Licensing

 

It is the first greeting to the world,

and the world's own first cry.

 

"I'm sorry, Mentor…"

With an unusually contrite face, Rin apologized to me.

Having been knocked down by her Water Bullet, I was carried straight to the clinic and treated by Nina. Honestly, I didn't think I'd suffered any serious injury, but it seems they were erring on the side of caution.

"No, don't worry about it."

"Don't move yet."

When I tried to raise my upper body while lying on the bed, Nina stopped me in an especially sharp tone. I hadn't even started to move—did she develop some kind of mind-reading magic?

"Well, big bro not dodging something like that is also a problem, isn't it."

"… Sounds like you're the one who hasn't reflected enough."

Her piercing gaze shifted from me to Yuuka, who'd been cracking jokes. She'd barged into the clinic without knocking and had just been thoroughly scolded for it.

"Eh, why!? You said something similar to Mom before!"

"What are you talking about?"

Yuuka hunched her shoulders as if to hide from that gaze. I remembered it too.

"Ah, wasn't that right after we opened the university? When the wooden tablet Yutaka tossed hit Aquamarine. I'm pretty sure you said it was Aquamarine's fault for not dodging."

Nostalgic. How many years ago was that? Over two hundred by now.

"… Aquamarine was the Guardian of Defense. This one's different. He's unusually dull."

Harsh. But I couldn't refute her at all, so I held my tongue at Nina's biting assessment.

… Huh? But Yuuka hadn't even been born back then.

"Hey, Professor Nina, isn't that enough?"

"… You're right."

At Tia's bored tone, Nina shot me a quick glance.

"Fine. Don't do anything reckless."

"Of course."

Dangerous things and I don't get along to begin with.

I nodded with confidence, and for some reason Nina let out a deep sigh.

 

＊　＊　＊

 

"Huh? The candy shop that used to be here is gone? It was so good."

"If you mean Kido's place, they moved to the main street."

"Heh… Ah, what's that!?"

"That is…"

Rin and Yuuka excitedly browsed the town. Sandwiched between two cute girls, I felt oddly ill at ease.

"Ah! Mentor, look! What's that guy doing?"

Rin tugged my hand and we stopped to watch a street performer.

"Hey, big bro, would this suit me?"

Clinging tightly to my arm, Yuuka tried on accessories from a street stall.

People around us watched with warm eyes. Even Tia and Lufelle kept a little more distance than usual, sometimes whispering too softly for even my ears to catch, and tittered.

We were famous, after all. Hiiro Village had grown quite large, but most of the villagers knew my face, and I knew them as well. Like family.

How did I look to them now? Probably like an uncle on his day off being fawned over by his nieces… or so it felt from the gazes.

From my personal perspective, though, it wasn't that simple.

"So? Big bro, how is it?"

"Ah, um… I think another color might suit you better, Yuuka."

My heart skipped when Yuuka held up a red hair ornament beside her head. It looked so much like the one Yuuki used to wear.

"Hey, Mentor—here, halfsies!"

"Mmph… th-thanks."

When I turned at the tug on my sleeve, Rin stuffed a cookie into my mouth. With the same fingertips that brushed my lips, she popped one into her own mouth as well.

Lately, the two of them reflected, far too vividly, the images of those I had once been drawn to and loved—Yuuki and Rin.

Of course, the two in front of me now were different people. The present Rin had lost all her previous memories and was practically reborn, and Yuuka was nothing more than a distant relative.

I knew it was pathetic to cling to the past, and rude to them besides.

As I sighed inwardly, a scream suddenly rang out from behind us.

At the same time, a deafening rattling erupted.

"A runaway carriage."

Yuuka's voice, hand on her sword hilt, sounded unusually loud.

Just as she said, a spirit-horse was tearing down the road, pulling a carriage at tremendous speed.

Yuuka moved to cut it down as it passed—

"No, Yuuka!"

I couldn't help but pull her into a hold to stop her.

"Big bro, what are you—"

"There's a child on board!"

The carriage thundered past us. There was no one at the driver's seat—probably thrown off—but inside the compartment I saw a child, face pale with fear.

Yuuka had likely meant to cut either the harness or the spirit-horse itself when she saw no driver. But if she did, the carriage would lose control entirely and either roll over or, worse, crash into a wall. The passengers inside wouldn't get off unscathed.

"Both of you, on my back!"

As I spoke, I transformed into a dragon. That said, my current size was too big for the village. I flapped my wings before the transformation finished and took off without even checking that the two had mounted.

"Mentor, what are you going to do?"

Rin's voice was at my ear. Good—sounded like she'd grabbed on properly.

"We'll make our move at the square ahead. Rin, change into a bird and get the child out. Yuuka, I want you to stop the carriage itself."

"What are you going to do, big bro?"

Perhaps she'd guessed what I was about to do. Yuuka asked in a hard voice.

"Stop the spirit-horse."

With that, I folded my wings and dove toward the carriage. I slowed to match pace with it as it barreled down the road. A light flutter sounded above my head—Rin transformed her arms into bird wings, latched onto the carriage, and slipped smoothly in through the window.

"Yuuka!"

"Jeez! Don't do anything too reckless, okay!?"

