The Summoner of Conquest

Evolve Hive right away.

No—hold off a little longer and wait until level thirty.

Either choice was tempting. So, for the first time in a while, I decided to take a gamble.

The unknown is a riddle wrapped in fear. You can avoid it if you want. Turn away, ignore it, and nothing catastrophic will happen right this second.

But sooner or later the day always comes when you have to stick your head into that unknown.

When that day arrives, will you grit your teeth, wrestle down the fear, and scrape together whatever strength you have left? Or will you steel yourself from the start and claw for every scrap of knowledge you can get?

I choose the latter, of course. Anyone who fears the unknown has already chosen ignorance—and that is a sin.

Incompetence alone is not a crime.

The crime begins the moment you lean on that incompetence as an excuse for remaining ignorant. No matter how lacking you are, you thrash with everything your power can reach. People look at that and call it “effort.”

Which is exactly why I wanted to keep the power I burned in the process to an absolute minimum. Because it’s a pain. Because I want to rest. That doesn’t mean I can just loaf around forever. The ones who refuse to work are never given a choice.

This world only sharpens that tendency. The weak are thoroughly trampled by the strong. In a world like that, even if I wanted to settle down and coast, I couldn’t.

For the endless storm of incidents and accidents to end, either the eye of the storm itself has to vanish, or the one deliberately whipping it up has to be removed.

I liked Ban Taewung.

He could be a nuisance sometimes, but he was thoroughly human—more hardworking, more earnestly living each day than anyone else I knew.

So I put in effort of my own, if only to thrash the bastard god who kept shoving this world into a blazing pit of madness.

Even if that meant stepping off the path of guidance, as long as the end result was rest for me, I was ready to kill a god or anything else that got in the way.

As long as that insane “god” was still walking around free, killing the current Ban Taewung would only produce a second, then a third. Pointless.

Better to grind against each other, polish our edges, and cut out the root cause than waste time murdering the wrong target.

…I digressed. What I actually wanted to say was this:

“Just do it first and think later.”

Given the choice, I was the type who reacted on the spot to whatever landed in front of me and solved it then and there.

The shadowy mastermind style—lurking, pulling strings from behind—might be comfortable once you got there, but the road to that point was pure hell and didn’t suit me at all.

Still, likes and dislikes aside, my creed was to use whatever worked when I needed it. So I had no real complaint about keeping my current stance.

I wasn’t in a position to be picky right now.

Sandwiched between a god who could explode at any moment and Lee Se-rin, who was always ready to light the fuse herself, I was getting tossed around so hard the stress was no joke.

If I hadn’t been beating monsters into paste under the excuse of leveling up, I probably would have snapped already.

I deliberately stuck to the legal side of things so I wouldn’t get dragged into annoying busywork—like being forced to pick up a book the second I tried to relax. If I started dipping into illegal territory now, every bit of effort I’d poured in so far would go up in smoke.

Out of pure spite I’d keep my chaos legal. I wouldn’t touch the dirty stuff unless I absolutely had to. And even if that day came, I’d already lined up a few people who could get their hands dirty in my place. No need to worry.

“Hmm. First things first—let’s check.”

In the past I’d only looked at the evolution list to fill out the encyclopedia. Now I wanted to study it properly—figure out exactly which conditions unlocked which paths.

I opened the status window again and firmly pressed the [Evolution Available] button sitting next to the level.

Two options. More routes than I’d expected. I’d braced myself for only one and figured I’d just have to live with it—yet here was the choice I’d half-hoped for.

Not bad.

Checking them for the encyclopedia alone made it mandatory, not optional.

Focusing on the text again, the first difference that jumped out was the noun sitting in front of each name.

They were more concise than before, yet the meanings they carried were heavier, more ominous. I slowly read through the information written in the Book of Summoning.

First, Terror’s [Scarecrow].

Not the straw man people usually pictured, but its abilities were similar enough.

Its form had swollen far beyond the original—so massive you could mistake it for a giant eagle rather than a crow—and true to the name “Terror,” its appearance had twisted as well.

