“Ugh! You’re supposed to die.”

“Ah, sorry. Urgh……”

“Hehe……”

That afternoon, they spent the whole time playing in the backyard and both ended up covered in dirt and dust. When they went up to the third floor after hearing the call to come for dinner, they received a scolding from Erica.

“Go wash yourselves from head to toe with the mister right now!”

It was as good as permission for Roderick to take care of Eric’s bath. But it wasn’t permission to call himself Dad.

“Close your eyes tight so soap doesn’t get in.”

“Tight!”

The large man squeezed himself into the cramped bathtub and washed the child’s hair as he splashed around. The water play soon turned into bubble play.

“All men should blow up and eat cold spaghetti!”

They had completely forgotten about dinner until they heard Erica shouting from outside the door that dinner was getting cold.

* * *

The wind whooshed fiercely, making the candle flames flicker precariously and even causing the robes of the four men who had just entered the room to billow dramatically. It was a scene that shouldn’t have been strange, yet had to be strange.

Because every window in this tower’s top room was tightly shut.

While the other men all tracked the wind with their eyes, the shortest among them seemed indifferent, dragging his feet to the nearest chair and plopping down heavily. Then, propping his heavy head with his hand, he muttered in a sleepy voice.

“How dare they disturb my sleep.”

Yawn. An unseemly yawn followed immediately.

“This better be important.”

The king who spoke in a most unkingly manner was only twelve years old. His actions and words were typical of a twelve-year-old boy, but knowing that what was inside wasn’t twelve years old, the Marquis couldn’t help but frown.

Seeing this, the court mage misunderstood. He thought the Marquis was simply expressing displeasure at being summoned from his bed. The mage unnecessarily scolded the flying spirit that made his white beard, which reached down to his waist, flutter.

“Stop that at once! Report what you’ve heard and seen!”

The wind spirit called a sylph, famous for having a mouth as light as air, began moving its gossipy lips.

“As ordered, I went to ask what happened to the pursuit team, remember? But everyone kept their mouths shut as if they had made a pact……”

The sylph repeated the same tiresome story it had told hundreds of times. Only after the mage urged it impatiently did the tactless spirit skip to the main point.

“So I heard what an earth spirit was saying to a water spirit.”

This spirit named Big Mouth closed its lips tightly just before reaching the climax of the story. The listeners held their breath, and expectation began to fill their eyes. Those impatient gazes! This was the moment storytellers cherished most.

“So what did they say……”

As soon as the impatient mage opened his mouth, the sylph also began again.

“Well……”

“Well?”

Ta-da! Everyone be surprised!

“The mountain spirit cried!”

“……”

“……”

“……”

“……”

Despite carefully building up the atmosphere for this climax, all the human men looked equally unimpressed. As if to say, “So what?”

The king and his master, the Marquis, might not know much about spirits and react that way, but the old mage and the remaining one, a young spirit master wearing glasses, should have understood, the spirit thought.

“The child cried.”

“……”

“Doesn’t that mean the child was there!”

Pounding its chest in frustration, the spirit shouted, and the spirit master scratched his head and said,

“Of course he would be. That’s where the pursuit team disappeared.”

“Ah.”

Only then did the spirit realize why everyone had been unimpressed. It had omitted the most important information.

“This happened just a week ago.”

At last, everyone’s eyes widened in shock. After all, it had been over a month since contact with the pursuit team had been lost.

“That doesn’t make sense. Why would he still be lingering there?”

Why would that rat-like bastard do such a thing. The Marquis muttered while rubbing his chin with one hand. The mage also didn’t believe it and pressed the innocent spirit.

“Not every trembling of mountains or fields is caused by that child.”

He meant that just saying the mountain cried wasn’t proof that the child was there.

“Accusing me of being a liar when I traveled so far without complaint, suffering unspeakable hardships while doing my best!”

Whoosh! The candles went out and crash! The pile of books on the desk collapsed. The hot-tempered spirit with an extreme personality began causing a disturbance because they wouldn’t believe its words.

“Stop! Stop it right now!”

The spirit master, Big Mouth’s owner, tried to intervene, but the commotion didn’t easily subside. Under the critical gazes of those around him, implying he couldn’t even properly control his own spirit, the spirit master sweated profusely as he offered various alternatives to appease everyone.

