Find Her
The members were already gathered in Lee Ha-ram's warehouse.
Ha-ram, the owner of the warehouse. Yu Min-seo, here to learn summoning magic. And Tsukumo Momo and Choi Eun-ha, who had come to observe. Kim Han-soo was absent due to a personal schedule.
"Ready?"
"Yes! All set!"
Mm, she's bursting with energy. For the record, I was not ready.
To be fair, I'd clearly had opportunities to practice summoning magic in advance. But...
Somehow I just couldn't bring myself to...
It wasn't simply a matter of mood. This was closer to a fundamental dilemma inherent to being a Do-sa.
The ultimate goal of a Daoist is to regard one's own body as a microcosm—a small universe—and find the path within it to reach the Dao. That's precisely why Daoists have no concept of familiars or servant spirits.
Because if my complete microcosm were to be altered by linking with an external being, that would defeat the entire purpose.
Then what about Wang Lingguan, you ask? He isn't a subordinate familiar bound to me—he's more like a contractor dispatched from an outside firm. He isn't bound to me, and I can't unilaterally order him around. He merely shows a certain flexibility because his assignment is to escort me.
Head tilt?
"No, it's nothing."
Wang Lingguan, in his invisible state, was tilting his head with wide, curious eyes. It was a rather cute gesture, but when the face is that of a Siberian tiger, cuteness takes on a distinctly horror-adjacent quality.
Still, if I was going to teach Yu Min-seo, I had no choice but to try summoning magic myself, whether I liked it or not. After much deliberation, I settled on a compromise: summon, but never contract. As long as I didn't seal a pact, my microcosm would remain untouched, calling or not.
Though from the perspective of the one being called, it might be rather flustering to show up the instant I call, only to be told, "Oh, that's all. You can go back now."
"Let's begin."
Today's summoning magic was the lowest-difficulty summon in the Summoner's Grimoire: the Pixy.
Pixies are a type of fairy found mainly in southern England, said to inhabit ancient ancestral sites—dolmens, ruins, and the like. They're depicted in the classic fairy mold: tiny bodies with childlike faces, topped with little green pointed caps.
Of course, if that's all you hear...
Isn't that just a mascot character? What would you even use it for?
...you might say that, but even pixies have a talent of their own.
Pixy-led—meaning "led astray by pixies." It usually refers to the pranks pixies play on travelers. Those caught in a pixy-led wander hopelessly lost, and if the victim happens to be a criminal or a wicked person, their aimlessness ends in retribution befitting their sins.
For its summoning difficulty, that was a remarkably useful ability.
The decisive reason I chose a pixy for the first lesson, though, was its extremely cheap cost.
Contracting with a summoned being means paying an appropriate price. Prices vary widely: the magical labor required for the summoning itself, rare minerals like gold or jewels, or demands for specific actions before and after the summoning.
Beings that demand expensive things like jewels or gold are picky, but honestly, that case just burns a little money—once you pay, it's over. Comparatively simple.
The truly nightmarish cases are the ones that demand a specific action until the day you die.
Even if it's something trivial—say, saying a five-minute prayer every morning—once the condition is "for the rest of your life," the burden is enormous. Worse, breaking this kind of pact brings punishment to match.
One thing's for sure: I'm filtering out that category unconditionally.
It's all supposed to be for making a living. I wasn't about to botch one summoning and saddle myself with a lifelong nuisance.
In that sense, the pixy was an absolutely perfect choice. The price for summoning a pixy is a loaf of rye bread. Yes—one five-thousand-won loaf of rye bread from the bakery, and you've got yourself a contract. The single most cost-effective summoning target imaginable, and ideal for a curriculum.
I drew the pixy summoning circle exactly as described in the Summoner's Grimoire.
Though "circle" isn't quite what you're picturing. If anything...
"Um... is this really a magic circle?"
"Less a circle, more a Fairy Ring."
If you ever see mushrooms growing in a ring in the forest, do not step inside it. That ring is the dance floor where fairies hold their balls.
