The Baby Isn’t Yours

– Arf!

– Kyuu!

The sound of his call shook the air, and two spirits, one shaped like a small puppy and the other like a small mole, popped out at the same time.

They were low rank spirits, Iru and Tierra.

Few mages were capable of dealing with spirits, but because of his elven blood, his affinity for it was not bad.
As a result, it was not difficult to deal with the lower level spirits.
It was a completely different story with mid and upper rank spirits.
In normal cases, it would take several years or more to deal with even the lower rank spirits.
However, Simon’s innate talent lay not only in magic, but also in the spirit art; he was able to summon or create spirits without much difficulty. 1

Unintentionally, his mother’s blood seemed to help him like this.
He didn’t like it, but…

Iru, who looked like a puppy, hopped up on Simon’s shoulder and rubbed his cheek against his.

– Arf arf!

Iru, who was barking cheerfully, waved his tail and looked forward to his master’s orders.
Tierra, who was shaped like a mole, climbed on Simon’s opposite shoulder.

-Kyuu, kyuu!

Tierra clung to Simon’s opposite cheek and was drawing his attention by eagerly rolling her small palms forward, showing her aegyo. 2

Simon stroked the heads of his cheek’s two ticklers.3

In addition to Iru and Tierra, the low-rank spirits of water and fire, Elemento and Fuego, were just as affectionate.
The 4 spirits seemed to follow their master, who had created4 and raised them, as if he was their parent.

The mana that Simon infused into the spirits was of an upper rank, refined type of mana.
Originally, they should have been injected with the power of the natural world but he was not a formal spiritist and instead, used the power of the four elements in place of nature’s power.

Simon, who refined the power of water, fire, earth, and wind to its purest form, injected them into the spirit that fit each attribute.
Truthfully, the Spirit Arts was something that Simon had never tried before.

Up until recently, he had no interest in the Spirit Arts, as it had been more efficient to just study how to utilize mana.
But after Kalia disappeared, he needed beings’ that moved like real limbs.
Beings who could collect information from all over the country and move about like wind on his behalf.
Thus, he summoned these spirits and succeeded in nurturing and raising them.

Fortunately, the spirits devoured the mana he had refined and quickly grew to help him.

“Sprinkle these in the designated city,” Simon passed on black beads he had made by condensing his mana into the mouths of the awaiting spirits.

The spirits who gulped it deliciously and disappeared. Since he gave them plenty of mana to eat, they should be able to go further than the first time.

His work was yet to be finished though.
Following the news of Maquis Aonti was only a small matter. The most important yet nerve-wrecking task was finding Kalia.

Somehow, he had the ominous feeling that if he didn’t find her sooner, she would never come back.

The nervousness drove him even crazy.
His impatience made him even crazier. If he didn’t hurry, he would turn into a mad mage before he found Kalia.

Crazy was just a polite way of saying it.

There were times when he almost couldn’t stand the rising waves of sadness and longing and wanted to destroy everything in his path. 5

For example, when he recalled Kalia quietly smiling or when he thought of her running away on a horse that night.
All he could think of was embracing her and hastily capturing her lips with his.

‘Not only did I save you, I saved myself.’

Even what she said in her letter was played back in his head in her voice.

‘…I will always feel grateful to you, Simon.’

They were on their way back to the dormitory after class, he recalled, and Kalia had happily spoken against a beautiful twilight backdrop.

‘Why are you looking at me like that? Is this your first time seeing someone changing clothes?’6

They were seventeen.

He even remembered the first time he had accidentally walked in on her changing and saw her scarred, naked body.

Simon felt an insane and frantic thirst. The nervousness that tightened his throat made him feel like he was going to explode.

“….I can’t do that.” 7

Until the day he found her and stuck her by his side again. He can’t ever do that.

Simon smiled bitterly, immediately spun around and headed outside.
It was not enough to just sit and wait for information and news from someone else.

A few days ago, he had come across a plausible clue. There was a story of a lady wearing a big hat travelling by carriage half a year ago.
The witness had said that even with a single glance they could see that the hair fluttering in the wind was a pale yellow.
Above all, when he heard that a cute young lady with short black hair was accompanying the lady, Simon was convinced that that was Kalia’s party.

Humming Gallus.

Kalia’s young squire.

Kalia had left this empire, leaving behind all her achievements, taking only the young squire with her.

‘And there was one more in their party.
A very tall and handsome man was always around.’8

And one more person.

