Playing with a Child
With Yerna and Daiton out buying ice cream, Deana found herself left alone with Luke.
I'm so bored.
The situation could hardly have felt more tedious to her. The first girl her own age she'd ever met had turned out, against all her expectations, to be a thoroughly diligent and thoroughly uninteresting older sister.
Coming over to hang out… and then sitting there doing worksheets?!
Deana simply could not understand Luke at all. What was fun about worksheets? Those things just made your head hurt!
She snuck a glance at the problem sheet Luke was working through and felt her brain start to spin. A horrifying string of letters she couldn't begin to decipher. For a girl whose academic ceiling was basically not messing up dictation and basic addition and subtraction, Luke's advanced problems were completely beyond her. No — there was no way she could have kept up. What Luke was staring down so seriously was a Magic Academy–level worksheet.
Do I have to solve stuff like that when I get to Luke's age…?
A terrifying future. Deana, who had always dreamed of growing up fast so she could eat as many snacks as she wanted and go to amusement parks whenever she pleased, suddenly found she no longer wanted to become an adult at all.
Being little was better. Having arrived at that realization, she no longer wanted to watch Luke continue that frightening studying. She wanted Luke to play with her instead.
"Unnie! Play with me!"
So Deana slipped around behind Luke and grabbed her horns. They looked strangely perfect for grabbing — a pretty intense temptation for a little kid to resist.
Luke, mid-worksheet, suddenly felt the touch on her horns and cried out in alarm.
"Deana, what on earth are you—!"
"Unnie, what kind of horns are these? They look so weird and cool!"
"W-well, do they?"
Deana's bright, excited voice stole Luke's chance to scold her, and she simply sat there feeling the girl knead her horns.
Horns aren't especially sensitive the way ears are, so it doesn't matter how much she touches them…
Deana liked the texture.
"Whoa! Unnie, your horns feel really nice!"
But being petted on the head by a small child left Luke deeply embarrassed.
To think even a child this tiny would end up petting me…
If it had been a grown adult like Yerna, or Sorbi, or Kirke, she could have endured it. But a child… that was absolutely not the same. Psychologically, it was hard to take. The sense of being diminished was far stronger. An old soul like hers had always been the one doing the petting — never the one being petted.
Unable to ignore those hands any longer and keep studying, Luke spoke.
"Come down from my head now. I'll play with you."
"Yay!"
Deana released Luke's horns in great satisfaction, and Luke closed the worksheet as she looked at her.
"All right, Deana. What would you like to do?"
"Wanna play hide-and-seek? Unnie, are you good at hide-and-seek?"
"Hide-and-seek…"
Seeking and hiding. Those happened to be specialties of Luke's as well. A mage ought to be able to conceal herself, after all. And when it came to searching for and investigating things, there was no one better than a mage. If she truly meant to hide, no one would ever find her. She was no longer limited to First Circle either — with Second Circle at her command, regulating leaking mana was far easier.
…But of course she would not bring that full sincerity to bear against Deana. Luke's mind was already that of an adult; there was no need to get prideful about letting a child win at a game. Pretending not to find her, and hiding a little clumsily herself — that was how you played with a child.
"…Of course, Deana. Are you good at it?"
"Obviously!"
Luke pressed her forehead to the wall and counted. From one to ten, slowly, giving Deana plenty of time to hide. When she finally reached ten, she opened her eyes and turned her head.
"Deana, I'm coming to find you."
But once hide-and-seek began, Luke was genuinely surprised. Deana had hidden far better than expected. Of course, with Second Circle and Mana Sight, Luke located her in an instant. What startled her was that Deana was using a rudimentary form of mana concealment.
It's only at an instinctive level… but that is not something a seven-year-old should be capable of.
Luke had found her immediately because her own level was what it was. Without that, she might genuinely have had trouble.
But finding her right away would ruin the game. So Luke deliberately avoided the wardrobe Deana was hiding in, pretended to search the surroundings, and spoke.
"Hmm, I truly have no idea where you are. You've hidden very well."
She said it on purpose while checking under the bed.
"Then… is it here?"
