by Kiri Komori
“The quality of this world’s Air…? Huh? It’s degrading?”
“It is! It’s said that when a living being dies, the Spherits break its soul down to its core components. The body returns to the earth and the soul to the Air. Are you aware of the food chain in the animal world?”
“…Y-Yes, I’ve heard of it.”
Microbes decompose corpses to make the land flourish and grow vegetation, which is then eaten by herbivores, which are eaten by carnivores…which then die and are decomposed by microbes… I learned that in primary school.
“Hmm, just wonderful. I wish Aaron and Mina had at least an inkling of your intellect. Perhaps I should have them drink your bathwater.”
“Ick!” Mina moaned in disgust.
“Ahahaha.” Aaron gave a carefree laugh.
I didn’t like that idea, either. Adamantly rejected!
“But by the same logic, the Air makes use of those who live through the ages to sustain itself. Souls are reconstructed by the Spherits and are then placed into vessels of flesh once more… Ever so rarely, souls fail to enter a vessel, resulting in soulless flesh—what we call a zombie. Such zombies become seedbeds for the Primal Evil, Camilla, and form monsters.”
His jargon was becoming harder to keep up with…and we’d completely gotten off track. Weren’t we talking about mana purity? Still, I decided to hear him out until the end. Gina mentioned the Spherits earlier too. Lending them mana could produce magic.
Maybe they’re like a filter…? No, it sounds kind of different…
Sirius looked quite knowledgeable. I considered having him teach me for a while.
“Now then, here is a question for you, little lady. Souls are disassembled and restructured by the Spherits. What are the Spherits then?”
“Huh? Uh?! They’re like…nature spirits?”
It is a fantasy world after all… But them disassembling and rebuilding living things is pretty dark…for a fantasy world, at least.
“Ahahaha!” Sirius laughed at my answer. “Yes, it would be lovely if that was the case, but unfortunately, it’s isn’t.”
“R-Right…”
“Spherits are this world’s rules and providence. They cannot normally be seen, but they manifest as spheres of light when one uses magic. Hence, we dub them sphere spirits—Spherits. They break down the souls of the dead into the Air, and when living beings use magic, they take in the mana they offer. Once a Spherit is fully charged with mana, it converts that mana into a new soul.”
“…It’s like a shredder…”
“Hmm?”
“Ah, n-never mind. So Spherits have two roles?”
“Precisely! Your comprehensive faculties are exquisite. I would have Aaron and Mina drink of your bathwater.”
“…Please don’t.”
I did sympathize with Sirius somewhat. Aaron and Mina had grown bored of his explanation and, halfway through his lecture, had walked off to another corner of the room to play cards.
W-Why?! This is some big stuff he’s teaching me! It feels like you’d normally have to pay to get someone to teach you things like this!
“U-Um, Sirius, if people or demi-humans eexhaushtt…” I asked, slurring the word exhaust. “…their mana by using magic or alchemy, do they never get that mana back?”
“No, like I’ve told you before, there are techniques for recovering mana by taking it in from the Air. It takes practice, but it can be learned.”
“I see…”
“Now, let us return to the topic at hand. I believe you understand everything about Spherits now, so we can begin discussing mana purity.”
“Ah, o-okay.”
“This relates to the degradation of the Air itself. Like we’ve said, the Air uses the Spherits to decompose the souls of the dead and restore itself, yes? But what if the souls of the living were to be polluted…? Or, well, perhaps polluted isn’t quite apt. They are, in a manner of speaking, transmuted.”
“But, um, if the Air is only being changed or transmuted, isn’t ‘purity’ a strange way of putting it?”
“You truly are a genius, are you not? To realize this much at such a young age…! Once the owner returns, I ought to recommend he send you to Saikeorea as soon as possible…”
“N-No… It’s an interesting idea, but I’m only four years old. So…!”
