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It seemed like he had left quite an impression on them, as Sara was smiling happily as she spoke about him.

As they talked with him, their wariness faded away. But more importantly, his skill as a summoner was clear, as he showed a large variety of summons. As a result, Leyla ended up impressed by him, and ended up accepting his offer to acquire an Armor Spirit together.

After that he began preparing various things to accomplish that. First and most importantly was explaining exactly how to defeat an Armor Spirit, which was the same method Mira had pioneered in the past.

Namely, that summoner suggested they use Magic Bomb Sealing Stones.

That was something Mira had figured out, back when she was Danbulf. It was the most practical way for beginner summoners to take down Armor Spirits, which were far more powerful than new adventurers.

But for that, they required Magic Bomb Sealing Stones. Their efficacy was also something Danbulf had researched extensively, together with the Armor Spirits’ characteristics.

To successfully form a contract with an Armor Spirit, the summoner had to defeat them alone. On top of that, long ranged weapons like bows were ineffective.

Danbulf had worked tirelessly to figure out exactly what produced that limitation in Armor Spirits. And eventually she found it, the most important condition. It was all about mana. When fighting, Armor Spirits would pay attention and memorize their opponent’s mana wavelength, but they could only sense mana within a radius of two meters. That was why bows and any other ranged weapon did not work, the summoner was outside the sensing area.

With all of those conditions in mind, the benefit of Magic Bomb Sealing Stones became obvious.

While they were still thrown, making them a type of ranged attack, there was one essential difference between their explosion and an arrow’s strike.

Arming a Magic Bomb Sealing Stone so it would explode required the input of the user’s mana, before multiplying it many times over to create an explosion. That was how Magic Bomb Sealing Stones worked.

All of that combined meant that the Armor Spirit would sense the explosion’s mana and remember it as the summoner’s, leading to a contract. It felt a bit like cheating the Armor Spirit into becoming a summon, but there was no better option as using a more righteous approach would be too difficult.

There was one more slightly esoteric method though. A really drawn out fight. By keeping an Armor Spirit engaged in battle for a long time, they would also remember a nearby summoner’s mana, and once that happened, the spirit could be finished off with arrows or explosives, and it would attribute it all to the summoner.

But that method was nowhere near realistic enough. Accomplishing that would require a strong swordsman who could fight for hours on end without getting tired, and a summoner who somehow was in good shape enough to keep up with the fight, which was essentially impossible for a beginner. And even then all of the healing items to last through the process would cost a fortune.

Faced with all those hurdles, Magic Bomb Sealing Stones were the obvious way to go for all summoners. They were by far the more sensible choice.

The issue was acquiring said Magic Bomb Sealing Stones. Making them required the Refining skill Danbulf had developed and mastered, and only he and some close friends of his held the necessary knowledge.

In other words, there was a very limited supply of them, and access to them was even more restricted when it came to Magic Bomb Sealing Stones that were powerful enough to defeat an Armor Spirit safely.

And yet that mysterious summoner generously provided Leyla with one such Magic Bomb Sealing Stone.

「Ohohh, a Magic Bomb Sealing Stone you say? I don’t know who that man was, but that’s certainly a great display of kindness!」

Even with someone who knew how to make them, the items necessary to manufacture them also carried a hefty cost. Someone donating such an item simply to see the next generation succeed certainly spoke a great deal about that man’s worth as a summoner, which Mira admired greatly.

「I’m still grateful to him too. It’s only thanks to him that Leyla has become so cheerful nowadays.」

Saying that, Sara gently patted Leyla’s head. She had been rather worried about her sister before, and now felt much more relieved. Leyla looked slightly embarrassed to be treated that way, but her eyes were filled with determination. She would do anything to help her sister Sara as a summoner now.

「Hmhmm, that certainly sounds like a happy encounter.」

While Mira barely knew the sisters, she could clearly tell they had a good relationship with each other. It was heartwarming to see them together.

「Yes, we’ll never stop feeling grateful for it! Not anyone can hand over such a valuable item to someone they just met after all. And that’s why we started planning a way to use it and make sure it hits without missing!」

The conversation continued moving forward from their lucky encounter with that summoner. And since Mira was listening so attentively, Sara’s voice also gained more energy, making her talk even more enthusiastically about their heroic tale.

