Summoner of the Cold Land

The Cold Land of Lamentation was a realm ruled entirely by winter—an endless snowfield stretching in every direction.

No matter which way I turned my gaze, nothing greeted me but pure white permafrost, sharp enough to sting the eyes. Overhead, the sky remained a sullen, unchanging purple, as if the very heavens had frozen in place. Truly, this was a polar waste that wrung sighs from the soul just by existing.

The only reason any ground was visible at all was the heat from the machine that had crash-landed and exploded, melting every flake of snow where it had sat. The engine still spat real-time sparks as proof. A secondary blast must have gone off in spectacular fashion already; everything nearby was scorched or carbonized, not a single intact object left in sight.

Whatever remained had probably been flung clear during the crash itself.

The moment that thought settled, a system alarm bloomed before my eyes.

For a B-rank dungeon the conditions were almost insultingly simple. Factor in the barren snow country as the backdrop, though, and it stopped looking easy.

For us, the environment held no real terror. I had Kallion—the ultimate cheat code—and anything we lacked could simply be pulled from Hive.

The rune letter we had drawn for this joint run meant Temperature.

No place was more sensitive to temperature than this dungeon. Spend twenty-four hours turning the problem over in our heads and a clever solution would surface whether we wanted it or not.

In that sense, pairing with Shirogane Rui wasn’t half bad.

Fwoosh!

“Whoa! Freezing! No matter how you look at it, this place is impossible to get used to!”

Whether it was the family business or pure birthright, her affinity for fire ran bone-deep. White breath still streaming from her lips, she reached out, seized the nearby flames in her bare hands, and began rubbing them all over her body.

Anyone else watching would have screamed suicide. I didn’t bat an eye. I had already skimmed the rough data on her back at the café.

That was exactly why I had chosen this dungeon.

“Huuu… Warm. Finally feels like living again…”

The fire she touched neither burned ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her flesh nor scorched her clothes. It simply settled against her, clinging like a second skin—nothing more, nothing less. If anything, it flickered with an almost elegant nonchalance, as though parasitizing her body was the most natural thing in the world. Like water droplets merging into a larger drop, the flames slowly fused into Shirogane Rui herself.

That was her constitution. More precisely, a trait she had carried from birth that manifested as a skill the moment she awakened.

To a summoner like me, it felt closer to a characteristic—an alien power that resonated on a deeper level.

Skill: Descendant of Fire.

Because she held such a conspicuous post on the Discipline Committee, gathering footage of her in action or raw information on her had been trivially easy.

This was the Academy. Under the banner of education it was a pure meritocracy of the strong devouring the weak; climbing while hiding your power was never simple. In her case she had done the opposite—flaunting her signature technique until everyone knew exactly who she was and what she could do.

One of the cleaner ways to earn both support and authority at once. By revealing a hand you could actually stockpile more hidden cards… or so the theory went.

The upside was rapid brand recognition. The downside was equally clear: information leaked easily, and what was shown let others predict the rest of the hand. Not my preferred style.

If you hide, hide completely. If you show, crush so thoroughly that no one dares meet your eyes.

Half-measures like hers might work on the masses, but the risk outweighed the return. Of course, if you had the confidence and the strength to keep standing at the top even after taking that risk, the point became moot.

Shirogane Rui belonged to the latter camp. Even setting the family name aside, her power firmly placed her among the strong.

“Mmm, maybe because it’s burning on engine oil? Tastes a little greasy.”

She didn’t just add the fire to her body—she swallowed it and smacked her lips afterward, as casually as if it were everyday routine.

In a world full of things far stranger than her, the fact that this already looked normal to me probably meant I was going quietly insane myself.

“How much output can you manage?”

“…Assuming no other source of fire, maybe thirty percent max. This dungeon has zero fire energy at all.”

Fwoosh.

As if translating her sensory reading into visible form, the flames flickered and scattered embers through the empty air.

She wasn’t a spirit mage, yet she commanded fire spirits. Her power simply drew them in naturally. Because ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she could bend flame to her will, the spirits bound to it followed as a matter of course.

She lacked the essential “Spirit Eyes” required of true spirit ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mages, so she could never see their forms directly. Even so, when it came to fire she was more sensitive than most actual spirit mages—proof her talent was absurd.