“If the child was there, that man would have been too, so couldn’t we detect his aura as proof?”

“Yes, that would be most certain.”

The Marquis nodded with his hands behind his back and turned his gaze to the mage. The mage glared once at the spirit master who was shifting responsibility to him, then bowed his head respectfully before the Marquis.

“As I have reported several times, the magic to track traces left by faint and momentary aura explosions is still in the development stage, despite my best efforts, due to budget and time constraints.”

Tsk, the Marquis clicked his tongue, and the mage shifted blame to the innocent sylph, barking,

“Instead of wasting time like this, why not bring a spirit who has seen the child with their own eyes!”

Big Mouth stopped its tantrum and asked,

“But everyone’s keeping their mouths shut?”

“Opening a spirit’s mouth is your master’s job.”

The old mage boldly said this despite not being the spirit’s master.

The spirit master’s face contorted as he guessed how they intended to make the spirits talk. But what could he do when the royal palace’s senior mage ordered it, no matter how displeased he was?

“If you don’t want to be called a liar, go quickly.”

At his master’s reluctant command, Big Mouth gently put down the statue it had been about to throw to the floor and disappeared with a whoosh, creating a great gust. Only then did the king, who had been half-dozing all along, groggily raise himself.

“It will take some time until he returns, so meanwhile I’ll get some sleep……”

“I’ve brought one!”

Big Mouth had made the supposedly arduous journey in no time at all. Beside him stood something with the height and build of a four-year-old human, but with the appearance of a bearded old man.

It was a gnome, an earth spirit.

“Where am I?”

The gnome looked around the room with bewildered eyes, having been brought here in the blink of an eye, but no one answered. Big Mouth quickly diverted the gnome’s attention with a distraction.

“This is my master.”

As the gnome’s gaze turned to him, indicated by Big Mouth, the spirit master stepped forward.

“Ah, you are the spirit I’ve been looking for.”

“Then the sylph’s claim that you were looking for me is true?”

The gnome’s eyes widened.

“Gnomes are as common as dirt on this earth, so why do you specifically need me?”

Because you must have seen that child.

“That is……”

The spirit master cleared his throat and explained. He was creating a new magic using earth energy, and since the gnome lived in a land receiving energy from the not-too-distant mountain range, it was perfect for the magic, and so on and so forth……

Anyway, it was a plausible lie.

A naive gnome who had lived only in deep forests would be ignorant of worldly affairs. In its hundreds of years of life, it probably had never even seen a spirit master.

And suddenly a sylph was sent to find it.

The gnome, understandably suspicious, couldn’t hide its curiosity and expectation.

“Guardian of the earth, please lend me your power.”

“D-does that mean you want to make a contract?”

“Yes.”

“But the power I possess is only……”

“What you have is enough.”

Following these flattering words, when the spirit master even knelt down, the gnome’s mouth fell open. The man’s cheekbones and shoulders gradually rose.

Such grand treatment. It must feel like being a spirit king.

The spirit master didn’t stop there but added words that stimulated the gnome’s greed, cutting off any seeds of lengthy deliberation.

“If you’re not inclined, I will humbly accept your refusal. Instead, could you introduce me to a suitable gnome among those you know?”

In other words, give this golden opportunity to leave your name in magical history to someone else, and return to being a nameless spirit.

“Fine. I will make the contract.”

“Then I shall give you a name.”

The gnome nodded without adding any conditions.

In exchange for borrowing a spirit’s power, the spirit master must pay a price. Usually, that price is never light, but for a low-level spirit with perhaps one lifetime chance to escape a nameless existence, it would give its power for the mere price of a name.

Despite giving a name to a spirit being a natural part of all spirit contracts.

“Flint.”

The meaning of the name the spirit master gave his new spirit was flint. It came to mind because the court mage was lighting the candles that Big Mouth had extinguished during its tantrum.

He called out this thoughtless name in a solemn voice and took the gnome’s hand. As incantations flowed quietly from the spirit master’s lips, a bright light surrounded them.

“Guardian of the earth, do you swear to speak only the truth to the contractor until this contract ends?”

Along with the incantation, the spirit master recited the long conditions of the contract, slipping in the most important part in the middle.

“I swear.”

By this point, the gnome had already given up listening attentively and was just repeating “I swear” like a parrot.