The next day, we all headed off toward the guild together.
Yumina's clothes were too showy for her to be wearing around in public, so
she had borrowed some clothes from Elze and Linze.
She wore a white blouse with a blue ribbon, and a black top over that. She
also wore a dark blue culotte skirt and black knee socks. They suited her quite
well considering they were borrowed clothes, though they still seemed a little
big for her.
She had also bunched her long blond hair into one large braid so that her
movements were less restricted.
Personally, I had been worried that her heterochromia would be the thing to
give her away, but apparently heterochromia wasn't a sign of having Mystic
Eyes.
And so, we'd succeeded in making her look like a normal girl. Well, her looks
were still champion-class, which made it hard to classify her as a normal girl, so
it was difficult to judge her based on such standards.
"I've been wondering for a while now, but if Touya and Yumina got married,
wouldn't that make Touya next in line for the throne?" Elze pondered.
"Yes, that's right. I'd be happy if that ever came to pass. But in order to make
that a reality, we'd need to have the nobles and the citizens approve of him
first. On the other hand, if my parents were to give me a little brother, he would
be the next to inherit the throne instead." On the way to the guild, I happened
to overhear Elze and Yumina's conversation. I prayed from the bottom of my
heart for Yumina to get a kid brother.
I'm beggin' ya, King, you've gotta get this girl a younger brother, stat! I'll even
look up the recipe for stamina drinks on my smartphone for you... No, damn it,
not this pattern again! Making plans like that is the same as admitting defeat in
this marriage tug-of-war!
"Just so you know, I really have no intention of becoming the king of
anywhere."
"I'm aware of that. The same would hold true if my uncle had a son, or even
if, um, i-if our child was a boy, th-then he would be the one to succeed the
throne!"
Really, you're pulling out "if our child was a boy"?! Also, don't go blushing
when you're the one that said it! Now you're making me feel embarrassed!
Before dropping by the guild, we took a detour to the weapon shop, Eight
Bears, so we could get Yumina set up with the appropriate equipment. When I
asked if she had any money on her, Yumina took out a jangling bag of coins and
said that her father had given it to her as a parting gift. I had a really bad feeling
about that, and sure enough, when I opened the bag to check, it was filled with
fifty platinum coins. Back in my world that would've been about fifty million
yen... Bit much for a parting gift, wouldn't you say...?
Once in the store, I asked Barral to show us his selection of bows. His
selection wasn't as varied as those stores in the capital, but they still stocked
some high-quality weapons. Yumina picked up a few bows and tested the
bowstrings intently. In the end, she went with a light, M-shaped composite
bow.
Rather than prioritize firing distance, she went with a bow that was easy to
handle and quick to shoot with. Made sense, really. She probably couldn't
handle a huge longbow properly at her height and build.
She also bought a quiver, which came with a set of one hundred arrows.
Finally, she bought a white leather breastplate and matching white boots.
Alrighty then, looks like we're just about ready to roll out.
We took Yumina into the guild office, which was bustling with life like always.
Another thing that was just like always was the number of intimidating gazes
locking onto me. In fact, some of the male adventurers shot me some
particularly nasty glances.
At first I'd had no idea why that kept happening to me every time I went
there, but by that point I understood all too well.
You didn't have to look very hard to tell that Elze, Linze — and Yae, too —
were all beautiful girls. And I was the "lucky fella" who was in the same party as
all those cute girls. This was why I, in particular, was the object of their
resentment. Their gazes stung like daggers from all directions.
To tell the truth, there had already been a few incidents where other
adventurers had come up to me and said and done things like "People like you
really piss me off" or "Come lend me your face for a second." Guess they were
trying to knock me down a peg or whatever it was those types of people do in
this world. Naturally, I politely declined by making them pass out, but the real
solution to it all was to just not even give people like that the time of day.
I guided Yumina over to the receptionist's desk and helped her through the
registration process. Meanwhile, Elze and the others went to go look over the
details of some of the currently available requests.
