[V4C21] Little Ones
Translated by Jodas 4: Flying Through the SkyOnce they’d chosen Ella as the Apprentices’ representative and Wren as their assistant representative, Tia and the others used their free time after dinner to hold strategy meetings.
Even Roswitha, who fully intended to fight by herself, joined in on these meetings.
“Roswi, whether you fight alone or with everyone else, I think it would still help to share information.”
Ella had persuaded her as such, and Roswitha seemed to agree with her argument.
Wren, upon hearing that exchange, nodded dutifully. “We definitely made the right choice picking Ella as representative,” he’d said.
The strategy meetings were held in the group lesson classroom.
After doing it enough times, they’d grown accustomed to the process, so they each took their chairs and arranged themselves in a circle. Once everyone was seated, Ella initiated the discussion.
“Without further ado, let’s start today’s strategy meeting.”
At the moment, they had a reasonable grasp on the date, time, location, timing, and opponents of their upcoming magic battle.
The first order of business was for those who had gathered additional information to share it with the group.
Since no one had any new information to share today, they proceeded immediately to reporting on everyone’s individual activities that day.
In Tia’s case, it was “I practiced flying with Oliver! It was fun!”
Some times, some of them such as Julius would give reports that amounted to no more than “Kuku, I read books in the Library Office all day.” But Wren insisted that these reports were valid in their own way.
“If we don’t share what all of us are capable of doing, then our strategies won’t go anywhere.”
So he’d said.
This was an idea that never would have occurred to a Harpy like Tia.
(After all, we don’t care who can sing what songs… If we’re in the mood, we can sing whatever we want.)
The very concept of a strategy meeting was reasonably novel to Tia.
Unlike a class, this strategy meeting was just for the Apprentices. She wondered why that made her feel so excited.
Once all twelve of them had given their reports, Ella turned to Julius.
“Um, then, well… There’s something I want to confirm about your fighting capabilities, Julius.”
“Kuku, I know what you want to say. You want to know about my contracted spirit, don’t you?”
“Yes. I’ve heard you’ve formed a contract with a Greater Spirit, Julius. Since spirits’ powers contain mana, they should be viable in a magic battle.”
Oh right, they did mention something like that, huh… Tia recalled.
Certainly, just when they first enrolled, Julius and Roswitha had a fight in the dining hall.
And it was over whether or not it was right to use spirits.
As if she needed any more confirmation, Roswitha’s eyebrows shot up when she heard Ella’s words. However, she only folded her arms and quietly held her lips shut.
Ella continued to speak.
“Could you tell us a little more about your contracted spirit, Julius?”
“Kuku, Ku, ku, ku…”
“Coo, coo, coo! Kururukku!!”
When she started to sing along with Julius’ cackling voice, he shut her down with a mean stare.
Ella softly told her “Not right now, okay?” so Tia shut up and held both hands over her mouth.
Spirits were, in brief, creatures that were basically a big lump of mana. They were magical beings, but they weren’t born from the Abyss like Monsters were.
They were classified into Lesser, Intermediate, and Greater categories, and Greater Spirits had strength comparable to that of Greater Monsters. On top of that, they could take the form of humans or animals and communicate properly.
It would be hard to claim that Monsters and Spirits got along all that well. Since Spirits were big lumps of mana, many Monsters would try to survive off of eating Spirits to recharge their mana reserves.
However, there were also occasional symbiotic relationships such as how Harpies offered songs to Wind Spirits to borrow their power.
(I wonder what kind of spirit Julius’ contracted spirit is.)
Julius stroked his fingertip across the ring he always wore.
It seemed like the spirit lived within the red gemstone set in that ring.
“…Certainly, I have contracted with a Greater Spirit. A Flame Spirit. However, I have no intentions of using her in the magic battle.”
“Would you mind telling us why?”
Julius laughed darkly at Ella’s question.
“Kuku… I don’t like to overplay my hand.”
“Eh~? Just let me help you, Young Master Julius!”
Upon hearing a voice echoing out of nowhere, the whole classroom fell back into a deathly silence.
Julius put his hand over his lips and laughed.
“Kuku, ku, ku, ku….”
“Wait, hold on! Don’t think you can just cover that up by laughing! Don’t tell me you’re about to say you’re suddenly into ventriloquism!”
Wren cut him off, speaking rapidly. Then, once again they heard a voice come out of thin air.
