Chapter 26: Awakening as a Contractor

Evan sprang to his feet and reached out his hand toward Nihil.

No matter how much he was told not to bark, this time he just couldn’t hold it in.

Nihil quickly jerked his head back to avoid Evan’s hand, but Evan was just a bit faster.

“Do you think you can just not bark? Spit it out right now!”

“L-let go of me.” (L-let go.)

Nihil, whose cheeks were being squished, struggled and pushed at Evan’s face.

But there was no way the well-built knight, several times larger than Nihil, would be pushed away so easily.

“Spit it out! How much did you eat! If you eat this much burnt stuff, you’ll get sick!”

“Ugh, you stupid Guard Dog.” (Let go, you stupid mutt.)

“You refuse to do anything you don’t want to, but you stubbornly stuff your face with this all by yourself!”

“S-stop it, Sir Evan!”

“Sir Evan, calm down!”

In the end, Karus, unable to watch any longer, pulled Evan back, while Lianus held on to Nihil and tried to calm things down.

Evan hadn’t meant to hurt Nihil, so he let go obediently.

Nihil, whose cheeks had been pinched rather hard, loosened his jaw and rubbed his cheeks in circles with his hand.

Lianus, looking worried, placed both hands on Nihil’s cheeks and whispered if he was alright.

Nihil just nodded, showing no sign of pain.

Once Evan had been calmed and finally made to sit down, Karus opened his mouth.

“Why on earth did you do that?”

“Marquis.”

“…Hm?”

“You weren’t secretly bullying him just because he’s a commoner, were you?”

As Evan narrowed his eyes and stared lazily at Karus, Karus jumped in surprise.

“Wh-why would I bully him! Have you thought of me like that all this time?”

“…Of course, I know you’re not that kind of person, Marquis…, but you spilled tea on his head, scratched his cheek, and gave him a pitch-black burnt cookie as a present, didn’t you?”

At that, Karus awkwardly scratched his head.

“Now that you put it that way, it really does sound like I was bullying him. Hmm, spilling the tea really was my fault. As for the scratch on his cheek…, I honestly don’t know what happened, so I can’t explain…, but were the cookies really that bad…?”

“…I thought they were charcoal.”

“S-sorry. My apologies to my friend as well. I didn’t realize it was that serious.”

“It’s fine. It wasn’t that bad.”

“Haha…….”

Karus laughed awkwardly and reflected on himself.

Next time, he decided he should watch over his youngest sibling while they made cookies.

Yes, at the very least, he should taste them before bringing any.

At that moment, Lianus, who had finally figured out the truth behind the choco cookies, spoke up with teary eyes.

“I… I didn’t even know, and I kept feeding them to you…….!”

“It’s okay, Lian.”

“I’m sorry, Nil. I should’ve tried them first.”

“You shouldn’t eat burnt things.”

Nihil quickly comforted the seaweed who was about to cry.

Beside them, the Guard Dog nagged, “You’re one to talk,” but Nihil just ignored him.

“I’m used to picking up and eating whatever, so something like that won’t make me sick. It wasn’t even that bad.”

“How can you say that. H-huwaaah~!”

Nihil hurriedly made excuses, but Lianus, thinking his friend had grown up suffering, finally burst into tears.

Nihil blinked at the sight of Lianus crying, then looked up at the two adults as if to ask what to do now.

“Y-Your Highness!”

“W-we’re sorry, Your Highness. Next time, we’ll make sure to bring something delicious…….”

But instead of comforting the child, the two adults only flailed their hands in panic, even more flustered than Nihil.

Seeing how hopeless they were, Nihil let out a deep sigh and gently wiped the tears from Lianus’s eyes.

“Don’t cry, Lian.”

“Hic, but I wanted to give you only good things, only delicious things.”

“If you say that, the sibling who baked those cookies with such care will feel bad.”

“Sniff… That can’t happen……..”

“If you see them next time, just tell them you enjoyed it.”

“Y-yeah.”