When Yumina's registration was complete, she and I made our way back to
the rest of the group to find Elze holding a Green-level request paper.
"Did you manage to find a reasonable one?"
"Hmm... I guess I just thought this one might make for a decent starting
point." She handed me the paper. It was a monster hunting mission. Let's see
here...
"Defeat five King Apes... What kind of monster were they again?"
"They're basically just large apes. They tend to move in groups and attack
using pack tactics. They're fairly unintelligent monsters, so traps are highly
effective against them. The only thing to watch out for is their sheer brute force
attacks. Based on our experiences so far, I believe we can defeat them without
a problem." So they were a type of monster that relied on brute force. Still, for
monsters with "King" in their name to form groups struck me as really weird.
Such thoughts drifted through my mind as I listened to Linze's explanation, and
I passed the request paper over to Yumina.
"Well? Thoughts?"
"Not a problem. Let's accept this one." Our Guild Card was the Adventurer's
Green, whereas Yumina's was the Beginner's Black. There was no real need to
bring her along on one of our higher level requests, but Yumina insisted, so we
simply gave in to her demands.
I recalled that the ranks went in ascending order of Black, Purple, Green, Blue,
Red, Silver, and Gold. Basically:
Black - Beginner.
Purple - Adventurer-in-training.
Green - Adventurer.
Blue - Veteran Adventurer.
Red - First-rate Adventurer.
Silver - Elite Adventurer.
Gold - Hero.
And that was what the ranks were like. Naturally, every time you went up a
rank, the time it took to ascend to the next one got longer and longer.
Incidentally, there were no Gold Rank adventurers in the whole country,
apparently. Seemed that Heroes weren't exactly all that easy to come across.
For the time being, we took the King Ape extermination request to the
receptionist and officially accepted it. The location was somewhere to the
south, across the Alain River.
Unfortunately, we had never been that far south before, so we couldn't just
use my [Gate] spell to drop us off right where we needed to be like we usually
did. Instead, we settled for renting a wagon.
Elze and Linze sat up front in the driver's seat, while Yae, Yumina, and I sat in
the back. By the way, it turned out Yumina was good with horses, too. Even
though she was a princess. No, maybe because she was a princess? Was she
used to traveling long-distance? It might've just been that those who couldn't
handle horses were the minority in this world...
"Hrmm... We're renting wagons a lot these days. Maybe it's about time we
just went and bought one?"
"There are all kinds of wagons, but even the cheapest would cost a fair bit,
they would. Not to mention the need to look after the horses, yes. And we
certainly could not leave a wagon parked up at the Silver Moon all the time, not
at all." Yae had a point. There were both merits and demerits to owning a
wagon. Hell, I didn't know how to look after a horse. Someone like that
definitely shouldn't be allowed to keep a horse of his own.
Three hours passed as we chatted idly in the back of the wagon, before we
finally crossed the Alain River and arrived at the southern woods.
Now, where were those King Apes? It would've been nice if my [Search]
magic located them, but if they were within range of that spell, then we'd have
noticed them already even without having to cast it. I also had [Long Sense] at
my disposal, but that spell worked sort of like creating a double of one's self
which took the shape of heightened senses, meaning I'd be the only one
searching through the forest. There was certainly less danger that way, though.
Looking at my smartphone's map, it was a surprisingly large forest, too. It'd
be fairly difficult to find one type of monster in particular in a place that large.
Wasn't exactly like I could use the search function on my phone's map to find
animals or monsters, either...
We had no choice but to search the forest on foot. But just as we were about
to do so, Yumina stopped us.
"Sorry, do you think I could use my Summoning magic before we head into
the forest?"
"Summoning magic? You're gonna call on a contracted beast?"
"Yes, that's right. I think I have just the thing to help track down those King
Apes." Yumina made some space between us and began her incantation.
"Come forth, Dark! I seek the proud beasts wrapped in silver: [Silver Wolf]!"
