The Transforming Spirit Girl Idol
"There's plenty I'd like to say first, but..."
For now, just one question.
"Are you out of your mind?"
"I'm perfectly sane."
"Yeah, right. A sane person wants to turn a Spirit Contractor into an idol?"
If you were going to make someone an idol, why not just pick a pretty girl instead of a Spirit Contractor?
Incredulous, I put the question to Hyewon. She shook her head as she answered.
"There's no way an ordinary person could ever beat an Awakener's looks, right?"
"Well... true enough."
Mana isn't just for show. Mana is will—the manifestation of will. And since humans basically want to look prettier or cooler, Awakeners inevitably get an appearance buff. That much I couldn't argue.
"Even so, a Spirit Contractor? There are plenty of other kinds of Awakeners out there."
"Hold on. Don't think so negatively just yet—hear me out first."
"Go on. Bark."
"Bark... ugh. Fine. I get it, okay?"
Hyewon took a few steadying breaths, then pulled out a tablet and held up a screen.
"This is... footage from the Hero Party, isn't it? The Spirit Contractor side—Elysia, or whatever her name is."
"You recognized it right away because you're a Spirit Contractor too, didn't you?"
"Not really that."
Just...
More like I never want to see her again.
"She suddenly demanded I release my spirit, then slapped me across both cheeks."
"Huh...?"
"And she's a racist. A bit of a white-supremacist, too."
"Eeh?"
"That's why there's no Black person in their party."
"Ahaha! You're joking right now, aren't you?"
"........."
"...You are joking, right?"
A Spirit Contractor cannot lie. Every lie comes back as karma, one by one. That means you have to stay honest even about likes and dislikes, and never put on airs. If you care about the quality of your soul at all, that kind of crap will get you killed.
"Wait a second. Then why is she still stuck with the 'Hero'? That guy's Korean!"
"Probably found racial consistency in his face."
"Ah...!"
As the saying goes, the racial consistency carved into a face transcends race itself.
Hyewon looked like she'd lost her words. She hung her head and trembled in the fingers.
"Then the reason she never accepted my proposal before..."
"Probably cussed you out for daring to make an offer when you're just some primitive Asian end-of-the-line monkey."
"...Is that really true?"
"The bitch I saw had more than enough personality for it."
"..........."
Hyewon fell silent again.
People call her an elf because she looks like one on the surface, and they're not wrong. That's exactly what she is. Behind her back they trash her as a phony elf. A racist phony-elf bitch who supposedly spends every night spreading her legs for an Asian monkey, or so the gossip goes. Point is, nothing good comes from digging too deep.
"So. What's the big deal about this bitch fighting?"
"Ah... right. Just a moment?"
Hyewon slapped her own cheeks a few times and snapped back into work mode. She hit play. The video that began rolling showed Elysia summoning all four great spirits and throwing them into battle.
Utterly inefficient.
Nothing but surface-level flash. She was even summoning reverse-affinity spirits to fight with. It looked spectacular and the techniques were huge, so why did it still feel so empty of substance?
Talent or not, her natural mana capacity was massive and high-quality, so it probably didn't matter—but watching her made it clear all over again that Spirit Contractor is a job where talent is nine-tenths of everything.
"So... what do you think? Isn't it beautiful?"
"It's a style-obsessed fashion victim, that's what."
"But beauty from the audience's perspective is what matters. Look at this one too."
Another clip. On-screen, Elysia looked like she'd made some kind of resolve as she summoned a spirit and slowly merged it into her body. Brilliant light rose from her entire form; she transformed into one enormous spirit and began spewing great plumes of flame.
"Spirit Union. That's what the fandom calls it."
"Not pure style for style's sake... but the aftereffects of that have got to be brutal."
"What?"
"Hm?"
Our eyes met—each of us looking like the other had just said something insane. I leaned slowly back in the chair and rested a hand over my chest.
Let's see...
For this, that one was the right choice.
"『Seiren』"
A surge—!
Blue waves began to roil across the wooden desk. At first they were gentle ripples; then they swelled and swelled until, from their center, a blue-water form of a creature (?) burst free.
"O-o-o-o-oh———!!!"
"Kyaaak...?!"
"Whoa there."
She shot skyward with a full-throated cry of pure energy—
Krrrrrrrumble!
"——Bleeeegh!!"
—and slammed her head straight into the ceiling. Of course the ceiling had light fixtures installed, so—
Zzzzzzzzt!
"A-aaaaahhhhh!!!!"
A clean electrocution. Only after she had become a golden-brown deep-fried snack did Seiren drop to the floor. Being fried had apparently wicked the moisture out nicely: crispy on the outside, moist on the inside, and her body size had shrunk to roughly half of mine.
"Ow! It huuurts!!"
"That's what you get for launching the second you come out."
"It huuurts....."
"There, there. I know. Just stop crying—if you cry, every single person in this training center is going to pass out."
I stroked her head gently, and only then did Seiren quiet down. The moist, slippery feel of her skin reminded me of a dolphin. Hard to believe this was the same girl who'd once been covered in rough scales—
"—She looks like Milotic, doesn't she? The skin, the color..."
"Right down to how she was a grimy, scale-covered fish until she evolved."
