Chapter 18: Spirit Forest 1

Exam day was soon upon us.

The Spirit Forest sat behind a gate with an arch as high as a chapel. Forty pairs of first-years stood around, chatting while the supervisors went over the exam’s details one more time. Some guards were taking their positions at towers that surrounded the treeline.

The rules were read once:

- Enter with your partner

- Return with a contract

And that was basically all of them.

The first pair to go through the gate was announced: Lily and Perrin. Lily glanced back at me from beneath the arch, smiling shyly. I gave her two thumbs up and a confident smile in return.

[Okay sweetheart, I need you to almost die. That’s all. I need you in peril. Okay, medium-peril, and this plot can consider itself saved!]

Then, it was my turn.

I turned and found my pair standing right there, not three feet away from me, arms crossed and vaguely glaring.

"Keep up, mutt," Serena said. She walked forward, into the trees before I could think of something quippy to say back.

[... Thanks for the view, I guess.]

---

I kept up for exactly one hundred meters, at which point a root introduced itself to my boot and I fell face-first. I didn’t land, though. A hand closed on my collar mid-fall and hauled me back upright, one-armed.

"Do mutts not have paws?"

"They’re decorative," I said.

She dropped me and kept walking.

Here’s the thing, though. I had one asset in this forest, and it wasn’t my stats.

I wrote this place. I’d made it up corridor by corridor as the plot needed. Granted, I remembered it the way you remember a house from a dream. But that beats having no knowledge at all.

"Left ahead," I said, an hour in. "There’s a ravine two turns up, we want to be east of- no. Wait." I stopped, pinching the bridge of my nose, consulting fifteen-year-old drafts in the back of my mind. "No, wait, a creek. Ankle deep, so we can just walk through it."

Serena turned around and looked at me.

"And you know this... how, exactly?"

"I researched it. Come on."

---

It indeed was a creek.

I watched Serena as she went forward first. She stood in the middle of it, water curling around her boots, looked back to stare at me as if I was to blame for this situation, and then kept going.

[Well, to be fair, I am.]

I steered us the whole morning like that.

The blue-ringed moss meant spirit territory, that one I’d stolen from a video game and could therefore trust completely. Then there was a clearing with a split boulder. We went around, because something about it made my nipples tingle. I vaguely recalled a nest and some creature with way too many legs.

By hour two, she’d stopped insulting my sense of direction.

By hour three, at a fork of game trails, Serena Frostfall stood very still, jaw working, and then said, through her teeth, hating every individual syllable:

"...Which way?"

I smirked.

[Oh, that’s lovely. The SSS-rank asked the F-rank which way. She may as well have just declared her love for me.]

"Right trail," I said, professionally, while internally spinning in a field of flowers. "Glade in about ten minutes. Good contract ground."

And we found the glade shortly after. It was shaped like a ring within the blue moss, maybe like the eye of a storm. Dead quiet, and the sun coming down through the canopy made it look like a scene from a movie.

Serena walked to the center, planted her feet, closed her eyes, and called.

I’d written this, but I’d never seen a real spirit call. It was like a job application, but without any words. Entirely based on vibes.

Her mana came up and rolled off her like shimmering heat, unfurling outward through the glade, and it was enormous, saturating the air until my tail was vibrating.

Watching her, I thought to myself:

[Gotta hand it to you, past me. You definitely understood why this girl’s presence would make people want to kneel.]

The forest answered, but not in the way we wanted.

Everything within range of Serena’s call scattered. One spirit, a slim, silver, slug-like thing, recoiled and bolted in the opposite direction.

[She’s too strong for anything nearby.]

The shimmer of Serena’s mana hung in the empty glade a moment longer. Then it settled, like a hand lowered after no one shook it. She stood with her eyes closed for one more second and she made an expression I hadn’t seen yet.

One of equal parts embarrassment and frustration.

"Clearly, the spirits here are defective," Serena announced. "Let’s try another glade."

---

{Lily}

Gods, I couldn’t take it.

[Kohaku... Where are you?]

Sir Perrin was... trying. Even I could tell that, despite my limited experience with the opposite sex. But, good grief, he was so... so...

Vain.

"Watch the branch. There, held it for you. That’s, ha, I’ve lost track, what are we at?" It wouldn’t surprise me if he hadn’t lost track and was merely pretending. "Ooh, and that’s the third razorhare I’ve put down for us. Don’t worry, sweetness. You just focus on staying pretty and picking your spirit, I’ll handle the forest. Team effort, eh?"

He laughed. I forced a smile.

"There’s a spot up ahead," Perrin said, steering us off the trail again, hand hovering at the small of my back. "Real scenic. Let’s check it out."

"A-After you."

---

{Marisol}

Field notes, Spirit Forest exam, hour three of surveillance.

Securing the adjacent entry sector had cost me nothing but a week of pressure on Wilhelmina, my assigned partner, a viscount’s daughter with the spine of a soufflé who was currently carrying both our packs and had been instructed to breathe more quietly.

The registrar posts entry sectors at the gate; the fox’s sector was public information; the fox’s scheme would therefore unfold in front of me, mid-execution, where I could document everything.

Here is what I documented.

Hour one: subject fell over a root. Frostfall carried her by the collar. Like a kitten. Attempt at gaining sympathy perhaps?

Hour two: subject walked into a low branch while talking.

Hour two, cont: subject navigated flawlessly to a hidden creek. So the clumsiness is theater, clearly. But then why perform it to an audience of one Frostfall who visibly loses respect with each stumble??

Hour three: Frostfall asked the subject for directions. FROSTFALL asked HER. The performance works?? On HER???

I lowered the distance-glass and rubbed my eyes.

[Oh, she’s good.]

I took a breath and stopped.

Well, that was enough observation for one day. Perhaps it was time I...

CLISSSSS

A sound pulled my head toward it.

Flares were going up.

[Huh? Did something happen?]