Why I Chose the Summoner Class
The battle began, but I paid no attention to the clash between the leaders. Watching them would have been incredibly helpful, of course. The problem was that the enemies charging straight at me were too dangerous to let my focus wander.
The moment the raiders and escorts began clashing one by one, I locked eyes on the two black knights sprinting toward me. With every step they closed the distance by four or five meters, closing in at terrifying speed. The black knights split to my left and right, their swords aiming for my neck and abdomen. Before their blades could touch me, a sword-spear erupted from the shadows and knocked both weapons aside.
“Umbra. I’ll take the right one.”
The reliable summon gave a small nod and engaged the left knight. I closed in on the right one and swung my sword-spear. We exchanged five blows in the blink of an eye. The black knight, clearly overpowered in raw strength, changed tactics and began trying to deflect my attacks rather than meet them head-on. He was probably planning to stall until reinforcements could overwhelm me with numbers.
Too bad for him. I’m not the kind of adventurer who relies solely on brute force.
I slid my blade along his angled sword and sliced cleanly through his crossguard and fingers.
“Guh?!”
“Did you really think ordinary steel could handle a hero’s weapon?”
Having lost the fingers essential for swordplay, the black knight’s combat ability plummeted. He frantically tried to retreat. At the same time, three nearby skeleton knights rushed in to buy him time, but my eyes never left the black knight.
“I heard from Neon. You guys can burn offerings to heal pretty much any wound, right? You think I’d let you do that?”
I activated Blink instantly and reappeared behind him. The black knight panicked when his target vanished, and I swung my sword-spear. He finally sensed my position and tried to block with an aura-coated arm, but my accumulated power wasn’t so weak that a desperate defense could stop it.
Kagagagak!
The sword-spear, wrapped in vivid aura, shredded through both his aura and gauntlet in one stroke and took his head clean off.
“That’s one down!”
Having dealt with the black knight in seconds, I pointed at the skeleton knights belatedly charging in. The nearby Ikelos shards surged forward and tore the undead apart in an instant.
“Who’s next?!”
My bold taunt must have worked, because black knights and black mages poured in from every direction. In terms of pure numbers, the raiders outnumbered us several times over. That was thanks to the necromancers they’d brought specifically to command undead forces. Which was exactly why I rampaged even harder, pulling every bit of aggro I could.
The more I drew their attention, the less pressure my allies would face.
“Come at me, all of you!”
“That bastard’s got the new weapon!”
“Take him alive!”
They seemed to be targeting me from the start. As the entire swarm rushed in, I grinned and swung my sword-spear without hesitation. I split one charging black knight in half, then poured aura into my fist and shattered an incoming blade. I trusted my armor to handle the less dangerous attacks, deflected the critical ones, and used the optimal tactics for fighting multiple opponents.
Like a lion leaping into a pack of wolves, I went completely wild. Naturally, the focus of every attack shifted onto me.
The most annoying part, as expected, was the black magic.
“Poison Lance!”
“Drain his strength! Dark Hand!”
“I’ll destroy your weapon! Curse Enchant!”
All sorts of curses and corrosive effects slammed into me. I could endure them with the resistance I’d built through the Northern Breathing Method, but they would slowly stack up like clothes getting soaked in drizzle. Still, the Dragon Slayer’s Sword-Spear let me ignore most of the black magic’s effects.
Unchanging — Nullifies most curse and corrosion effects below a certain threshold.
“Hahaha! You think the Unchanging trait is just for show?! Most of your black magic can’t even get past my sword-spear!”
No matter what attack came, no matter what curse flew at me, as long as I used the sword-spear as a shield, it was basically like shooting at a wall. To actually reach me, they’d need either overwhelming physical force or an attack that surpassed the Unchanging effect. Or a weapon with higher dignity than the sword-spear itself. There was no way these black mages possessed anything like that, so I freely used my weapon as an impenetrable shield.
“Careful! That weapon isn’t normal!”
