But what did that mean for me as an adult if they still saw me as a child once I’d revealed my true self? Did that mean I had been mentally immature in my previous life? Oh god, I can’t even deny it.
“There are far more pressing matters we must discuss.” Chris was the only one here seriously trying to move the conversation forward. The Royal Spirits had all the time in the world, so they didn’t feel pressured to move things along, and they’d merely wished to meet me to begin with.
(We should talk about our names, then,) the Fire King declared.
“Huh?”
(Oh, right, right. I was so frustrated seeing the spirits of Luftanen gushing over receiving names and then the Water King waltzed in with his own name too!) the Wind Queen huffed.
“Luftanen is the island country to the south, right? Do the Royal Spirits there have names?” Chris asked.
(A reincarnator with memories appeared there about two hundred years ago,) she explained. (Which reminds me, the only type of spirit you don’t have is a wind one, right? Do take one home with you.)
“Ah, thank you very much.”
The Wind Queen placed one hand before her mouth and blew gently across her palm, sending a soft green light fluttering over to Chris. Now Chris can join me in having a full set of spirits.
(Then allow me to provide a spirit as well,) the Water King said, looking toward Alan.
(Hold on. Rather than leaving the boy with nothing but sword spirits, you should give him a magic one. It would let him use healing magic,) the Earth Queen suggested.
(Oh, you have a good point.)
(Earth spirits have good defensive properties, though, so I’ll give him a sword spirit,) the queen added.
(How about we make them spirit beasts?) the Water King said.
“Wait. Stop right there. We’ll stand out even worse if you do that!” I cried.
Now all three of us had spirits of every element—which meant we were the only people in Azelia with the full set of spirits.
Margrave Belisario had a huge territory and army! He had strong ties to neighboring countries through trade! If it got out that we’d received spirit beasts from the Royal Spirits on top of that, the whole country would be in an uproar!
“It’s the process of raising a spirit into a beast that allows one to form a precious connection, so we must refuse the beasts,” I said. “Thanks to your gift of our remaining elements, we can dedicate the time we would’ve spent searching for them to visiting other regions instead.”
(Are you planning to drop by Kolkett? If you do, I wouldn’t mind meeting the humans there,) the Wind Queen said.
(There are spirits near the human settlements of Noland, but there are a lot of monsters roaming my land,) the Fire King warned. (If you wish to come see me, you’ll need to ride a spirit beast.)
Don’t look at me like that! Don’t make a little girl go galloping off into monster-infested plains just to see you!
(What does ‘Ruri’ actually mean?) Since all four Royals were simply bringing up whatever they were curious about, our conversation wasn’t progressing at all. The Wind Queen was the one to eventually return the conversation to the topic of names.
“It’s the name of a color,” I explained. “In Japan—that’s the name of the place I used to live in my previous life—lapis lazuli would sometimes be referred to as ruri. We also used that to refer to pretty blues that are the same color as a lapis lazuli stone.”
(I see. A lapis lazuli stone, you say?) Ruri nodded in seeming approval.
(It’s a good name,) the Fire King declared.
(I believe the name of the Water Royal of Luftanen was Moana,) the Wind Queen mused.
After that nice, friendly chat, all of them immediately turned to me with expectant eyes.
Don’t you worry. I made sure to come prepared. I’d worked Little Wiki much harder than I had in a while.
“Like with Ruri, I picked names related to colors. I hope you’ll like them.”
(Ooh, what am I called?) the Wind Queen demanded.
“Hisui.”
She would be called Hisui. Just like with lapis lazuli, it was the name given to a gemstone, in this case jade.
The Earth Queen would be called Kohaku—amber. We often referred to the color of high-grade whisky as amber. As a stone, amber was fossilized tree sap that sometimes had bugs or ammonite fossils preserved inside. To be honest, I found that kinda gross, but at least it was a pretty color.
The Fire King would be called Suoh. This was the name I’d really struggled with. Suoh was the name of a flower—redbud—and its color was far removed from that of fire, but the only Japanese names that evoked more appropriate colors were Hiiro and Beni. Neither of those had seemed like they would fit, and the only stones I could find with similar colors were coral and ruby, so I’d eventually decided to just go for Suoh.