Any famous spirit mage who learned of her gift would call it pearls before swine. Talent that could have made her the strongest spirit mage of any era, and here she was stuck as a craftsman who might or might not even reach First-Class. The frustration would be enough to make anyone choke.

And the mere possibility of claiming even a fraction of that talent would have every house scrambling to drag her into their bloodline. Even if she never became a spirit mage, the simple ability to gather spirits was utility enough.

Until now her family had been strong enough to block those advances. That wouldn’t last forever. Even if they still stood firm today, time would only erode them further.

All those tangled factors had pushed her to the decision she had made.

I intended to use that emotion. By helping her like this, I would slowly carve the idea that I was on her side.

Lee Se-rin, who could read my thoughts, would almost certainly start stirring up the spirit-mage houses. I knew her as well as she knew me.

I didn’t expect instant results, but within three days at the latest the ripples would start to show. That was when I would move—slowly, carefully, until she could never betray me.

A performance was required. I needed her to understand, beyond any doubt, that I stood above her. Only then would she think of leaning on me when the moment came.

“Hive.”

At my call the shadows stretched and deepened into absolute dark. Ignoring the nearby fire, the darkness expanded until a crow wearing a fresh skull mask emerged from its depths.

“Ooooh…”

Shirogane Rui’s eyes went wide. She transferred the flames from her hands to her body and began poking Hive’s feathers with curious jabs.

Hive clearly disliked it. A flick of its tail feathers brushed her hand away; then it shrank, took flight, and settled neatly on my shoulder.

“A summon?”

“Your little brother didn’t mention it?”

“Nope. Tohru just said there was an incredible person, and the rest I picked up from rumors.”

For someone who only had rumors, she had identified it as a summon awfully fast. Probably some appraisal skill or specialized knowledge. Not worth overthinking.

“Neither of us is going to quibble about raw power, so we’ll focus purely on the Creativity portion.”

Hong Su-ah had said that if a technique met the conditions she would register it in the Grand Library. That privilege wasn’t limited to the top ranks. Tickets might be reserved for high placers, but the Library itself had no such restriction.

“So we should work together somehow? Me and the summons, doing this and that?”

“What are you talking about? Of course you’ll handle it alone, senior.”

Why would I bother doing the work myself?

“Huh? Uh, b-but Sinwoo dongsaeng, you said you’d help…”

My blunt certainty made her realize she had been freelancing her own assumptions. Her voice shrank with every word. I swallowed the sigh that wanted to escape.

A flicker of regret hit me—did I really have to spell even this out?—but I shook it off. Better to treat it as Hong Su-ah’s deliberate ambiguity paying off exactly as intended.

Since we had already ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠decided to coordinate, I corrected the misunderstanding.

“Creativity means two people create a technique. It doesn’t mean we have to demonstrate it together.”

“…Ah!”

The card we had drawn was Temperature. Her specialty was fire. This was an experiment—to see exactly how far her flames could go. For that I needed to measure the full range of Shirogane Rui’s capability.

Day one: find her floor and her ceiling.

“I’ll handle everything from the start. Just thrash around enough that you don’t die.”

“…Huh?”

Thud!

The instant the words left my mouth her body was launched sideways with bone-jarring force. A beat later a crimson trail shimmered after her, looking for all the world like a meteor shower crashing to earth.

Fwoooosh!!

“Ow, a little aggressive there, Sinwoo dongsaeng?”

Even against a surprise attack that fast she managed to defend. Only after activating Combat Focus could I even see the micro-second of brilliance she displayed.

She concentrated her firepower into a single direction and blasted it like a rocket, launching herself backward through the air. The move minimized the damage and simultaneously corrected her off-balance posture.

Proof she had long since mastered the art of using fire. Even the flashiest flame mages would probably shake their heads in front of her technique.

Three years at the Academy had not been wasted. This was power she had forged herself.

“…Mm.”

Even after perfectly neutralizing the ambush her expression stayed dark. No wonder—she had burned through a full tenth of the flames wrapping her body just to block that one strike.

“Sinwoo dongsaeng, just checking… are you mad about what I said earlier?”

