The Name I Gave
The mana inside my body resonated with the spell, filling the small space and beginning to hum with power.
I felt the flames of the candles suddenly flare up all at once.
Even though the windows were tightly shut, the air in the room churned wildly on its own.
The moment an even more intense light poured out from the summoning circle that had still been glowing, I squeezed my eyes shut in shock.
The mana inside me vanished at a terrifying speed, as if it were being ripped out.
Then a heavy stomach pain crashed over me. It felt like someone was yanking my mana out in massive clumps.
Who the hell…
“…Huh?”
The small commotion was instantly silenced.
Like a sudden breeze that had blown through and vanished.
The surroundings were wrapped in complete stillness, as if the earlier flickering had never happened. The only changes were that my internal mana had decreased and goosebumps were prickling all over my body.
I stroked my forearm and looked around. Even the mana solution that had filled the summoning circle was gone.
Only fairy dust left floating in the air sparkled like fireflies.
It proved that I had at least managed to light the circle, but no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t see any spirit.
Did the summoning fail?
Did I just waste all that mana for nothing?
If I had succeeded in calling one, the spirit should have appeared above the circle.
No matter where I looked, the only person in the room was me.
“…Spirit?”
I called out just in case, but there was no answer from anywhere.
To be honest, I had been pretty confident, so my disappointment was shockingly huge.
I’d heard that spirit masters who received early genius education—like me—usually succeeded in summoning their first spirit in their late teens.
But actually earning a spirit’s recognition as its master and forming a contract? That usually only happened in one’s twenties.
It all came down to mental strength. An immature mind couldn’t handle spirits, so most people only became proper spirit masters after reaching adulthood.
Spirits demanded not only affinity from their summoner, but powerful mental fortitude as well.
Simply put, spirits were incredibly picky beings. They refused to obey anyone weaker than themselves.
“I thought I could do it.”
Summoning a spirit at the age of ten was normally considered nearly impossible—a feat reserved for geniuses among geniuses. But since I wasn’t an ordinary ten-year-old, I had believed I could pull it off.
After all, if you counted my mental age from my previous life, I was well over twenty.
“This is weird. My body might be immature, but I was confident in my mind…”
Maybe Teacher Iel had been right.
Was I still too young to contract with a spirit?
“No. No way. This summoning circle is ancient, so it’s clearly not working properly. It’s practically an ancient relic at this point…”
I’d heard that inefficient summoning circles like this one often failed to bring forth spirits. That had to be it.
Even if I wasn’t a genius, there was no way my mental age was so low that I couldn’t even summon a single lower spirit.
According to Teacher Iel, modern contract circles were direct summoning methods that targeted specific spirits. In contrast, the outdated circle I had used was an indirect method—like fishing in the ocean. It relied heavily on luck.
It was the kind of system where a spirit that happened to be compatible with me and heard my voice would only respond if it felt like it.
Given how unsystematic it was, it wasn’t surprising that the method had fallen out of use.
“It’s definitely a problem with the circle. That’s all it is!”
I was busy trying to mentally pat myself on the back and salvage my crumbling pride when I noticed the candlelight’s shadow flickering dangerously at my feet.
Why did I keep feeling strange ripples in this closed room? The candles shouldn’t be flickering anymore.
With that question in mind, I lifted my head and looked at the ceiling.
A faint, inexplicable tremor was coming from every direction.
It was a completely unnatural vibration.
It was so small I could barely hear it, but it was definitely a voice.
It was the voice of a spirit—something like a dolphin’s ultrasound, the kind that ordinary human ears shouldn’t be able to detect.
Focusing every nerve on the tiny tremors coming from all around, I shouted.
“Spirit? Are you here? Where are you? Let’s make a contract!”
I’ll treat you well!
The moment I looked around and said “Let’s contract!” the voice became clearer.
I smiled. I had succeeded.
But I still couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from.
It was less like a voice and more like a small, fragile resonance—the way the air trembles on a rainy day.
“Where are you? Why can’t I see you?”
I really hoped I hadn’t accidentally summoned a ghost instead of a spirit.
When I thought about it, what I was doing was pretty similar to a séance.
Lighting candles in the middle of the night and drawing a magic circle to summon something? It was downright creepy.
[A name.]
“A name? Don’t spirits already have names? Like Sylph or Salamander…”
[Of course. The spirits of light do.]
My shoulders stiffened.
The spirits of light referred to the four major elemental spirits—fire, water, wind, and earth. And then there were others…
The dark spirits that Teacher Iel had shaken his head about.
The very reason humans had come to avoid the kind of contract circle I had just used.
Did that mean I was such an evil person that I had summoned one of them?!
I was genuinely horrified.
“No! Don’t tell me you’re a dark spirit…”
[I am not. I am neither light nor darkness. I am simply the one and only being of my kind in this world.]
I let out a deep sigh of relief. I had almost started doubting my own noble character.