Nihil gently nodded and patted Lianus’s head as he promised to do so.

Lianus, still teary-eyed, smiled softly at Nihil’s touch.

“…Sir Evan, are you sure you’re not his nanny instead of his friend?”

Karus, watching from the side, poked Evan in the side and asked, but Evan, unable to hit the Marquis, remained silent.

…It wasn’t something he could completely deny, either.

And before long, His Highness stopped crying.

It really was enough to make someone mistake Evan for a nanny.

“Lian.”

“Yeah?”

“You said you wanted to give me only good and delicious things, right?”

“Yeah!”

“Then, whenever someone gives you food as a present, you have to give it to me first, okay?”

“Yeah! I’ll do that!”

Lianus beamed and nodded enthusiastically.

But the two adults, listening to the conversation, suddenly stiffened.

At first glance, saying you’d taste a gift before someone else could seem arrogant, but in reality, it meant acting as a food taster.

Evan’s brow furrowed automatically.

He was about to say something to Nihil, but at that moment, as if he knew, Nihil met his gaze.

Evan, confronted by those indifferent, unfathomably deep and mysterious eyes, couldn’t bring himself to speak and just lowered his eyes.

Having succeeded in shutting the Guard Dog’s mouth, Nihil turned to Karus.

“And teacher, I have nothing more to say. The lesson’s over, so you should head back now.”

“Ah…….”

Caught off guard by this unexpected dismissal, Karus hung his head.

Then, as if making a resolve, he clenched his fist tightly.

“If I go back like this, I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep for ten days.”

“That’s too bad.”

“If that happens, in the end, I won’t be able to hold back…….”

“What if you can’t hold back?”

“I’ll try to kidnap someone.”

“….”

The Marquis was more extreme than expected.

Nihil let out a hollow laugh at the sudden threat of kidnapping.

“Me?”

“…It should be my friend, but somehow, that seems a bit difficult…….”

“So?”

“…His Highness…….”

Karus glanced at Lianus.

Lianus, not expecting to become a kidnapping target, opened his eyes wide in surprise.

“I think, with something like Bonbon Chocolat, I could manage the kidnapping.”

At those words, Evan flinched.

Nihil thought to himself that at this rate, the Guard Dog would get kidnapped first.

Lianus only had one Guard Dog, so if he got kidnapped, it would be a problem.

In the end, Nihil decided to give in one last time.

“Fine…, I’ll listen first and then decide. Go ahead.”

“…! Really?!”

With unexpected permission, Karus jumped up and came right up to Nihil, grasping his hand tightly.

A faint tremor was transmitted through the grip.

Nihil glanced down at his captured hand and let out a deep sigh.

“Why are you going this far?”

“I-it’s really important to me……”

“Don’t get your hopes up. Just say it. I’ll at least check it for you.”

Karus, with a tense expression, cleared his throat several times and then began to speak hesitantly.

Soon, unknown words flowed from his mouth.

“(For my child…, may the right Summoning reach…….)”

“……..”

Nihil’s eyebrows twitched.

The pronunciation was terrible, but it wasn’t incomprehensible.

Still, Nihil opened and closed his lips a few times, but ended up staying silent.

“…My friend?”

As the silence dragged on, Karus’s voice began to tremble.

He clung to Nihil’s hand as if it were his last lifeline.

The grip was so tight that Nihil’s hand was turning white, but Karus didn’t seem to notice.

“M-my friend…….”

Anxiety filled his eyes, and his hands grew cold.

Nihil stared at Karus for a long while, then let out a sigh that was almost a laugh.

“Ha… That’s a mess.”

“…….”

“……!

Nihil pulled his hand free from Karus’s death grip, massaging it as he gave a crooked smile.

“If you were going to memorize it, you should’ve done it properly.”

“It just… wouldn’t stick. The way it sounds is so strange…, and it’s been five years already.”

“Who told you those words? Your mother? Your father?”

Karus’s eyes widened.

