The Summoner of Salvation
The shadows, stirred by my emotions, began to writhe like a dead man's hand thrusting up through the carefully packed earth of a grave.
Well, not half bad.
I moved my mana. The shadows molded themselves to my will, taking the shape of a straight blade—a plain, single-edged sword without a guard. It was a crude-looking weapon, built with no thought for the user, obsessed only with cutting power, speed, and penetration.
But that didn't matter. I hadn't forged it to swing like a proper sword. This was a surgical tool, not a tool for taking lives.
What it would sever was not flesh, but something nested deep inside.
"Got a read on it?"
< ʕ •̀ ω •́ ʔ >
Haze answered my question with a triumphant little expression. True to a spirit that governed space itself, it had already pinpointed the twisted interior's weak points and the way to fix them, even though barely any time had passed.
That was enough. The rest would be settled by slamming into it head-on.
"You heading out now?"
Harantz asked. I answered with a rough nod. He seemed to sense, however vaguely, that I could resolve this mess.
Otherwise there was no way he'd hand a job this important to a brat like me. Maybe, just as I had looked at him and felt the vastness of nature itself, he had felt something from me in return.
They say that once you reach a certain mastery of magic, simply reading the mana flowing around you lets you understand the caster's state of mind. Perhaps those who give form to their mental images share a similar unspoken language.
Whatever the medium, something was clearly being accomplished through mana.
"You do only as much as you can handle."
"Hmph. I'll make it so cozy you'll think you're back in your own living room."
With a contemptuous snort at my words, Harantz swung a war hammer as tall as he was and smashed a massive bird-like monster diving straight down from the sky.
Its bones shattered under the force, crushed flat like a pressed board—yet somehow the body never burst open.
So that kind of application was possible too. Another useful lesson learned.
Figuring everything out alone from scratch was always harder than having a rough sample to work from.
In that sense, the man seemed to be placing some kind of expectation on me. Or maybe he was just trying to chip away at the debt he owed.
I had no idea what he'd seen in me to warrant that hope, and I certainly felt no obligation to live up to it. Still, free gifts were free gifts—I'd take them and wipe my mouth clean afterward.
If it bothered him, he should've struck a deal first instead of teaching me for free.
"Haze."
Calling its name was enough to draw its mana. A crisp wind gathered, and an indescribable violet core condensed. In an instant the air around the black blade began to shimmer and warp like a heat haze.
Pure spatial mana was dangerous stuff. One wrong move and it could twist into a miniature black hole that sucked everything in, or simply disassemble whatever stood in its path. Extreme caution was required.
That was only true, however, when a human tried to handle it.
For Haze, who governed space itself, folding the void or twisting a space and then restoring it was as natural as breathing.
Linked to a being like that, I could claim a fair degree of mastery over space myself.
I understood, down to the last detail, exactly where and how to cut.
I still had no idea by what principle this chimera's distortion moved the way it did, but I could figure that out as I went.
Having mapped every path that would let Shirogane Ichiro's soul return to its proper course, I swung the pitch-black blade through empty air.
One. Two.
Even a single stroke carried the absolute intent to achieve my purpose. Under the influence of Battle King, the sword path looked like a beautiful dance.
Ban Taewung would have his eyes rolling back if he saw this. He was probably reaching the point where developing his own style was starting to strain him.
After that spar with Binboji Kazu he'd been so inspired that, even after the doctor ordered bed rest, he'd stormed out of the hospital room to swing his sword—only to get an earful from Luicia. After that he'd thrown himself into technique development with the third-years, even coming to me for detailed advice. He might be putting on a calm face now, but I bet his feet were on fire.
Ban Taewung thought his own skill was too mediocre to finish a technique. From where I stood, the problem was that every "finishing move" he'd created so far was simply too high-level.
And that was only natural.
Most of the people around him were overflowing with mana. Ban Taewung himself, for a warrior, had an absurd amount of the stuff. A technique forged by dumping two high-mana people's worth of power into it was never going to be weak.
Once he got used to that kind of power, would he ever be satisfied with ordinary techniques?
I didn't think so. Even I, who had referenced their methods, had built my own techniques by slamming in the mana boosted by Subjugator.
But the One Line I'd made last time was different.
It was designed so I could use it with the absolute minimum of mana, relying only on the abilities I already possessed. It maximized the formless nature of a shadow weapon, but the real point was that it could still activate under the barest conditions.
That was probably what Ban Taewung wanted too—not a technique that required someone else's help, but one that could be used with the least force yet still scale up to maximum power.
Binboji Kazu's swordsmanship had felt exactly like that.
He could have gone harder, but he hadn't. Even with limited power he still had room to spare; the fact that he walked away unharmed after clashing techniques was proof enough.
Battle King would give him a solid clue toward the "sword that suits his own way" he'd been searching for all this time.
Whoooom!!!
