4-3 - Preparations For The Rescue

A grassy meadow on the outskirts of the elven village.

Alice and I stood facing each other, preparing to perform the bonding ceremony. —Correction. Because of our height difference, Alice was kneeling in front of me while I stood.

“All right, Leon, take my hands.”

“Like this?”

I took Alice’s hands in mine. Immediately, a glowing magic circle spread out around us, and warmth began flowing from Alice’s slender fingers into my body.

“What is this…?”

“I’m establishing a connection between us. Our senses will be temporarily shared, so don’t be surprised.”

Even as Alice explained, more and more warmth flowed into me. Eventually, the sensation of holding Alice’s hands began to mingle with Alice’s own sensation of having her hands held.

It felt as though I’d suddenly gained another body. The amount of information reaching my brain doubled, sending an intense pain shooting through my head—but only for an instant.

Almost immediately, those sensations began to fade.

“Leon, are you okay?”

“S-somehow… Does that mean the ceremony is over?”

“Yeah, it was a success. You and I are now connected through our Engage bond.”

“Really…?”

I looked down at my palms. A moment ago, I’d definitely felt as though our senses were connected, but now I couldn’t feel anything unusual.

“You can switch the blessing’s power on and off, you know. Otherwise, sharing our senses all the time would be a disaster.”

Ah, that made sense. If I had to endure those sensations constantly, I felt like my brain would burn out.

“Actually, I don’t think I’d have enough concentration left to practice magic while experiencing something like that.”

“Don’t worry about that. Most blessings allow you to adjust their abilities.”

“So you mean you can control how much of your senses you share?”

“Yeah. I can even choose to share only specific sensations.”

With that, Alice poked her own cheek. At that instant, I experienced the illusion of someone poking my cheek instead.

“Whoa… Are you sharing only your sense of touch?”

“No, it’s even more specific than that. You didn’t feel the sensation of poking something with your finger, did you?”

“Ah, now that you mention it…”

I’d felt something poking my cheek, but I hadn’t experienced the sensation of poking a cheek myself. I see, so this was Sensory Sharing. It seemed like a pretty interesting blessing.

“By the way, I’m only sharing sensations with you in one direction right now, but we can also share them both ways. And this is how Sensory Sharing is really meant to be used—watch!”

Alice lightly waved her right arm. Immediately afterward, a gentle breeze stirred my bangs.

At the same time, Alice absorbed the surrounding mana particles and converted them into magical power. Then she imbued that power with the image of a gentle breeze and offered it to the spirits.

All of that information flowed into me in real time.

“Was that… magic?”

“Spirit magic, to be precise. You offer the magical power you’ve converted as payment in exchange for the spirits fulfilling your requests. The important things are creating magical power that makes the spirits want to listen to you, and imbuing that power with a clear image that’s easy for them to carry out.”

“I see, I see. Mind if I give it a try?”

“Of course.”

With her permission, I began converting mana particles into magical power. I’d spent several years practicing this part relentlessly, so I had little trouble with it.

Next, I needed to imbue the magical power with the image of a gentle breeze. …A gentle breeze? No, I didn’t need to overthink it. I just had to reproduce the sensations Alice had shown me a moment ago.

With that in mind, I tried to recreate the feeling, but it didn’t work at all.

“Th-this is difficult.”

“It’s a sensation ordinary people have never experienced before, after all.”

“Yeah…”

Earlier, I’d described it as imbuing magical power with the image of a gentle breeze, but what Sensory Sharing actually conveyed was sensation. Alice’s thoughts hadn’t been transmitted to me as images.

It was difficult to explain, but… Alice hadn’t placed words or pictures into her magical power. It was more like putting emotion into a singing voice to convey the mood of a song to someone else.

And although I’d experienced what it felt like to put emotion into a voice, the sensation was unfamiliar, so I couldn’t reproduce it properly.

In short, it was a sensation I didn’t really understand.

“It’ll be difficult until you get used to it. …Hmm, maybe it’d be better to start with a template?”

“A template?”

“Yeah. When you’re learning a sequence of dance moves, you sometimes memorize them by associating them with music or lyrics, right? It’s the same idea. By associating the sensation with an incantation, you reinforce the image.”

Alice told me to watch closely, then pointed her right arm toward a fallen tree and began generating magical power.

“Spirit of Wind, rend my enemy—Air Slash!”

Through Sensory Sharing, I received the simple sensation of commanding a sharp blade of wind to cut through an enemy. At the same time, a streak of wind shot from Alice’s palm and carved a shallow cut into the fallen tree.

“—And that’s how it’s done.”

“So you used an incantation—or rather, spoken words—to strengthen the image?”

“Yeah. The commands inevitably become simpler, and that makes them less versatile, but using templates might be easier when you’re first starting out.”

“I see. I think I might be able to manage something like that.”

And so, my training in magic began.

Incidentally, ordinary magic and spirit magic typically relied on templates—and much longer incantations at that. It would be quite some time before I realized just how extraordinary Alice’s spirit magic truly was.

Another week passed. We were still staying in the elven village.

