When her vision cleared and her headache had subsided somewhat, she made to stand but the dull pain in her leg made itself known when she tried to put her weight on it, eliciting a groan from her. Now that she thought about it, her leg had gotten hit in the attacks earlier, but she hadn’t noticed the pain until she released the physical enhancement technique.
It’s been a while since I fought such a close battle. Leticiel healed the wound on her leg and looked up where she saw that the twin spirits had collapsed on the ground. As soon as she could walk, she immediately jogged over to them.
The twins were unconscious, their hands still entwined. The hands that weren’t being held had light burn marks on them, showing that they’d been defending themselves against the reflection of the light earlier. Placing her hands over both of their bodies, Leticiel activated her healing sorcery.
When she finished treating them, the boy and girl opened their eyes and sat up. “I’m sorry I was so rough with you,” Leticiel apologized.
The twins dropped their gazes, fingers pressing against their own bodies.
“Huh?”
“We’re not burnt?”
They tilted their heads, curious. In response, Leticiel silently looked back at the battlefield and pointed at the ruins of one of the mirrors she had placed earlier. There was a tiny pool of water that hadn’t yet disappeared.
She hadn’t wanted to kill the spirits, so although she had sent their attacks back at them, she hadn’t repelled all of them. She had calculated the heat of each ray from the information she’d obtained from the first attack and applied decomposition sorcery to the magic mirrors so they would absorb the heat. Therefore, the heat from the light rays had decomposed when it hit the mirrors, the water that had absorbed the heat evaporating. The only thing that had bounced back to them was the light itself.
After seeing the remains of the water mirror, the twins seemed to understand what Leticiel had been doing and seemed even more surprised.
“…You’re not going to do anything?”
“…You’re not going to kill us?”
“Why would I kill you? I’d never do that,” Leticiel said as she cast a healing technique on her right arm. She didn’t hold a grudge against the spirits; she’d simply wanted to end the fight.
“…What a weird person.”
“…Such a strange person.”
“You think so?” The twins tilted their heads at the same time as they watched Leticiel check her right arm. It seemed like they were at least willing to talk with her. “Will you tell me why you attacked me?” she asked them. From their places on the ground, the twins looked at each other.
“Because you’re a human.”
“You’re a human…”
They said it as if the answer was obvious, but Leticiel was stunned by how overly simple it was. “Wait… That’s the only reason?”
“Yes. Humans are bad creatures that move aether. We shouldn’t go easy on them when we find them,” the girl explained.
“Exactly. Humans are dangerous creatures who use sorcery, so we should kill them when we find them,” the boy echoed.
Apparently, the spirits thought that humans who used sorcery were evil and should be treated with hostility. Though the spirits didn’t pick fights with humans themselves, they had no qualms about killing them if they came across them in the human world, just as they had with Leticiel.
In the current world, the spirits had completely cut off contact with humans by covering their villages with special barriers, making it impossible for humans to come into contact with the spirit villages. The spirits were highly restricted from going outside of them, and only the spirit kings could freely travel between the villages and the outside world. That was probably why rumors of the spirits’ extinction had started in the human world.
In Leticiel’s past life, the spirit villages hadn’t yet been enveloped in a barrier and some people had reached them after surviving a difficult path and harsh trials. What had happened between the two races in the past thousand years?
“Who said all of that?” Leticiel asked.
“Mama said it.”
“Papa told us.”
The twins stood with their hands still clasped together and they padded over to where Leticiel stood, staring up at her like they could drill a hole in her face.
“Hmm? Wh-What is it?”
“But you’re a good person, miss. Sorry we suddenly attacked you.”
“Yeah, you weren’t a bad person, miss. Sorry we assumed you were!”
“I don’t mind. I’m sorry too.” The twins finally stopped staring. Leticiel wasn’t sure how they’d come to their decision, but spirits were more sensitive than humans, so they may have instinctively sensed something.
