Chapter 82: Spirits and a Dragon

Sitting on top of the cabin, I called out, “Could everyone show yourselves?” and the spirits appeared more clearly than they had indoors.

Even so, they were only about the size of large marbles, glowing just enough not to be blinding. It was a little fantastical, but with them blinking in and out and darting around, it was enough to make me dizzy.

Trying to line them up by color—or by magic type, or by skill—didn’t seem remotely feasible.

For now, I decided to look for the spirit attached to wind magic… but since there were colorless, transparent ones everywhere, I tried calling out “Come here,” only to get no reaction.

Well, since they were all floating around me anyway, even if something reacted, it’d be too close to tell. So I decided to have them move away from me first.

I lightly poked a red spirit floating in front of me with my finger. It slipped backward smoothly, but I ignored that and called out again.

When I said, “Come over here,” and moved to the edge of the cabin, it followed me—

…no, not just it. Every single one of them followed.

Thinking this might be harder than training a dog or cat, I tried another approach. Since they’d all followed me, I asked, “Please don’t move from here,” and then walked to the opposite side of the cabin.

It was only about four meters away, but more than half of them stayed put. That gave me a bit of hope.

When I called, “Everyone, come here,” they all moved back around me at once. They clearly understood things like coming to my side or hiding their presence, so there had to be some good way to handle this.

Still, this meant that knowing spirits were attached to you—and knowing you needed to call out to them—was an incredibly high hurdle.

On top of that, spirits attaching themselves to magic or skills… In my case, maybe it was sheer coincidence—falling into that hole and using magic made them take a liking to me.

Or maybe, when I fell into the bottom of a pit no one ever came to, some whimsical spirits out of a swarm like a cloud of gnats took an interest in me.

During the day, I explored the area around the massive boulder, and at night I investigated the spirits. Flying north, I noticed something I hadn’t realized from high altitude—the forest wasn’t flat. It undulated like enormous waves across the land, forcing me to fly from hilltop to distant hilltop.

I couldn’t tell the exact elevation changes, but even for a forest, there were many sparse areas and small lakes. The atmosphere was completely different from the areas along the Blange Highway or the Orvenne Road.

Then there were sudden gorges—not mountains with valleys between them, but places where the land between hills had split open and dropped away.

Curious, I lowered my altitude and followed one of these valleys, when I spotted a herd of running cattle that looked familiar.

Moving above the herd, I confirmed they were armored buffalo—but rather than running normally, the entire herd looked like it was fleeing.

Even armored buffalo were herbivores, so it wasn’t surprising they had predators, but I was curious what kind of ferocious beast they were running from.

Flying past the rear of the herd, I saw it—a massive, spiked lizard.

A gigantic, spike-covered lizard, and armored buffalo surrounding it and charging.

The lizard knocked down charging buffalo with a single sweep of its tail. Its body alone was more than three times the length of an armored buffalo, and its tail was about as long as its body.

It looked like a spiked lizard, but given its size, it clearly belonged to the category known as dragons.

After knocking one down with its tail, it stepped on the buffalo and bit into its belly.

I tried appraising it. [Appraise! …Dragon]
Of course it was.

The enraged armored buffalo charged to avenge their fallen companion, but their attacks were useless against the spike-covered dragon. Instead, they were smashed aside by its tail and turned into the next meal.

Eventually, perhaps realizing they couldn’t win—or that enough of the herd had escaped—the armored buffalo turned their backs and fled.

The dragon finished eating, then lay down and let out a huge yawn.

Judging by its swollen belly, it was full—but I really didn’t want to become food for something like that.

As a test, I tried wrapping it in a whirlwind, but with only 1/100 of my mana, I could only envelop about half its body.

Adding two more units of mana, I confirmed I could wrap its entire body (excluding the tail) and spin it around. Then I released it.

Even a dragon seemed to get dizzy. It couldn’t stand up and ended up vomiting the armored buffalo it had just eaten.

Intrigued by the dragon, I headed deeper into the valley and gained altitude—only to be stunned.

The cliffs on either side spread outward, revealing a vast grassland and forest beyond.

I kept climbing to get a full view until my ears started to hurt, but even then I couldn’t see the end.

I flew along the cliffs for over an hour; in places the cliffs had collapsed or connected with hills, so it didn’t seem like an isolated world.

After seeing the dragon, I became concerned about the safety of my dome. Before sunset, I headed back toward the rocky mountain and decided to camp atop the cliff.

After night fell, it was time to play with the spirits.

I started by looking for the spirit attached to wind magic, something I’d been thinking about while flying.

