Sword of the Philosopher Volume 2 Chapter 22

Translator’s Greetings:

I was gone for a very long time. I made a different post about that on an earlier day so just check it out instead.
I also lost my drafts as I forgot to properly back them up when I did a clean install on my PC so this was released later than what I had intended.

This chapter is self-edited so feel free to point out anything. This is longer than the usual chapters.

> Magic is anything related to magic and spells are the use of said magic according to the rules of the story.

P.S. I won’t be translating 100% correct but I will do my best to have it as close as it is to the original text. Link to the original novel is available at the chapter index.

Translator: Roaclaynous
Initial Editing: Roaclaynous (Not much of an edit though)
Hosted by:

Well then, having Sophia as my disciple is good and all but… rather than having her fight monsters recklessly, it would be better to think of a precise plan to make her stronger.
Regarding what needs to be done, I suppose it’s all up to me. Even so, there is the goal of being able to choose freely on what needs to be done.

According to the information gathered by my familiars, the various protagonists favorably moving according as planned. The upcoming events that will happen aren’t disagreeable and also, there are no occurrences where there would be a challenge to one of the five demon generals. I would be able to train her thoroughly in this case but… the problem is when I need to take action right?

Unlike myself, she is unable to use high-speed movement spells. It would indeed be unlikely for me to be able to throw myself into a sub-event caused by one of the protagonists but, if there is a situation where someone would be fighting one of the five demon generals, I would like to at least somehow be able to move quickly towards it and observe somewhere nearby.

Excluding the knight Eina and considering the other four, Sofia could play the role of a support… or perhaps, I could also move by myself and momentarily but I would be unsure of how much time I can leave her be as it is. In this case, I can explain to her the things like my situation and abilities but I doubt that I would be able to get her consent.

So to speak, it’s good that we will discuss the situation and take action together from now on since she became my disciple but… as expected, she wouldn’t understand it if I were to say things like reincarnation or transmigrating into a game world right. However if were to go with something like “I fought with the demon king and died but, I don’t know why I was given one more chance to do things from the start”, I can say that I know the things that would happen in the future from now on but wouldn’t be able to explain it well.

explaining it in that way would be faster… however, that in itself also has its own risks. There will be a demon follower that we may encounter that has the ability to read minds from here on out. I will be fine since I could depend on my resistance to shake of attacks to the mind but there is also a possibility for the Demons to find get wind of what I have said through some other source since I have spoken about it. Furthermore in the case of Sophia, wouldn’t there be a chance of her, a royal family being alive be discovered? Though the appearance of the said mind-reading demon would be somewhere from the middle of the story onwards, I still wouldn’t know what the state of affairs the royal family would be in that point of time… In that sense, I will not go through with this setting due to factors I am unaware of.

I doubt if the demon would even trust the information it takes from reading my mind and I am unsure if there is any possibility of encountering it in the first place anyways… Well, even if I talk about the situation to Sophia, the amount of knowledge that I have exceeds the level of what the people in this world can grasp so it would be impossible to explain clearly. The result of strangely explaining the circ.u.mstances clearly may cause some contradictions and at worst arise troublesome suspicions from Sophia… As expected, aren’t I thinking of this too much?

When I turned around, Sophia was looking at me… It seems that she got worried about me since I suddenly froze in my place due to being lost in my thoughts. Anyways, I should maintain the current situation as it is… As soon as decided to do so, I finally got an idea of what to do with her first. The best thing to do right now would be to teach her a spell for high-speed movement. If that is so—

“Now then, we should first get a contract with a spirit.”

at the time where we eating our meal, I suddenly stated so.
By completing the village’s request, we returned to Sylvette and Sophia took a rest for one whole day. Not is night time and we were discussing what to do next while eating.

About her clothes, It was badly torn with the fight with the Demon earlier so I had her changed into a similar set of clothes. In addition, I had her wear a breastplate made of special leather instead of the usual materials under her cloak. These were the things I bought in town while she was resting.

In response to my previous remark, she opens her mouth to spoke in a low voice.

“Spirit?”

“Yes. In order to use spells above the mid-level ones, certain knowledge is needed about magic… but Sophia is unable to get that knowledge right?”

She nods in response to my question. In order to master magic above the intermediate level, there is a condition. Even in the game, we could not learn a spell if we do not meet the required magical knowledge and unless we meet certain conditions, we will not be able to use such spells. If it’s lower level spells, we can spend money to learn it instead but if it is those that are above the intermediate level, the same could not be done.

Originally, there is a place called Academia- If one can acquire knowledge at a school or research inst.i.tution that’s akin to the high school or university of my previous life, said spells could be used. There is a fellow character in the game who actually studied in Academia and was able to master the use of Intermediate and above level spells without meeting conditions but acquiring knowledge instead.

If the Academia is out of the option to acquire the knowledge then there are two means left… the first one is called “Sacred Force” that I am also acquainted with. By paying the sufficient amount and offering the necessary materials, one would be able to use magic that’s on the intermediate level or above through the process of supplying magic to one’s self through the process called baptism. Of course, knowledge is also necessary to use the spell and it can be learned in the Academia but it would require many years of study and a specialized way of research is needed in order to continually use it.

However, there is a minus adjustment to the spells learned through “Sacred Force” than those of learned in Academia. The spells learned in sacred force are on a much weaker scale in firepower than those learned through Academia so there is indeed a difference making it difficult to be a mainstay of foundation for spells. In my case, said lack of firepower is almost irrelevant as it is possible to stamp it out by ability. Wel… once your parameter becomes MAX, most of the minus corrections in the spell are very slight.

