The Summoner of Salvation
Squelch!!!
A slender girl’s hand punched straight through the man’s abdomen.
“Gyaaaaaaah!!!!!!?!!?”
He had believed himself thoroughly accustomed to ordinary pain. The name Yashiro was not one to be taken lightly. From childhood he had endured training that was little different from torture itself.
Yet this pain was something he could not endure.
“Shhh. Quiet, please. You went to all the trouble of sneaking in here—why make such a racket?”
“Ghk… ghk…!!”
You’re the one saying that, you bitch!! You’re still stirring your hand around inside me, crushing my organs!!!
Yashiro Hisame wanted to scream until his throat tore open. But it was impossible.
Blood welling up from his ruptured organs flooded back into his throat and choked him. The moment he tried to cough it out, pain like his body shattering into pieces crashed over him.
Ordinary agony should have grown familiar by now. This pain was different. No matter how hard he tried to grow used to it, he could not. It felt as though the very concept of suffering had been driven straight through his spine and into his brain.
His mind felt ready to melt from the torment. A searing, burn-like heat raced through every inch of him. No—not heat. Insects. Tiny things that interfered with his mana kept pouring into his body without end.
Disgusted, he crushed them with his mana as hard as he could, yet more flooded in than he could expel. Worst of all, the pain made concentration nearly impossible.
“What… the hell… are you—cough!!”
“Hmm… even if the anti-mana granted to you is strong, once it enters the body the owner’s own mana still holds the upper hand. A difference of environment… or perhaps a matter of domain? I’ll reflect that in the next modification. Thanks to you, things are going smoothly. This is just a side job while I dispose of trash, so I won’t bother with any words of gratitude.”
…I have no idea what this woman is talking about.
Ah, of course I don’t. Looking this close, I finally understand. This isn’t a person. It looks no different from a human, yet it is not human. Have I finally gone mad?
“Ah. Yes, I understand. Master!”
Suddenly the girl nodded toward empty air in acknowledgment, then withdrew her hand from his abdomen. Despite having rummaged so thoroughly through his insides only moments before, not a single drop of blood stained her fingers.
Gush, gush, gush…
“Ghk! Cough! Cough!!”
In contrast, the moment the blockage was removed, a massive torrent of blood poured out. Only then did Yashiro Hisame know with absolute certainty that this was no dream.
His vision blurred. Consciousness drifted farther and farther away, yet the pain remained. Haha… hopeless. In that instant the surrounding darkness seemed to grow even thicker.
“Welcome back, Master! You’ve worked hard.”
The girl’s voice, which until now had merely parroted human speech without a shred of emotion, suddenly brightened with delight. The sight of a monster that had looked no different from a person becoming human was so alien that his half-closed eyes snapped open again.
Just who is this “Master” that commands such a monster? He wanted to see. And he did.
“…Yeah. You did well too.”
Death. Death wrapped entirely in shadow tore through the air and descended. Ah… have I already died? Without fulfilling my long-cherished wish, without achieving my revenge, am I simply going to die like this?
“Condition?”
“Just as you instructed, Master, I’m keeping him right on the brink of death. Shall I finish him off now if you wish?”
“No. I’ve thought of something I want to try.”
“Aha!”
Death conversed right in front of him. Looking closer, that figure too wore a human shape.
Step. Step.
Death approached. He tried to thrash in rejection, but the shadows pinned his body in place so he could not move.
“I have one proposal for you.”
The gaze looking down on him from above—the gaze he hated most of all. Yet strangely, he felt not the slightest urge to resist this one.
On the contrary, his very soul screamed that he should not be lying here so calmly; he ought to smash his forehead to the floor in prostration this very instant. Unfortunately his body was completely unresponsive.
Ah… that one is a monster as well. The king of monsters, no less. I finally understand what that girl meant by “majesty.” I tried to imitate that? What a joke.
He sincerely loathed his own past stupidity. What exactly had he thought he was going up against? And what was he doing now?
Ah, right. The proposal. He had to accept the proposal offered by the king of monsters.
“I will let you go. I will make that dying body move again, and I will even give you the chance for the revenge you so desperately wanted.”
The offer extended to him was far too sweet. His vision had grown too hazy to make out details, but that no longer mattered. His mouth still worked. Clotted blood half-blocked his throat; he forced it out.
“However, the price will be your memories and your ego.”
