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By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 3 - Chapter 44




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Chapter 2 Episode 44: Attempting a Contract

I looked at the limour birds that flew in, at a loss for words. Against the backdrop of the red mountains of the mine just visible through the trees, the limour birds spread their blue, almost translucent wings and waved their green tails. The way they descended upon the swamp was more beautiful than I could aptly describe. There seemed to be a few more birds than earlier, but it didn’t look like they were called as reinforcements so they could retaliate. They started to eat grell frogs as soon as they landed.

They didn’t seem dangerous, in any case, but one of the birds stared at me. I watched it out of caution and immediately noticed it was the higher class limour bird from before. It didn’t eat the frogs, refusing to take its eyes off me. Maybe it was wary of me after what happened. Behind me, Sebas handed an instrument to Eliaria, who was getting ready to perform.

“Reinhart,” I said.

“What?”

“I’m going to get away from here for a bit. I don’t know if it’s afraid of me now, but that high-class bird keeps looking at me, so it might get in the young miss’s way if I stay.”

“I don’t mind. Contracts are a confrontation between you and the monster. Saying I failed because you’re here would simply be an excuse. I would never make such a claim,” Eliaria declared in an uncharacteristically cool manner. “Besides, I want you to see me make the contract. Stay right there. It’s nice to know you’re here for me.” She gave me her usual smile. Now that she said all that, leaving was no longer an option.

“All right, do your best.”

“Naturally!”

After some words of encouragement, I stepped back. Eliaria took a few deep breaths, then began to perform. She played the same mellow song as before. It began quiet and steadily grew louder. The volume fluctuated like waves in the ocean. Whether loud or quiet, the pristine sound echoed across the swamp. On close inspection, the flock of limour birds appeared to behave differently from when the men were playing before, rocking back and forth along with the music. Then the song reached its end.

Eliaria nervously watched the limour birds, who began to caw in unison, but it didn’t sound as derisive as the noise they directed at the men. It was like the sound of a harp or a piano. It sounded like a performance in itself, and it lasted about a minute before one especially bright limour bird and eight others gathered around Eliaria. It was a success.

“My lady, the contract,” I reminded her.

“Right!”

Maybe she was so overjoyed that she had forgotten. The tense girl remembered what she was doing and proceeded to finish the job. I watched her make contracts with the birds and they appeared to work. She ended with the most beautiful limour bird, and that was the first time I heard her shout with delight.

“I did it!”

“Well done!”

“You did well.”

“Good for you, Elia.”

“Congrats.”

“Congratulations, young miss.”

She formed contracts with nine limour birds in all, when even one was said to be difficult. I never expected her to obtain so many.

“Look at all of them! And they’re so pretty,” she shouted, surrounded by limour birds and petting them. They must have already taken to her, as some were perched on her shoulders or knees. She tried to open a bag of bird food and accidentally spilled it from the excitement, which I found somewhat sad. I don’t know why I was worried about that in the face of this heartfelt scene. It could have been something out of a painting called Beautiful Girl Playing With A Flock Of Birds, but I couldn’t help thinking about these things.

In any case, it was my turn to give it a try. I took my guitar out of my Item Box, drawing a sharp look from Eliaria.

“Ryoma, is that an instrument? Are you going to make a contract too?”

“I don’t play as well as you do, but I thought I’d follow your example and make an attempt.”


“Do the best you can!”

“Good luck, Ryoma.”

“I expect good things.”

Everyone encouraged me as I prepared. I took a deep breath like Eliaria did. I never properly learned to play guitar, but when my neighbor at an old apartment moved out, they gave me a guitar and a lesson book that they didn’t need. I killed time by learning chords from the book and playing until it sounded like something I could listen to. I was nothing compared to Eliaria, but I played the guitar with everything I had.

My song of choice was something I heard on television back on Earth. I never bought sheet music for the song, but I could sort of play it once I got a feel for it. Maybe it was far from the original song, but that didn’t matter much. I didn’t think I was that great, but not too terrible either. I just had fun with it.

The limour birds began to sway with the music. Maybe they were into it. Once I finished my song, the limour birds sat in silence for a few seconds, then started with their musical caws. Six of them flew up to me, one of which was the high-class bird from before, to my surprise. I thought it was scared of me.