The mysterious summoner had also been part of their discussion on how to use the Magic Bomb Sealing Stone, but he hardly contributed to it, at most commenting how likely they were to pull off a certain move.

(This isn’t a school after all. Planning and thinking for oneself is an important experience.)

According to Sara, all that capable summoner had done was provide them with the Magic Bomb Sealing Stone and some of his past experiences. After that he listened in silence to see what plan the sisters would come up with. Mira felt like he had done that to help the sisters with learning to plan for themselves, which was also an important part of being an adventurer. That also made Mira more curious to meet that summoner though, as she felt like they could easily share a few drinks and talk for a long time.

「He said he could not help directly with fighting the Armor Spirit, but he did help us a lot when preparing for it.」

While Mira was already drawing a character of that summoner in her mind, Sara continued telling the story.

After discussing their plan and consulting with the summoner, eventually they came up with something, a pitfall. They would dig a hole, make the Armor Spirit fall in it, and once it could no longer move, Leyla would throw in the Magic Bomb Sealing Stone. The summoner also seemed impressed by that plan, mentioning it was essentially infallible as long as the Magic Bomb Sealing Stone properly fell into the hole as well.

The condition for a contract that limited the summoner to being the only one fighting did not extend to preparations made before the fight, meaning that a large number of allies could dig out a big trap and it would not cause any negative effects.

The summoner mentioned that too, so the sisters quickly went to work to get everything ready for the main event.

They needed a hole the right size for the Armor Spirit, and a way to lure it into the hole. It took them nearly all of the past two months to get that ready, making a long corridor of sandbags which led to the hole in the end.

The summoner also helped them with that, which helped them patch anything they could have missed when preparing everything.

「We also tested it out with monsters first, to make sure it would work properly.」

Just to be extra safe, and to improve their rate of success even more, the summoner suggested they had to make a few practice runs first.

All of them were successful, and as long as the monster entered the sandbag corridor, they would infallibly fall into the pitfall.

Once they had dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s, it was finally time to bring the Armor Spirit there. Thanks to all the time they spent getting ready, their plan worked flawlessly and the Armor Spirit was trapped inside the hole. Then came the important part, one they could not practice beforehand considering the cost of Magic Bomb Sealing Stones. But Leyla did exactly as she was taught, arming it and throwing it inside the hole, hitting her target.

As a result, Leyla had properly defeated the Armor Spirit.

When telling that part of the story, Sara laughed as she mentioned how the explosion had been much stronger than she had anticipated. It seemed like the Magic Bomb Sealing Stone the summoner had given them was of even higher quality than they had initially thought.

It was best to go a little bit overboard and overkill the Armor Spirits to secure the contract. That was something that Mira had determined in the game, and seeing that the summoner Bruce also knew of it made her feel even more impressed with him.

Apparently Bruce had left once he saw that they had successfully defeated the Armor Spirit though, saying that there were plenty of other summoners out there who were struggling to get started as well, so he wanted to help them as soon as possible.

「That’s truly some magnificent dedication. I truly wish I could meet him.」

Mira was quickly becoming more impressed by him, thinking of him as the perfect image of an instructor. At that point Mira had already forgotten what the sisters had initially wanted from her though.

「So that’s what happened and the contract was formed. But now we’re not sure what to do with it…」

Sara’s voice had been energetic as she told the story of their valiant efforts, but then made a sharp drop into a conflicted murmur. Leyla had formed a contract with an Armor Spirit, but didn’t really know how to properly summon it.

Bruce had coached Leyla beforehand, telling her what to do once the contract was formed, but listening to that and actually doing it were different things. Somehow Leyla could not really grasp the hang of it, and would just constantly fail.

On top of that, there were only a handful of summoners out and about, so they had been unable to find anyone who could become a teacher for Leyla.

「Hmm, so that’s why you asked for my help…」

Now Mira understood why they had asked her for help with using Summoning Skills, so she turned to look at Leyla.

「Please help me!」

Noticing Mira’s gaze, Leyla quickly bowed while asking again. In terms of appearance alone, Mira looked even younger than Leyla, but hearing that firm plea for help told Mira just how badly Leyla wanted to learn.

That was not very necessary though, as no matter where and when, if a summoner was in need, Mira would do everything in her power to help.

With a confident smile, Mira agreed to help Leyla.