This monster is the same as those bastards. They take a price and hand over power. Then it’s simple, isn’t it? All I have to do is take it.
“I… accept…”
He agreed to the contract without the slightest hesitation.
Afraid of the price? Hell no! There’s no way a cursed life like mine has any good memories!! I’ve always wished someone would just wipe everything clean, as if nothing had ever existed from the start!
The ego part bothered him a little, but at this point he no longer cared. He would complete his revenge. That was enough. Even if he scraped by in this damned world, monsters like the ones before him would appear someday!
Better to get what I want and die right here than spend every day trembling in fear, bleeding out drop by drop!!!!
“You agreed so fast it’s almost funny… well, whatever.”
I proposed it expecting exactly that, after all.
Black Death left those words and looked down at him. In that moment a light kindled deep within the shadows. A pure white flame. A radiance more pure than anything else, and therefore the most noble of all, settled into a pair of eyes.
Eyes?
Before the thought could finish, the shadows swallowed him. At the same time a strange sensation of something being ripped free with a wet tear rose through him, and his body floated into the air.
His body felt light. The pain remained, yet more than that it felt as though he had cast off something heavy all at once. When he looked down he saw his own corpse lying there, dead.
…Huh? What?
“Tsk. Even after ripping out the ego on the brink of death, it’s still like this? I’ll have to extract the memories separately and quickly.”
Then came the sensation of his body being split in two. The feeling of his very foundation being annihilated, the feeling of committing something that must never be done, filled him with revulsion. So he clenched his will.
Crack! Snap!
The sound of sparks flying reached him. What was happening right now? Where was this place? I’m scared. Mom, where are you? Are you abandoning me again? I’ll be good, I promise. Please, come back. It hurts. I’m scared. It’s dark. Tingling. I want to go back!!!
“Fulfill the contract.”
At the death sentence that followed, he released his strength.
…Right. I have to fulfill the contract. I don’t want to. I don’t want to die. It was a meaningless life anyway. No it wasn’t. This body still has a bright future!!! I’ll kill that bitch. I’ll rape her right in front of her husband. I’ve wanted to fuck her for ages. Let’s use her as a broodmare. With her power she’ll definitely birth excellent pawns. I’m sad. It hurts. I just want it to end. Those luscious lips, I want to lick—
“Just die already, for fuck’s sake!”
Rip!!
Ah, I’m dying. He knew it instinctively.
…But what does dying even mean?
Yashiro Hisame’s thoughts ended there.
“Just die already, for fuck’s sake!”
Rip!!
The cycle of thoughts was so disgusting just to watch that I lost control of my strength and tore the soul roughly. It was already at the end of its rope, so the damage wasn’t severe, but a portion of the memories got a little damaged.
“Tsk.”
From start to finish there wasn’t a single thing I liked about the guy. Still, I had completely secured the ego I wanted most, so I’d call that good enough.
I quickly skimmed through the memories, selected only what I needed, and separated them. Everything else would serve as material. Leaving filthy things like that in what I wanted would only exert unnecessary influence on the formation of the personality.
First I double-sealed the ego and memories the same way as before and handed them off to the Hive. Then I pulled out a suitable monster corpse, some magic stones, and a fake soul.
“A villain’s final thrashing is best done by fusing with a monster right before death.”
Conveniently, the monsters outside had been more or less cleaned up. With Ban Taewung on the scene, there was no way they wouldn’t be handled.
If anything, the fact that the monster had held out this long against attacks that were pure fraud in human form was the impressive part.
“Traces?”
“I concealed everything on the way here. Unit 3 erased the CCTV footage as well as every surrounding mana wavelength, and Unit 4 captured the puppets hiding in the dark and is standing by.”
At the continuous stream of reports I nodded in satisfaction without even thinking.
Worth every bit of mana I handed over. Thanks to that, a huge amount of the metal and magic stones stockpiled inside the Shirogane workshop had been consumed, but that much I could replenish myself.
“Well done. You produced better results than I expected, so I was able to collect everything comfortably.”
“I am overwhelmed by your kind words.”
While my hands continued combining the materials, Comet grasped both edges of her skirt, bowed her head, and offered a flawless curtsy.
Sometimes looking at her made me wonder if she had rolled around in the imperial palace of some fantasy world. The original dungeon boss that served as Comet’s base was pure far-future sci-fi, after all.