Unlike an ordinary crow, the Scarecrow had three pairs of wings instead of one.

Tiny wings sprouted above and below each enormous primary, and inside its pupils dozens of smaller eyes nested, radiating a primal sense of wrongness.

Its entire skill set had swung hard toward forcing fear into its targets.

Where Guild Raven had birthed solid shadow clones, the Scarecrow grew stronger the more terror its prey felt—a pure reinforcement loop.

If I hadn’t already possessed Subjugator, I might have picked this one without hesitation. Guaranteed fear debuff on the enemy plus self-buffing? Perfect.

It drifted a little away from the all-rounder role, but it leaned hard into pure combat power. The boost to raw fighting strength would be rock-solid.

The unlock condition was probably something like: “Have you ever driven a target into genuine, bone-deep terror?”

Given how thoroughly the whole kit was built around fear, that had to be it.

Next was Conquest’s [Conquest].

The first thing that caught the eye was the skull mask covering its face. Glossy, stiff feathers had grown out like a long coat, looking tough enough that ordinary attacks wouldn’t even scratch them.

White bone jutted from the pure-black body in places so alien you could almost guess the name’s origin just by looking.

The motif was clearly the plague doctor mixed with one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—the White Rider.

A bird wearing a mask shaped like a bird’s beak. The setup alone was almost funny, yet the power this creature held left no room for laughter.

The link between conquest and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠plague was simple enough.

In the days when the Black Death ran rampant, people believed the disease itself was the devil’s handiwork. Anyone who caught it had lost to the devil—had been conquered.

Whether that was true or not didn’t matter. The moment people truly believed it, the concept was born.

If Conquest’s appearance leaned heavily on the plague doctor, its abilities leaned closer to the White Rider’s power described above.

Weakening targets through a plague-type debuff was similar to the Scarecrow’s fear. But Conquest went further—it specialized in overwhelming its prey.

The direction was sheer, uncountable numbers.

The White Rider of Revelation held “the power to slay by the beasts of the earth.” Conquest inherited that power and could now reshape its own clones into the forms of other beasts and command them.

If the original existed on the ground, it could even copy that creature’s appearance. Only things that walked the earth, though.

A power that felt like a doppelgänger—and its roots still lay with the devil. That meant one of the evolution conditions almost certainly involved something “demonic.”

“…So the conditions can be fulfilled between summons, too.”

More precisely, the conditions unlocked through me—but it still proved that interaction between my summons mattered.

It wasn’t limited to Echidna, either. Most of my summons had been carrying Hive’s shadow crows from the moment they were called, so the experience had piled up naturally and produced this result.

One more reason to keep expanding the roster.

“Hmm.”

Both evolutions looked excellent. The first evolution had been good, but these felt even better—stronger, more distinct, more to my taste.

Part of me wanted to hold out until thirty. If the options this early already looked this good, how much more ridiculous would the ones at thirty be?

Of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠course there was no guarantee those later ones would outshine these two.

Still, I’d already decided to go through with it. Backing out now felt wrong. After a brief moment of thought, I chose [Conquest].

Considering the synergy with my current skills and the rest of the summons, Conquest simply fit better than Scarecrow.

This was the very first one I’d ever summoned. I wanted to raise it pure, without any impurities, so I deliberately left the Book of Combination untouched.

“Confirm.”

The instant I selected the evolution, mana erupted from Hive’s body. I didn’t fight the flow—I poured my own mana into it, helping the power spread even farther.

In that moment my vision changed.

Darkness rolled in from the far edge of a wasteland. The world dyed itself black as if the sun had set and night had fallen in seconds. Lights glittered inside it. Not stars. Everything nestled within that darkness was a beast. The lights that glittered so hungrily swallowed everything the darkness touched.

Where the darkness passed, only broken and ruined things remained.

Everything living was driven toward death; everything already dead was claimed by the darkness simply because it still had some use left.

Someone’s wailing layered over itself like a choir. The closer the darkness came, the more screams and noise rang out like a twisted symphony, circling my ears without end.

Was that rage directed at the darkness? Or just the helpless lament of souls facing an unstoppable calamity?

