Entropy's Servant

Chapter 55 - Darkness Spirit

Hello everyone, Astaroth here.
There really are just as many things out there you can see as there are things you can't, aren't there?
Well, I suppose that proportion is considerably thrown out of order in a fantasy world.
It might not be a stretch to say there are more things you can't normally see than there are things you can, if you consider things like statuses and magic.

For several seconds, I stared at the ten centimetre-tall girl in silent bafflement, before eventually deciding I'd get a good look at her appearance.

Her dark purple eyes made rather a strong contrast with her pale skin, and the hair framing her face and flowing down to her thighs ventured well into the territory of 'black'. In contrast, her outfit was by and large white, consisting of a white one-piece dress that reached below her shins and a white beret of sorts, both adorned with a number of black ribbons.

Incidentally, her frilly sleeves hid her hands from view.

Yet, perhaps the most striking feature of this girl, other than her tiny size, was the pair of dark blue butterfly wings on her back, fluttering as if to keep her aloft. The relatively small rate at which they were fluttering didn't seem like it would be sufficient to keep her in the sky, so I assumed magic was at play.

Only after several more seconds of staring did the girl finally appear to notice I was looking at her, and she waved to me with a mischievous smile on her face.

I turned my head to look at Sylph, and the winged girl moved so as to remain in my line of sight. Although barely, I could see that Sylph looked rather amused.

"Lady Sylph," I thus said, "would it be at all possible for you to inform me as to the nature of this girl?"

I could tell she could barely restrain her laughter as she spoke. "Why don't," she asked, "you appraise her and," she paused for a few moments, "find out?"

I gave up on getting any more information out of Sylph and did as she said, using [Appraisal] on the mystery girl.

[Name: [Unnamed].
Sex: Female.
Race: Humanoid Spirit.
Skills:

[Innate Magic: Darkness] [Spirit Contract] [Pinnacle of Darkness]
[Innate Magic: Darkness]: If you are provided with mana, you may cast darkness magic proportional to the amount with no cast time. About a third of the mana provided will be lost, and another third will be used to sustain you. When you choose which spell to cast, you will be given the mana provider's requested spell, though you may cast any spell of the darkness element.
[Spirit Contract]: You may form a permanent contract with a consenting living being capable of triggering your [Innate Magic] skill. While you are in a contract, you cannot accept mana from sources other than the contractor and the contractor's orders are absolute. In exchange, you will be provided with a constant stream of mana from the contractor, and the variety of spells you can cast will be increased based on the contractor's mana. In addition, both your personality and mental faculties will be adjusted to suit the contractor's preferences, to a certain extent.
[Pinnacle of Darkness]: You are the strongest of the strongest among spirits. You will gain a humanoid form and the ability to manipulate darkness freely, without the restrictions of spells, as long as you are provided with mana.]

I nodded to myself. "A spirit, is it?" I asked, placing my right hand in front of me, palm-up.

The spirit girl shivered a little as I used [Appraisal], but soon recovered and landed on my hand. No sooner had she landed, than she began spinning in place on one foot, in what I presumed to be a dance of some sort.