A reflection of her previous master’s tastes? Or simply Comet’s own stubbornness as a maid?
She was my summon, yet I still didn’t fully understand this side of her. Probably something I just couldn’t grasp. Tastes were like that for everyone.
And it wasn’t limited to Comet. Most of my summons were the same. They had clear likes and dislikes—preferences, even.
Growl, for example, preferred tough, chewy meat with a good bite over soft, tender cuts.
Echidna had developed a taste for teaching others and spreading her doctrine.
There had been faint signs of it while she was educating Keres, but from the day she perfected the Doctrine of Rest that tendency had become absolute.
If I asked, they would tell me everything without holding back—then immediately start watching my reactions. I didn’t want that. Interfering with every little thing would never end, and more importantly it was a pain in the ass.
I used summons so I could take it easy. Why would I get tangled up in annoying nonsense?
So my role was to understand and guide them before they started fretting over my mood.
No one else had chosen this path; I had chosen it myself and decided to walk it.
I would live this way for the rest of my life—unless I cured my chronic inability to trust people.
Dealing with people who could jump in any direction was far more exhausting than looking after summons I could control with certainty.
In short, what I wanted to say was this:
Once the framework was set, let them do whatever they wanted afterward.
Those aspects you could never understand just by looking at a status window. They grew stronger and more colorful through repeated evolution and accumulated experience.
I decided to call that an “ego.” In English, ego. From ancient times, when fantasy gained an ego it inevitably became strong.
So if I could add that variety even a little earlier in the initial stages, an even more powerful individual would be born.
“…Though I’ll have to run experiments first.”
I combined the leftover scrap memories I had adjusted with the fake soul.
Screee, screee
A discordant noise like Styrofoam rubbing together grated on the ears, but when I forced more power into it they finally fused.
That wasn’t the end. I added Engraving Art to the now slightly murky fake soul. I erased every trace of my involvement and added a few lines of dialogue that would color the scenario afterward.
“Master, may I offer one opinion?”
“Go ahead.”
“As a personal hope, I believe using Unit 2, currently fighting outside, would be best.”
“Unit 2?”
My first thought upon hearing that was, Why bother?
Unlike Units 3 and 4, which were still active, Unit 2 had been created solely to serve as Comet’s body double.
Calling it a body double was a bit of a stretch, though—Comet was directly controlling it even while we talked like this.
Multitasking possible only because she was a machine, I supposed. More precisely, it was connected through her unique network, but digging deeper would get complicated, so I let it slide.
Simply put, it was similar to how the dungeon boss of the Machine Tower of the Snow Country I had visited before had been linked to other machines, exchanging information and controlling them.
Even a still-underdeveloped dungeon boss could do it; there was no way Comet, built on that base, couldn’t.
Of course she wasn’t transferring her mind directly. It felt more like controlling a completely different character in a game in real time, synchronized with the base unit.
Unit 2 would be moving almost indistinguishably from Comet right now, but the moment she stopped controlling it I suspected it would instantly turn into an emotionless NPC.
“First, here is Unit 2’s history.”
Seeing my lukewarm reaction, Comet continued trying to persuade me by displaying a report. After reading the completed hologram I had no choice but to nod.
I see. So that’s why she said that.
Through my mana Comet had repeatedly strengthened and modified it, so Unit 2’s body had reached the point where half-hearted attacks simply wouldn’t work.
But because the performance had been forcibly raised in a rush, the strain on the machine itself was severe, and its sustainable operational capacity had dropped dramatically. That was her final assessment—and the truth.
“So basically, since it’s going to break anyway, let’s use it as bait and sacrifice it for maximum effect?”
“Yes. Frankly, if Unit 2—which could stop at any moment—and my intact self appear at the same time, it will only cause confusion. There is also the possibility of giving others information about me as an individual later. Therefore, having Unit 2 break once at the same moment the monster ‘awakens,’ after which you recover it separately, is the correct picture.”
“…Leaving room for the idea that I’m not omnipotent, planting the illusion that I can be countered.”
And with Ban Taewung involved, this opportunity could also serve as a trigger for his growth. The more I listened, the more I liked it.
“It truly is not my intention to diminish Master’s prestige even a little, but the merits we can gain in exchange are simply too good. Therefore I suggested this, believing it is the sort of choice Master would make.”
