NOVEL NEXT Chapter 23
023.
Kalen’s day hadn’t changed much.
After finishing the usual housework, he would wake up Sinat when he had some free time. Although it wasn’t a very manly thing to do, considering Sinat’s status, it wasn’t strange. After all, Kalen had originally been taken in as a servant.
To the point that the time he spent in Lakatus was becoming meaningless, Kalen was regaining his old life. Most of his days were spent inseparable from Sinat, learning magic from Blamia, doing housework, and strolling outside with Sinat, after which the day would end.
Blamia didn’t seem to like teaching magic to Kalen, but Kalen had also noticed this and didn’t request lessons first. Originally, working in Lakatus was partly to dilute Sinat’s obsession. However, instead of diluting, her attachment grew stronger.
While roughly contemplating such thoughts, another day passed, enough for Kalen to wash away the fatigue from his time in Lakatus.
“Hey, Kal!”
The deeply slumbering Sinat was not easy to wake up.
After finishing breakfast preparations, Kalen heading towards her room was already a familiar routine.
Only, the scene inside the room was slightly different this time. Not the dream-talking girl in her semi-conscious state, but a girl on the floor pointing her finger at something.
“What is that?”
“My familiar!”
Kalen wondered if Sinat was suffering from sleepwalking. If not, she wouldn’t be casually pointing at a dark lump and calling it a familiar, would she?
“Familiars are noble and divine beings… There’s no such thing as a dark-colored one…”
Kalen froze mid-sentence. A scene flashed through his mind.
The day he had forced a second-tier magic into Sinat’s body to protect her. The same day a strange mark had appeared on his own heart.
On Sinat’s wrist was the emblem of a contract with a familiar.
“You… Don’t tell me…”
“Yeah, that’s right!”
Kalen finally shifted his gaze to the lump. No, it wasn’t a lump.
A familiar basically takes the form of an extraordinary, non-existent being.
Some might say it resembles an animal, but that’s just pure speculation.
That dark lump was the same. The shape of a non-existent, extraordinary being. It’s just that due to its feature being so famous, it might as well be a real creature.
A dragon.
There, coiled up, was what people commonly call a dragon.
“…A black dragon?”
“I’m seeing it too, Kal.”
Sinat gently picked up the dragon with both hands.
“Anyway, the fact that the familiar took a form means…”
“Isn’t it cute?”
A familiar forming a shape means a certain level of intimacy has been achieved with the contractor. Before that, it existed only within the contractor’s consciousness as an incorporeal presence.
Magic, after the basic first-tier, begins to exhibit characteristics according to its attribute from the second-tier onwards. This is when the aptitude of the contractor for second-tier magic comes in.
“How long has it had a form?”
“Hmm… About two weeks after you left?”
“Does our teacher know?”
“Of course. At first, I was as surprised as you and immediately went to Grandfather.”
Sinat’s age was the same as Kalen’s, meaning she had reached the second tier before her coming-of-age ceremony.
Since the forced termination of her contract, she had expected side effects. Instead, Sinat reached second-tier contract attribute magic.
I just came to wake her up, but what is going on here? Kalen had assumed that after he left, Blamia naturally would have canceled the contract.
His chaotic thoughts began to clear with Sinat’s question.
“Hey, listen well.”
“Listen?”
“Yeah, want to see?”
Sinat put down the familiar again and extended her index finger straight. With one hand tucked into her side in a triangular position, she firmly commanded.
“Sit!”
But nothing happened.
“…”
“Why, why isn’t it working? You, are you shy?”
The familiar briefly looked up at Sinat with its eyelids before opening its mouth wide in a yawn and closing its eyes again. A familiar, simply by contracting, is not a pet that acts cute on command. Sinat’s actions were hard to call proper by any standard.
“…Is this how you’ve been?”
Kalen felt like he was watching a laughable low-budget drama. Treating a familiar like an animal. Thinking about it, it was funny.
But Sinat, seemingly serious, straightened her posture and crossed her arms.
“Kaldragon. Attention.”
Right as Kalen was about to instinctively respond out of reflex, the familiar perked up, opened its eyes, and straightened its posture.
“Wow! It worked! See, Kal?”
Watching this, Kalen had no idea where to start questioning.
“Therefore, the familiar’s name…”
“Kaldragon! Isn’t it cute?”
“Hmm.”
Kalen. Kaldragon. There was no real connection, he thought.
“Isn’t that name derived from mine?”
“Yeah. You figured it out, right? Since my friend never showed up or did anything, I just named it on the spot.”
The usual nickname she used for him was “Kal.”
The legendary familiar, seen by early mages when contracting attribute magic, shaped like a dragon.
Put together, Kaldragon…
“…What’s with that weird command?”
“Hey~ This guy wouldn’t respond when I talked to it, so I was a little upset. I just made it clear who the contractor was.”
