The Great Commotion of Luke Forest
—Luke! Luke!
The fluttering sensation at his ear and the spirit's voice calling his name left Luke little choice. It was a touch early, but he opened his eyes all the same.
"Yaaawn… Ah, yes. Pai, you slept well too, I trust."
—Luke! …Luke!
The spirit spun joyful circles around him as if delighted he was awake, so pure and childlike that a smile tugged at the corner of Luke's mouth.
"Pai, whatever is the matter?"
—Yerna!
Apparently, waking to find Yerna gone had left the spirit anxious.
"Ah, Yerna left ahead of us. She is a Forest Keeper, after all—she sets out on her forest patrol long before I rise. Mana is at its fullest in the morning, so she clears out the monsters beforehand."
—…!
"Yes, yes. Yerna truly is a diligent child."
Ordinarily that work fell only to whoever was on duty, but because Luke had to remain in the forest, Yerna—who had been living at the lodge alongside him these past few weeks—had taken to helping with it every day. Even though she was not on duty, and had no real obligation to do so.
It was a little early still, but Luke had his own morning tasks.
The dew that gathered on the flowers of dawn. It held mana far more readily than anything harvested at other hours, so every essence used in potions was gathered at daybreak.
Sunrise itself, herald of the day and of all beginnings, carried great magical significance as well. The first crow of a rooster in the morning held mana that soothed horses and drove off evil-spirit-type monsters. And the hush of early dawn helped mages focus their minds.
For all those reasons, morning mana was special—and so every mage meditated in the morning.
It was the hour when meditation yielded its greatest efficiency. Luke would never let that slip by, and as always he began to meditate in order to accumulate mana.
Or rather—he tried to.
—Luke! …! Luke!
"Hmm."
As he drew in mana, the spirit kept getting in the way. Tapping his head, pinching and stretching his cheeks, calling his name over and over.
"Hrmmm…"
When he tried to ignore it and concentrate, the spirit suddenly started making an ear-grating racket that set his temper flaring. Luke scowled and snapped,
"Pai, what on earth are you doing?"
—Luke! ………!
"Ah."
When Luke opened his eyes and looked, Pai's body had grown slightly fainter than before.
Spirits were mental life-forms whose bodies were made of mana. And because the arrangement of that mana was, by nature, one with the natural world, it was itself a kind of nature. Luke could exercise dominion over all "natural" mana around him—which meant that, in theory, he could even inscribe a spirit's physical form into a circle upon his own heart.
"Forgive me. I should have noticed."
Now he understood why spirits preferred to keep their distance from mages.
What a circle represented was dominion over mana—a chain linking mana to one's will. A mage who could claim dominion over the mana around them was, to a spirit, something very like a natural predator.
Of course, if the spirit were stronger, the reverse would be true. But Luke had once stood at the absolute peak among all mages. A man who had mastered every principle and law of the Tenth Circle became, with even a single circle's worth of dominion, a higher being to this tiny spirit.
"In that case, Pai, you had best go some distance away for a while. Meditation is important to me."
—Luke, …? …!
"I have no idea what you are saying. I do not speak Spirit-tongue, you know."
—………!
"As I said, I cannot make out a word of it."
—………? …!
The spirit seemed to keep trying to converse, but Luke, who knew no Spirit-tongue, naturally understood none of it. Had he more time, he might have pretended to grasp the gist and gone along with it—but time was precisely what he lacked.
"I cannot understand you, so stop! At this rate the morning mana will be gone!"
In this modern age that put a price on mana, even the natural mana loss of a single circle was a source of stress for Luke. Meditation—his means of advancing to the Second Circle—was more critical than anything else right now. Even if the interruption came from a spirit, it was not something he could simply tolerate.
Luke opened the window, pointed outside, and said,
"Pai, I will say this one last time. Get far away from me. If you refuse and keep interfering, and you get swept up in it, I will not concern myself with the consequences."
—Luke…?
"Go. I will count to ten."
At Luke's firm declaration, Pai seemed to droop and deflate.
"Ten."
—….
"Nine…"
Luke kept counting down, and only after the spirit had vanished completely from before his eyes could he finally return his focus to meditation.
"Hmph."
As always, the meditation ended only when a localized mana depletion set in.
Today would likely be the last of it, he thought.
Feeling the single circle whirling in his heart and the threads of mana wrapping around it, Luke let out a sigh.
"Slow. Truly, far too slow."
At this rate, even if he meditated every day in the forest, reaching the Second Circle would take until spring was well and truly over.
It makes no difference to me, but…
Yerna was the problem.
Whether it was leaving a child at the Forest Keepers' lodge that bothered her, or concern for Luke being alone, she had not gone home for quite some time now.
If I could go back, she would be able to rest easy as well.
The lodge bed was narrow. Yerna could not lie down with Luke the way she usually did, so she had given up her own bed. Luke had insisted he was fine sleeping on the floor, but the somehow sorrowful look in Yerna's eyes as she urged, "It's fine, just sleep there!" had been so overwhelming that he had ended up in the bed after all—while Yerna slept on the sofa under a blanket.
Making the master of the lodge sleep in discomfort… absurd…
Even so, Luke could not refuse the bed. Yerna's gaze, watching from the bedside, only left him once he either fell asleep or pretended to.
"Haa."
At last he rose, straightened his sleep clothes with a sigh, and picked up a book. Meditation followed by reading—for Luke, it was something of a formula.
