Hero or Villain, Both

"So what's special about this thing?" I asked Sylpha.

She didn't respond as she was still looking over the two pendants that she picked out.

She had already been staring at these pendants for a while now, but it didn't seem like she was able to find what was special about them even though they had attracted her.

Seeing her like this, there was a part of me that was wondering if she had made a mistake.

In the end, Sylpha finally said, "There seems to be something that is hiding the important component. To find out what it is, I'll have to smash it."

I couldn't help looking at her with a strange look when she said this.

"What? What is that look of doubt? I'm not up to anything."

I didn't hide it, so it wasn't surprising that she said this.

It was just that what I was thinking was more than that.

What I was thinking was…

"Are you just trying to destroy it to hide the evidence of your own failure?"

Sylpha looked offended when she heard this before saying, "How could I do something like that? Aren't you looking down on one of your ancestors too much?"

I just gave a shrug before saying, "You're not my ancestor, right?"

Sylpha didn't say anything in the end when she heard this.

She just looked at me as if she was waiting for me to say something.

So in the end, I said with a nod, "Alright, do what you need to do."

Even if I had teased her, it wasn't as if I was actually that doubtful of her. I might have been doubtful of Sylpha in the beginning, but she had already shown her real intentions a long time ago and I didn't feel that way about her anymore.

Once she received this confirmation, Sylpha didn't waste any time as she started looking closely at the pendants.

Then all of a sudden, there was a shattering sound that came from the pendants when she pointed at them.

The part of the pendant that she pointed at shattered and only scraps remained.

Though looking at it, it didn't seem like there was anything special about these scraps.

Sylpha also didn't seem to do anything with these scraps as she pointed at the second pendant as well.

The moment that she pointed at the second pendant, the same thing happened where it shattered all of a sudden.

After these two pendants shattered, she suddenly said, "Summon out your spirits, I know that you have more than one."

This was something that she had never mentioned before.

Though I knew that she had already guessed that this was the case, she never actually said it out loud.

However, I was confused when Sylpha suddenly told me to summon my spirits like this.

I didn't know why she wanted me to do this…

But in the end, I did it since I could see the serious look on her face.

Though I didn't summon all of my spirits.

There were two that couldn't really be used that easily since it would attract a lot of attention.

She only said that she knew that I had more than one spirit, she never said just how many spirits she thought that I had. In that case, there was no reason to show those two other spirits.

"Pyro, Aero."

When I called for them, the two of them showed themselves to Sylpha.

Sylpha was surprised since she didn't expect two Medium Grade Spirits, but then she pointed at the scraps that remained from the pendants that she destroyed and said, "Have them go near it."

I was still confused why Sylpha was acting this way, but I did what she said and had the two of them approach.

The moment that they did, there seemed to be a reaction from those scraps.

The scraps from the first pendant seemed to glow red when Pyro approached.

The scraps from the second pendant seemed to glow green when Aero approached.

It was clear that this was some kind of resonance to the element that Pyro and Aero embodied as spirits.

It was just unknown why they would do that.

So I looked at Sylpha with a questioning gaze.

The problem was that she wasn't even paying attention to me as she was focused on the scraps that were glowing. The way that she looked at them seemed like she recognized what they were and she was even excited because of it.

Seeing this, I said, "What are they?"

Sylpha didn't answer at first as she continued staring at these scraps.

But in the end, she finally responded when I waved my hand in front of her and blocked her view.

"Spirit fragments. They're fragments that are left behind by spirits for various reasons." She said in an excited voice.

"Spirit fragments?" I repeated in a confused voice since I had no idea what she was even talking about.

But Sylpha was still focused on these spirit fragments.

It took a while before she finally said, "These aren't any normal spirit fragments, the power that they are releasing is stronger than that. You might not be able to tell, but this is something that no ordinary spirit should be able to release."

She was looking down on me a little too much when she said this since I could already tell what the spirit fragments were doing.

It was just that I wanted to see what she would say.

I wanted to see what she knew about these spirit fragments.

"Judging by the aura that they are giving off, these things should even be related to the legendary Spirit Kings." Sylpha's voice filled with even more excitement before she trailed off, "I met a Spirit King in the past, it was just one time but…"

"Spirit King…" I repeated slowly.

It wasn't as if I didn't know what a Spirit King was since I came from a world where this world was a game.

I knew most things about this world.

It was just hard to believe that these scraps were fragments from a Spirit King.