Unrelated to the floating girl, fortunately for me, now that we were back in Atlas, both Sylph and Salamander had returned to being ‘100’, rather than 500 and 1000.

Back to the matter at hand.

Dark purple eyes that made a strong contrast with her pale skin. Her black hair framed her pretty face and flowed down, easily reaching to her thighs. On the other hand, her outfit was largely a shade of off-white—a one piece dress and a beret of sorts, decorated by a number of black ribbons.

Incidentally, her frilly sleeves hid her hands from view.

Her eyes seemed almost to contain a certain… otherworldliness, which felt vaguely familiar…

Ah.

I saw that in that drakonid’s eyes, too.

Indeed, her eyes looked similar to those of the drakonid that had called forth that disgusting avatar or whatever. Similarly, her every little movement produced a small jingle, as if there were bells on her outfit.

Yet more striking than those otherworldly eyes was the pair of dark blue wings on her back, like those of a butterfly. They were not fluttering particularly fast, yet here she was, floating in the air not far from my face.

It took several seconds of staring for her to notice I was looking at her, at which point she tilted her head and waved at me, a mischievous smile on her face.

I figured I was going to be here a while, so I once more made myself a shadowy throne and sat down. From the corner of my eye, I noticed the shrine maidens look at it, a bit panicky, but neither goddess interfered, so the shrine maidens also seemed to judge it was fine.

“Lady Sylph,” I said after a moment of thought—she was this place’s owner, after all— “would it be possible for you to inform me as to the nature of this girl?”

Of course, the fact that she was smirking at me also helped in my decision to ask her.

“Just appraise her, and find out?”

Useless.

From someone who had earlier radiated such a divine aura, hearing such a thing come from her mouth was…

Well, in any case.

I decided to just do as she suggested.

Name

>

Sex

Female

Race

Darkness-Attribute Spirit

Grade

8 (Supreme)

Skills

[Innate Magic: Darkness-Attribute] [Spirit Contract] [Pinnacle of Darkness]

Innate Magic: Darkness-Attribute

Although spirits cannot form magic circles on their own, if you are provided with a magic circle of your attribute accompanied by a strong will, you may use the mana in the environment as well as that in your body to activate the spell.

Spirit Contract

Form a permanent contract with a consenting living being who is capable of triggering your [Innate Magic] skill. While under a contract, you are obligated to obey all commands unless you have reasonable basis to believe they would bring harm to your life. In addition, you may not accept requests for magic from anyone other than your contractor. In exchange, you will receive a name, an initial large amount of mana, and a constant supply of mana dependent on your strength.

Pinnacle of Darkness

Passive: you are the absolute top of darkness-attribute spirits. You possess a humanoid form, dragon-like intelligence and, as long as you are under a contract, the ability to freely manipulate darkness without the restrictions of spellcraft. You have the potential to become a Spirit Lord.

A spirit.

This little thing possessed enough power to annihilate several large nations? She could make a good weapon…

Probably the darkness spirit the elves had been chattering about for our whole stay here.

More importantly, another one of those thoroughly unnatural statuses. Perhaps she, too, was related to that Meph-whatever?

I did not care. If she was not malevolent, it was fine to just sever that relationship.

I put my hand in front of me, palm-up. After a few moments of hesitation, the girl landed on it. No sooner had she landed than she began spinning around on one foot—some manner of dance, perhaps.

I had some idea of what would suddenly have given me the ability to see spirits, so I produced a magical hand mirror from my [Storage] with my free hand and appraised both new divine markings.

Name

Divine Marking of Sylph

Rank

Divine

Attribute

Wind*

Effect

By simply possessing this tattoo, the user may see and interact with spirits. People with the proper knowledge will recognise the tattoo as Sylph's divine symbol, and will spare no effort to help the user.

Description

A green tattoo of Goddess of Wind, Sylph's holy symbol. It allows the possessor to interact with spirits, and proves they are incredibly favoured by Goddess of Wind, Sylph.

* Because this is a ‘Divine’-rank magical marking, its wind attribute will not interfere with the casting of spells of other attributes.

