The Sound of a Spirit Being Torn Apart
The fog I had laid down should have kept anyone from seeing what was happening.
“Adore!”
I called out in a whisper. Adore was something of a secret weapon, so I normally avoided summoning the lightning spirit in front of people who knew a lot about spirits.
I had used it once in front of the Shabel Mercenary Company, but they were clueless about spirits, so that didn’t count.
[Focus. There’s an enemy inside the fog.]
[What should I do?]
Adore wasn’t as in sync with me as Undine, so handling him was a bit tricky. I had to explain everything step by step.
[The opponent is holding a sword, so attack that.]
[How?]
[Pour electricity into it!]
[How strong?]
[With everything you’ve got! Ten percent of my mana!]
In such a urgent situation, the fact that he couldn’t understand me right away was enough to drive me insane.
Adore seemed to get the general idea and flew into the fog.
We were in thick mist where you couldn’t see even an inch ahead. The only thing I could hear was the steady tap, tap of Robenin’s footsteps as he crept forward, searching for me.
The next moment, a flash of lightning crackled from my immediate right.
When the hell did he get that close?!
“Ugh!”
A short groan came from right beside me, accompanied by the smell of burning flesh.
Robenin had been completely soaked by water and surrounded by damp fog. He never expected an electric attack, so he took the hit defenseless while holding his sword.
Adore had worked perfectly.
Holding a sword in front of a lightning spirit was no different from holding a lightning rod!
[Adore, one more time!]
[Ten percent?]
[Twenty percent!]
An enormous amount of mana drained out of me again. From within the fog came the sound of Robenin dropping his sword.
At that point, my mana was nearly depleted, so I unsummoned Adore. I figured Undine could easily finish off a lightning-struck Robenin.
—What could possibly be happening inside that fog!
I was already boldly worrying about what excuse I would give if I actually won—how a water spirit master had used an electric attack.
Yes. The very thought that I could win was what invited my defeat.
[Are you alright, Master?]
Undine’s voice reached me.
She was still invisible. I had ordered her to stay that way to conserve even the smallest amount of mana.
[Release the invisibility, Undine.]
I thought it would be fine since we were still inside the fog.
Undine appeared right in front of me. I strained my ears, trying to locate Robenin’s presence.
Where are you, Robenin?
It was only for a brief moment.
The time I spent standing still, searching for his presence.
And if my senses weren’t wrong, he was right behind me.
I spun around in a hurry and tried to retreat, but Robenin bursting out of the fog with his sword raised was far faster.
This is bad.
It was too late to run.
His sword was charred pitch-black, and Sword Aura shimmered along its edge.
His sudden appearance startled me so badly that for a split second, I couldn’t think clearly.
I barely had any mana left. I didn’t even have time to shout an order.
All I could do was desperately wish.
I wished for Undine to understand my intent immediately.
Protect me, Undine.
Protect me.
[Master!]
I squeezed my eyes shut, thinking that getting stabbed by that sword would be better than surrendering and surviving unscathed.
But then came the sound of something being ripped apart.
I wasn’t hurt anywhere.
Instead, an intense chill ran across my entire body. An unfamiliar dread swept over me and took control.
Completely helpless, I felt tears welling up. Not understanding what was happening, I frantically opened my eyes.
And I saw Undine, torn to shreds.
[Master…….]
That small body, ripped into pieces…….
“Undine!”
The spirit’s body, sliced by Sword Aura, burst apart in a grotesque explosion.
The sight filled my entire field of vision.
This wasn’t what I meant when I told her to protect me.
Robenin raised his sword again, aiming for me, but I barely managed to slip out of its path.
It wasn’t that I dodged. My body simply collapsed.
I crumpled to the ground on my own.
The shock was so overwhelming I couldn’t even breathe.
The sound of a spirit being torn apart—for the first time in my life—the forced unsummoning of Undine from the impact, and the immense mental blow were so devastating that I didn’t even register the blood surging up my throat.
Still on my knees, I vomited a mouthful of blood onto the marble floor.
“Cough, ugh……”
I kept coughing up blood over the puddle of water.
It kept pouring from my nose and mouth no matter how hard I tried to cover it with my hands. I couldn’t stop it.
My consciousness flickered.
I could tell my internal injuries were far worse than before.
It felt like my organs were being wrung out and then bursting open.
What I was feeling now was only the tiniest fraction of the pain Undine had endured.
Gasping, hunched over and spitting blood, I suddenly felt familiar arms lift me up and slap my cheek.
“Jeanie!”
Was it Instructor Ielito? Or not? I couldn’t tell.
