“Ah. Luke, are you taking a walk with your sister?”
“Hello, Luke. Do you want some candy?”
“Don’t go that way because monsters come out there, okay? Then, see you!”
Since Luke and Yerna were taking a walk, every Forest Keeper they met greeted them.
An Elf Forest Keeper found a child named after the forest they were in, Luke Forest.
Isn’t that quite an interesting story?
In fact, Luke had unknowingly become a mascot among the Forest Keepers of Luke Forest.
They all intentionally followed Yerna’s GPS to catch a glimpse of Luke.
As he put the candy he received into his pocket, Luke replied.
“Y-yes. Thank you all for your hard work.”
“Hard work? This is our job!”
“You shouldn’t go too deep, okay?”
“Don’t let go of Yerna’s hand!”
Receiving the child’s greetings, the Forest Keepers smiled again as they walked back to their places.
Luke felt embarrassed by such treatment.
‘At this age, being treated like a little girl.’
He felt a deep sense of self-loathing, but it was not something he could show.
Since everyone was greeting him with joyful expressions, he didn’t want to ruin the atmosphere on purpose.
‘If I can make them smile, even for a moment, at the cost of my feelings… then it would be worth it.’
Thinking so, Luke managed his emotions.
It wasn’t a difficult task.
A real mage should be able to control their emotions after all.
Moreover, the air of the forest and the mana were sufficient to heal Luke’s spirits.
As they continued their walk, feeling like they had greeted almost all the Forest Keepers in Luke Forest, Yerna gently patted Luke’s head and spoke.
“Shall we head back soon?”
“Yeah, let’s do that.”
From the beginning until now, Yerna thought while watching Luke, who was intensely focused on the GPS screen.
‘He must really want to go to the zoo.’
She felt a bubbling thought that she should take him there sometime.
‘In winter, many animals and monsters hibernate, so maybe when the weather improves in spring…’
Lost in such thoughts, Yerna suddenly wondered if Luke was focusing too long on the small screen.
“Well then, could you return the GPS? It seems like you’ve been looking at it for too long.”
“…Understood.”
Luke nodded and handed the GPS to Yerna.
Although he had been staring at it for a long time, he ultimately couldn’t figure out its principles.
All he could ascertain was that it seemed like he was exchanging information with something enormous, but he thought that staring at it longer wouldn’t reveal its true principles, so he decided to let go of his attachment to the magical device for now.
‘I should look it up in a book someday.’
As Luke pondered whether he should visit a library, he halted in his tracks at the sight of a blue shape that appeared before him.
“Ah.”
Yerna looked down at Luke, who suddenly stopped walking, and asked.
“Luke, what’s the matter?”
“This is…”
The blue shape was familiar.
As if he had seen it before in the past…
‘Is it a spirit?’
As the thought crossed his mind, the blue shape seemed to sway its mana-made body and spoke.
-…….
…Indeed, even upon hearing it again, it was closer to noise than speech.
Its voice sounded almost like an out-of-tune string instrument being played.
There were sounds that resembled nails scratching a chalkboard and noises akin to a giant horn being blown.
And…
-Elle, Elle.
Watching the spirit that kept repeating the word “Elle,” shaking its mana body up and down like it was laughing, Luke thought.
It felt as if someone was calling his name.
‘Wait, is it possibly calling me Elle?’
Luke gently pushed the spirit away and said, “My name is Luke Irushi, not Elle.”
-Luke?… Elle!
“I told you I’m not Elle.”
“Luke, what are you talking to?”
Yerna asked, surprised by Luke’s sudden soliloquy.
What was going on?
Could it be that something was wrong with his mind all of a sudden?
Not being able to see the spirit, Yerna couldn’t help but worry.
“Yerna. There’s a spirit.”
“A spirit?”
Yerna tensed at the mention of a spirit.
She couldn’t grasp whether he was seeing things or if he was observing something wondrous and simply calling it a spirit.
At that moment, Luke asked as if he found Yerna’s reaction strange.
“Can you not see this spirit?”
“Umm, well…”
As expected, there was nothing in the direction Luke was pointing.
There was only grass, leaves, or perhaps a peculiarly shaped bug, or like last time, a firefly… nothing that could be called a spirit.
Truly, there was nothing.