Unlike demon or angel summoning, which call beings down by fulfilling conditions, fairy summoning is closer to piquing their interest so they appear of their own accord. And a fairy ring, as I said, is the fairies' ballroom.
Simpl put, fairy summoning is...
"A genteel invitation: 'We've prepared the stage—would you care to join us?'"
Which is why fairy summoning is said to have a relatively high failure rate even with flawless procedure and a fully capable caster.
For the record, today's fairy ring was made with three packs of fresh king oyster mushrooms bought at the mart (list price: 3,990 won each).
"Um... is it okay to just stand them up on the floor like this instead of planting them in soil?"
Ha-ram asked, tilting her head—but I have no idea. The book didn't go into that kind of detail. We'll try it here, and if it doesn't work, we'll take it outside. Simple as that.
"Here we go."
Scented candle in one hand, a handful of rye grains from the prepared jar in the other, I walked in a circle along the fairy ring. And then...
"All the money I ever had, I spent it in good company! And all the harm I've ever done, alas, it was to none but me~!"
I was not reciting a spell. What I was singing was "The Parting Glass," a traditional Irish folk song.
Fairy summoning means setting the stage and genteelly inviting them to come play. So naturally, the summoner leading the party and setting a festive mood is just common sense, no?
As I circled the ring singing merrily, a reaction began to appear. Grass started sprouting inside the ring of king oyster mushrooms.
In a warehouse with a concrete floor, mind you.
The grass, growing outward from the ring, split apart, and a small lake revealed itself.
Wait—a lake? What does a lake have to do with a pixy...?
The anomaly didn't stop there. Water began slowly filling the lake—and then it started to overflow!
"Holy—! Unplug everything! Now!"
"Aaah, are you kidding me!"
"We're gonna get electrocuted!"
"Hurry, hurry!"
The spectators, who'd been watching with bated breath, scattered in abject terror, yanking out every plug in the warehouse.
"Everyone done? Now get up on the desks—move!"
Fortunately, the water never reached the outlets. It stopped after rising just enough to slosh around our ankles.
"Yi-yeon oppa, what on earth did you summon!?"
"A pixy..."
"I don't know much, but are pixies fairies associated with water?"
"They're not..."
While this profoundly idiotic exchange was underway—
Ripple...
Ripples spread across the surface of the water, radiating from the fairy ring. And then...
Hisssssssssss...
From the center of the fairy ring, the pixy[?] I had summoned revealed itself.
"Wow..."
"She's beautiful..."
The being had taken the form of a beautiful human girl. Skin white as fresh snow, long platinum hair. Otherworldly beauty wrapped in a dress of cerulean silk that seemed woven from nothing of this earth. And atop her head, a crown made of water itself.
She was, in every sense, a fairy incarnate.
...She just didn't look anything like a pixy.
"The one who called me—who might it be?"
"Uh... that would be me."
I raised my hand awkwardly. The being's eyes turned toward me.
A jolt—
In that instant, goosebumps raced across my entire body.
Holy crap...!
Because the power radiating from the being before me lost absolutely nothing in comparison to Seire, the high-ranking demon.
I tried to summon a pixy and WHAT came out!?
The cerulean girl stared at me for a long moment, then smiled.
"You please me well... Normally, to contract with me, you must gather a hundred or more people once a week and hold a festival in honor of the fairies... but for you, I shall make it special—only once a month..."
"Hold on. Wait."
"...What is it? No matter how much you ask, I cannot reduce it further than—"
"You're... not a pixy, are you?"
"How dare you presume to—"
"No, no, I figured as much at a glance, yes, I just wanted to confirm, that's all. So... if you're not a pixy, would you kindly go back?"
"...I beg your pardon?"
"This ritual was meant to summon a pixy in the first place."
I pointed at the rye grains floating on the water's edge. The rye was a kind of catalyst—a signal telling the fairies, "Fairy ring's ready—pixies get priority service~!"
"...I am a far grander being than any mere pixy."
"Yeah, I can see that with my own two eyes."