I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know, and I had no intention of finding out. I refused to let their misfortune get tangled up with me.

One reason only: it was a pain in the ass.

The darkness crept closer. Only then did I notice what they all shared.

Bone.

Every monster inside that darkness wore a mask made of bone. That was their true body. The knowledge hit me on pure instinct. I looked past the darkness at one particular mask.

Our eyes met. A gaze so cold it sent an involuntary chill down my spine.

I slowly raised my hand toward that gaze—

Blink.

The system’s voice rang through my skull and snapped me back.

At the end of my outstretched hand, Hive—now finished evolving and wearing a skull mask—tilted its head at me.

Out of habit I opened my mouth, but strangely no sound came out.

It was clearly trying to cry, yet I heard nothing. Looking closer, the edges of its body rippled exactly like the shadows I controlled.

Its overall bulk seemed smaller than before, but size no longer meant much to it.

I knew that from handling shadows myself. If it wanted to grow, it could expand as far as its power reached; if it wanted to shrink, it could become vanishingly small. Hive was exactly like that now.

Apparently one of the conditions had involved “shadows” as well. There really were things you only learned by evolving something yourself.

Judging by the form, the evolution that matched the conditions had pulled it so far from a living creature that it barely counted as one anymore.

I let out a quiet sigh at the sight.

Maybe because it was the second evolution, the vision that played during the process had felt terrifyingly real. I clenched and unclenched my fist a few times to ground myself, then checked the system messages that followed.

I nodded in satisfaction at Hive’s newly refreshed status window.

The fully reset level stung ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a little, but the jump in stats and the evolved skills would more than make up for it in the long run. I knew that much.

On top of that, I could add a little more weight to the hypothesis I’d been testing.

Looking at the results, it was pure profit. A solid decision.

Finally I spent the points I’d been hoarding: eight into Strength, two into Dexterity, and the remaining three into Luck. The numbers settled into neat zeros and fives.

“Looking forward to working with you from now on.”

As if answering, the bone mask that served as its beak rubbed lightly against my hand. I stroked its body and felt the strength drain out of me. This one alone had already wiped me out—and there was still one more waiting.

“Comet.”

“Yes, Master!”

Comet, who had been brushing Growl’s fur with a nanomachined comb, answered cheerfully and hurried over.

I opened the Book of Summoning, checked Comet’s status window, then let myself collapse into the chair like a rag, pressing a hand to my throbbing head.

“Are you all right, Master?”

“…Yeah. I’m fine. Perfectly fine.”

Nothing hurt. I was just tired and annoyed.

I felt bad for Comet, but annoying was still annoying.

They all knew my personality well enough not to make a fuss, but that didn’t mean they felt nothing. The emotions rolling off Comet right now proved it.

She felt guilty and sorry that I was putting up with this hassle because of her. At the same time she was excited that, through me, she might become even more useful.

The tangle of contradictory feelings was dizzying enough to make my head spin. A machine with no life of its own, yet she felt emotions this completely—was I supposed to be happy about that? I had no idea. I just wanted to rest already.

“…Haaah.”

I let out a long breath, forced the lethargy off my shoulders, and sat ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠up straight again.

Echidna settled naturally at my side and began fanning me with a fan of black shadow. Comet took the food Hive offered, carefully prepared it into bite-sized pieces, and carried them to my mouth with perfect courtesy.

The unexpected luxury made my body go limp of its own accord.

Ah, this is driving me crazy. Rest. Just rest like this and think about it later. Someone seemed to whisper that right into my ear. My body was already fully prepared to collapse into sleep at any second.

But I clenched my teeth and shook my head hard, forcing the thought away.

If I gave in to this, I’d fall in more ways than one. Just a little more. If I don’t do it now, it’ll only be more annoying later, right? So just a little more.

Resting after this would feel so much better. The food must have helped—my brain started turning again.

I waved off Comet’s endless attempts to feed me and focused on the status window.

If it had been a simple evolution I would have just picked whatever looked good without a second thought. This time was different.

Was it because she was humanoid like Echidna? Or because she’d been built from boss materials?