Chapter 3: Morning Spirit

I woke up in a bad shape, as expected from sleeping in the desk all night. There’s no way some small talk from some voices I didn’t know took all night out of me, I probably took more time processing what just happened. I stretched out of my chair with both of my arms, uncovering all my sore parts in my body. Right as I turned to the door, the spirit; Zephyr came to greet me, its swirling flame body floating up and down repeatedly.

“It seems that you’re awake today, Reimi. Would you mind cleaning your house?” The spirit asked first thing in the morning.

A groan escaped from my mouth as flashbacks of the messy room and scattered furniture across the floor put me in the realization that I basically left it as it is and passed out in the middle of the night.

With the cheeks of my face suddenly turning red, I hastily made my way to the site of disaster and grabbed the nearest broom I could find and started cleaning the place up. Fixing up the mess I’ve made.

“You really made a huge mess for someone like me” the spirit jokingly said. “Its not like every day you can summon the ‘guiding spirit’ that made up for all the stories I’ve read” I replied back.

I remembered having to go to the local Archiver Guild to look up information about summoning spirits from the other side. The receptionist told me if someone I knew of died, then I forgot to clarify what the ‘other side’ means. “I never even thought that the ‘SpiRit oF thE WiNd’ would tell me to clean my house” I continued, trying to play him off.

“Like why you even call yourself ‘Zephyr’ in the first place?” as I raised my two free fingers to imitate quotation marks when I said his name.

He laughed it off, the flaming body bobbing around air.

“Like I told you, I wasn’t expecting that I would look like this” its eye moving down, then looking upwards to my direction.

“Where I came from, Zephyr is one of the gods in the wind, and I thought it would be nice for a name like that. To inspire others to be strong and wise, A guiding wind if you ask me. I expected to look like a powerful ghost that guides others to their desire.”

He paused for a moment, turned around, showing his flaming body and the glint in his eye. “But not like this.” As he sighed drooped down, not touching the floor but close enough.

“If that name bothers you, you can call me whatever you want.” He said in a concerning manner.

“I’ll call you Zeph then” I said as continued to do my cleaning.

As I finished stacking the papers and put all the books away, the spirit asked me diligently.

“So anyway, about last night; you said that you wanted to get away from your family work right?”

“Yes”

“What exactly do you do in here that makes you want to leave so bad?”

I always thought that spirits often give guidance, wisdom to help heroes on times on need. Now I wonder if those legends have to face the constant pestering.

“I raise slimes for a living, for many purposes” I said so bluntly.

Zeph’s flames then flickered for a bit, and he looked at me with a judgmental look on his eyes.

“What” he said in the most shocked voice I could ever imagined.

“You’re telling me that you wanted to leave the village even after you have such an amazing job” his flames starting to glow slightly brighter than usual, not sure if he’s expressing anger or passion though.

“Like every person I heard from around here are like ‘warrior’, ‘mage’, ‘chef’, ‘thief’, ’aristocratic noble who wishes to get revenge on anyone who stood on his way’” He then started ranting on and on, going too fast that I can’t follow what he’ saying. But every time he mentioned a job, his energetic tone stops for a moment and said it in a dull manner, then he went back to ranting so passionately.

“Do you hate slimes, Reimi?” Zeph stopped for a moment when he asked me that question.

“No… no, I don’t hate them, I raised them when they are young” I answered.

“And you’re going to leave them when you’re gone?” Zeph’s eye stared to my very core.

“I don’t want to be known only as the guy raising slimes for a living, I wanted to do more than just that…”

I paused for a second there, trying to collect my thoughts to say, but it seems that the spirit knew what I was saying.

“Alright fine, I won’t bother you with that topic anymore just focus on fixing your mess” Zeph said as he sighed in relief.

“You have work to do with your slimes am I correct?” he added.

He was right, the sun was already high up and I haven’t done any work yet. So I quickly finished cleaning the house and went out to the field, where my daily work began.