He’d stopped treating me like a four-year-old! And trying to act like one now wouldn’t work… This was becoming more troublesome than I thought! I was interested in learning more, but it meant going to a land to the east. The far east, even. And this inn was close to the westernmost side of the continent… It’d take months to get there!
“But yes, describing the Air in terms of purity does come across as an odd choice. But the demi-humans, especially the elves and dwarves, use the way things were during the time of the Saint as their standard. Humans can’t sense the Air’s quality, but the demi-humans claim its purity is certainly in decline.”
“Humans can’t sense the Air’s purity?”
“Yes, they cannot.”
“But Sirius, you…”
Didn’t he comment on my mana’s purity…? Wait, so that means he’s…
“Hehehe. Your eyes are quite discerning. I am a half-elf. While I can’t see purity as well as a full-blooded elf can, I can sense it to some extent.”
“Ah! Really?! Wow! A half-elf! A child between a human and an elf!”
…The more I hear about this person, the less I understand what he’s doing in this party of ditzes!
“Humans care little for the Air’s purity, since they can barely use magic as it is… But to those who use magic, the Air’s purity is essential. Among mankind, some become capable of using magic through rigorous training. As such, these people sense that the Air is filled with ‘unnecessary factors.’ Even after using techniques for regaining mana, the rate with which it returns grows slower. There is, of course, research being done in Saikeorea into the cause of this… But many among the elves and dwarves are convinced this is due to the faith humans offer up to the vague, meaningless gods they’ve created.”
“Do you think so too, Sirius?”
“As sad as I am to admit it, I’ve traveled through the human countries, and the change in the Air’s quality is quite noticeable there. By contrast, in the demi-human lands, the degradation is much less noticeable. It’s believed this discrepancy is caused by the different gods being worshipped. Demi-humans, who harbor hatred toward mankind, vehemently claim that it happens because ‘Mankind has lost its faith in the Saint Akari-Berz’… But I personally think the question of what gods are being worshipped is inconsequential.”
“So you’re saying that people’s faith doesn’t have anything to do with it?”
“Because I believe gods don’t exist!”
Sirius punctuated this with a hearty laugh.
“But I do think the reason does lie with the so-called gods mankind created. By worshipping gods that don’t exist, they introduced unnecessary factors into the Air, changing its properties. That change resonates with the Spherits scattered across the land, making it spread into the Air all over the world… Now, I’ve gone on something of a tangent, but this brings us back to the matter of your mana’s purity, little lady. Do you understand what your mana being pure means?”
“Umm…”
The Air had changed in quality, but my mana hasn’t gone through that change.
Huh? So that means, uhh…?
“Maybe it’s because I’m still little?”
“That could be one reason, yes. But I believe the biggest factor here is your physiology. Even though your body takes in degraded Air, there is some kind of filter that keeps the purity of your mana from being tainted. You then used that pure mana of yours to create this low-grade tonic, which resulted in a high-quality product. That’s what I can surmise. But this brings up another problem. If all this is true, it means you, little lady, are a beacon of hope for the fields of magic and alchemy! Do you understand why?
”
“…If I have some kind of filter that keeps mana pure, it could be rhesearched. And if that filter can be discoverbed, it can be used to remove impyurities in the Air!” I said, stumbling over a few of the words.
“Splendid! You truly are a little genius.”
“C-Cut it out already, you mustached geezer!”
Gina had appeared behind us with a pot in hand. She slammed the pot down and pulled out her ax.
Wh-Why?!
“How dare you trick an innocent child?! You want me to slice you into ribbons?!”
“Now wait here, Gina! I am merely telling this little lady what she can do for the sake of this world’s futu—”
“Slicing you into ribbons, then!”
“I’m sorry!”
Aaaah! If you have to do this, do it outside!
♣♣♣
“OKAY, now that our bellies are full… We can help you look into that powder medicine!” Gina offered.
“O-Oh, thank you!”
Wait, we?