“Snap out of it!”
When I barely managed to open my eyes, all I saw was a clear blue sky.
Because Undine had disappeared, the fog had lifted as well.
The last thing I saw before losing consciousness was Robenin.
Robenin Pedri, with that indifferent expression.
He looked like he had completely lost interest in me.
***
When I opened my eyes again, I was crying.
I had been trapped in a nightmare the entire time.
Undine.
Undine.
No matter how desperately I called, she wouldn’t come to me.
The more I called her name, the more the emptiness tore at me. The fact that she wouldn’t come became an agony that ripped me apart.
She was supposed to be by my side.
She had never once ignored my call. I couldn’t bear it, so I kept crying.
“Instructor.”
“Jeanie……”
“It’s not working. I can’t summon her. She won’t come.”
I called for Undine without pause, fell into despair without pause, and then lost consciousness in Instructor Ielito’s arms. This cycle repeated for days on end.
Buried in fear and sorrow that Undine might have been extinguished, I spent my days sobbing into my pillow.
Some days I cried so hard from guilt and regret that it felt like I would throw up.
“We choose our masters.”
Rai’s words kept echoing in my mind.
“An immature master may cause us to perish, but that too is the price of our choice.”
“Our master’s weakness becomes entirely our burden.”
“Master, a spirit’s soul oath is exactly that. In human terms, it’s no different from staking your life.”
There were countless kinds of sorrow in losing something, each with its own depth. But after becoming a Spirit Master, after communicating with spirits and accepting them as another part of myself, there was no sorrow in the world greater than this.
Some Spirit Masters described it as comparable to the emptiness of losing a child.
It was a kind of sickness that belonged only to us Spirit Masters.
Our flaw. Our weakness.
If I had been a regular mage, I never would have felt this tearing pain and grief.
“I like you, Master.”
“I’ll work even harder!”
“Master.”
At the end of my tears, I reached a conclusion.
Robenin Pedri.
That son of a bitch.
***
Even after returning to Dmitry, I suffered severely for over a month.
Once I finally recovered, I received more congratulations than comfort.
The dean called me forward to present an award in front of the entire school, but I ignored it and shut myself in my room, refusing to come out.
Winning the elementary division tournament meant absolutely nothing to me.
All that remained was a humiliation I never wanted to experience again in my life.
“Lady Jeanie, you did more than enough. Truly! It’s been a full ten years since Drike Academy produced a champion. You should be proud.”
The only one who seemed to understand even a little of how I felt was Instructor Iel, another Spirit Master. Even he could only sympathize with the fact that I had lost Undine.
“No. I feel wronged and furious.”
“Who could possibly defeat Robenin Pedri? That fight was decided from the start.”
“You don’t understand, Instructor!”
“Lady Jeanie.”
“If I hadn’t acted like an idiot, I could have won! Undine wouldn’t have ended up like that either!”
No one blamed me or criticized me for losing to Robenin.
On the contrary, they praised me for catching his eye enough to receive a duel challenge and for lasting as long as I did in the match.
But all of that only made me angrier.
“Please stop blaming yourself. Everyone says Lady Jeanie was truly incredible……”
“I don’t care how other people see it! The fact that I lost is humiliating enough!”
“Of course, of course I understand that feeling. I know very well how strong your pride is, Lady Jeanie.
But Duke Pedri’s son is a genius who is expected to become a Sword Master before he turns twenty, you know?”
“Who decided that? Who said it’s okay to lose to Robenin Pedri!”
I was in an absolutely foul mood, and to me, that bastard’s name had become something like a taboo.
Friends and teachers alike tiptoed around me, trying to soothe my temper, but there was no one who could soothe my difficult disposition.
For a while, I was like a festering boil within the academy.
“That’s right! Did you see the gifts His Majesty the King sent to honor Lady Jeanie’s achievement?
He was apparently very pleased and said to provide you with anything you might need in the future. And the prize money bestowed by the emperor was enormous, wasn’t it?”
“I hate all of it.”
“Oh dear… Come now. Have I ever told you how proud I am to be your teacher?”
“Just give me some paper. And a pen.”
“What are you going to do?”
It was two months after returning to Dmitry that I finally put an end to the anger that had been boiling inside me with nowhere to go.
“I’m going to write a letter to His Majesty the King.”
After hearing about a hundred comments that were either praising me or praising that Robenin bastard.
“I’m going to request a training room.”
There were Upper Spirit Masters who could command Upper Spirits, beings evaluated as equal to Sword Masters.
There was no reason I couldn’t do what Robenin had done.