Chapter 91 - Marthicoras

She felt dizzy as her mana was drawn out of her. The entire body of Manthicoras, which accepted her mana, was being filled with subtle golden light. Azriel staggered and leaned against the beast entirely at last. Its feathers were soft and she felt quite comfortable. She closed her eyes and observed her mana being drawn out for quite some time, and the flow stopped at one moment. A huge tongue licked her cheek. She suddenly opened her eyes and straightened her body. “Manthicoras?”

“Yes, master,” Manthicoras answered her.

It was the voice of a neat lad that came out of the huge beast. “Uh, oh, it’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s my pleasure, master.”

He was very polite whereas Noir, Blanchet, or Largo did not act like this. Azriel looked up at the red eyes vacantly and shook her head. “You can treat me more comfortably.”

“I shouldn’t treat my master so rudely,” he refused.

“You can just call me Azriel…”

“How can I act so ungraciously and call my master’s name as a familiar spirit? I can’t do that.”

“O, okay… Do as you like,” thinking that she had not expected him to have such a personality, she smiled awkwardly. “Well, you are too big now. Can you become small? Your fixed form is…”

“I already have a fixed form. Would you like to see it?” after asking politely, Manthicoras’ body brightened with golden light. It was reduced to the size of a puppy and the light disappeared. “How do you like it?”

A lion cub hung around her feet. His movements were so cute. Black wings the size of her palm fluttered and his tale that looked like a fur ball swayed.

“…Marthicoras?”

“Yes, it’s me. The wizards that made me all said I was cute, but if you don’t like this by any chance, I’ll try another form,” the lion cub pricked up his round ears and looked up at her with big eyes.

“No, you are so cute!” Azriel said involuntarily. She hugged the lion cub tightly. Soon, the lion cub stopped fluttering his wings and fell in her arms, putting his chin on her shoulder. “Aww, so soft… and cushy… Hey, can I call you Marthi?”

“Of course, master,” Marthi put on a proud face and rubbed his head against Azriel’s neck. She could not hold it in and hugged him with all her might before she let go of him, surprised by a short whimper.

“Sorry, did it hurt?” she asked.

“I’m fine. It’s because I am too cute. It’s not your fault.”

“Oh, okay…”

Marthi stretched his small chest in pride. Azriel chuckled and stretched her hand out. “I need to look around the ruins. Let’s go together.”

Marthi fluttered and flew in her arms quietly. Azriel held the lion cub like a doll and looked around the hall. “They’re all broken. Did you do this?”

“My memory before the familiar spirit agreement is blurry, but this is certainly not my doing,” Marthi replied.

“Is that so? Then why are they all crushed like this?”

“I’m not sure. It was like this when I came out of the cage. Oh, and I did smash that mana stone storage. I was hungry and in search of food.”

“Did you have a lot of mana stones?”

A jewel that carried mana, which wizards made by breathing in their mana, was called mana stone. Since it was made by drawing in mana in nature, it was an object that the wizards of today could not make. So, the only way to attain it in the current time was to excavate it from ruins, which meant it was a priceless object.

“Yes, I lived off of them. There used to be quite a lot, but I was out of it recently… I’ve been starving for a few years.”

“That’s why you became so thin. Don’t worry anymore. I have plenty of mana,” Azriel stroked Marthi’s head and walked between broken furniture pieces. When she observed closely, it seemed that an impact such as an earthquake had shaken the whole place and shattered them.

‘What must’ve happened?’

“Have you had an earthquake here?” she asked.

“I remember feeling a huge jolt. I’m just not certain that it was an earthquake,”

Marthicoras, who was merely a created beast before contracting with her, naturally had no idea.

“There is not much to see here. Books are all burned… What’s in the basement?” she went downstairs. It was a narrow basement. Pieces of fallen, broken, and rotten things filled the space randomly. She rummaging them to see if she could find something useful and found something that was sparkling with gathered stars. An unknown object buried beneath a stone pile carried dense mana. When Azriel was about to lift it up, Marthi quickly soared.

“Please leave these kinds of things to me, master,” Marthi, who turned his front paw only to its original size, pushed the stone pile with ease.

“Wow, thank you.”

“No problem. It’s something I have to do as a familiar spirit. I should earn my keep.”

His language was humble, but his facial expression was proud and his tail was wagging wildly. Holding back her laughter, she patted Marthi’s head and examined what was exposed beneath the stone pile. “A broken disc…?”

A half disc, which was big enough to fill her both palms if it was whole, was on the floor. “Marthi, do you know what it is?”

“I think I’ve seen it somewhere…,” his red eyes narrowed and studied around the half disc in Azriel’s hand. Marthi, soon, shook his head. “It’s before I acquired intelligence, so I’m not quite sure. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s natural that you don’t know,” Azriel turned the moon-shaped disc over and back. Its material was unknown white metal. The broken part looked neat as if it was done purposefully. The surface was full of small and strange patterns inscribed on it, which she could not understand at all. And it carried a tremendous amount of mana. “It has more mana than any decent mana stone. Why does it have so much mana?”

She carefully let her mana flow in it. The mana inside the disc did not react at all. “It doesn’t look like the other half is… here.”

Since there was no way she had missed an object that had this much mana with her dragon eye, there must be only the half here. “Will it react if I find the other half and make it a complete disc?”

She examined the rim of the disc, tilting her head, and found very small writing inscribed in one corner.