“Avoid the sword-spear and strike from the sides!”
Of course the enemies quickly realized my weapon was special and adjusted their approach, but they had already wasted far too much time on me. Umbra, who had secretly traveled through the shadows on the ground, swung his sword-spear at the black mages whose attention was locked on me. At the same time, a rift opened above the clustered mages, and the white-furred Irregular Laserdon delivered a devastating bear swipe.
“GRRRROOOOOOAAAAAR!”
“Guh?!”
“Ughhh!”
The black mages, completely unprepared for the hidden Laserdon’s sudden appearance, were helplessly swept away. The moment a five-meter-tall bear entered the battlefield, the entire atmosphere of the fight shifted. As Umbra rampaged with his sword-spear, slaughtering the mages, I felt the pressure on me finally crack. I snapped my fingers.
Click!
A crisp sound rang out, and the Ikelos shards formed a spinning circle around me. The wolf shapes dissolved back into individual fragments and began rotating at ferocious speed.
“Fragment Storm!”
Without hesitation, I expanded the storm’s range and swallowed the surrounding black mages.
“Cover your entire bodies with aura!”
“Retreat! Fall back!”
The black knights panicked at the sudden vortex and tried to escape. But a hunter kind enough to release prey he’d already caught didn’t exist. The fragments clinging to the fleeing knights’ joints transformed into restraints, binding their movements. The remaining shards then tore into their weak points like a blender.
I dismantled seven black knights in the blink of an eye, then released the Fragment Storm. The shards that had flown into the air fused together again, this time taking the form of a knight.
“Time to hunt again!”
I shouted boldly to draw attention, then charged across the battlefield alongside the Ikelos. I helped allies in danger, plunged into the thickest groups of enemies and tore them apart. I especially focused on the necromancers who were maintaining the enemy’s numbers. The raiders looked like they wanted to kill me more than anything.
“Kill that guy first!”
“Because of that bastard, over eighty undead have broken free of control!”
Since uncontrolled undead attacked both friend and foe indiscriminately, the numerically superior raiders were at a disadvantage. Thanks to that, I managed to turn the unfavorable situation into an even fight.
The price was that every bit of the raiders’ aggro was now completely focused on me. But honestly, I welcomed it. It just meant more experience points coming my way.
Whenever a dangerous moment arrived, I threw my summons forward without hesitation and stubbornly wiped out the enemies. Eventually their morale began to drop, and they stopped trying to fight me directly. When someone fought like they had nothing to lose, it was only natural for opponents to hesitate.
Since I was essentially hard-carrying this battle, I stood at the center of the battlefield and shouted proudly.
“Nothing but weaklings! Is there no one brave enough to face me?!”
“Then would it be alright if I took you on?”
“Ugh.”
It would have been perfect if that familiar-looking pretty boy hadn’t appeared right in front of me.
The moment a Gold-rank powerhouse showed up, I stopped shouting and froze with a dumb expression. The person who should have been fighting Aron had suddenly appeared before me, so I urgently looked toward where Aron had been. I saw him frantically erasing the barrier that had blocked him and rushing over with his clockwork knights. I quickly pieced together the situation.
Damn it. The enemy’s losses were getting too high, so he shook Aron off and came straight here.
My brain spun at top speed in this once-in-a-lifetime crisis and reached one conclusion.
“Friend! It’s your turn to step up!”
[Grrrrrrr.]
“Huh?”
I immediately fired a mindless Lesser Dragon Breath and quickly retreated. A massive laser beam shot out from the rift that appeared behind me, swallowing the pretty boy whole.
Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—!
Watching the enormous breath sweep across the ground and erase only the enemies, I smiled. Thinking I’d politely give the enemy time to talk would have been a huge mistake. With decades of experience in the North, memories from my previous life, and the short but intense life of an adventurer, I made the optimal decision with lightning-fast judgment and retreated even faster.
