If There Aren’t Enough, Just Make More
“Why are you all in human form!?”
—Eh~ You can see us, right—
The one who looked like the Fire Spirit, with red hair, blinked in surprise. She wore something resembling shrine maiden garb.
—Been a while! This is our original form, y’know—
That was probably the Water Spirit, with blue hair, wearing what looked like a modest swimsuit.
—Humans can’t really perceive us accurately—
That one must be the Light Spirit. Blonde hair, glowing faintly, and dressed in short, priest-like robes.
—It’s probably because the Spirit King’s power inside Alice finally stabilized—
The Wind Spirit then—green hair, bare-chested with just a scrap of cloth covering, and a skirt on the bottom.
—Anyway, hurry up and re-contract with us. With the bond severed, it feels weird—
That was the Earth Spirit, looking very much like a dwarf.
—Hm, you’ve woken. How do you feel?—
The Dark Spirit: black hair, black eyes, not really a Japanese face, but… wearing a suit? Guess he pulled it out of my memories.
Well, at least the color-coding made it easy to tell them apart.
Incidentally, Earth and Dark looked male, the rest female. But spirits don’t really have genders—they can appear however they want.
So why human form? According to them, this is their original appearance. It’s just that most humans can’t recognize it. Not that they’re hiding—they’re always there, people just don’t perceive them. If one focuses, even ordinary people can see them, but most spirits can’t be bothered.
Spirits generally aren’t interested in humans. That doesn’t mean they ignore others completely—it’s more that unless you interact with them, they won’t pay you any mind. And since most can’t even see spirits, that makes interacting nearly impossible. Which is why so few spirit-contractors exist: Spirit Mages, Spirit Users, or so-called “Children Loved by Spirits.”
In short, unless you contract with a spirit, you usually can’t see them. But how do you reach something you can’t see? That was originally the Spirit King’s role—to connect humans and spirits, preventing their bonds from fading.
But then the Ancient Magic Dynasty declared war on spirits.
For the Spirit King, erasing a nation or two to teach them a lesson would’ve been easy. On this planet, humans defeating the Spirit King was practically impossible. Even me? Probably impossible.
But at the same time, the Magic Dynasty began invading neighboring worlds. One such world was destroyed, which drew in a bored Evil God who then invaded in return.
Thus this world was driven to the brink of destruction.
The Spirit King staked his life to push the Evil God back, and the Goddess sealed it away. That ended the crisis—but the spirits, naturally, turned their anger on humans.
The Magic Dynasty had already abandoned their capital due to the Evil God’s influence, and they couldn’t return. Not only due to spirits’ wrath—monsters had changed. Before, monsters and beasts were relatively docile if left alone. After the Evil God’s arrival, just meeting eyes meant death.
Humans lost their homelands, their engineers, their civilization itself.
—Well, we’re not angry anymore—
—Yeah, all the bad guys are long dead anyway—
The Water and Wind Spirits laughed.
It was ancient history now. Most spirits had let it go. But the six Great Spirits, once second only to the Spirit King, had become “proxy Spirit Kings” of their attributes, and they hated humans. Add in the general indifference of other spirits, and the relationship had thinned out further.
“So basically, I’m supposed to be the one connecting humans and spirits again?”
—Pretty much, though if you don’t bother, no one’s really inconvenienced—
—Right? We don’t really need humans anyway. We’ve got Alice—
The Light and Fire Spirits didn’t seem to care about anyone but me.
Fine. Something to think about later. If it worked, I could mass-produce Spirit Mages.
Anyway, the reason I could recognize their humanoid forms was because the Spirit King’s power inside my soul had normalized. Before, the authority part of that power was polluted by Evil God fragments, so I could only do minor things like mana grasping or illusion piercing. From now on, I could use much more. (Not saying I could master it.)
Re-contracting wasn’t difficult. If both sides wanted to reconnect, that was enough. Of course, I’d abolish the world’s current “drag-you-down-with-me” style contracts—those one-sided, unbreakable by spirits agreements had worsened the distance between us in the first place. Not like I ever relied on such things anyway.
“Well then, maybe I’ll go take a look at the World Tree… though my body feels weak.”
“Well yeah, you’ve been asleep all this time. Here, mirror.”
Ugh, I’m skinny. I was slim to begin with, but this? I can’t bully the Emperor like this. Oh!
“Armor, come!”