Grumbling, Yuuka leapt from my back and flashed her stone sword.

With a strike so fast my eyes could barely follow it, the harness connecting the carriage to the spirit-horse shattered and the carriage's roof blew off. In the next instant, Rin burst into the air with the child in her arms, spreading her beautiful tail fin and twisting her fish lower body… Good.

"Come on!"

I landed in the square, spreading my arms and wings, and met the spirit-horse head-on as it accelerated even more, freed from the carriage. The leg power that could easily pull a multi-hundred-kilo carriage alone was now fully unleashed as it hurtled straight at me.

"Guh—!"

Even my dragon body reverberated with the charge, and a groan escaped me. In terms of size it was smaller than an armor-bear, but its destructive power was in a different league entirely.

Somehow, I caught and pinned the spirit-horse.

"Easy. Your name is… let's see…"

I stared at the thrashing spirit-horse, thoughts racing. Red coat, burly frame—it rippled and writhed in a swirling tempest, changing from moment to moment. A single eye glared at me.

"Nuckelavee! Your name is Nuckelavee!"

The instant I shouted, the spirit-horse went still. The wavering of its coat settled, and the one-eyed horse—Nuckelavee—regarded me with a surprisingly comical tilt of the head.

So it had been an unnamed spirit after all…

"Mentor, are you okay?"

Tia appeared at the tip of my snout and asked, not particularly worried.

"Yeah. You're the one who told Lufelle what to do, right? Thanks. That helped."

I looked over to see that Lufelle had stopped the carriage—just barely—before it crashed into a shop on the main street.

"I hope Lufelle didn't get hurt…"

"As if."

The carriage was crushed beyond recognition, but Lufelle waved at us lazily.

"The child was fine too. Their parents were around, so I handed them over."

With a flutter of wings, Rin settled on my nose.

"Which means the one in the worst shape is you, big bro."

Yuuka spoke in exasperation and tapped my belly—right where Nuckelavee had slammed into me. A sharp pain shot through me and I groaned. I'd probably have a bruise once I turned human again…

"Professor Nina just told you not to do anything reckless, remember."

Rin sounded faintly amused. With this injury, it was back to the clinic.

There was no point going anywhere else, and even if I did, Nina ran the place and taught every doctor in this village. If I showed up, word would reach her immediately. I'd just get scolded more.

"… Think you could help me apologize?"

When I petted him, Nuckelavee snorted—whether he understood or not, who could say.

 

＊　＊　＊

 

"Whew…"

Leaving the clinic, Yuuka stretched and spoke wistfully.

"We got scolded an unbelievable amount!"

"We did…"

Looking exhausted, Tia agreed.

"When we explained the situation at first, Professor Nina praised us with a 'well done,' right?"

Everyone nodded at Rin's words.

"I thought for a second we might get off without getting scolded…"

"Same."

We all felt the same, but Nina wasn't that lenient.

Even the father of the child in the carriage—the one thrown from the driver's seat and carried to the clinic—got an earful. Well, I suppose it helped that his injuries weren't life-threatening.

"I thought there were a lot more spirits around lately, but still… so this sort of thing happens too."

"It's been happening a bit more often recently…"

Yuuka knit her brows at Rin's words. As the one in charge of village security, it was probably a headache for her.

Spirit summoning—the magic we created—had dramatically changed people's lives.

It's been centuries since animal husbandry began. Livestock bred from docile stock no longer attacked humans much, but they weren't obedient like cows and horses either.

Dogs, cats, horses, cows, camels, dolphins… on Earth, there were many species we could call friends of humankind, who lent us their strength. This world seemed to have none that fit that role, but spirits could take their place.

They turn windmills, pull carriages, carry wheat, move ships.

Tireless, obedient, and faithful in carrying out orders, they'll likely become indispensable to the development of civilization from here on out.

There were downsides, however.

"Too many people are bad at naming."

Naming is the single most important act when handling spirits.

Give a spirit an appropriate name and its existence stabilizes; it will obey properly. Conversely, if it has no name or a poor one, its existence becomes unstable and it may run amok like Nuckelavee earlier.

"Doesn't your school teach how to do it, Mentor?"

"We do, in a way…"

The problem was that there was no good way to explain what counted as an appropriate name and what didn't. In the end, it's a matter of sense and compatibility—whether the spirit itself likes the name.

With a little magical know-how and the right affinity, anyone can summon a spirit. Handling it satisfactorily is another matter entirely.

"Mentor. We managed this time, but we need countermeasures, don't we?"

"Yeah… probably."

I nodded at Tia's words. The children she taught at school had a much higher chance of getting caught up in accidents than adults. It wasn't someone else's problem.

"Even so, we can't just tell people to stop using spirits."

Spirits had become established and woven into daily life. Saying 'stop using them' now would be unreasonable. Besides, I knew well that accidents like these were unavoidable to some extent as civilization advanced.

Efforts to reduce harm aren't wasted, but trying to roll back civilization itself is nonsense. Plenty of lives are being saved thanks to spirits too, after all.

"If only they were limited to skilled people using them."

At Rin's casual remark, an idea sparked.

"That's it!"

I grabbed her hand without thinking.

"Let's create licenses!"