Her hands trembled with tension.
Her heart trembled with fear.
‘Summon Servant’ was not an elemental spell, and everyone could use it. So Louise didn’t need to read runes to cast it.
“I, Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière, in the name of the great Five Pentagon Powers, following my fate, summon a familiar.”
She thrust out her wand into the air.
If Saito, who was a familiar bound to Louise, was alive… the summon gate would not open.
A few moments passed.
Montmorency, who did not have the courage to open her eyes, wondered why Guiche and Louise did not dare to open their mouths.
What happened?
“Hey Guiche. How did it go?”
She asked in a tiny voice, he answered.
“Nh!”
Giving up, Montmorency opened her eyes while holding up her breath.
And… dazzled, fell to her knees.
In front of Louise, there was a mirror-shaped gate that shone with light.
Soullessly, Louise kept on blankly staring at the gate.
“Aah, that’s terrible. A great man was lost. A very great man was lost. He… loved you dearly.”
Guiche said in a painful voice.
“Louise…” Montmorency muttered.
Many summons could be seen within the gate. By this time, the selected beast or spirit would pass through the shinning gates. They could pass through only on their own free will.
Before that happens…
“Close the gate!”
Louise closed the gate. Due to Montmorency’s scream, she did it without thinking.
Montmorency hugged Louise from behind.
“Louise… Aah, Louise…”
Louise crumbled like a rag doll to the floor.
In the end, with her courage shattered into pieces… Louise was engulfed in despair.
At that time, in a forest village near Albion's Saxe-Gotha…
Saito, who was sleeping, woke up.
He felt something shining next to him.
But… when he opened his eyes, there was nothing there.
“Somehow… Was it a dream? But I already had one dream about light.” Saito said to himself.
Then he watched his left hand again.
Every night he hoped for them to reappear…
Yet, they were gone for good.
Chapter Five: The Disappearing Gandálfr
After that, ten days passed.
After Tiffania’s ring's intensive healing magic treatment, Saito’s fatal wounds, after two weeks of sleeping and three weeks all together, were almost completely healed…
Yet he was not heading back.
Leaning upon his elbows, Saito let out a lonely sigh.
“Haaah.”
What a painful thing to hear, those sighs.
Saito was sitting on the firewood pile behind Tiffania’s house. Tiffania’s house was made from logs and some mortar.
Around it, sun-lit, beautiful trees grew.
Here, next to Saxe-Gotha, Westwood Village was located. The village was near the highway connecting Saxe-Gotha and the port city of Rosais.
Based on Tiffania’s words, the hill where Saito held off the Albion army was not too far away either.
Indeed, it was a tiny, forgotten village. Even if you looked at it, through the small cracks within the forest, you could see the ten small houses only if you were right next to it.
Derflinger, who was leaning against the woodpile, said in a calm voice.
“Weeell, seems like Albion’s army missed the Allied Forces in Rosais. Because you bought some time, the allies were able to retreat successfully. Partner, your life-threatening clash with the enemy was not in vain.”
They learned this from a merchant that came to peddle in the village the other day.
He himself had seen that merchant who came to sell cloth and chatted about the reverse defeat of the Holy Republic of Albion's army. He said - “We’ll survive through this and it will be a little bit easier,” with a happy face. Albion’s nobles were not popular among the country people.
“Besides, the war ended as well. Goes without saying.”
They also learned that Gallia suddenly entered the war, forcing the Albion army to surrender.
“Even if we escaped, we won anyway.”
However, Saito still looked gloomy.
“…so it is.”
Louise and others should have been able to escape safely as well. Yet, even though he should be joyous…
He kept on staring absent-minded at his left hand, and muttered:
“Blank, is it?”
So, the runes that disappeared did not come back.
Apparently, the contract was completely broken.
“I, I am not even a Gandálfr anymore.”
“Hmm. No, I was thinking, why would a familiar contract completely wear off…”
“What, why?”
“For one moment, your heart stopped. So partner, the familiar's runes died as well. Magical spell-based objects can make assumptions too. Like flies escape the door that seems to be dead – the runes may have left as well.”
“I see.”
Trying to comfort the glum Saito, Derflinger said,
“Hey hey, isn’t it good? This way you won’t have to deal with that fussy noble girl’s complaints. You will be counted as dead in her eyes.”
“Indeed, yet still…”
Bitterly, he was not able to give up. Saito looked up at Derflinger and asked.
“...Can Louise make a contract again?”
“What?”
“Indeed. You heard me.”
“Sort of like double using.”
“Yes.”
“First of all, 'Summon Servant' is not only about passing. It all depends if that noble girl will open the gate in front of you or not.“
“…”
“In fact, it is still unknown why a person is chosen to be a familiar. Based on the four element system, only a beast or a spirit that represents the element of the user can pass the gates… Anyhow, that girl’s element is Void. According to what principle the familiar is chosen, I don’t know. Yet…”
“Yet?”
“This is so called ‘fate’.”
“Hmm, if I and Louise are related by ‘fate’ then could the gate open again?”
“I don’t know. But, it was fated to bid farewell here. That’s one of the problems.”
“Hmm… well, and secondly?”
“Servant Contract.”
Saito recalled how he was summoned to this world and kissed by Louise. If you think about it - everything started from that.
“Aah, that kiss.”
“That is right. ‘Summons’ and ‘Contract’. It’s because of the combination of these two, one becomes a familiar for the first time.”
“So it is not just a kiss?”
“It seems it was the ‘type’. Actually, the runes were carved into your body after that right?”
Saito remembered the sensation of burning pain.
“…so that’s everything left to do.”
“I would not recommend it.”
Derflinger muttered.
“Why?”
“Weeell, that, whether it is or not, if a familiar dies, the mage can summon another familiar… It’s different for familiars. For familiars, the ‘contract’ is a lifelong one. For familiars that live after the contract breaks, it becomes unpalatable.”
“Hmm hmm…”
“So, to put it this way, for a familiar to break a contract with the mage twice, one can only guess what would happen to the body…”
Derflinger said in an inarticulate voice.
“…”
“So, it’s bad I say. After getting life back with much trouble and putting it back under risk again… And, if the contract fails, Partner would not only embarrass himself. That girl also, would not want to see such a thing. It would be depressing.“
…It is so.
I'm not the only one who is in danger. It's possible that Louise would be jeopardized as well.