He tried to grab Nihil’s hand again, but Nihil, whose hand was still tingling from the previous grip, quickly avoided him.

“Ah, sorry.”

Karus, noticing the red marks on Nihil’s small hand, apologized sincerely and gently took his hand to rub it.

“That phrase is something my mother whispered to me regularly since I was young. Even right up until she passed away.”

Karus had searched every language that existed in history to figure out the meaning of that sentence.

At first, when he saw the writing on the World Map was similar to the script his mother had left, he thought everything would be solved.

Of course, that was a mistake.

It wasn’t a short period of time, and there were plenty of documents left by his mother, but he couldn’t find a single clue.

It was as if the language didn’t exist in this world.

He spent five years getting nowhere.

Seeing him struggle, his younger siblings told him it was okay to give up, but Karus couldn’t do that—he had to protect his family.

Karus glanced at the mysterious child with white hair, then gently rubbed the small hand that had turned red because of him.

Maybe he had become an teacher just to meet this person.

“…I see.”

“Yes?”

Startled by the low voice, Karus quickly cleared his thoughts and looked up.

Those mysterious, vividly colored eyes stared at the callus on his middle finger, then met his gaze.

“It’s a good thing you memorized it wrong.”

“…Could you perhaps tell me what it means?”

At the cautious question, Nihil frowned slightly.

There were too many reasons he couldn’t just tell him.

That language was none other than the Spirit language.

It was not a language humans were meant to use.

It was only natural the teacher hadn’t found any clues so far.

Spirits didn’t use written language, only ‘sounds’—and even then, most humans couldn’t hear them.

The problem was that spirits hated having their domain invaded.

Just today, when he peeked a bit to judge the Marquis’s suitability, they almost gouged out his eyes.

If he hadn’t dodged quickly, he would’ve been seriously hurt.

‘…So, was the teacher’s mother a Spirit Arts user?’

“Teacher.”

“Y-yes!”

“What did your mother do?”

“Ah, my mother was a mage who specialized in Wind Magic. She always told me never to learn magic myself, though.”

If that’s what she said, then she must’ve been a Contractor.

A Contractor who had made a pact with the wind spirit.

Magic and Spirit Arts were polar opposites: anyone who learned magic could never awaken as a Contractor, and Contractors who made a pact with a spirit could never use magic.

She must have pretended to use magic while really using Spirit Arts.

‘Still, I didn’t expect there would be Spirit Arts users left.’

Nihil quietly observed Karus.

He was not a Contractor.

He had confirmed that much today.

Besides, most Contractors were born with the qualification or awakened as children; as an adult, the Instructor had a very slim chance of becoming one.

But if his late mother was a Contractor, that changed things.

The spirits’ language itself was special; if a Contractor recited it, it carried power.

If the Instructor’s mother, a Contractor, had repeated those words to him over and over, he would eventually be qualified, even if late.

‘But teaching the Spirit language is way too risky!’

Even if there was a chance of awakening, the fact remained that the teacher wasn’t a Contractor.

The situation was more complicated than expected, and Nihil, growing tired, slumped deep into the sofa.

The seaweed sitting beside him naturally draped a blanket over him and patted him gently.

Nihil quietly accepted the comforting touch and spoke languidly.

“Teacher.”

“Yes!”

“I can’t tell you what it means right now.”

“W-why not?”

“If you go poking around after learning what it means and something goes wrong, it’ll be a disaster.”

If he provoked the spirits’ anger before awakening as a Contractor, there would be no turning back.

“Don’t even say that language out loud. Don’t try to research it, just rest. When the time comes, I’ll tell you.”

“I-is it dangerous?”

“It’s dangerous. Today, my eyes nearly got ripped out…….”

Nihil, recalling the foul-tempered spirits who lunged at him the moment their eyes met, started to mutter without thinking, but quickly changed his tone when he noticed the stares.

“No, no. I misspoke. Forget I said anything.”

“……”

“……”

But it was already too late—the parlor had fallen silent.