Chapter 177. Is This What They Call the Smell of Adventure?
A few days after Aster accepted Senior Mycelln’s proposal—
Time passed quickly.
Mycelln was juggling the waterway exploration alongside Demian’s spirit arts lessons, living days so busy he barely had time to breathe.
“Today… let’s learn about the basic temperaments of spirits.”
In the morning, after a simple meal, he taught Demian spirit arts.
It had started as an excuse, but he never did things halfheartedly.
Even if it was still unknown whether the child could contract with a spirit, Mycelln was always sincere when it came to spirits.
And in a way, it was impressive.
“His aptitude is quite considerable. And his motivation is outstanding.”
The child was so proactive it almost made you feel guilty that it had all begun as an excuse. And even if he wasn’t the type to learn ten from being taught one, Demian’s talent for spirit arts was truly something you could call remarkable.
And perhaps because of a child’s purity—
When dealing with Mycelln’s spirits, he also showed a rare kindness.
After finishing the morning instruction, it was immediately lunchtime.
After lunch, Mycelln set out at once to explore the waterways.
Indeed, the underground waterways of the Amera region were vast.
Their scale was so great that even Mycelln—who had investigated them for a long time—couldn’t grasp it all at once, and yet the exploration proceeded steadily.
And once the exploration ended, it was already around dawn.
Was it because of how much mental energy it consumed?
After wandering through the waterways all day, the old body felt as heavy as cotton soaked in water—and that wasn’t even the end of it.
He returned to the manor and went straight into a follow-up strategy meeting.
“Today I searched the waterways of Horian Lake, Kalua, and Jima Lake.”
“I fished. I caught three.”
“Like you said, rather than searching each lake one by one, it seems better to investigate lakes at set intervals.”
“Staying in one spot to fish doesn’t seem good. Maybe it’s just in my head, but the fish are getting craftier.”
And so Mycelln built a map of the waterways, while Aster filled in a fishing map of Giks Lake.
On the first day, they’d roamed the waterways in an improvised way, but with no end in sight—
From the second day onward, they used the water spirit Eiki to roughly sketch out a map of the waterways first, then launched a full-scale exploration after that.
Investigating the enormous waterway network across the wide Amera region was suffocatingly grueling, but it wasn’t without results.
“Hm. It’s as I expected… or should I say, the waterways tend to gather into one place. They don’t just branch out like an ant nest—there seems to be a point where they cluster together.”
“Yeah, there also seem to be spots where fish gather often. Today I caught four.”
It was easy to say, but in truth, it was an absurd feat.
They grasped the waterways of the Amera lakes in only a few days?
Of course, it wasn’t a perfect grasp—only an inference of the general structure—but either way, it wasn’t easy.
It was only possible because Mycelln was an exceptional spiritist, and even for Aster, it was hard not to be amazed.
“So this is a spiritist…?”
If he had been a mage, it would have been impossible no matter his level.
Flying around the Amera region all day and mapping the waterways—doing that with magic would have been an extremely tricky process.
Of course, magic also had many advantages that spirit arts didn’t, but people are always drawn more to what they don’t have.
“Seriously… it makes me want it.”
He practically started salivating.
Aster’s heart pounded at Senior Mycelln’s displays.
Images formed in his mind.
Countless spirits offering their hands. Himself as the master of ten thousand spirits. And House Deculan in crisis, standing before the saturation barrage of those ten thousand spirits.
Of course, it’s impossible for a single spiritist to command ten thousand spirits. It was nothing but Aster’s delusion.
But even thinking realistically, it couldn’t be helped—he wanted the existence called “spirits.”
Unlike magic, which manifests fixed phenomena in concrete form, spirit arts can respond fluidly depending on the situation.
If spirit arts were added on top of magic, what would it feel like?
“…Nothing would really change.”
Magic is magic, and spirit arts are spirit arts.
You can coordinate them if you want, but it doesn’t mean much.
Unless your level of spirit arts rose to match your level of magic—but that was close to impossible.
Still, what Aster was thinking about was a different sort of convenient benefit.
“Heh, hehehe.”
Aster chuckled as if the imagining alone delighted him.
Fury flinched at the sight at first, but by now looked oddly resigned.
In any case, time flowed urgently for some and leisurely for others.
And then—
With two days left until the Fairy Dance of Giksen Lake.
“…Hm.”
Mycelln slowly sank to the bottom of Oria Lake.
Even underwater, he breathed comfortably as if he were on land—thanks to Fury and the help of the water spirit Eiki.
In any case, seated at the lakebed in a cross-legged posture, Mycelln closed his eyes and sent a thought-message to Eiki.
“Eiki, let’s begin.”
But had it not heard him?
When he cracked his eyes open slightly, Eiki sat indifferently, grooming its forepaw. It looked exactly like a cat—and Eiki only moved the moment Mycelln took out a moonlight stone.
Eiki’s spiritual power spread outward, wide and thin.
That power extended in concentric circles like ripples cast across the surface above, and it was exactly then that Mycelln sent another thought-message.
“Madrin.”
Madrin was the earth spirit Mycelln commanded.
In the form of a land turtle, Madrin peeked its head out from the earth and exhaled its spiritual power.
Soon, Madrin’s spiritual power spread widely along the lakebed.
And so, Madrin’s spiritual power synchronized as support with Eiki’s spiritual power as it read the flow of the waterways.