“Stop talking nonsense and focus.”

If I were the type to get worked up over every little thing I would have died of nervous breakdown ages ago.

Still, I didn’t deny the anger. Strictly speaking it wasn’t mine—it was Hive’s.

After evolving and awakening the nature of a “king,” Hive had grown noticeably more lofty.

The one who sits at the very top. That was what a king was.

In the early days its ego had been clever but one-dimensional. Now it was rich enough that comparing it to an average person felt insulting.

Perhaps because of that, Hive had begun quietly nursing the fact that it was the first summon I had ever called. It even grumbled about the root-level recognition in my mind that “the strongest summon is Kallion.”

Not that Hive was inferior. Pure combat power simply favored the broken race known as dragons. Still, Hive hated that perception.

It wanted the top seat for itself. That greed was pure nature—something that existed long before any kingly mantle.

So Hive was angry.

It had forgiven the girl who poked its body on first meeting only because I had not ordered an attack. Now that the leash had loosened even a fraction, Hive wanted to unleash its full skill and vent the accumulated frustration—by proving itself to me.

Having always been at my side, Hive inevitably absorbed influence from the other summons. Its methods therefore resembled mine more than a little.

Shadows spread. One by one black silhouettes took form; light touched them and pure white bone masks settled into place.

It looked like a night sky—stars rising one after another against absolute dark—so they moved, expanding the darkness further.

Gulp.

Then the darkness contracted, shaping itself into form.

First came the crows.

Dozens, then thousands of Hive’s clones—still carrying the shape of its former self—flooded the sky. Because that form was most familiar, the numbers exploded far beyond anything previous. It became hard to tell whether the darkness was made of crows or the crows were made of darkness.

Change continued. One-dimensional shadows began mixing with raptors—eagles, owls.

Next came the wolves.

Creatures that faintly resembled Growl before its evolution slithered free of the shadows and shifted size on the fly. Some swelled to the bulk of trucks; others shrank to the size of small dogs. Smaller never meant weaker.

Different sizes, but all of them are the original templates.

Just as the first creature I summon with the Book of Summoning becomes the progenitor of its species, the shadow beasts Hive created carried raw, primal traits. It felt less like missing data and more like this was the current ceiling of its power. Low skill levels and overall lack of mastery, most likely.

Given time it would stop producing these crude things and start mimicking complete beasts in full.

“…Ahaha… this might actually be dangerous…?”

Faced with the sudden swarm of black beasts radiating murderous intent, Shirogane Rui let out a dry laugh. She looked ready to convince herself it was all a dream.

Reality, however, was merciless. The birds that had caught her hesitation dove in a coordinated strike.

“Hup…!”

Surprise lasted only a heartbeat. As if the opening itself had been bait, she snapped into stance and wrapped fire around her fists.

Bang!!

With fluid footwork she slipped past razor beaks and talons, then threw a jab—light, almost casual.

Fwoosh.

The flames that bloomed with it became a storm far beyond imagination, raging out of control.

Rumble!

The delayed boom rolled like thunder before a lightning strike. The chain of fireballs exploded so brilliantly it almost looked like lightning had erupted from a human hand, racing outward to devour everything nearby.

The first beast struck by that opening attack dissolved into shadow, of course. The flames that had burned so fiercely did not scatter; they returned obediently to her side and re-merged with her body.

“…Huu.”

Even after that display of divine skill her face stayed grim.

She had recovered as much fire as possible, yet some loss was inevitable. In the end the flames she used were a finite resource. And this dungeon was, without exaggeration, the worst possible environment for a fire user.

“Not even leaving corpses is seriously unfair…”

Normally fire spirits would quietly top up her power, making such worries unnecessary. In this special environment that help was gone. Inside a dungeon, mid-combat, there was no leisure to sit and grow a fire.

The inevitable fallback was burning enemy corpses. Render the fat, use the bursting oil as fuel, pour her mana into the resulting blaze, and an instant wall of greater fire was born. Re-absorb that larger fire and the spent portion was replenished.

Repeat the cycle and you created the absurd loop of spending fire to kill enemies in order to harvest more fire.