Name

Divine Marking of Salamander

Rank

Divine

Attribute

Fire*

Effect

By channelling mana into this tattoo, the user can change their body temperature. People with the proper knowledge will recognise the tattoo as Salamander's divine symbol, and will spare no effort to help the user.

Description

A red tattoo of Goddess of Fire, Salamander's holy symbol. It can change the possessor's temperature, and proves they are incredibly favoured by Goddess of Fire, Salamander.

* Because this is a ‘Divine’-rank magical marking, its fire attribute will not interfere with the casting of spells of other attributes.

In other words, I could now see the spirit because of the marking, as I had surmised.

Given Gnome’s ring effect was particularly simple—it let me use earth-attribute magic and proved I was liked by Gnome—I figured there was no particular need to appraise Sylph’s and Salamander’s rings.

Sylph giggled, probably in response to the mirror. “Yup, you figured it out. ‘Grats? Look around a little. They’re… cute, right?”

As she asked, I turned my gaze away from the spirit on my palm and into the room, and found it filled with spirits of all shapes and sizes.

Small orbs of light, translucent animals, even occasional human-like spirits like the one on my hand.

Notably, the green spirits were very much flocking to Sylph, the red ones to Salamander and the brown ones to me. Well, of course, there were also green and red spirits who found me more interesting than their already-known goddesses…

“Spirits are,” Sylph said, “simple. No… Honest? If you’re interesting, they’ll come take a look. If you’re scary, they’ll run away… That’s why there’s no water spirits here.”

In other words, because of my divine markings, I was attractive to earth-, fire- and wind-attribute spirits, but I had no such marking for the water attribute, so they just feared me… or something along those lines.

It was not hard to imagine why a darkness spirit would find me interesting.

“I do not believe this is merely interest, however…” I said, putting away the mirror and turning my attention back to the spirit on my hand.

She noticed my gaze, sat down on my hand with her legs off the side and tilted her head.

“From what I have heard the elves mention,” I said, bringing a finger to the spirit’s face, “she has been following me for a while now, despite being essentially the embodiment of a loose cannon.”

She looked at the finger for a few seconds before clinging onto it. This in itself was not unpleasant, though the play-biting was less desirable.

“Not necessarily?” Sylph said, snickering to herself. “You’re interesting, you know. Scary, but interesting. Concentrated darkness, and well along the way to joining us as a god… Well, exactly because of that, you’re scary, too, but she seems… brave?”

“If I may,” Feno said, gently cutting in from the side, “I do believe this spirit wants something specific, Lord Astaroth. With spirits being as whimsical as they are, really, there’s only one thing that could make a spirit stick around one person for so long, I think… After all, even the well-liked among elves don’t get constant attention like this for longer than a-”

She was rambling again, so I tuned her out.

“In other words, a contract… Huh. Then there is something I must do first.”

My words caused Feno to stop talking and look at me, a bit of a puzzled expression on her face.

“Darkness spirit.”

She pointed to herself, as if to acknowledge I was addressing her.

“Cut all ties with your current master,” I said, activating [Overlord’s Authority].

Immediately, her status returned to its normal colour and the ringing sound disappeared, though the otherworldly atmosphere in her eyes did not fade.

“Hmph. That will suffice. Then, Aldefeno. I shall allow you to teach me how to contract a spirit.”

Although my phrasing was intended to preserve my own image, it seemed to cause quite a bit of pride to swell in Feno’s chest. “All you need to do is give her a name.”

The straightforwardness of the process, as well as the short sentence and the fact that this was the first time she had stopped talking on her own, caught me off-guard, and thus I sat there staring at the spirit for a few seconds.

“Then…” I said, clearing my throat. “Spirit. Henceforth, you shall answer to the name ‘Nyx’. That is my decision in the name of Lady Entropy.”

By way of… acknowledgement, probably, the spirit—Nyx gave a salute, though she seemed to struggle to keep a straight face.

«You have gained the skill [Spirit Magic]. You may instruct spirits in using spells on your behalf.»

A vague description. Experiments were necessary, but not right now.

“Newly-named darkness spirit, Nyx, pinnacle of darkness and your loyal vassal, at your command, Oberon!” Nyx said, straightening out her back and folding her free hand behind her back. Although the saluting pose itself was better, her face was still…

“... There is no need to force yourself if it is impossible, Nyx,” I said.

