Chapter 3
Sylph, who had been murmuring the two syllables with its tiny lips, shook its head vigorously.
As if to say that absolutely wasn't what it meant.
Then it clearly uttered the two syllables again.
“No matter how I look at it, it’s Eya. But there’s no way a word like that exists. If we can communicate, that means you know human language.”
Nod, nod!
Sylph nodded emphatically, even clapping its hands.
Then it slowly mouthed the two syllables once more.
Of course, no matter how it did so, no voice could be heard.
“A contract? Ah, you want to make a contract?”
Sylph smiled brightly.
It was happy that Jade had finally figured it out.
The same went for the salamander, which had been lying comfortably on its belly nearby.
It sprang to its feet at the mention of a contract.
“Right, normally, we have to make a contract to stay together. It can help with this and that, too. But how do we make one?”
Jade found himself at an impasse.
He knew that he possessed an affinity with spirits that was exceedingly rare among humans.
Otherwise, there was no explaining Sylph and the salamander appearing like this.
The problem was that he had no idea how to form a contract.
The same was true of the body's original owner.
Smooch!
“Huh?”
At that moment, Sylph came right up and kissed him on the cheek.
Yet with that completely out-of-the-blue kiss, Jade felt as though something had connected him to Sylph.
At the same time, he sensed something stirring within his body.
‘Is this mana?’
He became aware in an instant of the mana the body's original owner had so desperately wanted to feel.
Of course, it did not feel like much, but what mattered was that he had made a start.
Now that he could feel mana, all he had to do was gradually increase it.
Whoosh! Whoooosh!
It was more like a child's game than a contract, but what mattered was that a contract had been formed with nothing more than a simple kiss.
Jade instinctively knew it even though no one had taught him.
That he had formed a contract with Sylph.
Perhaps the salamander realized it too, because it flicked its tongue and rubbed its head against his leg once more.
But there were still more surprises in store.
Prring.
Srrrk.
As the canteen's lid opened, Undine, a lesser water spirit, appeared, and a gnome resembling an old dwarf casually rose to its feet right beside him.
All four of the commonly known elemental spirits had appeared.
At the sight, Jade muttered without realizing it.
“……Was I a natural-born genius? But why here of all places... No, wait. Since it’s here, should I be saying I’m lucky instead?”
Like the salamander, Undine and Gnome also showed an oddly strong fondness for him.
Undine, a tiny fairy-like figure similar to Sylph, approached cautiously as if shy, while Gnome smiled benevolently and patted his leg.
But with the two of them appearing, perhaps the salamander grew anxious, because it became even more desperate to show off its cuteness.
It rolled onto its back and exposed its belly.
“Honestly, you...”
At the salamander acting more like a pet than a spirit, Jade wore an incredulous expression.
Yet on the other hand, he also felt reassured.
Though they were only lesser spirits, the four of them were indispensable to Jade, who had not yet properly adapted to the continent of Arphedia.
Hadn’t he made it here comfortably without a single battle today, simply because Sylph had served as his guide?
“Do you want to make a contract with me, too?”
At Jade's words, the eyes of the three spirits lit up.
Seeing them like that, Jade gave a small chuckle and held out his hand.
He knew that a contract could be formed through contact imbued with intent, without needing to kiss as Sylph had, so he took the spirits' hands in the order they had appeared.
Before long, his soul became connected to the spirits.
“Hmm! The energy being consumed is considerable. Or is this normal?”
It was about the same amount as with Sylph, but when mana three times that amount was consumed in an instant, Jade's head spun.
The sudden depletion of mana had shocked him.
However, he was accustomed to this level of pain.
Besides, since it did not strike him directly in the head, it was more than bearable.
“This could even count as training.”
At the sight of Jade staggering for a moment, the four spirits looked concerned.
Sylph in particular glared sternly at the three spirits.
The three spirits flinched.
“But this can’t be normal, right? Contracting with all four elemental spirits, I mean.”
Unlike the three spirits, who were settling down comfortably one by one, Sylph nodded while floating through the air on its back.
As if answering Jade’s question.
“Hmm.”
And Jade gave it a meaningful look.
The more he looked at it, the more exceptionally different it seemed from the other three children.
But he did not ask about that at all.
“First, let’s have dinner.”
He finally began the dinner that had been delayed for a while by the sudden appearance of the three spirits.
Yet perhaps thanks to the salamander, despite the considerable time that had passed while he formed the contracts, the whole roasted rabbit had not burned in the slightest.
It had been roasted to just the right degree for eating.
“……This is really good. Is hunger the best seasoning, after all?”
He had brought only a tiny bit of salt and no pepper at all, so he did not season it separately.
He had been saving it for when he truly needed it.
Yet, unexpectedly, the roasted rabbit was delicious.
“If you could eat, too, I would’ve shared some with you.”
Feeling bad about eating alone, Jade looked at the four of them.
But at his words, the four spirits merely smiled sweetly.
As if to say they were fine.
After safely finishing his first dinner in another world, Jade used the branches he had gathered beforehand to make arrows, however crudely.
Using a small multipurpose knife, he fashioned rough arrow shafts.