Luke deliberately opened a different wardrobe — not the one Deana was in. Deana's mana concealment wavered slightly from the tension, then immediately tightened again, more solid than before. Luke marveled inwardly at the level of it.
Oho. It doesn't reach the old Black Eagle Guild's standard, but this is no ordinary level either.
Of course, that comparison was wildly unfair to Deana. Putting an assassination order that had perfected stealth on the same line as a seven-year-old girl was absurd on its face. But that only underscored how unexpected Deana's mana concealment had been.
Swallowing her admiration, Luke spoke as if about to leave the room.
"Not in here."
—Roo-kee! Roo-kee!
At that, Pai began spinning in frantic circles around the wardrobe Deana was hiding in, as if she couldn't stand the wait.
What a tactless little spirit.
Luke shook her head at Pai and gestured for her to come over, but Pai only made a Tting-dong, Tting-dong sound, as if to say, Why are you pretending not to know?
What on earth does that Tting-dong even mean…
In the end, worn down by Pai's pestering, Luke opened the wardrobe Deana was hiding in. Deana's eyes went wide with surprise, then she broke into a bashful grin.
"Wow! You found me faster than I thought!"
"I got lucky."
"Right? Unnie, earlier it looked like you really couldn't find me!"
—Roo-kee…! …!
"…"
Luke had been deliberately acting like she couldn't find her, but the performance must have been a little too convincing for Pai, who kept circling her and calling her Tting-dong. It occurred to Luke that in spirit-speech, Tting-dong might simply mean "idiot."
A flush of embarrassment rose to her face and she looked away — which Deana took as shame at having struggled so hard to find such a well-hidden girl, and that made Deana very proud.
"It's okay! I just hid too well, so you don't have to be embarrassed! 'Cause I play with Oppa all the time!"
"I-I see."
Come to think of it, Daiton had a talent for mana detection. Playing hide-and-seek with a brother like that over and over, she must have stumbled into learning mana concealment by accident.
Daiton… so you never went easy even on your own little sister.
How many times must a seven-year-old have been wronged before she awakened mana concealment? With a skill like that, no child her age would ever beat her at hide-and-seek.
Deana spoke up, voice bright with excitement.
"Then do you wanna hide next, Unnie? Or should I go again?!"
"No, that's enough. Let's stop hide-and-seek."
Whether she hid or sought, Pai would stick her nose in and ruin the game for certain. Whenever Pai felt ignored, she tended to express herself with high-pitched sound waves — and that grating noise was thoroughly unpleasant. Of course, if Luke got irritated, Pai would stop… but getting irritated here might make Deana think Luke was snapping at her. The spirit was visible only to Luke's eyes, after all.
"I'm tired from looking for you, Deana. I'd like to rest a little."
"Huuung, so Unnie's stamina is bad…?"
Deana asked with a worried look, and Luke gave a vague affirmative as she sat down in a chair.
"Yes, something like that."
"You should exercise instead of just reading books all the time! Or you'll get all worn out and sick."
At the pure concern in the question, Luke smiled faintly.
"Hmm, is that so. Who told you that?"
"Oppa says that all the time."
"Daiton, you mean?"
"Yeah."
Thinking of Daiton, it did sound like something he would say. Luke nodded at the thought — and Deana asked another question.
"Unnie, what shows do you watch on TV?"
Deana's eyes sparkled as she said it, and Luke was thoroughly thrown.
"TV…? Shows? What are those?"
"Unnie, you don't even watch cartoons?"
"Cartoons…? I've never seen one."
"Ugh, that is so boring!"
It was true — Yerna's house had no television. She treated the place as little more than a place to sleep, and preferred reading the news in the paper or a book over watching it on a screen. On free days she liked going out for walks; otherwise she simply slept the day away. With no TV in Yerna's life, Luke had never seen one either.
But Deana could not believe it.
"You've never watched TV? That's impossible!"
A person living in modern society who had never watched television? That made no sense! Most of what Deana talked about with her friends was the cartoons she watched on TV!
She immediately grabbed a rectangular magic tool and cried out.
"I'll show you!"
Click.