What’s more is that it’s a strange man he didn’t know that called himself her husband…

‘Somehow, I was very impressed with how restless he was every step of the way, really giving off the feeling that he valued his wife very much.
When I meet my wife, I feel like I should treat her like that.’

For a moment, an eerie and chilling glint passed through Simon’s golden eyes.

He didn’t know who the hell the man was. But the fact that Kalia was accompanied by a man he didn’t know clearly broke Simon’s heart. The throbbing pain flowed from his chest down to the fingertips and irritated all his peripheral nerves. When he heard that the stranger had followed Kalia around, calling her his own wife, a thousand fires lit inside his chest.

Donning a pair of half, black leather gloves, Simon headed out.
If it was impossible to trace by mana, then he would have to search every city himself.

“…not much longer, Kalia9,” Simon smiled brightly and proceeded to follow her trail, visiting every city going down south-east.

If he sees her again, he will hold her so tightly that Kalia never left him like that again.
If he could be abandoned so easily, remaining as her friend, he was willing to be her sibling.
He could be her older brother if Kalia wanted.
He was willing to be her younger brother too. 10

She was someone who liked to care for others, so he was willing to ruin his mana just to stay by her side. 11

If she needed someone to devote themselves to her allegiance, Simon could even start a revolt for her. He would rather have Kalia tell him that she wanted to be the king of a country then not have her in his life.
If becoming the ruler was her wish, he would be able to raise her to that status, even if he had to sacrifice his body in the process. But most of all, what he desperately longed for was to be Kalia’s lover.

Sigh.

He narrowed his eyes and looked at the unfamiliar panoramic view of the city below. He had already travelled 1000 km from the Capital.
If he went down a little further, he would hit the end of this country and be by the sea.
Somehow, he had a premonition that he would be able to meet her if he searched a little longer.

‘That’s why I will never give up.’

He will never lose her again.

Motivation renewed, Simon jumped, chewing on the flesh inside his lips.

Little by little, he would certainly reach her.

***

The night has grown old.

The window curtains shook in the blowing wind.

A mournful song floated sadly through the room, as if to match the movement of the curtains.

Fairies caught in a cage full of evil power gathered and sang a sad song together.

I’m the wind, I’m the rain, I’m the sun.

Unrestricted freedom.
A bird that doesn’t rest its wings.

If you catch the wind, the wind will die.

If you lock the sun up, the sun will die.

If you stop the rain, the rain will die.

Let me free to be unconstrained.

A bird that never rests its wings

Save me, I want to live

Let me go, Let me fly.

Let me live.

Their mournful voices pierced through the air.
The pitiful emotions in the words were so desperate that they made the listener cry.

However, the lips of the man listening to the song whilst leaning obliquely in front of the huge bird cage were drawn up in an arc. He even smirked, as if he had heard a delightful song and even tapped his fingers in time with the beat.

As if they had a foreboding of their sad fate, the fairies stopped singing and started weeping marbles of blood.
The man who had been listening quietly opened his eyes and looked at the fairies.

“Why don’t you sing more? Sing harder.
If I feel that your song is worth listening to, I might let you live longer,” The red-haired, red-eyed man mocked the young fairies with his cruel voice.

–Why did you grab us?-

-Yeah, what the hell?-

-Why!-

–-Let us go! I want to go back!-

-This is not where we’re supposed to be!-

They were low-level fairies that lived in the Fairy Forest.

Trees, earth and wind fairies.

The fairies, all less than a year old, stared at the man in horror and trembled in terror.
Loa’s Fairy Forest was one of the smallest among the forests that extended out from the fairy realm.
If nothing had happened, they would have died singing peacefully in their little forest until the end of their lives. .

A few days ago, they were captured by a special monster controlled by this man. The fairies had a foreboding of their deaths the moment they were brought before this man.

There was no warmth in his eyes. He wasn’t a human being nor was he a monster; he wasn’t even a fairy.
The fairies trembled like aspen trees when they saw the red eyes staring back at them coldly.
The man looked at the swaying fairies with emotionless, unfeeling eyes.

‘I’m bored.’

In front of the fairies, who were trembling in fear of death, the man yawned profusely.
However, he sat up suddenly, as if he had felt something.
His eyes shook strangely.

“… It cut off?”

Communication with his pet monsters that he’d  thrown deep into the Fairy Forest to find food, was cut off. Death was the only thing that would sever communication with them.

“How the hell?” Buford stood by the window, rubbing his chin as if intrigued.

The festival was in full swing against the backdrop of the dark night sky and twinkling lights.
With a slight turn of his head, he could see part of the Fairy Forest in the distance, including the guards standing guard in front of it.