“Ryoma, the contract!” Eliaria shouted. I was spacing out. I quickly made a contract with one of them at a time, succeeding with all six of the birds. When I told the group that it worked, there was loud applause.

“Congratulations, Ryoma!”

“Nice work, both of you.”

“Congratulations, Master Ryoma.”

“Good job, Master Ryoma.”

“Making a contract with a limour bird is very difficult. The fact that you both managed it with several birds at once is amazing!” Elise said. Everyone looked at our limour birds. My high-class bird and Eliaria’s especially beautiful one were flying and hopping around together like friends. That limour bird of hers really was gorgeous. Mine were pretty enough, but that one looked brighter than the rest.

“Young miss, could you call over that bird that’s with Master Ryoma’s high-class one? You should appraise it,” Sebas suggested, apparently curious about something. Eliaria cocked her head, but she was quick to call it and use Monster Appraisal. My bird happened to fly over along with this one, landing on my head. I don’t know why it had to pick my head of all places, but it was light enough that it didn’t bother me. While I was distracted by that, Eliaria cried out in shock.

“What’s wrong?”

“Mine’s high-class too!” she exclaimed, but only one high-class limour bird was supposed to show up per decade.

“Really?! It’s a different color from mine, though.”

“Yes, this isn’t a nightmare. It says it’s a phantom limour bird. It uses light magic instead of dark magic.”

“I didn’t know those were a thing,” I said, finding it somewhat fascinating, but everyone else was speechless. Then they got it together and nearly lifted Elia into the air in celebration, praising her to no end. Once they had calmed down, they explained that a phantom limour bird was also high-class, but even rarer than a nightmare. It did look different from the others, but I was stunned to hear that two rare specimens were here at once. Everyone else seemed even more surprised than I was.

After that, we went into the swamp to catch grell frogs as part of Eliaria’s training, but everyone’s attention was turned toward the limour birds. They nearly forgot that we were here for training purposes. The grell frogs were easy enough to capture as long as you didn’t mind the smell of the swamp, so it was simple to obtain an excessive amount. Now that nobody else was present, it was even easier. Had there been as many people as when we first arrived, there would have been competition. When we finished that up, we got out of the slime for the cleaner slimes to clean us, then returned to town. I didn’t know if that was good for training, since getting used to being dirty seemed to be part of the point. Maybe it didn’t matter, as long as Eliaria’s slimes became cleaner slimes. Nobody stopped us, so it must not have made a difference.

Before we headed back, we took a break. Elise and Eliaria were surrounded by our limour birds, while Reinhart looked on enviously from afar. I heard that Reinhart had poor compatibility with bird monsters, and they threatened him if he even tried to get close.

Reinbach ordered the servants to prepare a banquet, and Sebas warped back to town in advance to tell Araune that she should get ready. We wanted to celebrate today’s achievements.

■ ■ ■

When we got back to the inn, expensive alcohol and extravagant, perfectly seasoned dishes were ready for us. This meant, of course, that it was time for the banquet. Eliaria and I were the stars of the show. We were showered with praise as we ate. Eliaria had her fill early so she could focus on the conversation, but I could never bear to turn down a free meal, so I talked as I overate and overdrank. I never liked to leave leftovers, but I ate and drank more than I had in some time, and it was different in many ways from the meals I had on Earth. I drank around large groups before, but it was never this much fun. I knew the food in my world tasted better than this too, but today, I liked their food more. The drinks, too.

That reminded me of how Tekun said I never had any enjoyable drinks in my world. This was probably what he meant. In any case, I was in the mood to pray to Tekun. After the banquet concluded, I took a bit of expensive alcohol to offer as a tribute and returned to my room. I remembered that the stone statue I made before was in my store, so I created a new statue to pray to.

“This was my second party since coming to this world, and unlike the ones on Earth, I had a lot of fun with it. I got this from someone else, but here’s some nice wine as an offering.”

That seemed like a good enough prayer to me. I bowed to the statue, then decided to sleep. It felt like I would get some decent rest tonight.



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