth shut. Bayul thought of his hot-blooded friend and forced the words back down instead of voicing them.
Here, allow me to pause and touch upon the potential of a contractor. As stated before, the rank of spirit a Spirit User summons depends on their ability. Likewise, depending on the talent of the contractor, a summoned spirit's capabilities may be diminished — or elevated.
If I may venture a conjecture, the Intermediate Spirit of Water was able to ascend to a High Spirit at least in part through the influence of its contractor.
Regarding Cordelia Dovres, the unprecedented great Spirit User who commanded both a High Spirit of Water and an Intermediate Spirit of Earth, I shall write further at the end.
"…Huh? The writing's been erased."
"What? Where, where!"
"Is this a water stain?"
"Yeah, looks like it."
"Eli, turn to the back pages."
He had harbored quiet hopes, but the further they went, the worse the book's condition became.
"This part's torn out completely. It's in tatters."
"Ah, dammit, what kind of people do this? I hate humans who treat books like this more than anything! Why do people manhandle sacred books like that? What about the poor souls who come after them?"
Aidan, who worked part-time at the library, bristled with indignation.
"Bayul, did Professor Rothius say anything else when he gave you this book?"
"No, he just mentioned that Sanskain script isn't easy. I don't think he examined it closely. He probably doesn't even know the book is damaged."
"It's obviously an old book — honestly, if it were pristine, that would be the stranger thing."
It had already been thousands of years since the collapse of the Spirit Realm erased all memory of spirits from people's minds. That a book like this still existed at all was a wonder in itself.
"The heading says Lecture Two — this was clearly planned as a series. Do you think we could find the others?"
"Professor Rothius already looked and said there was nothing. Still, just in case, I plan to search the library every time I go."
"Leave that to me. When it comes to hunting down books, I'm a cut above you."
He really was a dependable one, always. How was Bayul ever supposed to repay this debt?
If it was Bayul's homework, then it was homework, plain and simple.
"Thank you, Aidan. If you ever need my help, make sure you tell me. I'll work just as hard for you."
"Of course you will! And you'd better appreciate that my labor doesn't come cheap, my friend."
"Bayul, I'll take a look through my family's study when I go home for the holidays too. I doubt there's anything there, but it can't hurt to try."
"Thanks, Logan. When I go to Hamilton, I intend to go through every book vault in the castle as well."
Bayul's family estate, too, held a considerable collection shelved in its vaults. If he could unearth even a single useful volume among them, he would ask for nothing more.
"The holidays are turning out to be busier than I expected."
Quinn wrinkled his brow, but found his own roundabout way of joining in.
"Hey — wait a second, guys!"
Just then, Eli cried out as if he had discovered something in the book.
He had stumbled on it by chance while tilting the pages this way and that against the light. Stretching both hands upward in something like a victory salute, he fumbled the words out haltingly.
"…They take many forms according to their rank… High Spirits of water take the shape of eagles… Lower Spirits of fire… bearing tails… Hmm… Intermediate Spirits of wind are fierce wolves of… Ahem, only the Spirit King… concealed within… mysterious… so on and so forth… because no Spirit User has succeeded in summoning one… no one in all the world… Argh, it cuts off there!"
Having only barely managed to read by the light of the lamp, Eli set the book down in disappointment. Though it was hardly his fault, he wore a heartbroken look as he said it glumly. Bayul jumped and waved his hands.
"What are you talking about, Eli? Thanks to you, we got to read the book without lifting a finger. I'm grateful for that alone."
"It's a good thing we're not wasting time during exam season, anyway. You've got more than enough to be smug about already, so an apology out of nowhere isn't like you."
Aidan stared at Eli as if he found it strange too.
"I just… thought that maybe, at last, something about the spirits would finally make sense. I got my hopes up. And since it didn't, I'm a little let down, that's all."
"Haven't the clues been unraveled to a fair degree, though?"
"…Huh?"
At Logan's remark, everyone's eyes turned to him.
"At this point we've confirmed beyond doubt that spirits exist, and we've learned what kinds there are, what they do, and that compatibility between a spirit and its Spirit User matters… Oh! We even learned there was once a great Spirit User named Cordelia Dovres. It's not that there's nothing at all I can't make sense of, but I'd call it an encouraging result."
"Something you can't make sense of? What's that?"
Everyone was absorbed in Logan's analysis, and when Aidan tilted his head and asked, Logan hesitated before answering.
"Their appearances."
"Their appearances?"
"Every spirit Eli listed takes the form of an animal. But what about Innocent and Shame?"
"Well, they look… like us humans, don't they?"
"Exactly. And yet there's not a word about that anywhere in this book. Erased, sure — but doesn't it seem a bit odd that it's completely absent?"
It was a sharp observation. Though much of the book's contents had been erased, the fact that nowhere — in an entire section explaining what spirits looked like — was there any description matching Innocent's or Shame's appearance was worth suspecting.
"It really is suspicious. It's not as though someone cleverly cut it out — there's simply nothing to patch in, and that's what gets me."
"So the conclusion is that, for now, there's no way to verify what rank Innocent and Shame actually are."
"Right. Almost like a Spirit King, in fact."
Logan added this while absently gazing down at the earthen lump protruding from the floor — Shame.
"No Spirit User has ever summoned a Spirit King. Naturally, their forms were never known either. The passage does break off, but even Eli's last reading included the phrase 'concealed within.' So here's what I'm thinking…"
"Logan, you're not about to suggest that Innocent and Shame might be Spirit Kings, are you?"
Cutting him off mid-sentence, Eli asked. Logan faltered for a moment, then posed the question back.
"…Would that be so far-fetched?"
"Absolutely!"
Eli and Quinn exclaimed almost in unison.
"That's absurd! Do you have any idea what a Spirit King is? You think something like Innocent — a pipsqueak — could be one? We've already seen what she can do. She's in a completely different league!"
"You can't feel it because you're human, but that is utterly impossible. Being able to summon all Four Elemental Spirits at all would be a miracle in itself!"
"Then wouldn't that make it all the more possible?"
"…What?"
"You said it yourself — a miracle. Who's to say Bayul can't become the very first Spirit User to contract with a Spirit King?"