I Think My Fiancé Has Regressed

Chapter 62: Witch of Walpurgis (2)

~An underground laboratory in the Imperial Academy’s research wing~

“…Ready?”

A voice spoke from the whitish darkness, and three other heads nodded silently in agreement.

Four people in total, two male and two female students.

Although they differed in personality, amount of magic power, and the magic they could use, the four of them were united in one reason for being here.

“Now, we just need to chant the final summoning spell and we’ll be done, right?”

“…I’m a little excited, and I’m also curious to see what kind of summon will appear.”

“It’s definitely a challenge. It took four of us half a year to decipher the spell on the summons.

If the summoning spell is this difficult, shouldn’t it be at least a high-level elemental?”

The summoning grimoire had been acquired by chance while the students were exploring a dungeon some time ago.

As soon as the four people in the underground laboratory acquired it, they immediately felt that they wanted to study its contents.

It was a natural sensation for a citizen of the Eloreal Empire.

The Eloreal Empire, the land of magic, was a country with a long history of producing one or two Archmages every year, with more than half of its citizens able to use magic.

Though its territory was small, the Eloreal Empire had its own advantages, which is why it has always been called a powerhouse.

An Archmage is recognized as one of the finest in the Empire, a profession that deserves the respect of all.

Every student at the Imperial Academy has desired at least once to become an Archmage and make their name known throughout the Empire.

Create new magical concepts that never existed before, resurrect forgotten magic from ancient grimoires found in ruins or summon a powerful and uniquely capable creature that no one has ever summoned before.

It’s a common mindset for a citizen of the Eloreal Empire to want their name to go down in history in any way they can.

The same was true for the four students who were about to cast the summoning spell in the summoning grimoire.

“…Alright, let’s get started.”

The four of them gathered in a circle on top of the charcoal summoning circle.

Holding each other’s hands on either side, they resonated their energies, and the first spell from the grimoire burst from the mouth of one of the girls.

“Einkryni Findini….”

Then, clockwise, another, then another.

The four humans began to recite the words of their respective summoning spells, and before long, the magic circle they had created began to respond to their magic.

“…Eksara Bin….”

“…Kui Faria….”

“…Lin Leone Lin….”

The students had noticed that the magic circle they were standing in was reacting.

Since it was impossible to break the chant once it was started, they looked at each other and continued chanting.

In fact, they even got a little excited when they realized that the summoning circle was starting to activate properly.

It was a long summoning spell, about five minutes in total, but none of them seemed to stumble over it, finishing it perfectly.

“…Hasria.”

As soon as the last part of the chant was uttered, a burst of violet magic began to surge from the center of the circle.

The four of them didn’t let go of each other’s hands until the very end, waiting patiently for the center to dissipate.

Soon, the magic around the summoner began to fade, and the fruit of the summoning magic was revealed within.

The students’ reactions seemed to fall into two main categories, depending on gender.

“Wow, what is this, something really cute?”

“It’s pretty, it looks like a piece of fine china made by a master craftsman.”

The girls looked at the summon, called it cute or pretty, and were quite pleased with the result.

“…What is it, why is it so small?”

“It’s even more flimsy than I thought….”

While the boys who were expecting a strong summon but were disappointed with the result, which was a bit different from their expectations.

It was a tiny summon that looked like a doll in the shape of a girl, or perhaps a small fairy.

“Kuung….”

The summon let out a cute little cry, as if she had just woken up, and carefully spread her wings to fly into the arms of one of the summoners who had called her.

“Wow, it’s so heavenly….”

The girl who had received the summon in her hands exclaimed in wonder.

“Koooow…koooow….”

“It seems to be saying something, have any of you learned the summon language?”

“I don’t know….”

“I don’t know either, it’s not my major, but I think she’s probably saying she’s hungry.”

“Hungry?”

“Uhhhhh….”

The female student shook her head and turned to the summoner, who nodded in agreement and answered with a howl.

“Does anyone have anything to eat?”

“I have candy, but will it eat it?”

