Summoner (6)
The Temple Encroached by Madness was set against a stone city nestled deep in the heart of a wildly overgrown jungle.
A fusion of wilderness and urban combat. Even from a distance the dungeon looked nightmarishly complex, and the reason was simple: its main monsters were orcs disguised as natives.
Orcs.
Like goblins, they were a type of demi-human monster. Their intelligence lagged behind goblins, but their physical stats more than made up for it. A racial trait left them with an extraordinarily sharp sense of smell—sharp enough that even in places with limited visibility they could distinguish friend from foe by scent alone.
The dungeon’s concept was that a pack of these orcs had wandered into a peculiar temple and made it their own.
They wore long masks covered in geometric sigils that completely hid their faces and two-thirds of their bodies—an abnormal sight said to be modeled after the god this temple of madness worshiped. Higher-ranking ones wore larger, more ornate masks as custom, so even the lowliest orc never went without one. That was the prior intel I had gathered on this place.
“Chwik! Chwi, chwichwik!”
“Chwiiik! Chwek!”
But the sight before me twisted that information a full three hundred and sixty degrees into something warped and wrong.
They still wore the masks. The distinctive grunts that sounded like the last syllables of a rice cooker finishing its cycle, the bodies wrapped in thick layers of fat—all of it still said “orc.”
What I had never expected was the giant single eyeball sitting in the center of each mask, and the writhing tentacles that had replaced the usual decorations.
The finishing touch: those tentacles punched straight through the orcs’ skin as if it were the most natural thing in the world, pulsing like veins under the surface.
What did people call those things again? Whale parasites?
“...Fucking disgusting.”
I felt like I was going to throw up on the spot. It wasn’t just the sheer horror of the sight; something about those eyes alone triggered pure revulsion.
Anyone could see they were far past normal. At this point it was safer to assume they had been infected by something else entirely—barely clinging to their original forms. I looked away.
“...Hup!”
“Ugh...”
The others reacted much the same. Sera Bright, the crusader who wielded holy power, went beyond mere disgust; she glared at the infected orcs as enemies that absolutely had to be cut down.
If we hadn’t been here—and if the mission hadn’t been a hostage rescue—she would already have charged out and taken one of those grotesque heads.
That would have been a terrible move.
Creatures like these were almost always linked, nerve or mind, to a mother body. That was the rule of thumb.
The orcs that had been hunting deer-like monsters native to the dungeon wrapped their prey in tentacles and headed deeper into the temple.
I watched them go, then spoke.
“...Looks like the corruption’s pretty advanced. Still no change of heart?”
In other words: we were still infiltrating the temple those monsters had just entered.
“It’s definitely... not ordinary.”
“If you want to switch plans now, say so.”
Sera Bright’s eyes twitched as she looked at me.
“My decision to join the rescue team remains unchanged. Stop testing me with that tone.”
“Hmm. Fair enough. What about the rest of you?”
I turned in order to Ban Taewung, Luicia Valentia, and finally Hong Su-ah.
“...I still want to go with the rescue team.”
“No objections here.”
“Yeah. This gives us the best odds.”
The rescue team would be Ban Taewung, Luicia Valentia, Sera Bright, and Hong Su-ah—four people.
Reconnaissance itself would be handled by my shadow crows, so their sole focus was extracting the missing students.
If things turned into a free-for-all they would have to fight, and someone like Riri—who couldn’t protect herself while fighting—would only be a liability.
So Riri would move with me. Our job was to draw every eye so the rescue team inside could move freely.
“I’ll start pulling aggro, then. The rest of you handle your end.”
Hong Su-ah nodded and adjusted the red gauntlets on her fists.
Simple enough.
One way or another the information would get through. So even if it did, we just had to make sure they had no strength left to send anything after us.
Make them treat the chaos we were raising outside as the greater threat.
“Hive.”
“Caw!”
Hive burst from my shadow and took to the air. I poured mana into him without holding back.
Fwoosh-sh-sh!!!
The black speck racing skyward began to swell. Like ink spilled across white paper, it slowly but surely claimed the sky.
Roughly ten thousand.
That was the maximum I could field without any skill boosts while still keeping more than seventy percent of my mana in reserve. And I wasn’t finished.
“Caaaaaw!!!”
““Caaaaaaaaaw!!!!!!!!!!””
At Hive’s command they dove. Four slipped into the shadows of Ban Taewung and the others; the rest fanned out through the forest.
