The One Who Wears My Name
Flying on Zequirak felt far more precarious and rough than riding Erill. Though my body was secured by mana, my heart raced several times at the thought of falling, and more than once I found myself clutching the crystal leading to the study without realizing it.
Moreover, the Zequirak summoned from the demon realm had no knowledge of the terrain below, so I had to constantly check directions and surroundings while flying. The mental fatigue was beyond words. Night flights were especially difficult; with the ground barely visible, I lost my way more than once.
Still, despite a few detours, I managed to find the village. It had taken over a day and a half of continuous flight with only about four hours of sleep, but at least I had arrived. To avoid detection, I wrapped Zequirak in mist and slowly passed over the village, landing near a narrow trail leading into the mountains on the far side of the valley.
The proper road had been blocked by landslides and swollen rivers, so using this trail around the mountains felt natural. Of course, my clothes were far too clean and my pack too light for someone who had supposedly walked a long journey, but that could be managed to some degree.
“All right. This should do for now.”
Next time, I would prefer you not interfere with my flight at every turn. Ideally, we would never meet again.
“That might be difficult.”
The creature shook its head lightly at my words, then opened a passage to the demon realm and stepped through. That was precisely why I had chosen Kutlkeus.
I could create interdimensional connections myself, though not through teleportation or portals. However, forming a two-way passage required far more concentration and mana control than a simple summoning spell. It was closer to a mage’s work than a summoner’s.
If a summoned beast could return on its own, nothing could be better for the summoner. That was why most summoners preferred spirits or mental-plane entities—no need to set up return arrays or struggle to create passages each time.
Well, for now, I needed rest. I couldn’t enter the village like this. My clothes were one problem, but night had nearly passed, and dawn would come in a few hours. Walking into the village at this hour would look suspicious to anyone, especially in such a quiet place.
First, I activated the crystal. I needed to change into less conspicuous clothes and carry at least one bag.
“You’re early today.”
From her perspective, it was certainly early. Still, I had wondered before—how could she keep such perfect track of time while trapped here? Was it because she was a demon?
“Yes. I suppose so.”
I sat down. After so long on Zequirak’s swaying back, I still felt unsteady even standing on solid ground.
“Tired?”
“No, I’m fine. Just a little weary.”
I had meant to sound casual, but the words came out tangled.
“I was hoping to sleep for about three hours. Could you wake me then?”
“Sure, got it.”
Time passed quickly. It felt as though I had barely closed my eyes after lying down when she woke me.
“Wake up. You asked me to.”
After tossing a few times, I slowly sat up. I didn’t feel rested at all, but my mind cleared quickly even as fatigue lingered.
“Thank you.”
Still, there was no choice. I had preparations to make and needed to reach the village soon to assess the situation.
“Starting with that again?”
I began layering the equipped barriers first. Since I had parted from Bagloros to secure a new summon, this was essential. Fatigue and time limited me to six layers, but that should suffice. I changed out of my dawn clothes into the oldest set from my pack, then removed the heavier items to lighten the load.
The distance from the landing point to the village was considerable. Carrying the pack that far required weight adjustment to avoid notice.
“Hmm.”
After leaving just enough to make the shape look natural, the pack felt much lighter.
“Why are you doing that?”
“Details. If you want a lie to pass as truth, the small, specific things always matter most. They prevent suspicion beforehand, and even if someone doubts you, they’ll think, ‘Surely not that far.’”
“Not your expression?”
For a moment, I was speechless. She asked with such an innocent face, as if genuinely puzzled.
“…That matters too, of course.”
I felt like an amateur liar. As I had mentioned before, I had placed second in the academy’s poker tournament. No one except one person had read my hand.
“By the way, how do you always know when I’m lying?”
“You’re different from usual. Your expression, voice, even your eyes.”
If it was that obvious, there was no room to control it consciously.
“I see. Then I’ll see you later.”
“Be careful.”
Outside, the sun had already risen. In this rural village, mornings came earlier than elsewhere, so it was time to depart.
I deliberately walked through muddy areas and dense undergrowth. As I had said, the details mattered. By the time I reached the village, I would look like someone who had trekked through the mountains, making it easier to gather information from the locals.
Of course, it would be ideal if he were still in the village, though I couldn’t count on that.
“……”
Yet as I neared the village, I realized I should raise my expectations more often. In the fields behind the village, massive golems—or rather, earth elementals—were visible even from here, clearing rocks and tilling the soil.
If the villagers hadn’t purchased multiple golems for farming, then those were earth elementals, and their summoner was still here. Earth elementals were among the highest-ranking spirits of the land, and there were so many of them. This summoner was clearly skilled.
I walked while consciously directing my gaze toward the elementals, like a traveler surprised by the unexpected sight. Since it was the only trail, the people gathered nearby soon noticed me, and I felt their eyes turn my way.
Even so, I kept my gaze fixed on the elementals, pretending not to notice. A quick glance confirmed no strikingly handsome man was visible, but he was definitely nearby.
“Uh, what in the world…?”