Honestly, even back then she'd been small and cute, and above all useful as a weapon. Later on she'd hated being used as a weapon, worked at something furiously, watched TV once, and ended up like this. As long as she got stronger I didn't care what she became.
"Seiren. Can you come into my body for a second?"
"...Really? Really really?"
"Just don't go completely wild."
"Wa...waah, waaaaah!!!"
Seiren flapped both arms, fins slapping the wooden desk with a sound that broadcast exactly how happy she was.
I, on the other hand, am not thrilled.
Still, showing is faster than telling. I needed her to understand there was a reason I could do this and still chose not to.
I laid a hand on Seiren's head.
"Going iiiin———!"
"Ugh.....!"
Seiren dissolved into a blue, water-like aura. She slipped and wriggled her way inside me, spreading her own domain through my body. The sensation of another force seeping into my mana pathways and forcibly expanding them never got easier no matter how many times I did it.
Still, Seiren is one of the better ones.
Because she was a water spirit, the shock to my mana pathways was comparatively light. Any of the others would have left residual damage, cooked the pathways hot, or tried to rewrite the nature of my mana to suit their own tastes.
Feeling as if I were sinking into the deep sea, I slowly opened my eyes and looked forward.
"...This is the 'Spirit Union' that Elysia bitch uses. You following?"
"..............."
"Hyewon?"
Why was she suddenly staring at me like she'd checked out? Had she assumed I couldn't use Spirit Union? Her cheeks looked flushed, too—maybe she was embarrassed.
"You listening?"
"Ah—yes! Yes! Yes yes! I'm listening?!"
"...You okay? Something hurt?"
"I'm at absolute peak condition, so please keep going."
"Right... well, fine."
If she said she was fine, what was I supposed to do? I continued the earlier conversation while displaying my spirit-transformed body.
"Spirit Union itself does grant huge power. The spirit enters the mana hall that determines a Spirit Contractor's output and expands it by that much, so the output jumps. On top of that, the body itself becomes half spirit. Physical attacks become nearly ineffective—you get close to invincible."
"If it's invincible, why only 'close to' invincible?"
"Because lunatics who can cut souls show up from time to time. And you're weak to swords coated in holy power."
Those attacks hit the spirit directly, so of course.
"But barring special cases like that, you can handle just about anything. Output rises by the spirit's power, so you can also use it as a last resort."
"That's an incredible technique."
"It is. Which is why I barely use it."
"What? But Elysia—"
"—That's because that bitch is completely insane."
"............."
A blank, bewildered look. I spoke to Seiren inside me.
That's enough. Come out.
Already? Seiren still wants to play...
Even if I wanted to play with you, I can't while you're inside me.
Seiren likes it here!
Then I can't stroke your head, can I?
....You have to stroke it?
Seiren extracted a cute little promise from me and flowed back out of my body.
"Huuuh, hah, haaaa....."
It felt like a balloon that had been forcibly overinflated slowly deflating. On top of that, my whole body ached and creaked; every joint between bone and bone throbbed.
"Ah......"
"...What is it this time."
"Nothing at all."
"Whatever you say."
Anyway, back to the earlier point.
"First, the drawbacks of Spirit Union."
Most representative: the load on the mana hall and mana pathways is enormous.
"Because the spirit enters the Spirit Contractor's mana hall directly, you need days of rest after one use—weeks if you push it. Push any harder and it hurts like the mana hall is about to shatter."
"So it doesn't actually break?"
"Who knows? I've been told it cracks right to the edge of breaking, so never use it."
"...You're okay right now, though?"
"I don't use it unless I have to."
A last resort is a last resort for a reason.
"On top of that, once the mana hall and pathways expand, the body has to carry that load—so the body gets wrecked too."
Even now my blood vessels felt more than twice as swollen. An Awakener's physique could endure it, but holding it for long was impossible.
"And then there's the absolute worst-case scenario. You probably know this one too."
Britain.
S-Class boss monster.
The worst witch in history—Morgan.
"The academic journals say she was originally human."
"Human...?"
"More precisely, a spirit that seized a human body."
"..........."
Only then did Hyewon's face turn serious. A dozen thoughts seemed to race through her in a short span, so I waved a hand and continued.
"That almost never happens unless something extreme is going on. Spirits can have rotten personalities, but they almost never go out of their way to fuck someone over just for the hell of it."
"But 'almost never' isn't 'never.'"
"True. But people are the same, aren't they?"
Treat a person like shit and they'll come at you ready to die together. If humans are like that, why would spirits be any different?
"That's why you don't make a Spirit Contractor into an idol. Do you think keeping spirits in a good mood is easy?"
And another thing. How the hell do you look at a Spirit Contractor and jump straight to the keyword 'idol'?
"...though."
"What?"
The question came out pure from sheer disbelief. Hyewon kept her head bowed and mumbled.
"A transforming spirit-girl idol... I thought it was a good idea..."
"............"
Ah. So that was it.
"You must've been deeply moved by Pretty Cure."
I never expected the words 'magical girl'—no, 'spirit girl'—to come out of that mouth. Elementary-school boys are definitely watching that show behind their parents' backs.