When she finished the incantation, a number of Silver Wolves rose out from the
shadows at Yumina's feet. Five in total. Each was about one meter from head to
tail. They wagged their tails happily as they raced in circles around their
summoner. Out of them all, one of the wolves in particular was slightly larger
than the rest, and it had a cross-shaped mark on its forehead.
"I'll have these boys look for the monsters. We're mentally linked so that
even if we're apart I'll be able to tell immediately once they've found the
enemy."
I see... Dogs... no, uh, wolves had a good sense of smell. They'd probably be
able to find the monsters we were looking for quite quickly.
"Alright boys, I'm counting on you!" They barked in affirmation at Yumina's
order and dashed off into the forest. So this was Summoning magic. I had
wondered back during the Lizardman incident, but could I summon creatures
like that, too? I decided to ask Yumina while we made our way through the
forest.
"It all comes down to whether or not you can form a contract with the
creature you've summoned. If you can form a contract, then you'll be able to
summon and control that monster at will. The condition for contracting with
those wolves was fairly simple, so I had no problems with them at all. Some of
the conditions for contracting a monster include fighting it to show off your
own strength or even just answering a question correctly. They can vary quite
wildly. But as a rule of thumb, the stronger the monster, the harder it is to keep
them under your control." Right then. So the stronger the summoned beast you
wanted, the harsher the conditions for contracting with them were. Though I
guess that was just stating the obvious.
I was searching the surroundings as such thoughts rolled through my head
when Yumina came to a sudden halt.
"...Looks like one of them found the enemy. Hmm, there are more of them
than the request stipulated... Seven in total."
"Seven, huh...? How do you wanna do it, then? We only really need to beat up
five for the request." Elze beat her gauntlets together with a loud clang.
"We should probably take care of all of them, just to be safe. If even a single
one gets away, there's a chance it could return with backup." I agreed with
Linze's opinion. There was always the chance that there were more than just
seven in the area. We should charge in and take care of them as swiftly as
possible.
"Yumina, any chance you'd be able to lure those King Apes over this way
somehow?"
"I can, but... do you have a plan?"
"Let's set up some traps. We can make some pitfalls using Earth magic." After
Yumina and I used our Earth magic to set up a few pitfalls, I hid in the shadow of
a tree. Before long we all heard a loud roar, and Yumina's wolves came rushing
past with several large apes charging after them.
They were slightly larger than gorillas and had larger teeth, with pointed ears
and red eyes. They chased after the wolves looking utterly ferocious.
The wolves leaped over the hidden pitfalls and perfectly avoided the traps.
Not questioning their behavior in the least, the King Apes charged forward with
reckless abandon and fell straight into the traps.
"Goh-gruagh?!"
"Now!" Spotting our chance, Yae, Elze and I leaped out from behind the trees.
There were three apes caught in the traps. They were buried in up to their
chests and struggling to climb their way out.
One of those apes was immediately hit with an arrow to the eye. Must've
been Yumina. Approaching from the monster's now-blind spot, Yae sliced open
an artery in its neck.
"Come forth, Fire! Whirling Spiral: [Fire Storm]!" The remaining two in the
traps were devoured by the firestorm that Linze had called forth. Burned
completely black but still alive, Elze and I finished them off.
The other four King Apes came charging at us before we even had time to
catch our breath. They came at us while wildly swinging their huge, bulky arms,
roaring all the while and causing small tremors in the earth.
"[Slip]."
"Grruaaah?!" The King Ape that I'd aimed for tumbled to the ground with all
of its momentum as soon as my spell hit it. Before it could get back up, a storm
of arrows pierced its large frame. As a final blow, Yae put all of her body weight
behind one thrust aimed at the beast's chest, piercing straight through its heart.
"[Boost]!" Elze activated her magic nearby and charged straight at one of the
other King Apes, before delivering a series of tremendously heavy blows to its
abdomen. Unable to withstand her brutal onslaught, the ape collapsed to the
ground and Yumina's wolves came rushing out to finish the job. Two left.
"Come forth, Lightning! Pure Sparking Javelin: [Thunder Spear]!"