With those final words Comet closed her eyes and bowed her head. It meant she had only offered an opinion; the final decision was entirely mine.
“…Not bad.”
No—honestly the plan itself was quite appealing. There was just one thing I had to be careful about. When she proposed something like this or similar in the future, was there any guarantee she wouldn’t try to insert other summons into it?
I thought it over carefully, then decided. I would make that point crystal clear right now.
“Don’t die if you can help it. Just do as much as you can. Even if you can be revived through me, that doesn’t make the pain go away.”
Remembering how she was usually so carefree yet became utterly deferential at times like this, I gave a small snort of laughter and ruffled her hair with a few light pats.
“I’m not saying your way of thinking is wrong. You simply arrived at a result I myself would have reached.”
Yes. For the sake of results I would willingly expend all of you.
That was why I had created you. The only reason none of you had died so far was because there had been no need.
And I would continue striving so that such a day never came.
If the day ever arrived when someone had to be expended, that decision would belong solely to me.
No outside will could enter that process. The operation had to be carried out solely through my thinking, based on my decision.
Only then could I tell you without regret that you had done well, that you had worked hard.
If you ever banded together to try to expend someone, I would be furious. Everyone under me is equal. Never forget that.
I transmitted it without the slightest filter through the link. Not only to her. This was something every summon currently manifested—and every one not yet summoned—needed to take to heart.
“…I am truly sorry for causing you such excessive concern.”
“Yeah.”
It wasn’t really concern. Just a preemptive measure against the trouble that might arise if their egos grew too strong.
My summons would continue to increase from now on, and among them there would inevitably be some absolute bastards no matter how hard I tried to rehabilitate them.
Looking only at the result, I accepted Comet’s proposal. Unit 2 wasn’t even my summon; it was a literal consumable Comet had manufactured.
By any comparison its priority sat firmly at the bottom of the list.
Just as I knew them, they knew me, so of course Comet had made this suggestion.
I fleshed out the rough outline and thought through more concrete staging.
At the same time I continued the engraving. The method itself was taken straight from the chimera’s. But the concepts inside were somewhat of my own adoption.
Only to the degree that nothing of “me” would show—things anyone could think of, anyone could use—I wove them into form.
Even if someone investigated later, only traces of the bastard who made those disgusting chimeras would appear; nothing of me would surface.
“The trigger is the moment the object breaks, and the rest is the direction after fusion…”
Personally I wanted to go with maximizing the original. Early-stage summons didn’t have much, so a direction that strengthened what they already possessed was best.
I could always modify it later, so there was no downside. Mix in a heavy dose of the monster’s mana and—oh my, how marvelous.
Thud!
The corpse that had been dead until a moment ago began to move.
Drip… drip…
It couldn’t even close its mouth properly and drool kept falling, so it didn’t look much different from a corpse, but the important part was that drool. If you listened carefully you could hear a faint heartbeat.
In other words, bodily functions had started working again.
It was also proof that the ego I had carved out, the incomplete memories, and the fake soul I had forcibly jammed in so they could function properly were all doing their jobs.
Shall we power it up, then? I made a shadow flame flicker in front of its eyes. Little by little, by touching the power of the soul, I gradually brought the partial emotions still dormant in a vegetative state inside it to the surface.
“Kill… her.”
That alone was enough to bring forth the most intense impression it had held at the end.
Light returned to the vacant pupils. But it was a light far too sticky and filthy. As the magic stones of the monsters inside collided, its purple eyes began to gleam with an ominous light.
Finally I pressed a suitably plausible talisman and one of the items from the Shirogane warehouse into its hand.
I hadn’t put any special functions into them.
They merely served as a signal flare announcing that the tastiest-looking, yet immediately edible, weak prey among them was itself.
In intuitive terms, it was extreme aggro.
I had mixed in the pattern of the chimera that had once poured out Shirogane Ichiro’s mana, so the effect would be perfect. It would draw not only from its own mana but from the massive number of monster magic stones embedded in its body, so there was no problem.
With such a flawless, ultimate bait sitting right in front of it, even a dying monster would lose its mind and charge straight in.
With that, every preparation was complete. The villain who would decorate the finale was ready. Now it was time to bring down the curtain on this tedious farce.
“Standby.”
Snap!
At the sound of my fingers the villain staggered and began walking toward the stage.
Its figure was no different from a condemned prisoner walking toward the guillotine.