“Then what are you? If you’re not a spirit of light or darkness… are you a ghost or something?”
[Those are nothing but frivolous standards set by humans. If I must describe myself in your terms, I suppose I would be a ‘non-attribute’ spirit.]
I vaguely remembered learning something like that.
Among the classes I had half-listened to, there had been a lecture on the classification of spirit attributes.
It was fuzzy, but I recalled that the main point was that spirits without light attributes didn’t have fixed names.
When I thought about it, calling spirits “nature’s spiritual bodies” and then trying to cram them into just a few categories was incredibly narrow-minded.
After all, the world wasn’t made up of only fire, water, wind, and earth.
Not everything that existed had a name.
“So… I just need to give you a name?”
[Yes. To exert power in the human realm, I need a token of contract that represents my existence. Something that allows me to remain in the human world.]
“A name.”
That was incredibly important, then. As I pondered what to name the spirit that was urging me, I suddenly realized a problem.
Oh my god.
“Wait! Before we talk about contracts or anything, I need to know what kind of being you are!”
[……]
“So tell me! What kind of spirit are you?!”
I had almost done something stupid like signing a contract without even reading it.
[There is no word in the human language that can properly describe me.]
“What if you’re dangerous?!”
[Spirits only follow the will of their summoner. If you cannot control me, I will be dangerous. But if you handle me properly, I will become a magnificent power.
We are like blades. We exist only in the hand that holds us. Whether we are swung is entirely up to the summoner’s will.]
The voice that had sounded like multiple people speaking at once gradually became a single, clear tone, as if it had found stability.
The less mana I had left, the faster it was draining. It would run out soon.
I needed to form the contract quickly to reduce the amount of mana being consumed.
An uncontracted spirit consumed several times more mental strength and mana than a contracted one.
“You’re really not dangerous, right?”
[Not if you are not a dangerous person.]
I wanted to press for more details, but I didn’t have the luxury with my mana running low. I had to hurry.
I still didn’t know what this thing was, but it claimed it wasn’t a dark spirit, and there was no way I could have summoned something dangerous enough to let me rule the world.
I nodded.
I firmly believed in my own laziness.
“Alright. Then…”
[The contract!]
More than anything, I didn’t get any dangerous vibes from this being.
At least, that was what my intuition told me. And spirit masters, being sensitive to the flow of nature, tended to have excellent instincts.
“Let’s make a contract. I’ll become your master!”
Once I simply accepted that this spirit was just a slightly rare species, I was able to stop worrying.
It was probably something cute like the spirit of nails, or buttons, or ribbons, right?
After all, it had been summoned by someone on their very first contract.
“But I only have enough mana to contract with a lower spirit.”
[That is sufficient.]
“So you’re weak?”
[I possess infinite power. Unlike spirits of light, I have no ranks. I can only display power equal to my master’s capability.]
“A spirit with no rank?”
Weren’t spirits strictly divided by hierarchy?
Lower, intermediate, upper, supreme, and then spirit kings.
[There can be no rank. Because there is only one spirit like me.]
“Ah… I guess that makes sense?”
[Humans still do not know everything about us.]
This was completely different from what I’d learned in class. As expected, most of what they taught in lectures was useless in real life.
[If I must describe myself in human terms, I suppose I could be called a mineral… no, a metal spirit.]
“A metal… spirit?”
I’d never heard of that before.
Only then did I look around at the objects around me that were giving off faint vibrations.
The candlestick, the washbasin, the metal parts holding up the curtains, and the nails hammered in here and there—they were all trembling slightly, producing the spirit’s voice.
All the metal in the room was this being.
[Most things beneath the earth belong to me. However, my authority does not extend to rocks or soil.]
“…I can tell you’re a rare one, but what exactly do you use a metal spirit for?”
[…More importantly, please hurry. At this rate, I will be reverse-summoned.]
“Ah, right. A name! A name, huh…”
This was no time to be chatting. I needed to train my mana harder. I never imagined I would run out this quickly.
If a spirit got reverse-summoned due to mana depletion, it would leave severe internal injuries, so I had to be careful.
“Hmm! Are you a girl? Or a boy? I can’t really tell from your voice.”
Gender was important when naming someone. I had to decide whether to go with something like “Kkamsooni” or “Kkamdori”—those kinds of profound decisions.
[I have no gender.]
“Right. Most spirits are neutral, aren’t they?”
[In my case, I am genderless. Most fall under neutral. There are occasionally high-ranking spirits that decide their own sex, but… for the most part, gender is a meaningless distinction because it is unnecessary.]
That made sense. I had never heard of spirits getting married, having children, or living domestic lives. Gender would be pointless for them.
“Then a safe, neutral name would be good.”
I wasn’t very good at naming things, so I racked my brain hard, but nothing really came to mind.
So I just said the first thing that popped into my head. Very casually.
“Rai.”