I decided that creating an item where spirits could hide would be our best course of action.
“While Lady Witch works on that, you can have some of Teto’s magic stones!” Teto offered.
“Thank you, spirit child,” he said, absorbing the stones.
Meanwhile, I had come up with an idea for my spirit-hiding apparatus.
The first thing that had come to my mind when thinking of a tool for a fire spirit to dwell in was obviously a magic lamp—more specifically, an Arabian-style oil lamp. These were shaped a bit like a watering can, except that instead of putting water in them, you filled them with oil and put a wick inside the spout, which you then set on fire. But after giving it some more thought, I decided that I liked the look of a lantern—the kind one would take camping—more. Plus your typical camping lantern possessed a combustion mechanism, which would be better for maintaining the flames.
“Now all I’ve got to do is imagine a place for Fauzard to regain his strength and... Creation: spirit lantern!”
I took a few mana crystals out of my magic bag and used around 1,000,000 MP to create the lantern.
“All done. Does this look okay to you?” I asked Fauzard, holding the lantern in my hand.
He seemed impressed by my little magic display. “That is a very peculiar skill you have,” he remarked before inspecting the lantern. “You have based it on a human light fixture, hm? Interesting. I shall try going inside.”
Fauzard’s body dissolved, and he entered the lantern. The next instant, a little flame flickered inside.
“I made it so that the lantern absorbs ambient mana to help the spirit inside recover,” I explained. “Well, only fire spirits can use it, though.”
“It is quite pleasant,” Fauzard said. “The jewel I was trapped in stripped me of my powers, but this is different. I feel my energies slowly coming back to me.”
“Then it’s a success. I also made a special little compartment at the bottom of the lantern to store magic stones in; you can absorb these to regain some mana too.”
I put a handful of magic stones inside said compartment as a demonstration, and the flame inside the lantern got a little bit brighter.
Perhaps that flame is a reflection of how Fauzard’s feeling? I thought, when all of a sudden I heard footsteps coming from the path to what little remained of the mansion.
“Lady Witch, someone’s coming!” Teto warned me.
“I can’t let them see me like this. Makeover!”
I quickly cast my transformation spell, turning my body into its sixteen-year-old form, and waited for the newcomers to arrive. After a few seconds, a group of adventurers appeared in front of us.
“Oh, Chise, Teto! What are you two doing here?” one of them—a member of a B-rank party we’d met at the guild—said.
There were a few familiar faces among the adventurers; I deduced that they had been dispatched here by the town of Liefe.
“We’ve been sent here on a quest. What brings you here?” I asked back.
“Someone witnessed a pillar of flame rise up from around these parts about two hours ago, and the town’s mages said that they were picking up abnormal mana readings. Then we heard a bunch of really loud noises, so we came to investigate what’s going on,” the same adventurer explained.
It seemed that Fauzard had caught people’s attention all the way out in Liefe. The town had quickly formed a fact-finding team of mages, soldiers, and adventurers and dispatched them here.
“I see. I’ll make my report to the guild when we get back to Liefe, but the weird fire pillar was caused by an old magic tool going off on its own,” I lied seamlessly.
I told the group of adventurers that Teto and I had been sent to demolish the mansion and that we found a weird magic tool in the basement that seemed to have been left down there three hundred years ago. When we tried to touch it, it activated on its own—probably because it had been collecting dust for so long.
“We spent the next couple of hours after that extinguishing the fire so that it wouldn’t spread to the rest of the forest,” I said, concluding my little cover story.
“Is that so? I have a hard time believing it...”
The adventurers didn’t look convinced. I supposed I couldn’t really blame them for not blindly taking my word for it. I took a few sheets of parchment from my magic bag and handed it to them.
“We have proof,” I said. “Here, we managed to gather some documents about the magic tool we found in the basement.”
I had shown them only the ones related to the weapon the mage had been working on—omitting anything about Fauzard—and it seemed to do the trick: they were speechless, but they believed me. Of course, there was no such weapon; only the plans for it. But hey, it wasn’t a complete lie. Anyone who could’ve called me out for it was dead anyway, so it was probably fine.
One of the empire’s mages who had been sent here butted into my conversation with the adventurers. “The old empire commissioned that weapon...and it had been hiding here all along? Did you manage to retrieve anything from inside?”
I shook my head.
“No, sorry. We heard more explosions after the first one, so it must’ve self-destructed before we could investigate further,” I said with a solemn air.
“I was the one who caused that explosion, though. Is it really all right for you to lie to their faces like that?” Fauzard asked me telepathically from the spirit lantern.
“Shhh, let Lady Witch handle it,” Teto said. “It’ll be fine!”
My new and improved little cover story seemed to have left a much stronger impression.
“Understood. Thank you for the details. We’re going to investigate the area; what about you?”
“We’ll head back with you to give our report to the guild, so we’re going to rest in our carriage until you’re done,” I said.
The adventurer nodded. “You deserve it; without you, the fire would have spread to the entirety of the forest. Thank you, girls.”
Teto and I locked ourselves in our caravan. As soon as I closed the door, I let out a long, long sigh.
“Today was exhausting. I’m almost completely out of mana too, so I’m going to take a nap.”
“Good work out there, Lady Witch!”
I undid my transformation spell and set the spirit lantern down on the table. Then I headed to the bedroom corner of the caravan and flopped onto the bed.
“What a strange carriage; the inside is much wider than the outside... Just who is this human?” I heard Fauzard ask.
“Lady Witch is Lady Witch!”
Teto’s reply did nothing to quell Fauzard’s curiosity, but I paid them no mind and let myself fall into a deep slumber.