First, I had them gather at the edge of the dome so I could search for my target.

Colorless and transparent, but crystalline in appearance—that was probably the ice magic spirit, so I excluded it.

Faintly glowing and balloon-like—maybe water magic.

Colorless and transparent, but with visible distortions in the air around it—that had to be wind magic.

I lightly tapped that shimmering spirit with my finger and called, “Come closer,” but it only slipped away slightly and didn’t respond further.

Others nearby also retreated when touched, but one behind them glided toward me.

Since it didn’t seem to like being touched, I held my finger just in front of it and said, “Follow me,” then stepped outside the dome.

That spirit flew just ahead of me, but spirits of many other colors followed along as well.

Still, it felt like there were fewer spirits than the day before.

I asked the other spirits to “Move away,” and focused on the colorless, shimmering one in front of me. Then I formed a small whirlwind in the palm of my hand.

For a moment, it flashed brightly—then the spirit dove into the whirlwind, circling inside it, jumping out, then riding atop it.

Other spirits swarmed into the whirlwind as well.

Among them, the most numerous were the colorless, faintly glowing spirits with that wavering distortion.

As I watched, I sensed something unpleasant. Scanning the area, I detected what seemed to be a large beast—my first of that kind.

Just in case, I created a [Shelter!] and observed as it approached.

The overwhelming pressure surpassed even Olga’s killing intent, and my knees trembled.

What appeared was a massive tiger—its enormous fangs made it unmistakably a Fang Tiger.

I’d seen one from afar at a dismantling site before, but seeing it up close, with its sturdy fangs over ten centimeters long and its piercing gaze, nearly made me soil myself.

Still, since I was safely inside the shelter, I glared back at it, refusing to back down.

After a brief moment of glaring at each other, there was a thud as a cat—no, a tiger—punched the shelter. Of course, it had no effect.

Trying to intimidate me, huh? Then take this—Whirlwind!

I wrapped the Fang Tiger in a whirlwind and sent it spinning around. Thinking it must be dizzy by now, I tried to cut off the mana, but the spirits swarmed around the whirlwind and accelerated it instead.

“Wait—wait, wait!”
[Wait, don’t spin it!]

It must have understood, because the whirlwind vanished, but the Fang Tiger lay sprawled out, completely limp.

Its belly rose and fell as it breathed, so I was relieved to see it was still alive.

If I dragged something like this back to the guild, there was no doubt people would make a huge fuss about where I’d hunted it.

It would probably disappear once it woke up, so I left it alone, returned to the dome, and had the spirits withdraw.

I’d managed to get the spirits to listen to my requests to some extent, but for some reason, having them visible made me uneasy.

I crushed some of the ice made by Bold, poured in some liquor, and slowly sipped it while gazing up at the starry sky.

I’ve really come a long way, a cliché line floated through my mind.

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“Elder Vilasenka, are you there?! This is serious!”

“Quiet.”

“You’re in such a panic—what’s going on?”

“Calm down and speak.”

“How can I stay calm?! A dragon is coming up from the valley into the northern forest!”

“We thought it was strange how many wild beasts there were and went to check, but it wasn’t just large animals—a Spike Dragon showed up too!”

“Is that true?”

“You think I’d lie? A huge number of beasts seem to have been driven up.”

“What we saw was from the Third Ravine. That place is fairly wide, so even a dragon can climb up easily.”

“So a dragon that should be deeper in the valley has already reached the Third Ravine…”

“This is bad. If a dragon has come up from the Third Ravine…”

“The south side of the valley will be even worse. Last time, they were pushed south, but this time we need to find out which direction it’s heading.”

“Geographically, it can’t go very far north or east, so either way it will probably head south.”

“We should issue a warning, at least.”

“Tell Village Chief Serfanka to prepare to select fast runners and send them out.”

“As for subjugating the dragon that came up from the Third Ravine—do we still have any skilled fighters left?”

“This time of year, many people are away on long trips, so who knows.”

“If we’re short-handed, perhaps we could ask that Leon fellow to see if he can attach spirits to the remaining mages.”

“Even if he can attach those spirits to the mages, they won’t improve overnight…”

“And before that—do you really think the spirits would help the mages who become their hosts?”

“Even Leon, despite being connected to spirits, didn’t sound like he was being ‘helped’ by them.”

“For now, we should be extremely careful about travel in and out of the village…”

“Serfanka will inform everyone of that. As for what we can do, all we can think of is asking Leon to attach spirits to the mages…”

“Do you truly believe that’s possible?”

“He’s someone connected to that many spirits. I believe it can be done.”