Yerna would be back once breakfast time arrived.
But the spirit, perhaps still shaken by being told to disappear from his sight, showed no sign of returning even long after the meditation had ended.
Had it gone back to nature?
Well—the spirit had simply decided on its own that they were friends, and Luke, for his part, had only been curious so far. There was not much attachment left behind, and yet…
I do rather regret what I said to it.
He had been a little sharp then. He had made no effort to rein in his feelings, so irritation had surely colored his voice as well. He could have spoken more gently, more like a scolding. He simply had not.
If I see it again, I ought to apologize.
"Yaaawn—ugh."
Yerna stretched with a huge yawn. From the back seat, Sorbi watched her with a worried look.
"Yerna unnie, are you helping out again today? Aren't you tired?"
"I'm fine. Nobody made me. I'm doing it because I want to."
Yerna waved a hand as if to say not to worry, and offered a small smile.
Well, I am a little tired—but it's all for Ru's sake.
If the forest was safe, Luke was safe. An obvious enough truth.
Still, the monster readings were the same as usual. Nothing difficult about—
—Beep. Beep. Beeeeep.
An ominous noise began to pour from the Forest Keeper GPS terminal.
"Huh? What is that?"
Sorbi pulled out the device in a flustered voice.
"Huh?!"
She cried out as if she had seen a ghost.
"What? Why on earth—"
Daphne, checking the vehicle's navigation, could not finish her sentence either. And when Yerna looked at the nav screen, her expression hardened in an instant.
Red was the marker for monsters—it detected unnatural mana flows and displayed their approximate locations…
…and the entire screen was nothing but red.
"This is…"
When Yerna trailed off, Sorbi shouted,
"This is insane! Did a dragon wake up or something?!"
"A dragon, huh…"
Dragons, said to live a thousand years. Beings of overwhelming power and intellect, once symbols of fear and authority—now nothing more than monsters from fairy tales. The dragons had all gone extinct.
Why they had vanished from the world was unknown. Not a single related record remained. Only the bare fact that they were gone.
Daphne thought it over carefully, then said,
"Could someone have used necromancy to create a Bone Dragon?"
"That's possible too."
Necromancy without government authorization was illegal under any circumstances. Summoning a high-rank undead was a serious crime on par with terrorism.
Sorbi trembled as she spoke.
"A B-Bone Dragon? Is that—is that for real…?"
Sorbi loathed undead. The sight of bones floating around gave her the creeps.
"Well, it's only a possibility. First let's call up the Forest Keepers. This is an emergency."
At that same moment, Luke too lifted his head at a vast current of mana.
This flow of mana…
It was an arrangement of mana he had felt before. Luke closed his book, rose, and said,
"Pai—is that you?"
—Luke!
Pai bounced and bounced, thumping against the window. Taking it as a request to be let in, Luke got up, went to the window, and opened it.
And then—
—Whoosh!
"Hhk…!"
A storm of natural mana came surging in all at once. Under that overwhelming flood, Luke's head spun for a moment and his eyes went wide.
"Pai—did you gather all this mana?"
—Luke, …! …?
The spirit bobbed up and down on his palm as if asking whether it had done well.
"Heavens…"
Mana of this magnitude—it must have ranged across the entire forest to collect it all. Looking down at the tiny spirit, Luke thought,
I always dismissed spirits… but they were no less capable than mages after all.
Spirits born of natural mana were innately gifted with dominion over it as well. And without physical bodies, they could be anywhere, unbound by the laws of physics. Those two advantages in synergy must have been what allowed it to gather this much mana in so short a time.
—Luke! …!
Watching Pai twist bashfully this way and that, Luke gave a short laugh.
"So this is your gift of apology, is it?"
The spirit nodded vigorously and let out a bright, pleased high note. Luke stroked it as he spoke.
"I am sorry as well. I was a little pressed at the time. Will you accept my apology too?"
—…!
At a sound that seemed to say Of course!, Luke nodded and released Pai.
Now it was time to receive the gift.
With this… I might form the Second Circle today…
Steadying his racing heart, Luke began to meditate once more.
Every Forest Keeper of Luke Forest—on duty or not—had been summoned and stood in formation.
In a situation like this, command fell to the one who had been a Forest Keeper the longest: Yerna.
"Team One, cover that side! Team Two, cover over there! Everyone else hold the defense on this flank, then join up when the timing's right! Under no circumstances do we let this reach the city!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
At Yerna's orders, the personnel moved as one.
"A Bone Dragon? What lunatic pulled that stunt in Luke Forest?!"
"We'll slaughter the lot of them!"
"Ugh, first thing in the morning. Do those things even sleep?"
Watching them ease the tension with that kind of grumbling, Yerna took her own position and began to stand watch.
Is Luke all right?
"Daphne, go to Luke and get him to evacuate."
"Understood, Yerna unnie."
Daphne nodded and climbed into the car. If only they had a phone right now, they could have checked on him with a call—her worry was anything but small.
"All right. Preparations are done. Now…"
Beep…!
"Hm…?"
The Forest Keeper terminal that had been wailing nonstop suddenly lost every last red marker, and the noise cut off.
"What?"
At the abrupt silence, everyone scrambled in confusion.
"Can a mana reading just vanish like that?"
"What is this? Stealth? Where are the monsters?"
In the midst of the general panic, Yerna called out calmly,
"Don't drop your guard! We have no idea what might happen!"
But nothing happened.
Not for a full half a day.