"Come forth, Fire! Crimson Javelin of Flames: [Fire Spear]!" Yumina and
Linze's magic shot forth. Two magical spears glided through the air — one
Wind-type, and one Fire-type — and hit the bullseye smack bang in the center
of the apes' chests. Both of the apes dropped to the ground, writhing and
spitting out their death rattles as they collapsed.
Whoa, that's incredible. Looked like Yumina's magic was at least as powerful
as Linze's. With the two of them together, they were even better than me with
the main six magic elements. Apparently my problem was that I didn't have
very good control of my magical output, and as a direct result I had yet to
acquire even a single high-tier spell. Offensive magic was particularly difficult
for me. Well, at least I was fairly proficient with Light-type magic.
We had wiped out all seven of the King Apes. Our battle was over for the time
being. We'd taken care of that more easily than I'd expected.
The five summoned wolves leaped back into Yumina's shadow and
disappeared.
"Umm, how did I do?" What Yumina was trying to ask was, had she held us
back in any way during that skirmish. Honestly, it was the complete opposite.
She had proven herself a great asset to the party. I had no idea that covering
fire could be so effective.
"No problems skill-wise, that's for sure," Elze barked out enthusiastically.
"Your magic was also, erm, quite impressive..."
"As I suspected, long-ranged support is incredibly helpful, it is." All of them
approved of her abilities in succession. They all made valid points, but... I still
didn't feel good about exposing a twelve year old girl to such a dangerous
environment... Hrmmm.
The girl in question intruded on my deep thoughts by staring at me at length
with an anxious expression. Now see here, those puppy-dog eyes are against the
rules! ...She couldn't be doing this on purpose, could she?
"...I'll be counting on your support from now on, Yumina."
"Of course! Leave it to me, Touya!" Yumina wrapped herself around me with
the biggest smile on her face. Whoa, hey, time out! Could you at least not do
that while everyone's watching?! Once I finally managed to pry Yumina off of
me, we set about collecting the King Apes' ears as proof that we'd fulfilled the
request.
"But now that Yumina has joined the party, that makes four girls with me as
the only boy here..." I let out a little sigh.
"Umm, is that a problem at all?" Linze tilted her head. The fact that she didn't
get what I meant was a problem in itself.
"It doesn't look like you three have noticed at all, but we really stand out at
the guild... and the harsh looks I get from the other adventurers really sting."
"Hm? Why would that be happening, Touya-dono?"
"Well, I mean, if a guy's surrounded by cute girls all the time, then there's any
number of people who'd get jealous. And come on, Elze and Linze, and Yae too,
you're all exceptionally good looking, you know?"
"What?!" "E-Excuse me?" "Whatever do you...?" Everyone froze up. What?
Was it something I said? It's true, though. If I were one of those guys at the guild
and I saw some guy coming and going, always with some cute girls in tow, even
I'd get pretty jealous.
"Wh-What are you even saying, Touya? I still don't get your sense of humor.
It's mean to tease and call me cute like that..." Elze muttered, clearly flustered
by my words.
"Huh? I was serious."
"..." "..." "..." Why's everyone turning bright red? Are they coming down with
fevers or something? "A-Anyway, we should r-really be getting back now, d-ddon't you think?!"
"W-We s-sure should, Sis!"
"L-Let us be on our way, i-indeed!" The three of them marched off,
backtracking through the forest. ...What just happened?
I felt a gentle tugging on the sleeve of my coat.
"Touya, what about me? Am I cute?"
"Huh? Well, I mean, yeah. Of course you are."
"Ehehe..." Yumina blushed, grinned, and wrapped her arms around me.
Please stop doing that, this is bad for my heart! Eventually we made it back to
the wagon. I cast [Gate], and we were back in Reflet in the blink of an eye.
So, how about that Summoning magic, eh...? My first exposure to it had been
that man summoning swarms of Lizardmen, which gave me a fairly bad
impression of Dark-type spells. For that reason, I hadn't tried dabbling in it at
all. But since I learned that there were animals like Yumina's wolves among the
creatures that could be contracted, I decided that it might not be a bad idea to
try contracting myself with a single monster just to test the waters a little. I
should have Yumina teach me more about it later.