Of course, we hadn’t given up on rescuing Claire-nee. Alice’s mom had thoughtfully dispatched an elven spy into Sphiel territory, and we’d been waiting for their return.

And today, the spy had finally returned.

“—That concludes my report on the situation surrounding House Sphiel.”

“Thank you for your hard work. We’ll discuss what to do next, so please go and rest.”

After receiving Alice’s mom’s words of appreciation, the spy departed. Once they were gone, Alice, her mother, and I each let out a sigh.

The information the spy had brought back made it painfully clear that we were facing a troublesome situation.

According to the report, the attack on House Granches was already public knowledge, and the official story was that House Sphiel had come to House Granches’s aid and taken Claireridil into protective custody.

That much was understandable, but… the problem was the announcement House Sphiel had made alongside it.

According to House Sphiel’s statement, the attack on House Granches had been carried out by extremists who harbored grudges against the nobility, and Claireridil was still being targeted. Therefore, they had officially announced that Claireridil would be moved to a safe location on the night of the next full moon.

But here’s the thing.

The people who’d attacked House Granches were connected to House Sphiel. And if they genuinely intended to protect Claire-nee, there was no way they’d publicly announce the exact date of her departure.

In other words, it was a message telling me to come before the next full moon if I wanted Claire-nee back, accompanied by an implicit threat that her safety couldn’t be guaranteed if I failed to appear.

Under those circumstances, going to meet them openly was out of the question.

If they used Claire-nee as a hostage, I’d have no choice but to obey their demands. That naturally narrowed down our options for rescuing her, but… it wasn’t hard to imagine that they’d be waiting for us.

“What a pain…”

Whether it was a trap or something else, abandoning Claire-nee was never an option. But deliberately walking into a place where I knew the enemy was waiting… There was no other way to describe it but troublesome.

“Leon-kun, you’ve been practicing magic, haven’t you?”

“Alice has been teaching me, but… it’s difficult.”

A week had passed since I’d started training in magic, but I still hadn’t managed to successfully cast a spell.

Of course, I was confident I could eventually figure it out with enough time, but the next full moon was only eight days away. Since traveling there would take roughly a week, we’d have to leave immediately or we wouldn’t make it in time.

“If I can’t use magic, do you think you could manage on your own, Alice?”

“Hmm… Leon, you know the layout of the mansion, right?”

“Well, roughly.”

I’d only visited twice, but I’d been to the study, Sophia’s room, the reception room, and the kitchen, so I had a general idea of where the different sections were located.

Drawing on my memories, I explained the mansion’s layout to Alice.

“Hmm. It depends on their security arrangements, but I think it’d actually be easier to infiltrate than House Granches’s mansion.”

“…Really?”

“Yeah. There are lots of small rooms, corners, and other places that create blind spots, right? If we wandered around without thinking, we’d risk running into people unexpectedly, but I have the blessing of Presence Detection.”

“I see… For you, Alice, having more blind spots actually makes things easier.”

“Yeah. But that still doesn’t mean everything will go smoothly. Since we don’t know where Claire-sama is being held, I think the longer we spend searching, the greater the risk of being discovered.”

“What if we are discovered?”

“Then we’ll have no choice but to fight our way through. But I hardly have any real combat experience myself, so I might not be able to handle everything alone.”

“I see…”

I’d thought that with Alice’s Presence Detection and spirit magic, we might somehow manage, but apparently things weren’t going to be that easy.

“In that case, I really do need to learn magic. Do you think I can manage it during the week it’ll take us to reach Sphiel territory?”

“Let’s see… At your current pace, it’ll be close.”

“Hmm. Then I guess we should come up with a backup plan…”

One possibility was… appealing to Claire-nee’s fiancé for help. I could imagine all sorts of complications arising from that, but at the very least, he should be able to guarantee her safety.

“Hey, Mom, can’t you help us?”

“…Personally, I’d love to help. But if the elves attacked a human noble’s mansion, it would become a major incident, so I’m afraid I can’t.”

“Hmph…”

Alice puffed out her cheeks in dissatisfaction.

“I’m sorry, Alice. And I’m sorry to you too, Leon-kun.”

“No, I understand the circumstances. It must have been difficult enough just to send a spy, wasn’t it?”

From the perspective of the elves as a whole, this was entirely someone else’s problem. If Alice’s mom used her position to intervene simply because her daughter was involved, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for people to accuse her of abusing her authority. I didn’t know exactly how much power she wielded, but I doubted she could do whatever she pleased without consequences.

“It was for my precious daughter and someone dear to her. This was the least I could do.”

“…I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to apologize. This is the path my daughter has chosen. As long as you accept her feelings, that’s enough for me.”

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d scolded me for dragging her daughter into danger. Yet she was saying something like this instead—it almost felt as though she was telling me to take responsibility for Alice in the future.

Wondering whether I was imagining things, I glanced sideways at Alice’s mom, only to find her smiling knowingly at me.

“…Leon? Is something wrong?”

“N-no, nothing. More importantly, let’s think about how we can save Claire-nee.”

“Right. Then first, let’s go over the problems we’ll face in rescuing Claire-sama—”

And so, we began putting together a plan to rescue Claire-nee.