Even though I kept swinging at a steady rhythm, the sound of the blade began to change. A faint crimson aura, like smoke, started to settle over my body beyond the sword.
It was the same power I'd felt when I used Free Transformation before—no, stronger.
It grew, riding the wave of Haze's mana that vowed to carry out my will no matter what.
When it reached its peak I wrapped my entire body in mana. I spread my stance, eased the sword hand slightly back, and settled into position.
The only intent I poured in was death. The purest way to use Reaper was "to harvest." Anything that might interfere with that act was to be cleared away.
The chimera's life, the spatial distortion that made the soul look as if it had been sliced into fragments—everything was excluded.
I tightened my grip. The instant I tensed my legs to spring, I felt movement ahead.
"Kieeeeeee!!!!"
A grotesque beast's cry and a massive surge of mana rang out together. Sensing danger from my power, the thing howled and tried to flee.
Its back split wide and flesh stretched. From the serpentine form sprouted a nauseating pair of wings woven from countless hands of different creatures.
Deciding the ground was hopeless, it instinctively chose the sky—and that was actually the right call.
Just the summons I had on the ground numbered more than three. Counting the ones on standby made six. Fully two-thirds of my forces were here.
Forcing a breakthrough on the ground would be stupid; escaping into the air was the smart move.
Hwaaaak!!
The moment those mock wings moved, mana gathered around them.
Normally flapping alone would never let something that size fly. The body itself wasn't built for flight. Calling it snake-like was generous—it was a tangled, crushed mess of mismatched parts, closer to a giant leech than anything else.
Yet even under those conditions its body rose. Its own mana made it possible.
"Ea."
If my summons had been ordinary, I would have lost it right there.
Chwaaaak!!!
Ea burst from the earth in a flash and clamped down on one of the wings mid-flap, hanging on with dead weight.
"Kieeeek—?!!"
The chimera reeled in pure shock. Its center of gravity yanked downward. Half its body sank into the ground.
I'd confirmed long ago with goblins that anything Ea dragged in would seep into the earth. And if she simply stopped interfering, the target stayed locked underground.
"Rip it off."
Hweeeek!!!
Kwaddduk!!
At my order Ea spun her body in a violent whirl through the air. The chimera was sucked in like a jellyfish caught in a whirlpool; the wing tore free and went flying.
Even with mana, that bulk couldn't stay aloft on one wing. More wings sprouted in panic, but it was already too late.
Its body had hit the ground. Ea had half-buried it and then released her hold.
Pinned halfway into the earth like a planted stake, the chimera cracked the ground with every thrash. Holding it long-term would be tough.
Didn't matter. Even a single moment of immobility was enough.
Kallion, who had been waiting for exactly this timing, summoned his Magic Armor.
Kwang! Kwang! Kwang!!
Milky-white armaments rained down like a storm, pinning the chimera's body. With Haze's support they struck only the precise points that wouldn't interfere with what I was about to do, locking it in place.
I stared at the thing, now skewered like a mounted insect. One chance. Fail now and it would thrash even harder—maybe even burn Shirogane Ichiro's soul as fuel to keep itself alive.
Not happening.
That would make everything I was doing right now pointless. I had to finish this while it was still pouring everything into panicked escape.
"Echidna."
"Yes, Master."
At my call Echidna instantly switched from healing to buffs. Vitality flooded through me, but my body creaked even harder. The fragile balance I'd forced into place shattered, and Reaper began to run wild again.
My vision throbbed. The blood that had stopped rose once more.
Still, it wasn't past the point of endurance like before.
Kwang!!
I stomped the ground and launched myself forward. The world warped in an instant. There was no resistance—Haze was shielding me. The wind itself pushed me faster.
"Kieeeek...!!"
Under the combined power of Battle King and Combat Focus, the world slowed. The chimera's cry stretched out, thick and sluggish.
At the same time its body split open and arms of various monsters—probably the beasts it had devoured while nesting here—shot out like tentacles.
I slipped past them by the thickness of a sheet of paper and kept advancing.
In the past I would have been lucky just to dodge. Now it was different. Even in the slowed world my body felt no sluggishness. Only I moved at a leisurely pace through the frozen landscape.
That alone told me how fast I was truly going.
First, the head.
I drove the blade in as if scooping out the black pupils. It sank in without the slightest resistance, all the way to the core. The moment I wounded that single spot, I finally understood how this grotesque form had been maintained.
It had been twisted from the very beginning.
This chimera's default state was distortion. By forcibly stitching it back toward a "normal" shape, Shirogane Ichiro's soul had been pulled apart along those same cracks.
The principle was simple. The skill required to make it real was anything but.
It was temporary, yes, but it made the incomplete look complete. And because something once perfect had been rendered imperfect, the law of perfect equivalent exchange had taken hold.