◇ ◇ ◇
"The first thing to do when handling the Summoning spells unique to Darktype magic is to draw a magic circle and then summon a creature. The creature
you summon is completely random, though some say that it's influenced by the
caster's magic or that it reflects the caster themselves. That's all just
speculation though, so we don't really know for sure why people end up with
the contracted beasts that they do." Out in the back garden of the Silver Moon,
Yumina drew a large magic circle while explaining how Dark-type magic worked.
She held a book in one hand and a piece of chalk in the other as she carved out
a magic circle that was filled with complex patterns. The chalk supposedly had
fragments of spellstone put into it during the manufacturing process.
"The hard part is forming the contract itself. In order to successfully contract
with the creature you've summoned, you need to pass a sort of test first. These
tests come in all forms, from the incredibly simple to the nigh-impossible
depending on the strength of the creature itself. The test I had to pass to
contract with my Silver Wolves was to feed them until their stomachs were
full." Yumina finished drawing the magic circle, then went over and patted the
head of the Silver Wolf she had summoned a little while ago. It was the wolf
with the cross mark on its head that I'd seen before out in the forest.
Apparently this was the first of the wolves she had formed a contract with. The
other wolves she had summoned were its subordinates. Incidentally, his name
was Silva. Please, someone in this world, put more thought into naming things, I
pleaded internally.
If you contracted with a powerful creature, apparently you could summon a
number of others to work as the primary beast's subordinates. That Lizardman
summoner who attacked Sue had probably similarly contracted with a strong
Lizardman that acted as the head of that group of them he kept bringing forth.
"If you fail to meet the conditions of the contract, then the creature you
summoned will vanish. After that, it'll never appear before you again. You only
get one chance to meet the conditions of their contract." Right then. So I had to
make the most of our encounter and try my best to fulfill the conditions... Hang
on a second.
"This isn't dangerous or anything, right? Like, the thing I summon won't
suddenly attack me or anything, will it?"
"Without a contract to bind them to this world, the summoned beasts cannot
exist outside of the bounds of the magic circle. Long range attacks will also be
absorbed by the magic circle's barrier, so it's perfectly safe. The one exception
is if the summoner themselves steps foot within the magic circle. The conditions
for some creatures can sometimes be along the lines of fight and prove your
strength, after all."
Yeeeah, that sounded a bit violent for my tastes. Well, if I ended up
summoning a creature like that and judged that I had no chance of winning
against it, I supposed I could always just politely decline and let it return back to
whence it came. It may have seemed like a waste, but that was my decision.
"The summoned beast I end up with won't be decided solely on my magical
prowess or anything, yeah?"
"That's right. There are many stories of complete beginners summoning
incredibly powerful creatures on their first attempt." Which meant there was a
chance for me, too. Although in the end it was still essentially a raffle...
"Alright, guess I'll give it my best shot, then." I stood in front of the magic
circle and clapped my hands together to get myself fired up a bit. Then, I
focused all of my Darkness together and directed the flow of my magic into the
center of the magic circle. A black fog slowly built up within the bounds of the
magic circle until it completely filled the space, when suddenly an absolutely
explosive burst of magical energy emerged from within.
"...Art thou the one who summoned me?" The dark fog dispersed before my
eyes to reveal a single large, white tiger. Was that tiger the source of that
voice? Its eyes were sharp and discerning, giving off an incredibly intimidating
aura. It also seemed to have exceptionally sharp fangs and claws. Great. I'd
gone and done it again. I'd summoned something utterly ridiculous with my
God-cursed magic... I could feel the tiger's magical energy emanating like waves
coursing through the very air itself. This wasn't your zoo-variety tiger, that
much was for sure.
"This aura, that white visage... It can't be... the White Monarch...?!"