With a small sound, light began to shine from the large rectangular magic tool that had been sitting as decoration on the table. The operating principle briefly drew Luke's gaze…
Illusion, Light, communication magic… Mostly degraded copies of a smartphone.
She was disappointed by how simple the contents turned out to be. The only real differences were the refinement of the illusion and the size. Still, Luke thought the idea itself was rather clever.
Deana looked at the lit TV and shouted.
"It's Spirit Girl Maruru!"
"Spirit Girl Maruru…? What in the world is that?"
"Unnie, you don't even know Spirit Girl Maruru~? It's so fun! Maruru is, like…"
As Deana launched into an excited, spit-flecked explanation of Maruru, Luke watched the screen. Like a puppet show, the thing called a TV showed a girl drawn as if from a picture, borrowing the power of spirits to transform and fighting evil forces with spirit arts.
"Quite an elaborate stage-box."
Certainly, if something like this had existed in the past, children would have gone wild for it. Puppet theater was something every child loved, without exception.
"Hwaaah, so? Isn't it fun!"
"Yes, it is rather entertaining."
The dynamic movement was genuinely impressive — incomparable to a puppet show, one might say. Of course it was nothing next to real combat, but real combat was far too brutal to show children. As a piece of entertainment pitched at a moderate level, it was a well-made work.
"Ah, I wish I could see spirits too."
"You want to see a spirit?"
"Yeah! I wanna talk to spirits like Maruru!"
The character called Maruru on the TV seemed able to speak spirit-tongue with real fluency. She communicated with the spirits perfectly. Of course, if the spirits had spoken in spirit-tongue, the audience wouldn't have understood — so on the TV they used proper human speech.
"If you want to see a spirit, I can show you one."
"Whoa, really?!"
—Roo-kee?!
At Luke's words, not only Deana but Pai as well raised their voices in surprise. At that pure reaction, Luke gave a small laugh.
"As thanks for showing me this thing called TV, I'll show you something good too."
Luke held out her palm, and from within it a spirit identical in form to Pai burst forth with a soft pah.
"Whoa?!"
—Roo-kee?! ….?!
It was an illusion combining Dancing Lights — a Second Circle spell, the higher form of Light — with Illusion magic, but under Luke's delicate, perfect mana control, it was barely distinguishable from reality. Pai's form exactly as Luke saw her. Using Second Circle Sona, Luke crafted a sound in Pai's own tone — Deana! — and Pai froze solid, making a bizarre kkiririk, kkiririk noise in sheer shock.
—…………?!
"Waaaaaah!"
And Deana, seeing it, clapped her hands with shining, enraptured eyes.
"Well? Are you satisfied?"
But the next words out of the little girl's mouth left Luke with no choice but to be flustered.
"Luke Unnie, you were a spirit girl all along!"
"Uh, um? That's not it. I merely…"
I merely used light and illusion magic…
But looking at Deana's face, Luke couldn't finish the sentence. Bringing that up in this moment would only shatter a child's innocent wonder.
I didn't expect her to be this happy… How unexpected.
Luke, thanks to Yerna's false explanations, still didn't know that spirits were rare in this era. In Luke's time, anyone with spirit affinity could make contact with spirits. By that measure, this illusion magic was nothing more than giving a child without spirit affinity a little spirit-mage experience. She had done it on impulse, remembering how children in the past used to light up when shown illusion magic.
As Luke sat there thrown by the unexpected reaction, Deana grinned as if she already knew everything.
"Ah, I get it. It's a secret, right?!"
Deana was already looking at Luke as the same kind of being as Spirit Girl Maruru. Strictly speaking, Luke was genuinely close with a spirit, so it wasn't entirely wrong.
Fine. Better to keep it a secret. That way she could protect the girl's innocence and avoid stirring up unnecessary trouble.
Luke spoke with firm emphasis.
"Yes. It's a secret. You mustn't tell anyone."
"Got it! Luke Unnie!!"
"It's a promise."
"Yeah!!"
Well — she didn't look entirely trustworthy, but still.
—Roo-kee, idiot.
"Be quiet, Pai."
"The spirit's name is Pai!"