“Chwek!! Chwik??!!”
“Kuiiiik!! Krik, chwek!”
Orc cries erupted from every corner of the woods. Screams echoed and collided from all directions, and with every clash I felt my stats climbing in real time.
Just as I thought the climb was nearing its limit—
Thump!
Skill Subjugator has leveled up.
All stats have increased by 1.
My heart slammed once, hard, and the skill that had felt stuck forever finally rose. The effect itself was outrageous, and the experience it demanded was so high that the level-up reward was equally generous.
But that wasn’t the important part.
Whoooom!!
As if proving my theory correct, the stat gains from Subjugator doubled. Each stat jumped by two hundred—eight hundred total. The sudden change was both welcome and difficult.
Bones that had been ever so slightly misaligned shattered and reformed into something closer to completion. I could feel the optic nerves behind my eyes with startling clarity. My head felt clean, as if someone had scooped out my brain, washed it, and put it back.
Breathing grew heavy. The world slowed. Beyond the effects of the skill Combat Focus, I could now steer my brain’s functions in whatever direction I wanted.
Just by looking I could read the entire situation as clearly as if I stood there myself.
Through the link with Hive—and further with every shadow crow—an overwhelming flood of information poured in. A volume that would have been impossible before, yet I processed it all.
It was more than enough to taste a fleeting sense of omnipotence.
“Caaaaaaaaaw!!!!!!!!!!”
Hive’s mana went berserk. No—mine did. The effects of Subjugator weren’t mine alone. Everything under me shared them.
Hive was desperately adapting to the sudden surge in stats while simultaneously enduring the crushing volume of mana I was feeding him.
Dangerous...
I grabbed my head on pure reflex, anchoring a mind that felt ready to fly apart.
I couldn’t let this sensation take over. If I did, everything would end. Forcing the brakes on the flow brought an instinctive rejection. Why stop? my body pleaded.
Go further. A little further. You can do it now.
You have the power to sweep everything away—why hold back? Pitch-black shadows overflowed and clung to me, pressing down.
They covered my face. Like countless dead approaching, they slowly swallowed my body.
Again. That sensation. That memory from back then.
Black deaths stood all around. Blood from the weapons that had riddled my body soaked the ground.
Kill. Violate. Massacre.
Subjugate everything.
Submit to everything.
At some point a black mass stood beside me. Something in the shape of a child looked up at me.
I seized the sword lodged in my body. And I swung it—
Crack!!
—straight down into my own leg.
The blade punched clean through with satisfying force. The mass in front of me flinched as if startled.
“...Huu.”
I exhaled and swept the stifling shadows off my face like brushing hair back.
“...So that’s how it works?”
Of course a skill this insane wouldn’t come free. If you lacked the capacity to handle it, it simply swallowed you whole. Was that it?
“Those without the qualifications shall not return alive!”—it wasn’t even that dramatic, and the sheer absurdity left me almost speechless.
Still, it snapped me fully awake. Too awake, if anything.
I was used to the electric jolt that ran up my spine when I got hurt. But the pain rising from the soul itself, amplified by my own skill, made cold sweat pour out on its own.
“Um, uh...”
“Hah?”
I answered more sharply than intended while fighting the pain. My gaze dropped. Riri stared up at me with wide, startled eyes, one hand reaching toward me.
Pshhk.
There, completely piercing my leg and soaking the ground with my blood, was the shadow sword.
“Ah.”
Only then did I convert the blade still stuck through my leg into pure hemostasis and restoration, then casually dusted off my hands.
“It’s nothing.”
“...Really?”
“If you don’t believe me, just heal it.”
“Uh... o-okay.”
I ignored Riri as she began constructing healing magic over my leg and focused entirely on Hive, who had blackened the sky until nothing else remained.
“Get a grip.”
Crack!
I couldn’t see him, but I felt Hive freeze midair. At the same time came a flood of information—more than Hive could process alone.
I seized it all, funneling it into one stream to help him. Buying time for him to adapt to his new stats.
I divided the crows into squads, then redesignated those squads into companies, repeatedly grouping individuals. The structure itself was modeled after the military of my previous life.
The old army had been criticized for overly linear information flow and the resulting time lag. That meant nothing to my summons.
Instant information transfer was possible. So this was only a nominal hierarchy. Anyone could replace anyone else, creating the simplest, most rational structure possible.