Considering her usual overly affectionate and impulsive behavior, it was unnecessary to guess the process.
“Is it dangerous?”
Having somehow understood the situation, Kalen asked the most important question. Blamia knew the truth, so things might be fine. However, Kalen couldn’t completely reassure himself.
This familiar had almost killed both of them that day. It was quite remarkable that Sinat still chose it as her familiar.
Hugging the petrified familiar, Sinat gave Kalen a subtle look.
“Are you worried about me right now?”
“On the contrary, I’m curious. Weren’t you scared of that incident back then?”
” Kalen tends to subtly change the subject.”
Sinat threw the familiar into the air. It disappeared in a dazzling light. She had sent it back to the Familiar Plane.
At the same time, Sinat got up and said:
“It’s not entirely certain, you know. That monster back then was much larger and more grotesque than Kaldragon.”
“Isn’t it hard to think of a familiar with such a color other than that monster? Sinat.”
“Hmm~ Really?”
Sinat smiled slyly and leaned in close to Kalen, her hands held behind her back so that her upper body tilted forward.
Except Kalen felt a bit irritated.
Right.
Just as Sinat said, he was worried. There was no guarantee that such a monster wouldn’t appear again.
Whenever Sinat acted a little excessively, Kalen would take a step back or something similar. This pleased Sinat; it seemed contradictory to his calm and composed exterior.
This current action was a manifestation of that feeling. Naturally, Kalen was supposed to panic and step back.
However, Kalen’s next move was slightly different from her expectations. Instead of panicking, he stepped forward.
“…”
Instead, Sinat stumbled, lost her balance, and started to fall backward. Kalen caught her.
“Want to make a bet?”
“…”
“Whether that’s the same one or not.”
“Wait, Kalen! Too…!”
Kalen didn’t stop there but leaned forward even more.
There was a page in Sinat’s neatly organized notebook titled “Kalen” that contained such a note.
– He gets excessively excited when the word ‘bet’ is mentioned (Usefulness: 10!!)
The moment this note flashed through Sinat’s mind, she lost her train of thought gazing up at Kalen’s face, which was so close that his breath was almost touching her.
Regardless of Sinat’s confusion, Kalen said bluntly:
“Bet. Do you want to or not?”
“Uh… Do… it…”
Sinat’s strength left her, and she collapsed onto the floor. She regained her senses after some time passed.
*
“Really, it’s not him?”
“That’s right. Although it’s unusual, it’s not automatic. The possibility that the two are the same is slim.”
While the breakfast had gone slightly cold, Blamia sighed and took a bite of her bread as she responded to Kalen’s question.
“See… She said it wasn’t him, right?”
Sinat murmured quietly while aimlessly stirring her soup.
“Didn’t you say familiars are divine beings, Master?”
“Kid. I excel in existing magic. Even when I learned magic, I couldn’t be taught ancient legends.”
“Then…”
“The Mage Guild manages an ancient library. Fortunately, there was a bit of information there.”
When magic first appeared, the current system of five attributes wasn’t so clear. Magic, being so organic, makes it hard to argue about these things.
Sinat’s familiar was from that ancient time. A familiar that no one contracts with anymore, maybe not even one that exists now.
As Blamia continued talking, she took another bite of her bread.
“There was something in the ancient books. It mentioned that some spirits are called ‘Lords’. And these Lord spirits have the role of sealing something.”
“So, are you saying the familiar Sinat contracted is one of these ‘Lord’ level spirits?”
“It’s hard to believe, but that would be the case. The description in the ancient books matches.”
It was difficult to believe that the familiar that Sinat described, which trembled even when spoken to, was such an exalted spirit. Having given up the path of magic and gone through that ordeal, the result was a legendary Lord class familiar that no one has ever contracted before.
“The guy you two saw back then was likely sealing something… Now, it seems that Sinat broke that seal, and the spirit guarding the seal made a contract with her. Pass me some milk, would you?”
Kalen handed over the milk and asked.
“Is it true that Sinat attained the second tier, Master?”
“That’s the definition of the second tier, so yes. I’ve decided to just be glad about it now.”
Blamia’s slightly wistful smile recalled something from the past.
Kalen turned and looked at Sinat.
“Bet… So, I won, didn’t I?”
Sinat, whose voice was still meek and who was glancing at him timidly.
“…Yeah.”
“…Hmm.”
She had a slight smile on her lips while eating her soup.
“…This time, I won…”
Behind that muttering, Blamia wiped her mouth and spoke up.
“We actually have something to discuss regarding Sinat’s schedule and a task you asked for. Follow me. Sinat, don’t come.”
With that, Blamia headed towards the makeshift training ground in the back yard.
Kalen’s plate still had his unfinished breakfast lying there.