She was roughly on par with a Great Demon—surely some kind of fairy royalty, if not a queen among her kind.
"...And because I am not a pixy, you want me to leave?"
"Yes."
"When all you'd need is one festival a month..."
"One festival a month!? Even if I die at eighty, that's a hundred-plus festivals over my lifetime—how is anyone supposed to do that!?"
This was exactly the worst-case price I'd described: a specific act repeated until death. And she'd even added a mandatory headcount of one hundred so nobody could cheat with a fake festival. Unless you're a chaebol chairman or a company that specializes in throwing festivals, those conditions are flatly impossible for an ordinary person.
Besides, I'm a Daoist. My whole goal is to live long—and this contract gets more punishing the longer I live. There's zero reason to accept it.
And above all, this summoning was a demonstration for Yu Min-seo's benefit. I didn't have the slightest intention of actually signing anything.
"But—"
"No. You came here by mistake. Please go back now."
"......"
The girl in the cerulean dress clamped her mouth shut and glared at me. To the uninformed observer, she'd look like a cute girl sulking—but remembering that this was a high-ranking-demon-class being glaring, my blood ran cold.
"...Fine. I'll go."
After glaring at me for a good long while, the girl in the cerulean dress, lip jutted out in a pout, vanished beneath the water. At the same moment, the water and grass that had filled the warehouse disappeared as if they had never existed.
"Sh-she's gone...!"
"Huh...!"
The spectators collapsed where they stood, their legs apparently giving out. Having finally exhaled, I turned my mind to why a high-ranking fairy had appeared instead of the pixy I'd called.
...Did I put too much force into it?
Eastern sorcery I had some experience with, but Western magic—summoning magic especially—was completely new territory for me too. As a result, my shoulders had been wound far tighter than usual. I'd packed the song full of Do-ryeok, and my concentration during the ritual hit the highest it had been in recent memory. The result: no pixy, but a being several tiers higher.
Which meant...
"Y-you're doing it AGAIN!?"
"Relax. I've got a rough idea what went wrong, so no need to worry."
This time I ran the summoning with my shoulders as loose as I could manage. The fairy ring went from three packs of mushrooms down to one, drawn sparsely. The song was a lazy, tuneless hum with zero Do-ryeok behind it. No scented candle. And the rye—I sprinkled so little I could've glued it up someone's nose.
The result...
"I'm a pixy! Who called me?"
The tiny fairy I'd been aiming for all along. Summon: successful.
"NICE!!"
"Eep!"
Startled by my shout, the pixy ducked behind the sofa.
"I'm the one who called, and sorry, but I don't actually need anything. Just wanted to try summoning you. You're free to head back—just take this with you."
It wasn't a contract or anything formal—just a token of gratitude for showing up. I handed over a loaf of rye bread. The pixy hesitated, then eventually took the loaf—about the size of its own body—and returned from whence it came.
With my hypothesis confirmed correct, I turned to Yu Min-seo.
"All right, Min-seo, your turn."
"M-m-m-me!? Right now!?"
"Yep. 'Technique' isn't quite the word for it, but don't overthink it—keep your shoulders loose and just wing it. That way you won't get some weird thing popping out instead of a pixy like earlier. You'll be fine. Fairy summoning is a fairly simple method with a low danger level, so I'm sure you'll nail it on the first try too."
"Um...!"
What Yu Min-seo could not say was: "No matter how loose my shoulders are, I don't think I'll manage it like you did, oppa?"
Because before she was Kim Yi-yeon's disciple, she was Kim Do-sa's fan—and she absolutely could not bear to disappoint him. Which is also why she couldn't bring herself to say, "Teacher, you're moving through the material way too fast..."
And so Yu Min-seo began the summoning ritual, following the method Kim Yi-yeon had used.
And failed three times in a row.
"That's strange. Why won't it work? The procedure was exactly right... Min-seo, you're loosening up too much, I think. Try again with just a little more focus."
Yu Min-seo could not bring herself to tell him.
That from start to finish, she'd been at full concentration with her shoulders wound as tight as they could possibly go.