Against these foes that trick was useless. They had substance but no true form. No matter how much fire threatened them they simply kept coming.

Exactly the kind of opponent Shirogane Rui hated most.

“Academy classes… are nothing… compared to this!!!”

She shattered an oncoming wolf’s jaw with her knee, then crushed the skull of a diving raptor that tried to exploit the opening. Not a single wasted motion—everything flowed like water.

Even without her main fire she was still a mana-tempered superhuman. A body that could kill ordinary people with raw physical power alone no longer needed weapons as necessities; they were merely options for expanding attack patterns.

Sizzle!!

As the fierce exchange dragged on, the fire she carried began to heat her body in earnest. Even from a distance the heat was obvious. Her silhouette shimmered like a heat haze, impossible to pin down cleanly.

The temperature melted every nearby snowflake and then vaporized the water into steam.

The moment that heat crossed a threshold it compressed, as if every scrap of gathered warmth were being crushed into a single point—her fist.

“Haaah!”

BOOOOM!!!

She drove the superheated fist forward. A thunderous detonation erupted; chains of flame exploded outward. Shadow beasts caught in the blast dissolved in rapid succession.

This was more than simple fire control. Just as I used shadows to mimic the framework of magic, she mixed mana into flame and detonated it to amplify the power. That alone let her produce force equivalent to casting the mid-tier fire spell Explosion dozens of times over.

Definitely an absurd affinity.

Which only made the next part easier. It wasn’t unique to her—every fire user shared the same chronic flaw.

“Haa… haa…”

Exhaustion.

Endless beasts pressing in, the constant mental load of calculating techniques and circulating mana, heat and fatigue stacking until the body simply gave out. For her the ratio was worse than most.

No one wielded ridiculous power without a price. The risk that came with treating fire like an extra limb was that her body was still bound by human limits.

A human body is roughly seventy percent water. That structure cannot be changed; even a slight imbalance wrecks the system. Strong yet fragile—that is the human form. Because she still possessed a human body, she was forced to weaken.

Her trait, the skill Descendant of Fire, granted complete immunity to flame and the ability to command it like a limb. It did not grant immunity to the secondary heat that power generated.

Therefore she had to vent the heat that built up whenever she used fire this way. Otherwise the liquids inside her would boil and she would collapse first.

Even that method was only a stopgap—like dunking an overheating machine straight into ice water. The fatigue that followed was worse than the heat itself, and the resulting weakness was beyond words.

Roughly two hours, give or take.

That was her absolute limit if she never rested. Only she could endure even that long. An ordinary person copying her would never reach half the power, and even if they somehow matched the output, imitating such a volatile fighting style would destroy their body and force early retirement—or kill them outright before that.

This is it.

The insight clicked into place. I rapidly cross-checked the Grand Library’s records, confirmed nothing like this existed yet, and snapped my fingers.

Snap!

The mana-laden sound rang clear. Every shadow beast charging her froze as though time itself had stopped. Then, like ink dissolving, the shadows melted into the ground, gathered in one place, and reformed into Hive.

Hive glanced at Shirogane Rui—who had been mid-swing, ready to unleash another fire punch, and now stood frozen in an awkward pose—then pointedly turned its head away.

No sound came out. Somehow the gesture still looked like pure mockery. Maybe that was just my imagination.

Hive hopped over to me with crow-like steps and slipped back into the shadows. Its own way of saying it was satisfied.

“Hwaaaaah…”

Only then did her body catch up to her mind. Shirogane Rui collapsed onto the ground in a long, boneless sprawl.

“I’m wiped… A little brother making his noona suffer like this… so mean… Demon King… evil corporation…”

She muttered that she had genuinely thought she might die, eyes glistening. I let the complaints wash past one ear and snapped my fingers again, mana loaded.

What I called forth was the radiant white dragon.

Snap!

“Kallion.”

Light exploded. The moment Kallion appeared, Shirogane Rui’s face went paper-white. I had no intention of making her fight again. From here on it was my time.

“Assist.”

“Grrngh!”

I shaped the shadows into a new formula. Kallion’s mana interfered, adding and revising exactly the solutions I wanted. Watching the shadow construct assemble itself at high speed, I couldn’t help smiling.