A cheerful woman’s voice.
“Ooh, ventriloquism! I know what that is, I know it! That’s when you speak without moving your mouth, right! The Young Master is a ventriloquist! The Young Master is a ventriloquist!”
“…………..Agniol.”
Julius whispered that name, most likely in an attempt to calm her down.
However, the woman’s voice responded with gleeful vigor.
“Oh, you just called for me, didn’t you? You called for me, Young Master Julius!”
The ring on Julius’ finger gave off a bright red glow.
That light seeped out from Julius’ ring to the ground, then expanded to take the form of a human — but way bigger.
“Ta-da! Nice to meet you, little ones!”
When the light faded, a young woman with crimson hair appeared. By appearance, she looked to be somewhere in her mid-twenties. She had a muscular body cloaked in heavy, fur-laden clothes.
And she was a massive enough woman that her choice to call them all ‘little ones’ made sense.
The tallest among the female Apprentices was Sevil, but she was much taller. She was taller than even Rose, but not quite as tall as Oliver.
The crimson-haired woman — the Flame Spirit Agniol — stood behind Julius’ chair and squeezed him in a big bear hug from behind while rubbing her chin on his head.
“You called me, so I appeared! Aren’t I so clever! Ehehe! Now, feel free to praise me, Young Master Julius!”
“………”
At long last, there was something that Julius wouldn’t laugh at. His face showed no emotion at all.
As everyone stared blankly at the scene before them, Ella awkwardly offered her greetings.
“Um… Miss Agniol. It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Ella Frank and…”
“Ooh, I know! I know this! Ella! And that one’s little Roswitha! And Rukiye, and Sophie, and Tia, and Sevil!”
“Hold on, how come I’m the only one that get’s a ‘little’?!”
Ignoring Roswitha’s complaints, Agniol seemed absolutely delighted as she pointed at each person and called them by name.
“And This is Oliver, and Rose, and Gerald, and Wren… Oh, and you must be Young Master Julius’ roommate, Finn!”
Agniol’s leather boots pattered across the ground as she ran up to Finn. Not only her body, but her movements were also large.
She made much more of a racket than Oliver when moving around, even though Oliver was taller.
“You’ve been taking such good care of my Young Master Julius!”
Agniol dove towards Finn and wrapped him in a tight, squeezing embrace and squealed in glee.
“You’re so small! And cute! And small!!”
“Eeeek! Julius~~~~!”
Beneath Agniol, Finn shrieked.
Finn was the smallest one here, so when Agniol hugged him with her massive body, he basically disappeared under her.
Watching this scene, Rose stroked his fuzzy beard and spoke enthusiastically.
“By the way, can’t Greater Spirits take forms other than humans as well? Can you turn into an animal too?”
“Do you want to see it? Do you want to see it? I can, I can!”
“Totally! Make it something nice and fluffy!”
“You got it, nice and fluffy! Fluff to your heart’s content!”
Surely Rose must have assumed that this situation would be managed somewhat if Agniol took an animal form.
However, Tia thought this move would backfire horribly. Her Harpy’s intuition was on the mark.
The body of the crimson-haired woman was enveloped in light, and transformed.
—Standing on four thick legs, with a crimson made, a massive lion.
The image of Finn being embraced by a massive woman turned into an image of Finn being trampled on by a massive lion.
To an outsider, they would only assume that this child was being attacked.
“Come, little ones! Fluff to your heart’s content!”
“Ahhhh! Help me…..!”
Pinned down by a massive lion, Finn screamed. It was getting quite distressing to look at him.
Meanwhile, Wren whispered to himself.
“…A red lion… badass.”
“I know, right! Isn’t it so cool!?”
Rose agreed with Wren’s muttering with a big ol’ smile.
The crimson lion slowly lifted its head up.
“You just said ‘cool’ right now, didn’t you? You praised me, right? Yes, yes, feel free to praise me more!!”
Saying that, the crimson lion pounced on Wren and Rose, and both of them shrieked.
Post-script
Q: Since it has a mane, wouldn’t that make the crimson lion male?
A: To begin with, Spirits have little interest in the concept of gender. When taking the form of a lion, her only thoughts were ‘the more fluffy, the better!’ so she chose a male form. The reason she picked a female form when she had a human appearance was because it made her a little more compact, so she bumped into the furniture less often.
If she took the form of a man, imagine if Oliver had Rose’s body type.