‘Oberon’? After the mythical king of fairies, maybe? Well, whatever, not like I care.

At my half-pitying words, she dropped her salute and relaxed her posture.

Feno looked at me, a bit of a quizzical look on her face. “I feel like I heard her call you something absurd just now, but more importantly, Lord Astaroth, don’t you feel a little light-headed? Spirit contracts aren’t a light thing, you know. They cost a lot of mana-”

I tuned her out once more.

Indeed, the contract had cost me a bit of mana, but… It was less mana than I consumed to cast Eradication Cannon once, so I had not even noticed until she pointed it out.

Nyx, meanwhile, practically leapt off my hand and once more placed herself about twenty centimetres from my face, where she burst into a fit of giggles.

“I do believe we have spent enough time here,” I said, standing up. “Let us depart.”

“Mwu, not me,” Sylph said, shaking her head. “I need-” she interrupted herself with a yawn, “a nap.”

Before I could get another word in, she was already asleep.

“... Right.”

“Ah, you’re ba—the tattoos have multiplied?!”

The first word out of the mage Hero’s mouth when we once again emerged into the hallway seemed to be some sort of rude comment about my appearance.

“Was that an insult?” I asked, closing an eye.

“N-no, sir…”

“Hmm. Well, if you say so. Whatever may be the case, I do hope that the presence of more divine markings has proven the goddesses’ identities.”

“Divine markings?” the sword-wielder asked, with more scepticism in his voice than he had the right to have.

“You can appraise them if you do not believe me.”

“Well, if you say so… [Appraisal]—Gh, he’s right?!”

“Of course I was right. Do you take me to be some kind of idiot? Before you make assumptions about people’s intelligence, try looking in a mirror.”

“M’lord,” Charlotte cut in, “though I c’nnot d’ny ‘tis fun t’ list’n t’ this conv’rsation, I do not b’lieve thou should waste thy time on the equiv’lent o’ trying t’ play chess with a pigeon.”

“Are you two calling me stupid?!” the Hero asked, almost reaching for his sword.

“I believe the fact that you’re feeling the need to ask that question says more about you than Charlotte and Master ever could,” Tempest said, bringing her hand up to her mouth to mask her chuckles.

“So noisy,” I said, “that is enough. You are making her nervous.”

I once more stuck my hand under Asami’s cap.

“As thou hast ord’red, M’lord.”

“Understood, Master.”

“Grr… Got it.”

From Asami’s sigh of relief, I judged she was rather relieved I was defusing the atmosphere. She sent me a questioning glance, so I sent her a telepathic message in turn.

«I will have a look at your new status later, once Nexu and Alpine are done.»

The smile she showed could have healed a broken heart.

Well, no such heart was present, so its healing potential went to waste.

“Come to think of it,” I said, retracting my hand and turning my attention back to the Heroes, “why are you two here, anyway?”

“Because you took us here,” the sword-wielder replied.

“Not that, you imbecile. The forest. Ethalia.”

“Ah,” the mage said, “that’s right, we had a mission… Um, Lord Astaroth, you wouldn’t happen to know what happened to Lady Sarandiel, would you?”

I looked at Salamander, back at the Heroes, back at Salamander.

Several seconds of silence later, I, without a shred of hesitation—

Shoved Salamander in the Heroes’ direction with the words “You cause problems, you fix them.”

A splendid display of throwing someone under the bus.

Salamander’s betrayed face alone was more than enough reward, but the added bonus of not having to deal with her mess was nice, too.

“Then, you lot,” I said, addressing my Demon Generals, Asami and Nyx. “We have a bit of downtime, so you are free to do as you please. If you have need of me, I will be near the world tree. Ah, and do not kill or harm anyone if you can help it.”

“I shall ensure I enjoy m’self t’ my heart’s content, M’lord.”

“Navillus will~? Play!”

“I will gladly take some downtime, Master. Perhaps I could look into some spirit magic while I’m here…”

“Master, can I come with you, instead? If I go out on my own, I’ll get swamped in gifts again…”

“I’ll go check how Nexu and Alpine are doing!”

“Nyx will follow you wherever you go, Oberon!”