My parents departed for the capital the very next day and only had to wait two days to be granted an audience with the empress. Apparently, this was highly irregular; both the empress and her consort, the general, had their schedules determined months in advance, so any last-minute arrangements were almost impossible to accommodate. But given that we’d told them we’d met the Spirit King, it was only natural that they’d expedite my parents’ audience with them.
We abruptly ended up very busy on our end too. Those who had to travel many hours by carriage to reach our castle requested that we search for spirit spots in their own regions and help create an environment where their people could easily communicate with spirits without great disruption to their daily lives. Not only would it make people more indebted to the lords of the land, it would also increase the population of spirit beasts, strengthen both our naval and border forces, and improve crop yields—there was no way we could refuse.
It was impossible to be understood by the spirits without a spirit beast around to translate, and that meant that, for now, I would always have to be present. But I was still only four years old, remember? It would be out of the question for me to go alone to all the locations requesting assistance.
It was possible to teleport immediately from the castle to the imperial palace or the academy thanks to the teleportation arrays, but they only connected predetermined locations that couldn’t be changed. Since the technology used to create those arrays had been lost to time, new ones couldn’t be created. That made them useless for traversing within our own domain. It was like how you could travel to other regions of Japan in two hours using the bullet train or a plane, but there were places within the same prefecture that took longer than two hours to reach.
“I’ll go find someone who has a spirit that looks close to evolving into a spirit beast!”
If we find spirits that can control ice, scorching heat, gravity, or tornadoes, then having conversations with them should let them evolve!
“I’m fairly sure there’s one person who can use ice magic, but that’s about it,” Chris said.
What?!
“Why is our military so pathetic?”
“Wait, you’re including the army in your search?!” He sounded shocked, but...
“You told me to check everyone,” I pointed out.
“No, no, you misunderstood,” he backtracked. “Well, no, you didn’t misunderstand, but I meant you should check them all gradually, over the course of the next six months or so.”
“The people who get checked last will complain.”
“True...”
Everyone would want to be prioritized for something like this. Whom we chose first would affect the perception of whom our family deemed most important to us.
“Who’s the person who can use ice?” I asked.
“Alyssa, a professional mage.”
Apparently, Alyssa was nearing her thirties, just like me in my last life! Her husband had passed away seven years ago, and since then, she’d been living by herself. It would be a little sad if that was why she had been talking to her spirit, but if I helped her turn them into a beast, she could hold a proper conversation with them. Surely she’ll work with us!
“Still, the army, huh?” Chris was murmuring. “If we could get just two people, would that be enough?”
“I’d say one person from the navy, one from the knights’ order,” I suggested. “I’ll teach them how to evolve their spirits into spirit beasts. If I can find a place with plentiful spirits, maybe they could meet some new ones.”
“Good sales pitch, but Deir, have you given up on acting like a child?”
“Bring up that topic, and I’ll never talk to you again.”
“What?” He blinked at me. “Sorry, I’ll stop, then. It’s not fair that it’s only Alan you’re always being buddy-buddy with, though. Oh, I know. How about we go searching for spirits together?”
Chris spoiled me so much that Rex and Brad had started calling him a siscon, but I wasn’t so naive as to blindly believe that my brother would understand me without fail. After getting a job and living alone in the big city of Tokyo, I’d seen tons of terrible news stories and met loads of horrible people, so I couldn’t help but be wary. If Chris learned that I had knowledge of another world, would he try to keep me under his thumb to take advantage of it?
If this had been a world in which political marriages were taken for granted, I might have been okay with that, but knowing that even many nobles here had married purely for love left me wanting the same. I had remained single to the end of my previous life, after all!
That was why I was remaining just a child who had a unique imagination, a strange child who thought up the craziest ideas. I didn’t want my family to view me in any other way.
“Deir? Did I make you mad? I really won’t bring it up anymore,” Chris was saying.
“No, I’m not mad,” I quickly answered. “I was just wondering where it would be good to go.”
“Let’s go wherever you want to go.”
“Hmm. I want some cheese.”
“What?” Once again, he was staring at me blankly. “Why cheese all of a sudden?”
“I want to go to the northern highlands,” I added.
“The associations your mind makes are as interesting as always...”