After walking for a while, Lily called out to Roark’s back as he walked slightly ahead. Even though it was a straight path, Roark was carefully checking the map to be sure, and he replied without taking his eyes off it.
“Why did you decide to become a Spirit Master, Roark?”
“……That’s rare. I didn’t expect a question like that from you.”
Roark reflexively looked away from the map and turned toward her with a surprised expression. He wondered if something had happened, as it was an uncharacteristic question for Lily, but seeing her staring intently at him waiting for an answer, he slowly began to speak.
“Let’s see. Well, my memories are a bit fuzzy in some parts… but the truth is, the reason I aimed to be a Spirit Master was out of self-delusion.”
“self-delusion? You, Roark?”
“Yeah, me.”
It was Lily’s turn to be surprised. It was a statement she couldn’t imagine coming from the Roark who had been self-deprecating to the point of self-torture. She looked at him as if she couldn’t believe it.
“Is it really that hard to believe?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I was having a mental breakdown when I first came to the academy, after all.”
Roark smiled wryly at Lily’s expression as he looked back on his memories from that time.
“……See, since I was born, my spiritual power was several times higher than an average person’s. When I was a kid, my parents and the adults I knew had high expectations for me. And, well, I took it to heart.”
The various voices of praise from adults flickered through his mind.
Because of his superhuman spiritual power, many adults had hailed him as a genius or a child prodigy. As a result, he had successfully let it all go to his head.
“And that’s why you aimed to be a Spirit Master?”
“Yeah. I was told that if I became a Spirit Master, I’d never go hungry. Well, once the lid was opened, it turned out I had a fundamental flaw as a Spirit Master though…”
Moreover, because he had left home boasting loudly that he would definitely become a Spirit Master, he couldn’t exactly go back now and say it didn’t work out. That was why he was desperately clinging to his position as a Spirit Master.
Muttering self-deprecatingly, Roark shifted gears and gave a mischievous smile. “Now, it’s Lily’s turn.”
“Eh?”
“You heard my reason. Now it’s your turn to tell me why you’re aiming to be a Spirit Master.”
“……My reason for aiming to be a Spirit Master.”
Lily whispered to herself and looked down at her feet, falling silent.
“Lily?”
“…………”
There was no response even when he called out. However, her feet didn’t stop, and she continued to walk. Her eyes were wide open, and she seemed perfectly conscious. At the very least, she wasn’t half-asleep like before.
“If you don’t want to say, you don’t have to, okay?”
“…………”
Roark hurriedly told her, wondering if he had stepped on a landmine.
However, there was still no reply from Lily. Just as Roark was starting to panic about what to do, he sensed a massive amount of spiritual power coming from ahead.
He quickly shifted his gaze and saw a man wearing a stylish mask standing with his arms crossed in a clearing at the end of the path, blocking their way.
“Flirting during training? It seems the students of Eutrea Academy are even more lax than the rumors say.”
“……What are you doing, Kyle-sensei?”
Roark asked with deadpan eyes, looking at the masked man—Kyle Madison—who was acting like a villain.
“Who is that? I don’t know that name. My name is Ars. I don’t know any handsome guy named Kyle.”
“You’re calling yourself handsome…?”
Rather, by calling himself handsome, he was essentially confessing that he knew who Kyle was.
Ignoring the exasperated Roark, Kyle-sensei—insisting he was a different person—began to speak with grand, exaggerated gestures.
“I’m afraid this path is managed by my organization. It seems you two wish to pass, but I cannot allow anyone through who does not possess the permit issued by us.”
“A permit?”
“This permit. If you have this, I’ll let you through.”
Saying so, Kyle-sensei pulled a permit with the Eutrea Academy crest on it from his chest pocket and flaunted it.
“We don’t have one…”
Naturally not having a permit, Roark muttered in confusion.
Besides, given the crest on the permit, he wasn’t making any effort to hide the fact that he was an academy affiliate.
“In that case, I cannot let you pass.”
“Then, what do we have to do to use this path?”
“If you absolutely must pass, then you’ll have to take the permit from me. If you do that, I’ll allow it.”
“……I see. So that’s the ‘setting’ for this.”
“Could you not call it a ‘setting’? I’m trying my best here.”
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT LOCALIZERMEERKAT.GITHUB.IO
When Roark, having figured out the gist of the training, muttered understandingly, Kyle-sensei pleaded with a voice that felt somewhat desperate. It seemed playing the character was starting to become a strain.
“……Lily, did you hear that? He says we have to take the permit from Sensei.”