When I was close enough to the villagers, I acted like an innocent traveler startled by the scene before me. They responded exactly as I had expected, smiling with pride.
“It’s Lord Anak. Companion of the Hero of Light, Rowell. The Summoner of Deception, the Second-Best Strategist, the Nightmare of Orsia Hill.”
I hadn’t expected them to know all three of my titles. Usually, people either didn’t know I existed or only recognized my name or the Summoner of Deception title. Even those who knew more rarely went beyond the Second-Best Strategist. That was why I had hesitated before burning the forged letter from the High Assassin Guild.
Whether he had spread the titles himself or not, making so many people aware of all three could only help my reputation, not harm it.
“Lord Anak? Then where exactly is he…?”
At my question, the villagers’ gazes turned upward in unison. Some pointed with their hands. Following their eyes, I saw a pegasus with pure white wings carrying a rider through the sky. The face wasn’t clear, but the bearing and posture radiated dignity and nobility.
And a pegasus, no less. Yes, that was exactly the kind of figure one would expect as the Hero’s companion.
“A pack of cyclopes attacked the village recently, and Lord Anak dealt with them in an instant.”
“It was an incredible sight. Those fierce cyclopes couldn’t even resist before collapsing.”
“And when he learned we were short on food, he started clearing new fields like that. That area was so rocky we never dreamed of farming it.”
Using earth spirits for land clearing was a classic summoner’s good deed. It felt like stepping into the pages of The History of Summoners, the book I had first read at the academy. Of course, the revised edition I had read had removed the parts from when we were called dark priests.
“That’s… quite remarkable.”
I still didn’t understand why he was doing these good deeds in my name. Looking up at him controlling the earth elementals from the sky, I considered my next move.
I had planned to speak with him from the start, and that hadn’t changed. The question was when and how. With the villagers’ attention so focused on him, would a sudden traveler like me even get a chance to approach?
Of course, patience and opportunity would eventually yield a way, but time wasn’t on my side. Honestly, there were many things I wanted to ask him right away—not just why he was using my name for good deeds, but as a fellow summoner.
As I had said before, summoners were far fewer than mages. Partly because of our dark history, but also because those born with the talent for summoning were simply rare. From my academy days until the end of the great war, excluding this time, I had only met five other summoners.
At the academy, there had been no real summoners, so I had learned from Oldo, a mage, and the few related books he had painstakingly gathered. Of those five, three could barely summon mid-tier spirits without drawing a summoning circle on the ground with a staff. The other two were better, but not exceptionally so.
They had all simply hidden from the Demon King’s army or fought alongside ordinary mages in the resistance.
Of course, even without books, I had heard plenty about outstanding and famous summoners. The Dragon’s Ally, Kainaknus, who had contracted with a dragon; Neiku, the Sage of the Forest and a summoner as well as a druid; and the half-elf Elena—these were great summoners I had longed to meet. Yet after the Demon King’s army appeared, no one had news of them.
Perhaps, unlike Rowell or me, they had already been famous and thus prime targets for elimination. Or maybe, like the dragons and elves who refused to join the war as neutrals and left this realm, they had fled to another dimension.
Regardless, this was the first time I had met a summoner of this caliber, and there was so much I wanted to say.
Of course, the conversation would inevitably touch on uncomfortable topics, but I could endure that.
Once the land-clearing was done, the earth elementals emerged from the fields one by one, lost their forms, and collapsed into piles of soil. The pegasus in the sky also began its slow descent.
A summoner could oversee work through soul synchronization without needing to watch from above, but this was probably his way of protecting himself.
Like my equipped barriers, he stayed beyond the reach of most attacks by controlling his summons from the sky. If one couldn’t use magic or wasn’t deeply skilled in it, it wasn’t a bad method. Most attacks wouldn’t reach that high, and hitting a target in the air was difficult.
“Thank you so much, Lord Anak.”
Up close, he was as handsome as the rumors had claimed. Different from Rowell, but somewhat similar to Julian. His green hair looked mystical, and his pale skin seemed impossibly soft. That face, which made it hard to determine gender, strongly reminded me of Julian.
“It won’t immediately solve our food shortage, but it will help during the next harvest.”
His voice was definitely male, though slightly high-pitched, it wasn’t unpleasant. Still, there was an indescribable sense of dissonance I couldn’t quite place.
Is it because of the pegasus?
This was my first time seeing a pegasus this close. Among my summons, only Erill was a holy beast, and Morotai was the only divine beast—though he disliked being categorized as such.
Perhaps the unique aura from unfamiliar holy and divine beasts was causing this feeling, but something still felt off.
“We don’t know how to thank you for doing so much for our village.”
While I was briefly distracted by the pegasus, he turned his gaze toward me.
“You are…?”
Ah, right. If he had stayed in this small village for the past few days, he would have met the villagers at least once. Even if he hadn’t met everyone, my clothes differed in style from the local region, so he would have realized I was new.
“Birette. My name is Birette, Lord Anak. It is an honor to meet you.”