[Lifespan Remaining: 20 days, 22 hours, 32 minutes.]
’...Seriously?’
He had intended to ask her about the position. Depending on her mood, he might’ve even been able to negotiate a few things before accepting. The first was a flexible schedule, perhaps. Permission to miss a lesson whenever he needed to take a commission to recover his lifespan, preferably not having to actually teach.
After all, Lenia was the one who would benefit from having him around. Or at least, that was how he had planned to present it. Now, several dozen students were staring at him with the expectation that he would do well in teaching them after hearing such high praise.
"Come along, Noct," Lenia called. "There’s no need to be shy."
’That’s not what this is.’
Beside him, Alice looked between the two of them.
"You know her?"
"My father created the Wayfarers."
Alice opened her mouth, then closed it again as Lenia beckoned toward them. There wasn’t much point in remaining outside anymore. Noct stepped into the classroom, with Alice following close behind.
Students turned in their seats as he passed. A few whispered to one another, while others openly examined him from head to toe. The upperclassmen were particularly interested, though he doubted all of them were pleased to discover that the position had gone to a freshman.
"That’s Duke Arcadia’s son?"
"He’s in Phoenix, isn’t he?"
"I heard he ranked first in this year’s entrance examination."
"Yeah, wasn’t that examination harder than the other years’?"
Alice took an empty seat near the front before whispering to him. "We’re talking about this later. You can’t run away from me now."
Noct sighed, and by the time he reached the teaching platform, Lenia was smiling as though he arrived right on time for her announcement, when he had agreed to none of it.
"There you are. I was beginning to wonder whether you’d come."
"I wasn’t aware I was supposed to."
"Well, you’re here now."
She turned toward the class before he could say anything else. "Some of you may have heard about the recent incident in Altaire. It was quite a troublesome affair, and this young man was a considerable help in resolving it."
That much, at least, was true.
"Of course, I had been keeping a close eye on the situation myself," Lenia continued. "When you’ve spent as long protecting a place as I have, you develop a sense for these things. Fortunately, Noct and I had the opportunity to exchange information. I was able to offer him some guidance, and he proved quite capable of putting it to use."
’Guidance? You were clinging to my feet?’
Before he could object, Lenia leaned toward him, still smiling at the class.
"You still owe me from Altaire," she whispered. "Think of this as repayment."
’What have I gotten myself into...’
Though the more Noct thought about it, the stranger it felt. He leaned over to whisper back. "Didn’t Undyne retreat back to the Spirit World? You made a contract with another spirit or something?"
That was when the corners of her mouth rose even wider than before.
"My own teaching assistant here has insisted that I show you all why this elective is so great," she announced to the class, clasping her hands together and closing her eyes.
"How could I refuse such an enthusiastic request?"
A torrent of water spilled from between her palms and curled around her body. As it rose past her shoulders, her hair began flowing with it, until Noct could no longer tell where the strands ended and the water began—like a living river.
When she opened her eyes, a soft blue tint radiated from within, with the lower half of her face covered by a veil made from soft mist. Her ears elongated and fanned outward to look like delicate fins. Finally, a necklace decorated with pearls settled on her chest.
Sylph stirred from within him. ’There’s no mistake! That’s...Undyne!’
’Undyne?’
The water continued flowing around her shoulders without spilling a single drop onto the floor. In front of her, several students had risen halfway from their seats to get a better look. Lenia seemed quite pleased with the reaction.
’How’s that possible?’ he asked. ’Didn’t she return to the Spirit World?’
’She did. That doesn’t mean she can’t lend her power to someone here.’
’So they made another contract?’
’Something like a temporary one,’ Sylph explained. ’Look at the necklace.’
Noct lowered his gaze to the pearls that rested against Lenia’s chest, each carrying a faint glow. He had assumed they were simply part of the transformation, much like her hair and ears.
Now that he was paying attention, however, he could see mana gathering around them. A thin current passed from Lenia into the necklace, disappearing beneath the surface of the pearls.
’That’s Undyne’s Sacred Object. It holds some of her power.’
’She left it with Lenia?’
’It seems so.’
Noct studied the necklace more closely. Whenever the water shifted around Lenia, the pearls brightened slightly. The connection was subtle, but once Sylph had pointed it out, it became difficult to miss. Undyne herself hadn’t returned. Lenia was drawing on the power she had left behind.
’But why would she agree to that? Isn’t she supposed to be recovering?’
’She probably agreed to continue helping Lenia protect the Ley Line,’ Sylph replied. ’In exchange, Lenia would provide some of her own power to help her heal.’
’So that’s what she’s doing...’
It would explain why Undyne had entrusted her with something like this. Through the Sacred Object, Lenia could still receive her help without requiring the spirit to remain here. And there was no better source of water-aspected mana to accelerate Undyne’s healing than a 7-Star Magus’.
’But it’s quite impressive that she learned how to use Partial-Spirit Assimilation already,’ Sylph pointed out. ’Even we haven’t done that yet.’
After a while, Lenia undid her transformation, lifting a hand. "This is one of the ways a contracted spirit can lend you its power. Though I should warn you that reaching this point requires a lot of trust between a summoner and their spirit."
Lenia caught him staring, lowering her voice. "Well? Does that answer your question?"
"Some of it. My other question is why the hell are you here teaching. Aren’t you supposed to be back in Altaire, guarding the Ley Line?"
Lenia simply sighed, a reaction that Noct did not expect. "Ahh...why is my teaching assistant so impatient. Are they all like that nowadays?"
She suddenly adjusted something on her hand, a bracelet made of pure silver. Noct realized what it was instantly, as it was something extremely common in the game, one that everyone used.
’A Portable Waypoint?!’
It worked by taking the mana from a place and using it as "coordinates", essentially a "coordinate storage" that could be used on a transportation mirror to travel to a place.
She plucked one of the jewels from the bracelet, presumably a mana crystal, before crushing it in her hand. The ensuing dust began to swirl around a nearby transportation mirror. And just a while later, a soft blue tint could be seen...from Altaire’s Crystal Mines on the other side.
"No fucking way..."