As I wondered over that word, Gina grabbed Aaron and Mina—who were trying to escape the room—by their collars and pulled them back. Sirius volunteered to wash the dishes and wasn’t in the coffee corner.
I guess we’ll have to look without him!
“Aaah, nothing in these annoying books makes sense to me!” Mina complained after just a few minutes of browsing.
“Stop whining. You just have to look for a page that talks about powder medicine,” Gina snapped at her. “Besides, aren’t you supposed to be a prospective magician?”
“Powder medicine… Powder medicine…” Aaron chanted as he looked at another book.
“See? Aaron gets it.”
But he’s been stuck on the same page for so long…
“Maybe powder medicine isn’t listed in the beginner manuals…?” I wondered aloud.
The second book I checked didn’t mention anything about how to make them in its index. We were checking all the pages to be sure, but it was similar in content to the first book I read.
Sirius returned from washing the dishes and picked up a third book. This one was larger than the rest and was so heavy that turning the pages was a bit hard for me…
Where did he even find this huge book anyway…?
“Incidentally, you can read and write, little lady?” Sirius asked me.
“Um, Dad taught me how to read. I’m still practicing writing.”
“Hm, outstanding. Education is important. Very important. Extremely important!”
Sirius turned his gaze to Mina, who’d already grown bored of her book and planted her face on its cover, then to Aaron, who was still stuck on the same page as before. Finally, it settled on Gina, who was repeatedly flipping through the same book.
You too, Gina…?
“Don’t you know about alchemy, Sirius?” I asked him.
“I’m a half-elf, so I wield magic instead.” Sirius shook his head. “Alchemy is very much a human specialty.”
“…Why don’t the demi-humans use it too?”
“Well, magic can achieve most of the things alchemy can. Cooking and medicine are unique to alchemy, I suppose… But demi-humans mostly see alchemy as a degraded, inferior form of magic.”
“You can cook with alchemy?”
“Apparently. Well, I don’t use alchemy, so this is only based on hearsay… That said, most everyone seems to be in agreement that meals cooked by hand taste better. Even alchemists acknowledge that. It’s hard to ensure the taste when cooking with alchemy. I also hear that if the process fails, the results can be quite terrifying.”
“O-Oh…”
Dad only had one functioning hand, so I thought that I could lighten his load by cooking with alchemy… But the fact that there was no way of ensuring the taste was pretty scary. The thought of guests complaining after eating a screwed-up dish sent shivers down my spine. Suddenly, it felt like I got something different from what I signed up for when I decided to get into alchemy.
“…But alchemy’s better when it comes to creating medicine, right?”
“That’s true, yes. But demi-humans have very durable bodies, and they’re long-lived. By comparison, humans are weak and fragile. That’s another factor that contributed to alchemy’s creation, I believe.”
“I-I see…”
Elves were said to live over a thousand years, and dwarves had a lifespan of several centuries… And Dad told me beastmen were also more durable than humans and less susceptible to diseases. They had less need for medicine in general.
“Incidentally, little lady, did you finish drying the ingredients you gathered? They say making sure the ingredients are fresh is an important part of brewing medicine.”
“Ah… You’re right! I was so caught up in researching the recipe I forgot…”
Grandpa couldn’t tell me about how to make the medicine, so I became fixated on researching it. But after being told that the freshness of the ingredients was important, I decided I’d be better off drying them first.
I decided to ask our three bored partners for a favor.
“Hey, Gina, Aaron, Mina, I’ve got something to ask you.”
“A request? Ask us for anything,” Gina said.
“Could you crush the Solemayu and put their cores in this plate? The medicine requires the fruit’s cores.”
“Oh! Yeah, that sounds like our area of expertise!” Aaron grinned.
“Yeah, got it! Leave it to us, Tinaris!” Mina nodded.
“My word… Perhaps you’d be better off giving up on being a magician, Mina,” Sirius uttered in exasperation.
“Zip it, gramps!” Mina snapped back at him.
…I have to agree with him.