The armor by the bed liquefied and covered me, restoring my dress armor.
“Oh! I can stand!”
“It’s the armor standing, not you…”
Well, true. But the armor was basically a powered suit, so I could move. Though my body immediately started protesting.
I stepped outside. Turns out the room I’d been in was an old bus I’d built and left behind, the kind with a two-story back. No wonder it felt cramped.
Outside, knights were chatting. When they saw me step out, their eyes went wide, then filled with tears.
“Princess! You’ve awakened!”
“Just now. I’m going to check out the World Tree.”
“Eh? No, no, you can’t! You’ve only just woken. Please, you must rest.”
But I knew. The World Tree was calling me. I could feel it.
“Do you hear the voice?”
—Nope, nothing like that—
The Light Spirit tilted her head. The others all nodded… So it really was just me. Maybe one of my clones experimented on my body while I was out. Sounds like something I’d do. I patted myself down just in case… no modifications. My chest showed no sign of growth either, but I wasn’t worried. In a few years it’d blossom plenty. This was just the waiting period.
“Well, fine. Anyway, Alicia and the others are at the World Tree, right? I’ll head over.”
“We still have guard duty here, so we’d really prefer you wait…”
“No need. You stay. I’ll go alone.”
““““Impossible!””””
All of them objected. So I summoned flame into my palm, no chanting.
“My body isn’t fully recovered, but my magic control’s sharper than ever. I could trample a Helios easily.”
“That dragon? Even villagers can kill that! At least take guards.”
… Yeah, in our country, villagers really might. With pitchforks flung at ballista speeds.
So in the end, I got about five guards. Mr. Coote seemed to be observing Takuto elsewhere. I could summon him back anytime, so no issue.
But walking was a pain, so I pulled out a flying carpet I’d made ages ago. I laid a Shadow Wolf on it and leaned against it as we traveled.
With a Shadow Wolf present, almost no monsters dared approach. I had about ten of them, though nine stayed in the shadows. Monsters could sense them anyway—Shadow Wolves were that terrifying.
We traveled for about three hours. I rode, the knights ran at light-cavalry speeds despite their heavy armor. Training, I guess. I couldn’t picture myself running like that.
We linked up smoothly. One clone rebelled, so I erased it. Worthless clones weren’t needed. For the record, I liked Miyoshi-san’s grotesque end. Nobunaga’s? Not so much. Topknots aren’t my thing.
“Yo, Takuto.”
“Alice…”
Good. He didn’t call me Iris. Alicia would’ve snapped.
For the record, I saw myself as Alicetia, but really, there was no difference between me and Iris. Same soul, same memories. You could call us the same person or different.
Still, what a troublesome guy. He’d thrown everything away to chase me here. Half glad, half exasperated. He could’ve lived peacefully in Japan. But now he was a Hero, chosen by the Goddess.
I’d known since last time. But with the Spirit King’s knowledge, I understood: I’d wished for Takuto to come. If he’d refused the summoning, the Goddess would’ve chosen someone else.
Fine. First, end the Empire. Then we’ll talk.
“Clone, report.”
“Our numbers are lacking.”
The clone handed me a stack of papers, spell arrays for lifting whole plots of land into the sky.
I studied it. It demanded absurd mana. With magic furnaces, possible, but the factories were focused entirely on weapons. Everything else was shut down.
Even research had stalled.
But my own mana capacity had swelled while I slept, siphoning ambient mana. My circuits had toughened up too—borderline a full remodel. My control had improved enough I could even handle the Emperor.
Still, not quite enough. And if I used all my mana, I’d pass out. Every magician knows the rule: leave at least 10% or you collapse.
“I see… but I’ve got new power! Star Core, connect!”
Smug, I linked myself to the planet’s core. At once, I expanded my Magic Mark and strengthened my circuits further. A flood of mana poured into me. More. Deeper.
—Alice! Don’t use that!—
The spirits panicked. Too late. I was already spawning clones like mad. Each one carrying Great Mage-level mana. Before, they’d barely reached Mage class.
A hundred new clones were born. Then, suddenly, the connection to the star core snapped. My vision spun, my mind blurred. Oh crap. Couldn’t control it.
—This is what happens when you use power you can’t handle! Learn already!—
The Dark Spirit was furious, but before I could brush it off as “just fainting,” I blacked out.
What do you think about this chapter?