They were makeshift arrows with no separate arrowheads, but Jade used them for practice.
He had made them as practice arrows because he would have to become proficient with a bow, which would be essential for survival and hunting going forward.
Ssshk. Ssshk.
Jade also made a slingshot using the rabbit's sinews.
Since stones lay scattered everywhere, he wanted to make the most of his surroundings.
“I have to do everything I can. First, I need to survive. Once I do, I’ll be able to find a way back. If I came here, there must be a way back to Earth.”
It was certain this was not a dream.
He had never dreamed anything this vivid, and all five senses were clearly telling him
that everything he saw was reality.
Thud! Thud!
Holding the small but sturdy bow, Jade began practicing archery.
The spirits clustered nearby showed interest.
Sylph in particular reacted most strongly, dancing every time he shot an arrow.
Ting!
“Huh?”
Even as Sylph played by riding the arrows as they flew, Jade continued practicing seriously—until he suddenly furrowed his brow.
When a strange sound came from the earthen wall, he stopped shooting and inspected the place where the arrow had bounced off.
Srrrk.
When Jade approached, Gnome cleared away the soil around the spot where the arrow had bounced off on its own.
This consumed a little mana, but surprisingly, not much.
Even that did not escape Jade's notice.
Since there was still much he did not know, he checked and committed every minor detail to memory.
“It’s a sword covered in rust. It looks really old.”
In the place Gnome had cleared away lay half of a rusted sword.
The other half was nowhere to be seen; only the hilt and a short blade remained, with white bones visible around them.
The finger-shaped bones were half-buried, as if they had only half-rotted away.
“Looks like he died here.”
Judging by the shape of the fingers, he seemed to have died still clutching the broken sword to the very end.
Yet even seeing that, Jade felt no particular emotion.
Because he personally believed there was no death without a story behind it.
Instead, his eyes lit up as he carefully picked up the sword the skeleton must have been clutching.
“Hmm!”
The instant it touched his hand, all kinds of memories and emotions from the broken sword swept over him like an ebbing tide.
Yet even as myriad emotions raged through him, Jade remained in his right mind.
Since he had experienced this often on Earth, he was able to endure it more calmly than expected.
He even felt as if his mental fortitude had somehow grown stronger.
“A knight of the Empire.”
It had lasted only a moment, but he had seen and felt a great deal.
That was why Jade's eyes gleamed.
It was as if fate had allowed him to obtain precisely what he needed.
“Once more.”
If this had happened on Earth, he would have suffered a severe headache all day every time, but things were different now.
Whether it was thanks to mana or because traveling between dimensions had granted him a new ability, the backlash was surprisingly mild.
Moreover, he felt he might be able to peer into memories whenever he wished.
Fwoooosh!
The instant he exerted his will, the sword's memories began replaying in his mind.
Most of them were useless memories, but several were absolutely essential to Jade now.
‘Guh!’
Since he could not select only the memories he wanted with pinpoint accuracy, as if searching for something on a web portal, the backlash came in the form of unmitigated pain.
The longer he used the ability, the stronger the pain became, as though his brain were being wrung out.
But Jade endured it stubbornly.
Compared to when it had suddenly manifested in the past, he could at least remain lucid now and do what he wanted.
Srrrk.
But then something astonishing happened.
The mana spread throughout his body began gathering in his head.
At the same time, the headache slowly began to subside.
‘Is this one of the ways mana is used? Or is it because I have a unique constitution?’
He did not know why this was happening, but what mattered was that the pain was subsiding.
If so, there was no harm in making use of it.
It was not as if his life force was being consumed.
‘Could it be that on Earth, lacking mana, I had been drawing on my mental strength and life force instead?’
A certain guess occurred to him, but Jade soon cast the thought aside.
What mattered now was obtaining the memory he wanted.
Now that he had contracted with spirits, nothing mattered more to him than a mana cultivation method.
‘Here it is.’
Though the throbbing pain remained, it was nothing compared to what it had been.
Thus Jade had no difficulty extracting the memory he wanted.
More precisely, the basic mana cultivation method of the Imperial Knights.
Although he had contracted with spirits, he was not a mage, so he could train his body as much as he liked, and Jade intended to make full use of that fact.
‘Even with spirits at my side, I’m ultimately the one responsible for protecting my life. I need to grow stronger.’
Of course, his limits would be determined by his physical talent, but he had no intention of becoming discouraged or frustrated because of that.
Even if he could not master it, he intended to go as far as he could, so Jade extracted every last memory remaining in the broken sword.
Perhaps because he was lucky, despite being broken in half, the memories concerning the mana cultivation method remained intact.
Perhaps the knight had treasured it dearly before his death, because the memory was also remarkably vivid.
‘It’s basic, which is perfect. If I obtain a better mana cultivation method, I can switch to it. It should also combine naturally with the intermediate, advanced, and supreme mana cultivation methods of the Imperial Knights.’
Knowing about something did not necessarily mean he could learn it, but there was still no harm in knowing.
So Jade chewed it over again and again.
In the meantime, the four elemental spirits gathered around him and kept guard, in a manner of speaking.