“I have some cherry tomatoes left over from lunch.”

“Nothing fancy, just some jerky.”

One candy, one cherry tomato, and one jerky.

It was a good variety of food, but the summon gave them a troubled look, as if she didn’t like it.

“She doesn’t seem to like it.”

“Maybe she can’t eat what humans eat. For example, elementalists are supposed to share their magic with the elementals they summon.”

“Well, I suppose you could call it an elemental by the looks of it.”

“I’ll do a magic resonance on myself as a test, since I have the most magic in my body.”

The slender hands of the summoned creature clasped her own fingers, and just like during the summoning ritual moments ago, the schoolgirl began to resonate her magical energy.

As soon as she began to resonate, the little summon smiled in satisfaction and began to slowly grow through the magic she received from her.

“Ohhh, it’s growing!”

“Interesting. Is it really a type of spirit?”

“Even if it is a spirit, I’ve never heard of a spirit that grows by feeding on magic power. Could it be a new spirit that hasn’t been revealed to academia?”

“Do you think it will grow bigger if we feed it more magic? I mean, it’s pretty weak right now, but it would be quite an accomplishment to make it a bit bigger.”

“That’s a good idea.”

With those words, the other three also began to magically resonate with what appeared to be a spirit, each of them generously offering their own magic to help the summon grow.

The summon began to grow, feeding off of the energy of the four of them, and in no time at all, it seemed to be growing in size, growing to the size of a newborn baby.

“How big is this thing going to get?”

“At this rate of growth, it should grow to at least the size of a human. I guess it depends on how much mana she receives.”

“Let’s not get too greedy, especially since you don’t have that much magic, Tommy.

Besides, you just spent quite a bit of magic chanting that summoning spell, and if you collapse from exhaustion, you’re going to be….”

Mary’s heartfelt words of advice to Tommy had become a prophecy.

Tommy collapsed to the ground, weak and helpless, a classic symptom of mana depletion.

“He doesn’t even know how much magic he has yet, and he’s falling again.”

“Isn’t Medena at her limit?”

“Yeah. I’m done too.”

Medena gently placed the summon on the ground, then withdrew her hands and was about to end the magic resonance.

“…Huh?”

Somehow, her hands hadn’t moved more than a certain distance away from the summon, and the magic resonance hadn’t broken.

Even though she had already drained more than 90% of her magic from the summoning spell and the magic resonance, Medena was unable to stop the summon from draining her.

“Wait, wait, wait, this is weird!”

“Huh?”

“What?”

“The magic resonance won’t stop! What’s going on?!”

“…What?”

“I don’t even have any magic power left….”

Medena’s body slumped to the ground.

Since two people had collapsed while distributing magic power to the summon in front of them, the other two students were able to guess that something was wrong.

“Yi, let’s stop, there’s something dangerous!”

“…No.”

“What?”

“The magic resonance, it’s not stopping at all….”

Hearing Mary’s words, Jin tried to stop the magic resonance just like her, but like the other three, he was unable to stop his own magic from being sucked into the summon.

At first, the magic resonance was clearly a consensual relationship between the summon and the human.

After absorbing a certain amount of power, the summon changed its demeanor, and the magic resonance turned into magic absorption.

“… This thing we just summoned, could it be the Witch of Walpurgis…”

Jin was similarly unable to continue his sentence, and instead fell to the ground, suffering from magic exhaustion.

Though he was cut off mid-sentence, Mary had a vague idea of the identity of the summoner, or rather, demon, in front of her.

The Witch of Walpurgis was another name for the ancient demon Beelzebub, who grew by absorbing whatever magic he could.

They only realized its identity after it had drained him of most of their power, and it was too late to reverse the situation.

Another student’s body collapsed onto the cold stone floor.

The four students, drained of all their remaining magic without leaving a shred, lay in a heap on the floor of the basement laboratory of the research wing.

“…….”

The Witch of Walpurgis left the four of them in the basement and began to fly nonchalantly toward the top of the research building.