"Hoh. You know of me?" Behind me, Yumina was cowering on the ground,
hugging her wolf for comfort as the tiger stared her down. The wolf, Silva, had
also assumed a completely submissive position, lowering his ears and curling up
his tail out of fear. Well, being glared at so intently by a tiger would've made
anyone cower in fear. Hey, hold up a second. There was a Japanese saying that
went like this! "A tiger in front and a wolf at the rear." This was the very picture
of that situation! Well, not really, since the meaning behind that saying was
closer to "Stuck between a rock and a hard place." The more you know.
"Please try not to look at them so intensely. You're frightening them."
"...You are awfully calm given the circumstances. To think you're still standing
after taking the brunt of my magic-laden gaze... How very intriguing."
"Well, I mean, I was a little surprised at first. I'm used to that kind of thing by
this point, I guess, so it doesn't really affect me much anymore. Anyhow,
Yumina. What's this White Monarch thing you mentioned?" Yumina looked in
my direction and tried to answer, but her voice kept shaking... She couldn't
even speak properly! It probably had to do with the immense aura of fear that
the white tiger was continuously exuding.
"Look, could you stop with that for a second? I can't even get a proper
conversation out of the poor girl. I can't say that intimidating people weaker
than you is a particularly praiseworthy thing, you know?"
"...Very well." I voiced protest to the white tiger, and the oppressive air
melted away in an instant. Well, would you look at that. Looks like it's a pretty
reasonable tiger after all.
"Alright, then. Yumina, what exactly is this White Monarch thing all about?"
"Of all the monsters... that can be summoned through Dark magic... it's one of
the four strongest, most sacred of beasts... It's the Guardian of the West and
the Main Streets of the cities, the Ruler of all beasts... Really, it's not even a
monster at all; it's a Heavenly Beast..." Still shaking in her boots, Yumina
awkwardly tried to answer my question. A Heavenly Beast, huh? It'd be pretty
interesting if it were one of God's pets or something.
"Alright, so how might I go about getting contracted with you?"
"...You wish to form a contract with me? Are you even aware of how
nonsensical your words must seem to your comrades at this moment?"
"Well, I figure it's at least worth a shot. If I can't fulfill your request, then I'll
obediently give up on the idea."
"Hmm..." The tiger stared at me intently, twitched its nose a little, and
inclined its head.
"How curious... I feel a rather strange power about you. The protection of the
spirits...? No, something far greater than that... What is this curious power?"
The protection of the spirits? Sorry, bud, but I don't really have any ghosts that
I'm on particularly good terms with.
"...Very well. I'd like to see a display of the quality and quantity of your
magical energy. You claim to want to contract yourself with a Heavenly Beast,
after all. If your magic is half-hearted, then this whole negotiation will fall
through without a moment's consideration."
"You want to gauge my magic?"
"That is correct. Place your hand upon me and pour as much of your magic
into me as you possibly can. Keep going until you can barely force another
ounce of it out of you. If you have even the minimum amount required to
satisfy me, then I will consider forming a contract with you." I could almost see
the tiger laughing to itself. It'd consider it? Meaning this wasn't even the main
test itself, just a warm-up?
Still, the tiger had come up with a dangerous warm-up exercise. It wanted me
to channel all of my magic? So in video game terms, it wanted me to reduce
myself to 0 MP? I wouldn't be able to use any magic at all for a while after that.
No, wait, it said until I could barely force another ounce, meaning I could keep 1
MP in reserve just in case.
No, hang on a second. Was magic even a thing that decreased as you made
use of it...? I'd never felt anything like that in all my time casting spells. I
recalled Linze saying that I had an abnormally large amount of magical energy.
Was that why I had never felt it before?
Putting that aside, I walked into the bounds of the magic circle and placed my
hand on the tiger's head. Oooh, who's a fuzzy-wuzzy widdle kitty-cat?
"So you just want me to flow as much of my magic as possible straight into
you, yeah?"
"Correct. Just channel all of your magic directly into me. I'll be the judge of it.