If anything, just the air.
Yerna began to grow a little cautious.
‘Could it be a ghost?’
Well, many people had lost their lives in Luke Forest, so it was not uncommon for ethereal monsters like banshees or wraiths to appear.
However, in this case, that wasn’t the reason.
If it were a wraith or a banshee, it would appear as a red dot on the GPS since they are monsters, but nothing like that showed up on the device.
‘A monster wouldn’t fail to appear on the GPS…’
Modern mana-detecting satellites can sense all ‘unnatural’ mana flows.
Naturally, ghost-type monsters like banshees and wraiths can be detected too.
But here, there were only two blue dots representing Yerna and Luke.
That means…
‘Ah, could this be an imaginary friend?’
A being that children under the age of ten often have, a symbol of childlike innocence.
Children often struggle to distinguish between imagination and reality.
So, seeing a spirit in their imagination as if it were real.
Given Luke’s interest in fairy tales, it wouldn’t be surprising if he had spirits in his imagination.
Considering this, Yerna was torn about whether to shatter this innocent child’s fantasy or protect it once again.
‘Ugh…’
Yerna recalled how she had carelessly said, “Renie is actually dead” in the hospital last time and had vividly remembered Luke’s sulky expression.
She didn’t want to see that expression again.
In the end, Yerna firmly resolved and nodded.
“Luke, spirits can only be seen by those who the spirits acknowledge as friends. Well… you can’t see my spirit, right?”
“Oh, is that so?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
She told a lie.
She couldn’t bring herself to say, ‘What you are calling a spirit is just your imaginary friend, and I can’t see it.’
Yerna rationalized it as a benevolent lie.
However, after hearing that lie, Luke nodded.
“Ah, so that’s why I couldn’t see your spirit.”
When thought of in that way, it made sense.
Why, claiming to have a spirit, had he never seen any spirits around Yerna, and why the spirits that must exist were so rare in this world?
Of course, Yerna’s vague explanation had no basis,
as the Luke from 5,000 years ago had a spirit affinity close to zero. Despite him being a great mage, spirits notoriously distrustful of mages wouldn’t allow even one to be around him.
Naturally, Luke had no interest in knowledge he found ‘useless,’ so he hadn’t looked into anything regarding spirits at all.
Of course, the same was true for nearly all other mages as well.
Therefore, for Luke, who had almost no knowledge about spirits, her explanation seemed quite plausible.
Well, in this era, there was no spirit master to correct him.
After all, it was an age when no one could see spirits.
Now, spirits were merely scenes frozen in fairy tales.
Consequently, there were no longer any who were curious about the ecology of spirits.
Unless they were historians or archaeologists engrossed in digging up the past.
“Right, right.”
Yerna nodded repeatedly at Luke, who appeared convinced.
‘Well, imaginary friends tend to disappear as one grows up.’
As Luke’s mind matures and he learns to distinguish between imagination and reality, it would resolve itself.
There was no need to intentionally break his innocence by saying spirits don’t exist.
On the other hand, in Luke’s eyes, the spirit was very much visible.
Listening to the voices that echoed, intertwined with an unintelligible language, “Luke,” “Elle, Luke,” that rang in his ears.
The spirit, shaped like a round bubble and swaying its blue mana tail like the flickering end of a campfire, tilted its head side to side in a rhythmic motion.
That sight was rather adorable.
‘Spirits only reveal themselves to those they consider friends…’
If that’s the case, it means this spirit sees him as a ‘friend.’
“Well then, I’ve learned something I didn’t know.”
Luke smiled at the sight of the blue spirit wiggling excitedly on his palm.
“Alright. Then, spirit, could you tell me your name?”
In response to Luke’s gentle tone, the spirit made a series of popping sounds like bubbles bursting, then produced a sound akin to a baby babbling.
-Py!…Py!
“I see, you’re telling me to call you Py.”
Feeling the gentle flow of mana on his palm, Luke said.
“Py, was the firefly yours?”
-Luke, Py!…
Although the language was still incomprehensible except for its name, seeing the spirit nod seems to confirm it.
“That’s how it was.”
The mana formation that came to mind at that moment might have been a mark of affection among spirits.
It seems that the fireflies truly were the spirit’s messengers.
