“Then, tell me about fire magic first.”

“Sure. One has to borrow the power of a spirit to create fuel and heat to let fire magic take effect as I said before. Therefore one has to call a fire spirit. Try it.”

Knopf starts to meditate with her hands facing up.

She breathed slowly and seemed to concentrate.

“I close my eyes and imagine fire spirits in the atmosphere and call one. Usually, it’s in the form of a dwarf.”

I do the same thing and close my eyes with my palm’s facing upwards.

Fire spirit, come here, Fire spirit-chan, come closer……

However, there weren’t any signs of it at all.

“Is it no use? It can’t be that difficult. Maybe you lack talent?”

Thunk.

I’m not able to do anything, I remembered the hard reality of not having talent I was blessed with and became blue.

Ah, I’m useless, huh? Even in the world, I created as an author I’m useless, huh?

I unintentionally switched back from Carlo to my original self.

“I, it’s okay even it failed this time. How about you try to imagine a flame on your hand this time?”

Knopf hurriedly tried to encourage me and nearly fell over.

I took it to heart and tried to do what she told me somehow.

Then the image of a bright red lizard suddenly came out.

“Uwaa!?”

When I opened my eyes in wonder an approximately 3 centimetre tall lizard appeared on my palm.

Its bright red colour was just like the image but its eyes were kind of cute.

Overall it was just blurred and there was no sense of touch.

“How is it? Did you feel something?”

“Rather than feel, there was a red lizard on top of my hand.”

Because Knopf asked me I answered her truthfully.

“Like I said, it’s fine, so you don’t have to act tough. You didn’t feel anything, did you? You can’t fool me so please tell the truth.”

Knopf was smirking at me disgusted.

Her cat ears were moving angrily too.

I didn’t particularly lie, though.

“Even if you’re telling me that it’s still on top of my hand. Can’t you see it?”

“Eh, Are you sure?! A lizard, you say, it can’t be, is it a Salamander?! I mean this is your first time and it should be impossible”

You, you’re a salamander?

However I look at it, it looks just like a small lizard.

“You, I wonder if I can make you appear.”

At that moment, the blurry outlines became clearer and I felt it touching my palm.

Uuuh, it feels a little ticklish, it kind of has a reptile feel to it.

“It’s the truth……”

After Knopf saw the lizard she looked surprised with her mouth wide open.

Come on, Cat-girl, your drool will flow out!

“This certainly is a salamander’s child. It’s still small. But to suddenly call a salamander……”

Knopf still seemed like she didn’t believe it yet.

She stared at the lizard for a while longer but then turned towards me in the blink of an eye and began to talk with a serious face.

“Magic, if one excludes light and darkness, consists out of four elements, Fire, Water, Wind and Earth. Those are the four major elements that is what is being said. Fire, Water, Air and Earth.”

The theory of four major elements got supported from the ancient Greece/Rome to the Islamic world and the European Middle Ages.

“For those four major elements, there exist four spirits and one governing them. The water Undine, the wind Sylph, the earth Gnome and the fire Salamander.”

Ooh, in my novel the hero forms a contract with the spirit Undine and uses water magic.

Speaking of Undine, was that the name of one of those four spirits?

I imagined it as something like TinkOrbell.

As the author, I am sorry for my lack of research.

“As Salamander is the fire spirit of the four spirits it’s quite the high-ranked spirit. One can’t just call Upper-rank fire spirits like the flame demon Ifrit or the Phoenix or the Salamander that simply.”

When you think about it, this is also author correction, I’m really sorry in various ways.

“Though it’s still like a child right now, but I think it will gradually grow if it steadily absorbs magical power. Seems like it got used to you.”

Yeah, no matter how I look at it seems like it got attached.

It was sitting very peacefully on top of my hand.

“The problems start here. As I said before a little while ago, you can use stronger spells if you form a contract with a high-ranking spirit. But it also has its disadvantages.”

disadvantages?

“Yeah, the magic of other systems becomes unusable if one forms a contract with a spirit. That’s the reason for me researching the combination of low-ranking magic to achieve equal power. You don’t have to form any contracts with high-ranking spirits for that and the magic of the four systems can all be used.”

I see, it’s like that, huh?

“What do you want to do? You are able to use fire magic if you form a contract with this Salamander. After it grows bigger I believe you are able to use considerably strong magic. But on the other hand, you can’t use any magic of other systems.”

Mmm, this is rather troublesome, isn’t it?

But honestly I don’t really want to learn that much magic and it might be good that Carlo as the rival of the Hero, who uses water magic, is able to use fire magic.

I’ll be defeated by the hero anyway so why not have bad elemental compatibility.

“Knopf, what should I do to form a contract with this fellow?”

“It’s easy. You have to name it. If a spirit receives a name the contract is established. Do you want to form a contract?”

“That’s right, just being able to use fire magic is enough. I don’t want to become a magician.”

“I see, if that’s the case please name this child. I guess it will be alright as long as it’s nothing too weird.”

Mmm, a name for a lizard, huh?

This is a Salamander and in Japanese that would be a fire dragon.

Speaking of fire dragons, yeah, it has to be Rioreia…… something like that.

(TN: Rathian in the English version. A wyvern from monster hunter)

“I’ve decided. You are Reus, the fire dragon Reus. How’s that?”

(TN: shortened form of Rioreus. Rathalos in the English version. A wyvern from monster hunter)

When I said that the lizard turned over and disappeared just when I thought that it was shining a little.

“Did it fail?”

“I think it’s different. Call its name”

“Reus!”

When I called its name the lizard appeared on my right shoulder.

“See, looks like it likes it. The contract was successful.”

“I see, then you are Reus from today onwards. Take care not to get hunted by a hunter.”

(TN: Cause ya know it’s a monster in monster hunter lol)

Knopf wasn’t able to understand this reference.

“One usually isn’t able to see them, but spirits are always around us, Carlo-san. Because that’s the case they will even come out if you just call them in your mind.”

I see, so it’s something like a mobile pet?

She said it grows up by absorbing my magical power so it’s fine not to feed it.

“Now that you have a spirit let’s practice fire magic, shall we? Let’s start with the incantation for “Fireball” first.”

First, we went outside to practice magic.

Using fire magic in a wooden hut is rather dangerous after all.

Even though I don’t really understand this stuff I try to imitate Knopf’s actions.

“Like I said before, you borrow the spirit’s power to create fuel for the fire to burn in the air. Then you draw the seals with one hand and concentrate.”

Well then, I close my eyes to concentrate, Reus, please lend me your power…….

Was the seal like that?

Then I should create a ball of burnable material in the air.

Something like a ball of flammable gas?

“If you’re ready, imagine adding heat to it, burn the fuel and aim towards your target while casting “Fireball”. That stake over there should be a good target, right?”

Reus, that’s enough.

I imagined adding heat to the ball and throwing it like a fastball.

That’s right, a straight with over 160 kilometres per hour!

“Fireball!”

As soon as I moved my arm a flame ball was flying like a fastball towards the target stake and hit it.

As for the stake, no trace remains of it.

“Again, this, suddenly producing a fireball of such speed, that’s impossible”

Rather than surprised, the cat girl looked at me with amazement.

Again, I’m sorry in various ways.

1. N/a