The Ice Spirit's Scorn
“[I cannot acknowledge you as my master.]”
“Huh? Why? This has never happened before.”
Whether it was the arrogance of someone who had never been rejected before, I had assumed the ice spirit would naturally accept a contract with me.
But perhaps that had been nothing more than hubris.
“[You are… insignificant… and lacking… human.]”
—Fssssst.
The little mana I had left quickly ran dry. The ice spirit’s voice grew fainter with each passing moment. I grew frantic, yet there was no way to hold onto a being that was already fading away.
“Hey! Wait a second! It’s only because I’m low on mana right now. Normally I’m way better than this!”
“[……I refuse.]”
“What’s the problem?! Just tell me!”
“[Everything about you…… is trivial…….]”
“Hold on!”
This couldn’t be happening.
“No way! It’s gone.”
The spirit I had barely managed to summon had rejected me, insulted me, and vanished without a trace—as if I had only imagined the entire encounter.
Staring at the empty space where the ice pillar had stood, I muttered in a daze.
“What the hell……!”
[Master, forget about such an arrogant creature. You already have me, don’t you?]
“How could it do that?! It actually rejected me!”
[Well, you already have Undine and that Adore fellow. From the ice spirit’s perspective, you must look completely saturated. You don’t have the spare capacity to contract with any more spirits. Honestly, even contracting Adore should have been impossible…… but that one forced itself on you.]
“……It called me insignificant.”
Rai kept offering words of comfort, but none of them reached me. The ice spirit’s cold parting words kept replaying in my head, leaving me mortified and ashamed. They forced me to confront just how conceited and arrogant I had been, slapping me across the face with cold reality.
“Ha…… It really did call me trivial.”
I ground my teeth. I couldn’t accept this situation so easily. The humiliation was so intense that tears welled up in my eyes. Apparently my pride was far stronger—and far uglier—than I had thought.
[Master…… Are you crying?]
“Just you wait! I’ll make that bastard pay!”
[Those lines make you sound like a villain, so perhaps you should stop……]
“Aaaagh! I’ll definitely contract it and work it like a dog!”
[Still sounds like a villain.]
I was trembling with rage while Rai shook its head in exasperation. In the middle of the room, the blue spirit stone continued to glow with its usual shameless, prickly light.
“You’ll pay dearly for rejecting me!”
***
Every trial in this world was like this—something I had never wanted.
The entire world spun violently. I couldn’t even stand upright.
“Hngh…… nyah……”
“Hey, what’s wrong with her?”
“Uwaaah……”
I tried to speak properly, but my mouth produced only strange noises and my body refused to keep its balance. It wasn’t as if I wanted to look like an idiot on purpose.
The damn warp magic was the problem. I couldn’t avoid using it, yet every single time I did, I was hit with brutal motion sickness.
“Are you all right, Jeanie? You look worse than when we warped to Lermali.”
Typical of the alchemy class, Iruse’s observation was precise. I was far dizzier, more nauseous, and closer to death than I had been during the warp from Valen to Lermali. The severity of warp sickness seemed directly proportional to the distance traveled.
Unable to hold my heavy head up any longer, I had no choice but to lean against Iruse. Even standing still, the ground lurched and the sky swayed; I felt like I would throw up at any moment.
“Teacher Irito! Jeanie looks like she’s about to die!”
“Goodness, you can’t say things like that, Iruse!”
“But her eyes are spinning in circles?”
I had taken motion-sickness medicine before warping to Elan, but it had been completely useless. Maybe because this wasn’t ordinary motion sickness caused by physical movement.
People who suffered from warp sickness were apparently very rare. So why did it have to be me?
It was infuriating, but since it was something I had been born with, there was no way to fix it. Unless I was reborn, warp sickness would remain an inseparable part of me.
For the rest of my life!
“If you’re like this every time we warp, this is going to be a serious problem, Miss Ji. Climb onto my back.”
“Th-thank you……”
My mind was clear, but my body wouldn’t obey. There was no greater torment than that. Teacher Irito now treated me like a patient as a matter of course. Normally I would have refused, but I was in no position to be picky. I slumped forward and climbed onto her back.
[Master, breathe. Breathe!]
[Damn it. If I ever use warp magic again, I’m not human……]
[Pardon? If you’re not human, then what?]
[……I still have to use it on the way back, so I’ll postpone that oath for now!]
My condition was a wreck thanks to the horrific motion sickness, but at least we had finally arrived at our destination—Elan.
***
Late evening.
Once I sank my exhausted body into the water, I finally felt alive again.
“Haa…… A bath really is the best cure for travel fatigue.”
In this world, soaking in a bathtub was quite a luxurious act. Enjoying it was, in itself, a very aristocratic habit. Most commoners bathed once a month at best, and even then they usually just wiped themselves down with a damp cloth or washed their faces. Bathing meant submerging oneself in a lake or river instead.
Bathtubs themselves were luxury items, not daily necessities. The lack of frequent washing probably also stemmed from a shortage of clean water.
“Undine? Could you add a little more water?”
[Yes, Master.]
But I remembered a world where baths had been part of everyday life, and fortunately I was now a water spirit master. For me, water was something I could use as much as I wanted—little different from dirt that came out of the ground.
After piling foam high on my head and sinking deep into the water, an old-man-like sigh escaped me.
“Uuuugh…… Now I feel like I can live again.”
Playing around in the water with Undine was the most enjoyable time of my day.
[Master! Master.]
“Hm?”
While I was watching Undine make bubbles inside the tub, Rai crawled up onto the rim, its eyes sparkling as it flicked its tongue.
[There are an awful lot of humans out on the streets. Did you see?]
“Well, this is the imperial capital. And it’s festival season, so of course it’s packed.”
[Everyone looked like they were having fun.]
“Really?”
[Why don’t you go out and take a look, Master? It might lift your spirits a little……]
“Lift my spirits, my ass! Thinking about all the suffering this damn festival has caused me so far—!”
The good mood the bath had given me instantly turned to mud. I trembled and punched the surface of the water.
Splash!
“If you think about it, everything happened because of this festival! I nearly died running into the Bee Swarm! I nearly died getting chased by orcs! None of that would have happened if I’d just stayed inside the academy!”
[Uh, but you said you hated the academy……]
“What kind of insane world is this?! It’s only been two weeks since I came out into the outside world and I’ve already nearly died twice!”
[It is true that you tend to attract incidents wherever you go, Master.]
“What?”
[If there were such a thing as an Accident Spirit, I’m certain it would want to contract with you.]
This little bastard really had no filter these days. Furious, I grabbed it by the neck and shook it, but Rai wasn’t the type to be scared of that. What it feared were cesspits and Iruse.
[Aaaah, Master, your personality seems to have gotten even worse lately.]
I dunked it into the water out of sheer exhaustion, but Rai looked completely unbothered. Water torture didn’t work on it because it wasn’t actually a living snake. The white serpent submerged in the water simply glowed with its bright red eyes as if nothing had happened.
[You already know this. No matter what you do, I take no damage. I’m not a real breathing creature, after all.]
“Damn it!”
Yet it was still ridiculously good at getting under my skin like a real snake. Unable to contain my temper, I hurled Rai out of the tub with all my strength. It slammed into the nearby wall, but showed no sign of impact—only the wall cracked. Unfazed, Rai crawled right back toward me.
What the hell was it made of to be that sturdy?!
[Ah, I see. You’re angry because of that spirit, aren’t you?]