“………Yeah.”
She managed to respond to his call, but Lily still seemed distracted by something.
“If you’re feeling unwell, do you want to rest for a bit?”
While worrying about her, Roark was internally panicking.
Their opponent was a combat-oriented teacher of Eutrea Academy. Even at the best of times, he was incredibly tough. Roark wanted to avoid a one-on-one fight with Kyle-sensei in a situation where he couldn’t perform at his best.
“Don’t look so worried. I’ll give you a handicap.”
“A handicap?”
“Yeah. I won’t let my contracted Spirit fight. I’ll take you on by myself.”
As soon as Kyle-sensei finished speaking, Mizuchi appeared. Using its tail, it plucked the permit from its master’s hand and retreated to the rear.
“You intend to face us without using your contracted Spirit?”
“Is that so surprising? It’s what you always do, isn’t it?”
Kyle-sensei laughed as he spoke, but from Roark’s perspective—having fought without a contracted Spirit until now—the opponent had simply stepped onto his own playing field. If this was the case, he might have a chance of winning even without Lily’s help.
“You seem relieved, but do you really have room for such confidence, Roark?”
“…………!”
As Roark showed agitation at having his thoughts read, Kyle-sensei laughed and brought his hands together to construct a spell formula.
“You guys can’t use Spirit Arts very well in this environment, right?”
“But that should be the same for Sensei—”
“Do you really think so?”
Interrupting Roark, Kyle-sensei wore a predatory smile as he activated his Spirit Art.
“Well, since we’re here… why don’t you taste it for yourself?”
Immediately after, a massive amount of water erupted violently from beneath Kyle-sensei’s feet, turning into a tsunami that surged toward Roark and Lily.
“Uwoooooh?!”
Faced with a large-scale Spirit Art right at the start, Roark instinctively scooped up Lily and let out a scream while leaping away with all his might, retreating outside the spell’s range.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“Amazing.”
Lily muttered in surprise beside Roark, who was speechless at the power of a Spirit Art that had completely soaked the surrounding area.
“You won’t be able to take the permit if you do nothing but run.”
Along with those taunting words, Kyle-sensei remorselessly fired compressed water bullets from his fingertips.
Roark, his body still feeling heavy, sprinted across the unstable ground. He let out a half-scream as water bullets flew at them one after another.
“Lily, help! HELP!”
“……Minotaur.”
[BUOOOOOH!]
Responding to Roark’s plea, Lily summoned her contracted Spirit ahead of where Roark was running. Roark dove between the legs of the bull-headed, human-bodied Spirit. Kyle-sensei, who had been chasing him, stopped in his tracks as he saw the Spirit violently swing down its massive battle-axe.
“Well, when you can’t handle Spirit Arts well, you have to rely on your Spirit.”
Faced with the battle-axe descending toward his head, Kyle-sensei didn’t look panicked in the least. He caught the Minotaur’s strike using a “blade-catch” technique.
“What’s wrong? This is light.”
[BUO?!]
“……!”
Laughing, Kyle-sensei forcefully tilted the axe he had caught to the side. At the same time, the Minotaur’s body—which was gripping the handle—was thrown off balance, and the giant figure fell pathetically to the ground.
Lily’s eyes widened silently at the sight of her contracted Spirit.
Certainly, Kyle-sensei was undoubtedly a higher-ranked Spirit Master than her. But the Minotaur was a High Spirit. Lily couldn’t hide her shock that the Minotaur—a power-type Spirit—had been taken down by a Spirit Master’s strength alone.
“Hey, hey, you’re kidding me, right?!”
Roark, who had been fleeing, looked back and shouted upon seeing the fallen Minotaur. He, too, could not hide his astonishment at Kyle-sensei, who had so easily defeated an opponent as tough as the Minotaur even on a good day.
“Just so you know, it’s not that I’m particularly strong. It’s because your connection with your Spirits has become unstable, so they can’t exert their original power.”
“………Is that true?”
“It seems so.”
When Roark asked Lily about Kyle-sensei’s explanation, she gave a small nod. Roark, who didn’t have a Spirit, had no way of knowing, but it seemed the spiritual energy of these Zemechia Mountains even disrupted Spirit contracts.
“Now, use your heads, young talents.”
“By the way, can we call a timeout?”
“I’ve already given you a handicap, so no.”
“Gugu…”
As Roark grew frantic, realizing that breaking through Kyle-sensei’s defense was becoming difficult, Lily called out, “Come, Shin.”
She attempted to break the stalemate by summoning a second Spirit.
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