Moreover, the reason why it is called Sacred Force is that it comes from the Cathedral and because it is the magic that most of the people called priest warriors deal with-mostly those of “Sacred Force” are spells that mainly use the element of light. But if one receives the baptism, spells of the intermediate or advanced ones can be learned whether if its a dark attribute or some other types.

There is no doubt that this is the easiest way to learn advanced spells and it’s easier to pick up in this way… However, there is a restriction to this process such as those from protagonists.
The specific reason unknown but it is most likely certain that it is due to the Philosophers lineage… so it is no doubt that this can be also said to Sophia. Therefore learning through the use of “Sacred Force” is not possible for her.

If so, the only option left to go about was… “Spiritual Magic” that one can master through contracting with a spirit. Upon making a contract with a spirit of a specific attribute, both magic and invocation speed will improve. Even people who had learned magic through learning in Academia can make a contract with a spirit and further increase their magic. Therefore, soldiers do not form a contract with spirits as there are many cases where only the magical aspects are strengthened.

“Also, other than being able to have a capability to master intermediate level spells, an improve of Sophia’s physical attribute would also develop after forming the contract”

“Yes”

Sophia was in agreement.I then continued to explain further.

“In addition… when I fell into an emergency situation during the invasion of the demons, I used a wind-related spell to move at high-speed. When I went and helped you, I was able to respond quickly due to that.”

“So that was it.”

“Well, It is natural that you do not remember the use of such a spell… As expected, you wouldn’t want to be left behind when the time comes right?”

“I agree”

“That is why, so as to not let that happen. The closest thing that we should first get a hold of is a spirit of the wind. This is so you would be able to remember the spell that I used and be able to use it.”

-I’m the worst, the mood of our conversation turned sour since I used the phrase “to leave behind” to convince her. Nonetheless, those types of occurrences shouldn’t be happening much anyways so for the meantime, setting up learning as our objective should be good.

If I were to make a move again she would naturally be with me so the possibility of her partic.i.p.ating a fight with one of the great demon generals would be expected. I am unsure of her qualification to kill demon king as it was not confirmed in the game so I’ll leave that as that for now… Instead, in order to give her strength to match those of the demonic opponents, I will need to have her trained in both sword and magic. Therefore, this method of having her form a contract with a spirit should be correct.

The other problem is her quality of magic…there are Demons that can distinguish an individual not by their appearance but by the quality of their magic so I would need to think of a plan to counter this. Thinking of this temporarily at this hour in the evening is difficult…for now, I will think about the contract with the spirit first and do something about it afterward.

finally deciding on what to do in my mind, I continued our conversation.

“Northeast of this town, there is a mountainous area where the spirit called Sylph lives.”

“Yes, I know. Is it there that I will be making the contract?”

“That’s right. it should at least be effective to ask to the extent of lending knowledge for high-speed movement spell… this is agreeable, right?

“Yes, it is. So in summary, our next objective would be to form a contract with the wind spirit Sylph.”

The discussion has ended. According to the information gathered by my familiars, the present spirit is not in a contract with any of the protagonist. Therefore, the contract can be formed without exposing the existence of Sophia.

Incidentally, in the event of forming a contract with spirits, It will be able to form a contract again after solving a problem that it had encountered for the first time…Also, According to the information gathered by my familiars, it seems that another protagonist aside from Fili and Eina is making a move. Well in any case, if an event was to trigger again, it will most likely be just a sub-event. I judged that it would not affect much of the scenario in any way.

(TN: It means that the spirit can make a contract as long as the one making the contract can solve a problem that it has encountered for the first time. If it has no problems, most likely that no contracts will be offered.)

From there on we continued with our meals… after we had finished eating, we decided that it was time to sleep and rested for tomorrow.

The next day, we left town and headed towards the mountainous area where Sylph lives. Although the distance was quite far, there is not much of a problem at all since the roads are being maintained.

The route to cross the mountain was originally routed around the highway but you can cross through the middle while watching the valleys on your left and right. There seem to be various reasons as for why it has been made this way but I don’t know much about the history of this area so I wouldn’t be able to grasp it even if I think hard on it. If given the chance, I’ll be sure to look into it.

When you go to that road that splits from the highway, you will arrive at the residence of the spirits… In my previous life, the appearance of spirits is quite different from those of games and novels. In this world, Sylph is only at the size of a palm- a palm-sized fairy and there were only females in the game.

From what I had seen in books, I heard that the existence of the male gender are not zero. It seems that the cla.s.sification of gender nor birthplace to spirits so it seems that distinguis.h.i.+ng them by it will not be very meaningful.

As we are continuing our travels towards the dwelling of the spirits, we had encountered several monsters and continued to beat them down as we reached our objective which was the foot of the mountain.

“Isn’t this place huge…?” (Sophia)

Sophia looks up at the mountain and states her amazement on the way before entering the spirit’s residence. I looked around the place after giving her a small nod.

Even if you say that we are inside a mountain, the scale of it was spread out in front of me and there are also some places where is snow is being piled up near the summit from a distance. It is impossible to grasp the scale of this place as it is difficult to see the whole thing. The forest was spread out except for the entrance to the valley which makes it feel like a natural fortress in itself.

(TN: The mountain layout is hard to describe without pondering into it. There were originally two roads into the mountain, first one was to go around it and the other was right to the middle of it(they took the middle one) and there’s a lot of mountains in the place they headed towards to.)

==========================Extra Notes from Translator=================================

This is my first time translating in a long time. Of course, mistakes are bound to be made. I haven’t talked to the editor(which is a friend of mine) yet but I will be having him edit most of the chapters. This has yet to be edited and most of the editing done was minor.