Of course, I didn’t say it out loud.
“Thanks,” I said.
Leaving the research to Sirius, I focused on the drying process. I looked into how to do it yesterday. The alchemist wraps the ingredient they wish to dry in a clean fabric like gauze. This time, I tried drying Solan flower leaves. Then, they need to be placed in the bottom of a pot, where the alchemist is to flow mana into it while prodding it with a spoon. Doing this extracts the fluids from within.
Yesterday, I’d failed because I used a dirty cloth, but I used a clean one this time. I concentrated, so as not to send in too much mana, and gently tapped the bundle.
Tap, tap… Mana… Tap, tap… Mana…
The cloth lit up, and when the light died down, I checked the result.
“Ah…I did it!”
I opened the bundle, revealing a bunch of dried, rustling leaves. I did it! It worked!
“Fantastic!” a voice boomed near my ears.
“Aagh!” I staggered back in shock.
It was Sirius! When did he get this close to me?!
“You really are a genius, little lady!” he exclaimed. “To think you’d successfully perform a drying recipe despite being a beginner!”
“N-No, it’s probably a fluke…” I murmured bashfully.
“And I have good news to celebrate your success.” Sirius smiled with a triumphant glint in his eye. “I’ve found the recipe for the powder medicine.”
“You did?!” I jumped off my chair.
I approached Sirius in a hurry, and he handed over a sheet of paper. It…wasn’t from the book.
“I found this stuck between the pages. Your grandfather or grandmother likely kept it as a memo. Apparently, they both had the same illness.”
“Ah… Thank you so much!”
“Oh, I can’t take any credit for this.” He shook his head. “It was stuck between the pages of the book you gave me. You very well could have found it yourself. But forget that. Hurry, you have medicine to produce, do you not?”
“Hey, we got the Solemayu fruit cores!” Gina showed up with the fruit cores in hand.
“Thank you! I’ll try making it!”
I didn’t have that many leaves to dry, but the required amount was two grams of dried leaves and two fruit cores. It required
surprisingly little of both. The process required placing a sheet of paper in the bottom of the pot, upon which the ingredients were to be placed. However, the paper had to be Miha paper, made from the Miha root.
Aah! So there’s another ingredient!
“Sirius, do you know what Miha paper is…?” I asked him anxiously.
“Hm? I believe this right here is Miha paper…” he said, handing me a sheet of paper.
“But this is a paper towel…”
“Mm? No, this is Miha paper.”
“Ah! R-Right, sorry!”
So Miha paper is just paper towels…? I had it the whole time!
That said, paper—even just a paper towel—wasn’t exactly cheap, so Dad didn’t get it very often. But Grandpa’s life was hanging in the balance, so I decided I’d use it without any hesitation!
“So, I have to spread out the Miha paper…and put the ingredients on it. And then I send in mana…and squash the ingredients, mashing them together…”
I crushed the ingredients, grinding them together. In between grindings, I sent in some mana and then repeated the process. I assumed it would light up once it was ready.
Grind, grind.
“It’s not lighting up…” I commented after a few minutes.
“You sent in a lot of mana, right? The tonic yesterday lit up really quickly.”
“It probably takes some time for the ingredients to become a fine powder, and the more time it takes, the more mana it consumes,” Sirius speculated. “Alchemists who aren’t proficient with mana recovery techniques likely can’t hope to make this… I see that this is a more challenging recipe than we first suspected. This might actually be an advanced recipe only skilled alchemists can make.”
“Oh no!” Mina exclaimed. “Is Tinaris gonna be okay?”
“Go, Tinaris!” Gina pumped her fists. “You can do it!”
“Go, go, Tinaris!” Mina joined in.
I’d do my best even without you cheering for me… I have to do this for Grandpa.
I may have been a daughter who never repaid the debt she owed her mother, but I didn’t want to repeat that mistake in this world too. Grandpa always kept me at a distance, but…I couldn’t just let him die!