And I will say this in advance: If you run out of magic and collapse during the
examination, the contract will be off the table." Hmm... I wasn't exactly
desperate to form a contract with it or anything. If I started to feel ill during the
whole exam, I decided I'd just give up on it. I didn't exactly feel like pushing
myself to the brink of collapse over something like this.
"Alright, I'm going for it. Brace yourself." I directed all of my magical reserves
toward the palm of my hand and began gradually channeling it into the tiger.
Good, I'm not feeling any negative effects from it so far.
"Hrm... This is... What?! What is with the ridiculous clarity of this magical
energy...?!" The tiger seemed to be commenting on my magic. Come to think of
it, Linze had said something similar once before. Well, whatever. Things seemed
to be going well, so I decided it was fine to go a bit further. I opened the
floodgates of my mind and sent a massive burst of magic straight into the tiger.
"Hrnnn!!! Wh-What is this?!" Hmm... didn't feel like my magic had decreased
much at all. Did I need to pile on some more before I started to feel any
negative effects? I fired up my mental garden hose and set it to full blast.
"Hrg... th-this is... W-Wait a moment—!" Yeah, still nothing. I resorted to the
Broken Faucet method.
"P-Please... wai... A-Any more and... aahhh...!" Time for my last resort. I
removed my limiter and blasted as much magical energy as I could muster
straight into the tiger... Oh, I think I'm starting to feel it a bit. I'm getting a little
bit worn out now. So this is a taste of what it feels like to be running low on
magic.
"... P-Please, I beg of... stop...!"
"Touya!" I snapped to my senses when I heard Yumina's voice and took a look
at the tiger in front of me. Its body was convulsing and foam was coming from
its mouth. Its eyes were rolled back and it seemed that the only reason it was
still standing was because it was being forcefully held up due to being unable to
remove its head from my palm.
I panicked and immediately cut off the flow of magic I had been pouring out.
The moment I removed my hand, the tiger's body shook violently as it collapsed
down onto the ground.
"...Huh?" Had I done something wrong? Should I try using Healing magic on
it? The big cat was twitching on the ground... its tongue was hanging out and
everything.
"Come forth, Light! Soothing Comfort: [Cure Heal]!" I instinctively cast a
Healing spell on it. When I did that, the tiger's eyes reverted to normal and it
rose unsteadily back to its feet before approaching me.
"...I would just like to ask one thing. That magical energy you were channeling
into me... you still had a little room to spare at the end, didn't you?"
"Huh? No, I was doing fine. Honestly, it hardly feels like my magical reserves
have depleted at all... No, wait. Kind of feels like it's already filled itself back
up."
"Wha...?!" The tiger was speechless. I see. So that's it! The reason I've never
felt my magic being consumed by my spells until now is because it was passively
recovering itself at absurd speeds! That's one mystery solved.
"So yeah, about the conditions for the contract..."
"...Might you grace me with your name?"
"Hmm? Mochizuki Touya. Oh right, Touya's my given name." I threw a curious
glance at the tiger, who'd suddenly become so humble, and it bowed down
before me.
"Master Mochizuki Touya. By my judgment, there are none I have ever
crossed paths with more suitable for the role of my master than you. I would be
honored if you were to form a Master-Servant pact with me." Aww yeah, White
Tiger joined the party!
"So, uh, what are the conditions for the contract?"
"Please, bestow a name upon me. That shall be the proof that seals the
contract. It will also serve as a bond that allows me to exist freely in this realm."
"A name, huh...? Hmmm..." A tiger. A white tiger... Let's see here...
"Kohaku. What do you think of Kohaku as a name?"
"Kohaku?"
"It's a name from my homeland. It means Amber, and it's written like this..." I
drew the characters for Kohaku on the ground in Japanese.
"The character on the left is taken from the word for tiger, and the one on the
right is taken from white. The little characters stuck to the left side of each of
them both mean king. Put it all together and, in my language, it reads as
Kohaku. What do you think?"
"The White Tiger who stands by the king's side. Truly, there could be no other
name more suitable for me. My gratitude to you. Henceforth, please do call me
by the name Kohaku." The contract was sealed. Kohaku stepped slowly out of
the bounds of the magic circle and into our realm.