Movements that had been formless and chaotic began to take on sharp angles as they moved in perfect unison.
I cut anything unnecessary. Blindly swelling numbers only made for an easy target. I kept the advantage of numbers while shifting toward quality.
Shadow crows merged; the sky that had been pure black began to look like a screen full of static. Judging that enough, I handed full authority to the now-clear-headed Hive.
“Wipe them out.”
Leave not a single one. Trample everything on the ground.
Gather information. Search for what I want.
““Caaaaaw!!!!””
““Caw! Caaaaw!!””
The massive flock split into two commands and scattered in every direction. Watching them, I felt the sting in my leg steadily fade.
That should be enough healing. I quickly pulled the data and marked every area confirmed empty of people.
I gathered mana at my fingertips. What I called forth was my third—now the irreplaceable core of my combat power.
“Kallion.”
Snap!
KRAAAAAAASH!!!!
A violent explosion of mana erupted with a blast of light. I fed him power. Mana condensed around the neck of the newly appeared Kallion.
The base was the skill Howling that Growl had originally possessed—not true magic, but a mana-laced cry that produced certain effects.
Kallion didn’t know it, but I remembered. I combined that pattern with the mana signature of the skill Demi Breath he had used even before evolving.
The image was a roar. Recreating, with a dragon’s power, the cry that had once shaken heaven and earth.
It was improvised, so I couldn’t pour any special force into it—but it should serve as a warning to whatever was hiding somewhere in this place.
If you don’t start dealing with this right now, you will die.
So thrash as hard as you can.
“Support.”
“Got it.”
Just by reading the residual mana around Kallion, Riri instantly understood what I wanted and reinforced the incomplete magic.
What had been a clumsy pseudo-spell ready to collapse at any moment was reborn as true magic under her hands.
“Amplify. Overwhelm. Attention.”
Different completed spells formed in Riri’s other hand and settled around Kallion.
They amplified the caster’s magic power, overwhelmed the target to heighten the sense of crisis, and focused all aggro in one place.
In short, the perfect suite for drawing every eye.
Then Kallion’s trait Holy mixed in. Contained within was the power of rejection and denial. I maximized that force and focused it solely on annihilation and destruction.
Different from disintegration. Erase everything it touches without leaving even a single speck of dust.
Kuuuuung!!!
Kallion soared. For all his massive bulk he rose with startling speed, like a white meteor climbing the sky in reverse.
The target was already set. The polar light meant only to erase that place completely reached its peak—
“GUuuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-----------!!!”
Clang!
The dragon’s roar tore through space.
---------------!!!!!!!
My body trembled. A primal emotion rising from the difference between species.
Fear.
The power of a dragon—regarded as the apex of living beings—sounded an alarm through every cell.
Dragon Fear
Part of the failure came from how hastily I had thrown it together, but the real cause this time was my clumsy control over Kallion’s trait.
A roar laced with mana. That alone erased the ground.
Yes—erased it.
Nothing remained.
The dense jungle, the temple ruins half-hidden among the trees, even the orcs that had been brawling with the shadow crows outside—all of it.
...The entire outer perimeter simply vanished.
Good thing I had aimed at an empty zone. If I had fired straight into the center, we probably wouldn’t have found even corpses.
From the darkness of the impossibly deep crater came the faint sound of water. Since the place was shaped like a temple, there would be underground waterways as well.
I would send shadow crows there too. From ancient times, underground waterways had always served as both entrance and exit.
“...Huu.”
I let out a quiet breath of admiration at the overwhelming spectacle, then carefully composed my expression and turned around.
There stood Ban Taewung and Luicia with their mouths hanging open, Hong Su-ah with trembling eyes, and Sera staring at Kallion with eyes wider than the other three combined.
Snap! Snap!
I flicked my fingers twice, loading them with mana to snap them out of it. Every gaze swung toward me.
“What are you doing? Get moving already.”
““...””
No reply. Just blank stares of pure disbelief.
It wasn’t as if they saw a summoner fight for the first or second time—why the shock?
The ones who usually put on even flashier shows than me looking this stunned left me the one feeling more absurd.
I said nothing more. I simply jerked my chin toward the massive structure at the temple’s heart.
No answer came.
For reasons I couldn’t guess, Ban Taewung and the others reignited their resolve. They looked at one another, nodded, and drew their weapons.
The real rescue operation had begun.