If this level of attack could have taken him down, he would have lost to Aron already. So I needed to get back to where Aron was as quickly as—
“I almost got hit there. By the way, isn’t that a bit too much? Normally you’re supposed to listen when someone’s talking, you know.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
I cursed in shock as the pretty boy appeared right in front of me, completely unscathed despite having been caught in the breath. A shimmering mirage flickered around his body. It looked like he had used some kind of illusion ability.
I tried to use Blink to escape before he could get me, but—
“Ugh?!”
My senses suddenly twisted, making mana manipulation nearly impossible. My senses were being distorted?! Unable to endure the jumbled sensations, I collapsed to the ground. The pretty boy placed a hand on my back and muttered.
“Target secured. Beginning retreat now.”
“From the beginning… I was the target…!”
“That’s right. Our goal was you all along.”
With those final words, the pretty boy tore a scroll from his pocket. A cluster of light gathered around both of us.
“No!”
“Yes.”
Aron desperately tried to speed up and rescue me, but it was too late. Because the boy had distorted my senses and used hallucinations to interfere, the scroll activated before Aron could arrive. The moment the two of us vanished, the raiders tore their own scrolls as if they had been waiting for the signal and disappeared as well. Aron stared at the empty space with a look of utter despair.
Hornst approached him while stretching, completely relaxed.
“Why the long face?”
“I’m sorry. It’s my fault that Argo was—”
“A guy who spent his whole life doing research fought that well. What more do you want? Honestly, I thought he’d collapse after a few hits from that kid, but he held out surprisingly well. I’m impressed.”
Aron looked puzzled at Hornst’s casual tone.
“But Argo has been captured…”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. From the looks of it, he’s not in any real danger.”
“What?”
“Look at his companions.”
At those incomprehensible words, Aron turned his gaze toward my party members.
“I got hungry after fighting. We can only eat once Argo gets back.”
“The suffering in the North was worth it. To think you fought so many powerful enemies.”
“Gruuung.”
There stood Adela, Neon, and Laserdon, looking utterly unconcerned even though their companion had been captured. Aron wore an expression of pure disbelief at a sight that defied all common sense.
“Just what in the world…?”
“Seeing the companions so calm, it seems they have a plan.”
“A Mystery, you mean?”
“Trying to track them now would be too late anyway. Let’s trust their reaction and wait.”
“…Understood.”
Aron nodded with difficulty at Hornst, who gave a thumbs-up and a bright smile. He could only hope that things would turn out as peacefully as their reactions suggested.
The floating sensation disappeared, and I arrived in what felt like a secret base carved into a massive cavern. I didn’t know if it was underground or inside a mountain, but its enormous size made me forget I’d been kidnapped and let out a small whistle of admiration.
“Impressive, right? It’s our organization’s second-most-proud hideout.”
“This is only the second?”
“Yep. Second. The first is where our boss stays.”
Unable to believe it, I looked around the interior of the cavern. All kinds of facilities were set up, and people of various types moved about with surprising energy. It would have been nice if the people walking around weren’t black mages or members of the pretty boy’s organization.
More importantly, the pretty boy was just staring at me with a completely relaxed expression. When I gave him a puzzled look, he kindly explained as if he had read my mind.
“This place prohibits spatial teleportation magic. And more than that, since I’m here, there’s no point in trying to run.”
“Is that so?”
A small sneer tugged at the corner of the confident pretty boy’s mouth. His attitude seemed to say, No matter how hard you struggle to escape, what can you possibly do? Now I understood why he was being so kind with his explanation.
“You really think I can’t escape?”
“That’s right. If I distort your senses, it’s over. What exactly are you planning to do?”
Oh dear. What a shame.
Too bad I have Phase Escape.
A good plan popped into my head. I gave him a wicked grin and gathered every last drop of remaining mana. The way he looked at me with such condescending confidence was almost cute.
Since he’d brought me to such a nice place, I figured I’d repay him by giving him a proper taste of humiliation before I bounced.