The greater spirit struggled for two hours inside my barriers. After that, he undid his material body and sat on the floor in his spiritual form with one knee raised.
“What have I done...” he muttered in shock.
I could sense that his mana reserves were almost empty. Without all that pent-up destructive energy, his head must have cleared.
“That was impressive,” I said.
“Yeah! But it was a bit scary,” Teto added.
I carefully removed the last of my barriers. The residual heat trapped inside drifted into the air, brushing against my cheeks. A pile of ashes lay where the mansion had once stood. The bricks that had formed its foundation were scattered everywhere, and every last bit of vegetation had been burnt to a crisp, leaving behind bare, scorched earth. The ground closest to where the greater spirit stood had turned into a sort of glassy substance, almost as if it had melted, cooled, and solidified again.
“Can you go talk to the greater spirit?” I asked the little spirits with us.
They nodded. “Leave it to us.”
Teto and I decided to stand back and watch for now.
The greater spirit raised his head when he noticed the smaller spirits approaching. They started talking, although I had no idea what they were saying. When they were done, the greater spirit turned towards us, a stern expression on his face.
“A human. And a spirit girl—albeit quite an odd one. I apologize for the trouble I have caused you.”
Looks like he can tell Teto is part spirit, I noted.
He sounded stiff; I had to imagine he felt pretty awkward apologizing to a human. He’d only had a scant few minutes at most to let go of the hate that had taken root in him.
“Well, pacifying a greater spirit wasn’t exactly on my to-do list today, but oh well.” I shrugged. “We couldn’t just stand by and watch as you burned down the entire forest—that would’ve been a problem.”
Teto nodded. “Fire is very dangerous!”
The damage the greater spirit could’ve caused if we hadn’t contained him would have been catastrophic. Not only would the entire forest have burned to a crisp, but Liefe was only an hour away—the entire town would have suffered from the smoke, and the embers carried by the wind could’ve caused fires in the town and surrounding fields as well. On top of that, there were monsters in that forest; the flames would have driven them out of the woods, and in the worst-case scenario, they could have attacked nearby human settlements in their desperation to escape.
“Why did you choose to contain my powers that way?” the greater spirit asked me, pulling me out of my thoughts. His expression was still as severe as earlier.
“Why did I use barriers, you mean? I just wanted to cut off your air supply so that the flames would die on their own,” I replied.
The greater spirit shook his head. “That is not what I meant. I am asking why you chose such a roundabout way to stop me when you possess so much mana. You could have just buried me in the ground or attacked me with water, couldn’t you? That would have been much easier for you.”
“I could have, but it didn’t feel right to force you down after you’d been sealed for so long,” I replied.
“When you’re frustrated, there’s nothing like moving your body to clear your mind!” Teto added.
The greater spirit’s expression seemed to soften ever so slightly at our response.
“So there are good people among humans too, it would seem. I suppose that I was simply unlucky last time,” the greater spirit muttered to himself with a long sigh.
He stayed silent for a short while before opening his mouth again, “Fauzard.”
“Excuse me?”
“That is my name: Fauzard. My contractor bestowed it upon me.”
Seeing as he’d introduced himself to us, I decided to do the same.
“I’m Chise the witch,” I replied.
“And Teto is Teto! Lady Witch’s guardian! Nice to meet you, Fauzard!”
“Once again, thank you for helping me appease my anger. I have already caused you much trouble, but if it is not too much to ask, I have another request for you,” Fauzard said, an apologetic look on his face.
“Sure. What is it?”
“The humans separated me from my contractor and held me captive. I want to return to him.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’ll be possible.”
“Why?” Fauzard asked me with a frown.
“According to the spirits who were watching over you, you’ve been sealed under that mansion for three hundred years. If your contractor was a regular elf, he’s most likely dead by now.”
Elves were a long-lived race, but even they didn’t live forever. Their life expectancy was three hundred years, meaning it was highly likely that Fauzard’s contractor had passed away already.
“I see,” Fauzard muttered after a pause, his shoulders dropping. “So he is dead.”
“Is there anyone else you know?” Teto asked.
“My contractor lived in Eltar—the place you humans refer to as ‘the elves’ great forest.’ He had a wife and a child. Perhaps they could tell me what happened to him.”
After three hundred years, that “child” might likely be dead too...
“The elves’ great forest, huh? Well, I’m not sure if his child is still alive, but he might have grandchildren and great-grandchildren,” I said.
“Teto and Lady Witch will help you look for them!”
I nodded, and Teto and I started pondering how we’d go about that.
“Are you sure? In my current state, I cannot offer you anything in return,” Fauzard pointed out.
After three hundred years in the jewel of sealing plus its rampage from earlier, it didn’t have the power to repay us with a blessing or anything of the sort.
“Well, we’ve already come this far; we might as well help you until the end. We can’t just leave you to your own devices.”
“Exactly! We’re just lending a hand to someone in need!” Teto chimed in.
“Then I shall be in your care for a while longer,” Fauzard replied with a little nod.
Teto and I smiled. From now on, our next order of business would be to find Fauzard’s contractor’s relatives.
There was just a teeny tiny little issue: Fauzard might have been in his spiritual form, but we’d still stand out way too much dragging a greater spirit along. Most people probably wouldn’t notice him, but anyone who could see spirits like me, or simply anyone with sharper senses than usual, would instantly panic at the sight of a greater fire spirit roaming the streets.
“We’re going to stick out like a sore thumb if we travel with you in your current form,” I said. “Let me see what I can do about that...”