"...Touya, that was incredible...! You actually managed to form a contract with
the White Monarch...!"
"Young lady, I am the White Monarch no longer. Please, call me Kohaku."
"Umm, of course... Kohaku." The White Monarch — now named Kohaku —
corrected the stunned Yumina. Behind Yumina, Silva the Silver Wolf still
cowered in fear at Kohaku's gaze. Panicking, it retreated into Yumina's shadow
and disappeared.
"Master, I do have but one humble request."
"What's up?"
"I would like to request that I remain in this realm permanently."
"Hmm? How would that work?"
"Under normal circumstances, a summoned being can only remain in this
realm for as long as the summoner's magic will permit. We consume our
master's magic simply by materializing in this realm. Once our master's magical
energy runs out, we fade back into the other side. This is the normal way of
things. However, ever since our contract was formed and I set foot in this world,
I've felt that your magical energy has hardly depleted in the slightest. That
being the case, I should like to humbly request your permission to remain in this
realm indefinitely."
Yeah, I think I know why that is. In short, my magical energy is recharging so
fast that it's even counteracting the normally massive amount of magic required
to keep a Heavenly Beast in this realm. Well, I see no problem keeping Kohaku
materialized as long as it doesn't cause any problems, but...
"I don't mind letting you stay materialized if that's what you want, but, uh, I
don't really know how I'd feel about walking through the streets with a huge
white tiger in tow... you know?"
"I see... In that case, I shall change my form."
"Change your what now?" Before I had even finished my sentence, Kohaku
had morphed into the form of a white tiger cub. I had no idea it could do tricks
like that.
What was once a large tiger had turned into roughly the size of a small dog.
With those stubby little legs and that stubby little tail, its aura of intimidation
had decreased by 100%, and its aura of adorability had leaped up by 100%.
Kohaku was so adorable, in fact, that I couldn't resist picking the little cub up
and cradling it in my arms. Oh gosh, oh gosh, so fluffy-wuffy! I'm so glad I
summoned Kohaku, I thought, feelings welling up from the bottom of my heart.
"I believe I should not attract any undue attention in this form." Oh my gosh,
it talked! So cuuute!
"I think you'll be attracting attention in a totally different way in this form, but
that's A-OK in my book!"
"Very well then. Thank you very much for allowing me to— Gufhu?!"
"Kyaaaa! So cuuuuute!!!" The one who snatched Kohaku from my arms for
the purpose of much hugging was none other than the Phantom Thief Yumina.
She rubbed her face against Kohaku's fur and hugged it tightly even as Kohaku
struggled to break free from the Fort Knox-level hugging techniques that
Yumina had been practicing on me.
"Wait, stop! Cease this insolence immediately! Who are you that you would
dare commit such acts?!"
"Oh right, I hadn't introduced myself yet. My name is Yumina. I'm Touya's
wife."
"Master's wife?!" Even Kohaku's stunned face looked like a national treasure
to my eyes. Hang on just one minute, Yumina! You can't just go around
introducing yourself as my wife like that!
Kohaku dejectedly endured being petted by Yumina for a while.
It seemed that Kohaku had qualms about putting up any real resistance to her
master's self-proclaimed wife, so it soon stopped struggling and let Yumina play
to her heart's content.
Her dose of fluffy-wuffy satisfied, Yumina released the captive Kohaku... only
for Elze and the others to appear and, as if a switch had been flipped in each of
their brains, they all became exactly what Yumina had been just moments
before. Only this time the onslaught of cuddles was triple what it was moments
ago.
"M-Master! Please, assist meee!"
"Grin and bear it. They'll calm down once they've had their fill."
"Maaaasteeer!" And so, our party gained a new member that day. Well,
maybe "gained a mascot" was a more fitting way to put it.
Once everyone had gotten their fill of fluffy-wuffy time, I decided to partake
of it myself.
I looked up to the sky as Kohaku's pleasant screams filled my ears. Such lovely
weather we're having.
God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world!