That law was why the thing could exist in this form at all. The realization sent a chill down my spine—or maybe it was pure inspiration.
I needed to dismantle this corpse with even greater precision. Eyes wide, I carved it apart without the slightest error.
If something abnormal was wearing the mask of normalcy, all I had to do was force the flesh back into abnormality. No one but the creator could possibly know its original shape.
And the stitching wasn't simple patchwork; it was more like melting multiple living things together in a single crucible. Spotting the seams was nearly impossible.
Maybe even the original creator no longer remembered the prototype. If the whole point of this grotesque method had been to erase any trace of the original form, it made perfect sense.
"How could you know something even I don't?"—that was the kind of taunt that left no answer.
Unfortunately for the creator, there was one thing they had overlooked: someone in this world possessed eyes that could distinguish a unique soul.
And the one who could clearly separate the forcibly tangled souls through those eyes now held a sword. That was enough.
I swung. Every stroke carried the essence of One Line; I put my entire being into each movement of my arm.
I was genuinely glad I had created a technique that cut with lines instead of planes.
I sliced through the beast's flesh like flowing water. Attacks came, but Haze twisted space to erase them or Kallion's Magic Armor descended to block them.
The pieces I carved free scattered in every direction. Blood painted the ground; slabs of meat unfurled like brilliant flowers.
Where only bone remained standing upright, writhing organs revealed themselves. That was the chimera's true core. Nestled among them I spotted a translucent white snake. I snatched it before it could flee.
When I squeezed hard, as if wringing it out, the snake coughed up two orbs and then evaporated into smoke, vanishing completely.
"...Huuuh."
I let out a long breath. It wasn't cold, yet hot air steamed from my mouth. The mana that had saturated every muscle fiber was simply leaking out of my lungs.
Both arms that had held the sword trembled. How many times had I cut?
I couldn't remember. I'd moved on pure instinct. My eyes ached from the prolonged focus—no, the world actually looked a little blurry.
All I knew for certain was that my entire body creaked with pain and that almost no residual mana remained inside me.
Looking closer, I saw wounds and torn shadows all over. The shape of the sword in my hand had changed slightly too... I'd left the fine details to Battle King, so I must have taken a few hits.
Damage that even the shadows couldn't fully repair meant the attacks had been serious, yet I'd only noticed them now. Probably I'd deflected them by habit or slipped past by a paper's thickness.
Nothing else stood out. If I had to name one thing, it was that I'd burned through too much mana and was exhausted.
Most of it had gone into letting me move at full speed even inside the slowed world.
I consciously loosened the mana I'd been clamping down. The slowed world snapped back to normal, and everything floating in the air began to fall under gravity.
Thud. Thud-thud. Tap-tap!
A rain of blood began to fall.
Haze's air layer pushed it away before it touched me, but the barrier felt as thin as plastic wrap; I still sensed the contact.
Even that was enough to make my overheated body feel as if it were cooling.
"...Yeah. Physical work really isn't my thing."
Most protagonists felt exhilaration or pride at moments like this. All I felt was bone-deep laziness and the urge to lie down. Still, the goal was complete, so whatever.
I'd achieved the original objective and even scored some side benefits. Net profit, really.
I looked at the soft orb still linked to a living body. The mana inside was unmistakably Shirogane Ichiro's.
"Hurry back, you idiot. Your family's waiting."
And work for me for the rest of your life.
I muttered the words he might or might not hear and released it. The once-docile soul went berserk, racing along the faint connection and melting into the air like smoke.
"That leaves this one."
A broken connection meant the original owner of this soul was already dead.
The time since death must have been long; the ego was faint. The memories that shaped personality had been bleached almost completely white.
Yet the quality of the mana and the soul itself was exceptional.
The original owner had probably been a powerhouse on par with Shirogane Ichiro.
Maybe this soul was the reason Ichiro had managed to hold on at all. Speculation was pointless, so I simply wrapped it completely in mana.
In an instant the shadow sealed it into a pitch-black orb. I couldn't use it right away, but someday it would come in handy.
I didn't hand it to Shiz or Keres. Feeding them something that had already been used in an experiment once felt too risky; I needed to be twice as careful.
Only after applying Reaper's soul-handling Engraving Art for a double seal did I finally relax and pass it to Hive.
When had this one come back, anyway? Through the Link I could tell the surrounding cleanup was already finished.
So that was one job successfully bid on.
I was about to sigh again when a signal arrived from Comet, whom I'd left behind to remodel the workshop. Reading both the information and the emotion packed into it made my already scowling face twist even harder.
"...Seriously, way too diligent."
Diligent to a goddamn fault. Honestly, if that industriousness had been poured into self-improvement instead of this nonsense, how much better would things be? Then I wouldn't have to deal with any of this hassle.
I squeezed out what little mana I had left through the Link and sent it over, then glared coldly in the direction of the Shirogane workshop.