The twin spirits bowed deeply to Leticiel, flustering her. She quickly asked them to raise their heads. Was it safe to assume they no longer intended to be aggressive?
“My name is Drossell. What are your names?”
“I’m Tina.”
“I’m Deet!”
Though they had the same face, Deet smiled where Tina didn’t. Leticiel wondered how twins could contrast each other so much.
“Still, spirits are restricted from leaving their village, right? Is it all right for you to be here?”
“It’s fine. We’re here for an important investigation.”
“It’s okay! This is the Spirit King of the West’s important duty!”
“Oh, I see… Wait, what?” Leticiel blinked in disbelief at the words she couldn’t possibly ignore. “You two…are spirit kings?!”
“That’s right. I’m the Spirit Queen of Light.”
“Yep! I’m the Spirit King of Void.”
The spirits were divided into eight tribes according to their attributes with tribes pairing up to form villages in each of the four secret areas cut off from the outside world. The spirits of wind and lightning were in the north, the spirits of water and earth in the south, the spirits of fire and darkness in the east, and the spirits of light and void in the west. The spirit kings were the most powerful leader of each tribe. There was always one for each attribute.
To think she’d been fighting against the strongest spirits… Leticiel thanked God that she’d been able to win against Tina and Deet, who proudly puffed up their chests.
“…Someone’s coming,” Tina suddenly said.
“…Someone’s coming,” Deet agreed. Even though Leticiel couldn’t see anyone or hear their footsteps, the twins were swiveling their heads, looking around the forest.
“See you later, Miss.”
“Bye-bye, Miss Drossell!”
“Oh, okay.”
Waving goodbye, the twins flew off into the west, still holding hands. In the end, Leticiel hadn’t been able to find out why they were there.
✦ ✦ ✦
After that, Veronica—who’d been worried when she heard a thunderous roar—came running, along with a number of teachers who had been taking advantage of their break to conduct research on academy grounds. A commotion immediately broke out when they reached Leticiel at her spot in the forest, which was even more damaged than before.
“Miss Drossell!”
While the teachers were surveying the scene and calling for reinforcements, Veronica was the first to fly up to Leticiel.
“You were taking so long to get back, and then I heard explosions or some other kind of blast… Eek! Miss Drossell, your uniform!”
“Huh?” Veronica’s small shriek caused Leticiel to look down at her right arm. She hadn’t yet repaired her uniform, which had gotten torn and bloody in the battle earlier. She had only treated her wound, completely forgetting about her clothing.
“A-A-A-Are you all right?! There’s blood…on your clothes…”
“I just cut myself a bit. It’s fine. More importantly, I’m sorry to have caused such a fuss when I promised to garden with you.” Leticiel lowered her eyes apologetically as she used sorcery to mend her uniform. She was supposed to help in the garden, but that had fallen through due to the earlier commotion.
“N-No, please don’t worry about that! We can garden some other day!” Veronica smiled brightly at the upset Leticiel. They might not be able to do it for a while thanks to everything that had happened, but Leticiel vowed to make it up to her in the near future.
Immediately afterward, Lucas was dragged out to the scene. As expected, Leticiel was taken to the headmaster’s office and received a harsh scolding. Wondering just how many times she’d been in that situation since reincarnating, Leticiel meaninglessly counted the number of times in her mind.
“Don’t you know how to control yourself? It was fine before because there was an emergency, but don’t go all out in the forest when there’s nothing there! It’s a good thing there was no damage to the museum this time. What would you have done if there was?! At least practice at the magic training grounds until the training grounds on your research laboratory are complete. …Hey, are you listening to me?!”
She hadn’t told Lucas about the spirits, so he mistakenly thought that she had caused that level of destruction all on her own. Well, it was true that she had greatly contributed to the nature’s destruction, and she did regret having completely forgotten about the museum.
While listening to Lucas’s tirade, Leticiel looked out the window of his office to the sky, gazing in the direction the twin spirits had flown away in and wondering what they had come to investigate.