At the same time, a map of the waterways formed vividly in Mycelln’s mind.
“…Mm.”
Even as an overwhelming flood of information poured into his brain, Mycelln let out a low sound—and did not stop accepting it.
How long passed like that?
“…!”
Mycelln’s eyes snapped wide open.
The spiritual power sent out by Eiki and Madrin had found an underwater cavern.
No—should this even be called a cavern? It was more like a massive hollow.
Eiki and Madrin’s spiritual power continued to extend along multiple branching paths formed around that hollow, and soon a smile settled on Mycelln’s lips.
“Did I find it?”
Of course, that didn’t mean he’d found the barrier.
But he’d found a highly likely candidate.
From the start, he had predicted the barrier might be in the central point where all waterways converged.
So what now?
There was only one option—confirm it with his own eyes.
“Eiki, Madrin. That’s enough. Let’s go there ourselves.”
Mycelln stood and began to move.
Eiki’s spiritual power matched his steps, and the flow of the water softly wrapped around Mycelln’s body, adding buoyant force.
Mycelln’s figure was being swallowed into the deep, dark waterway.
Meanwhile, Aster was sitting by the lakeside again today, locked in a fierce battle.
Why a fierce battle?
Because that’s what fishing is.
A showdown staked on the pride of fish and human—winner takes everything, loser loses everything.
Of course, the only thing Aster ever “lost” was bait, no more and no less, but it was still a serious match in its own way.
Anyway—like that.
“Hoo.”
After finishing yet another duel with a fish, Aster wiped his sweat as he placed a “big catch” of about 10 cm into his keep net.
“A trophy catch.”
Yes. A trophy catch.
If you ask why 10 cm counts as a trophy catch, I have a lot to say.
Standards are always relative. For the fish Aster had caught so far, 10 cm was practically a colossal monster.
In any case, while Aster smiled at his first trophy catch, he suddenly looked up at the sky at the cool wind blowing in.
A high, vast sky.
Clear and bright.
And Aster’s heart, looking at it, was just as clear—perhaps thanks to how peaceful he felt.
“Having a capable companion… is truly a good thing.”
You don’t need to order them around, and you don’t feel stifled.
In the past, he would have been running around until his feet sweated, searching for the barrier—but now he almost wished he’d sweat a little.
That was how capable Senior Mycelln was as a companion.
But at the same time, another thought came.
“Things are going too well.”
And why was that a problem?
There’s a saying.
“Was it… ‘the sum total of happiness and misfortune converges to zero’?”
I couldn’t remember who said it, but anyway: if happiness is plus and misfortune is minus, then the sum becomes zero.
Which means the amount of happiness that comes is proportional to the amount of misfortune.
“It’s a positive saying, but right now it’s not positive at all.”
Why?
We hadn’t even properly begun the operation yet, and the happiness meter was skyrocketing—rapidly, extremely rapidly.
Which meant the misfortune I’d have to endure later would grow accordingly.
“That’s not good.”
“What isn’t good?”
At Demian’s question—he was fishing beside me—Aster quietly shook his head.
“It’s nothing.”
Anyway, back to the point.
Yeah. It wasn’t good.
It felt like some enormous incident was bound to explode at any moment.
But once his thoughts reached that point, Aster didn’t dig deeper.
Normally, he might have been so anxious he couldn’t stay still, but Aster had already relaxed.
“The mountain is water, and the water is the mountain.”
That in the end, all things in the world would flow along the right path.
How could a mere human change that current?
All you could do was enjoy whatever pleasures you could find in reality.
Anyway, as he enjoyed that leisure—
The surface suddenly whoooosh! erupted, shooting upward at that very moment.
“…?”
Aster frowned at the sudden situation.
“What is it? A monster?”
With that thought, he stared at the thing that burst from the water—until, not long after, a familiar voice rang in his ears.
“I found it.”
“…Pardon?”
The one who had burst from the water was none other than Mycelln.
His face was flushed with excitement, eyes shining—and at Aster’s reaction, he spoke as if frustrated.
“I said I found it.”
Reddish eyes, trembling with emotion.
A buoyant voice.
Aster tilted his head at the sight, then quickly grasped what it meant.
“Don’t tell me…”
“Yes. The barrier. I found it. Just as we expected, it’s located at a junction where the waterways overlap.”
Mycelln couldn’t contain the pounding in his chest at the discovery of the place he’d searched for so long.
To others, it might look like results achieved in only a few days—but how many days had Mycelln agonized to build this hypothesis, and what efforts had he made to obtain that information?
Now all that remained was…
“…Saving the spirits.”
Mycelln clenched both fists and smiled, brimming with ecstasy.
“Then let’s go save them. When should we depart?”
And at the same time, Aster thought—
“Uh… but this.”
No matter how I thought about it, it felt like we were screwed.
Senior Mycelln was so excited that he didn’t seem to realize it yet, but he wasn’t the only one here.
“…Woooow.”
Demian let out a quiet exclamation at the sight of Senior Mycelln bursting out of the water, and a moment later he spoke.
“Save? What are we saving? Friend, what is Teacher saying?”
Aster didn’t answer.
But Demian’s eyes gleamed.
Found it. Barrier. And let’s go save them.
Those were the only three things he could understand—but Demian could still be sure of one thing.
“Is this what they call the smell of adventure?”
It probably was.