(These names are all quite fitting,) Kohaku said.
(Okay, then let’s refer to each other with these names from now on,) Ruri said.
I’d taken my name for granted since I’d had it since birth, but this whole experience made me realize just how important having your own name really was. If there are four Royal Spirits per country, how have they been referring to each other before now?
(Thank you, Deirdre. I’m very happy with this name.) Kohaku smiled at me.
“I’m glad you like it. Also, um, about the possibility of you meeting with the empress...”
(Right, of course.)
(You wouldn’t mind at least meeting with her, would you?)
(You could voice your complaints directly.)
The Water King—no, Ruri and Suoh both tried to encourage her, but Kohaku was still staring at the ceiling in thought. I completely understood how difficult it would be for her to forgive the destruction of her home and the deaths of many of her spirits, but I didn’t get the sense that she hated humans; she’d been very kind to me and my brothers.
“The empress has two sons, but neither of them has his own spirit, and that poses a problem for the succession,” Chris said then. “If nothing changes, the country will fall into ruin, and that will affect the spirits too.”
Go, Chris, you can do it. I’m rooting for you! And that’s all I can do!
(Oh, those children are no good.) Kohaku shook her head.
“What? But why?”
(They have too little mana,) she said.
(You can see someone’s mana capacity, can’t you? Look. Allie has the least among you three, but those princes don’t have even half of what he does,) Hisui explained.
Was she serious?!
“Ack, they must’ve slacked on building their mana because they were working toward more physical pursuits in the future!” I cried. “But shouldn’t the general know you still need mana even for sword spirits?”
“Allie...” Alan was murmuring to himself.
Don’t get so depressed over a cute nickname, Mr. Six-year-old.
“Um, please just call him Alan,” I requested. “My brother—”
“Deir!” he burst out.
(Ooooh, you’re so cute!) Hisui gushed. (Alan, let’s go eat some sweets over here.)
(He’s going bright red,) Kohaku observed.
Perhaps I’d said more than I should’ve because now Alan was being kidnapped by Kohaku and Hisui. He was flanked and had no choice but to surrender to their pampering. Rest in peace, brother.
“What were we talking about again?” I tried to redirect the conversation.
“Mana capacity,” Chris said, smirking as he observed Alan’s fate. If it’s so funny, why not let yourself get caught too?
“Chris also wants to—”
“Deir,” he cut me off.
“Right, sorry.”
“Let’s get back on topic,” he said. “The general is on a completely different level. He built his mana capacity all so he could marry the empress. It’s believed that the greater your mana capacity, the healthier and more talented your children will be.”
Oh my, so the general had worked on his mana to bag the empress and accidentally ended up raising sword spirits in the process. No one actually knew that sword spirits needed mana in the first place!
“Why did everyone forget so much?!” I couldn’t help but yell.
“The better question is how did you know?” Chris pointed out. “I thought there were no spirits in your old world.”
“Because it was fun.” I shrugged. “Magic and spirits were like this new mystery, so I wanted to try out a bunch of different things.”
“And that’s why you ended up using up your mana until you collapsed,” he concluded.
“Excuse me. We’re here to talk about the princes, not me.”
“There’s nothing else we can do but get them to build up their mana capacities,” Chris said. “The chief mage is your apprentice, so we’ll have him do it.”
Do those mages really think of me as their teacher? What was going on with this imperial court?
(The empress has stated that she would willingly move her citizens to make way for restoring the forest,) Ruri pointed out.
(Won’t that just make the humans resentful toward the spirits?) Kohaku fretted.
“Um, is the forest by the academy not good enough?” I asked.
(Do you know how deserted that place is?) Kohaku’s tone was mournful. (The children only come by in the winter, when it’s too cold for us to even go out. The only people that drop by during any other season are those in charge of maintaining the buildings. Nevertheless, they exterminated all of the large animals in the forest, just in case. Since the forest is completely surrounded by human settlements, no new animals migrate there either. It’s like a desolate island in the middle of the continent, with no animals left to thrive there.)
All right, tell me who the one responsible is! Lemme at ’em! I don’t care if she’s the empress anymore! There’s not a single thing left to help the princes get a spirit!