The Summoner of ■■ (9)

Would you call this the aftermath of the whole mess?

"Taewung..."

"Erika. If you can't carry it alone, we carry it together. That's what you told me back then."

"...Yeah. I did. I'm sorry."

"Eri, skip the sorry and just say thank you. We didn't save you because we wanted an apology."

"Luicia... okay. Thank you. You too, Riri. All of you... thank you."

Onohara Erika had made it out safely, undergone a full battery of precision tests and treatment, and been cleared of any abnormalities. She recovered so thoroughly that she could have completed discharge paperwork after a single day.

Whether it was because her shrine-maiden power—something close to divine energy—had been laced through her mana, or because Ban Taewung's power that rescued her was simply that extraordinary, the physical aftereffects were practically nonexistent.

Still, under the Academy's "consideration" that she needed rest, she was kept for three days of observation like everyone else.

In the process, a common thread emerged.

Every single one of them had developed PTSD—post-traumatic stress disorder.

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠others hadn't been badly hurt on the outside either. But the mental contamination, combined with being trapped so long in a sealed space, left them with severe aversions: to darkness, to the feeling of being chased, to any forced restriction of mana or divine power. Some developed a terror of maze-like places. Others flinched violently at nothing more than eye contact.

The longer the contamination had lasted, the more the damage had gone inward rather than outward.

The worst signs showed in the three who had been outright taken as hosts by the tentacles.

In Onohara Erika's case, once the care was finished, her heart rate only rose a little when she entered dark places. The other two, however, displayed such sharp mental rejection that you could almost mistake them for broken wrecks. Passing out like their minds had simply checked out was the mild version. Panic attacks that sprayed mana everywhere were the baseline. Their ability to tell friend from foe seemed shattered—or maybe they had simply reclassified everything that wasn't themselves as an enemy—so anything that approached got attacked without distinction.

When the episode—call it an outbreak or a seizure—finally ended, they would come to their senses late, either drowning in self-reproach or, in the worst cases, remembering nothing of what they had done.

The residual effects from being used as hosts had apparently settled into the brain and tangled themselves into genuine mental illness. Both were judged to need specialized psychiatric care and were transferred to a dedicated hospital where the Academy could provide intensive treatment.

Of the students who had been rescued, more than half began to doubt the Academy's safety, felt their own powerlessness keenly, and even declared their intention to withdraw of their own accord. The moment combat itself became something they feared and rejected, their lives as Awakened were effectively over. Odds were high that after expulsion they would be forced into mana-suppression procedures "just in case." Those seals would only come off once enough time had passed and they were judged normal again.

As for the ones who had caused the whole incident—Hong Su-ah and the rest of us—we received a light disciplinary measure.

The reason? We had entered the dungeon without proper authorization, filed a false report claiming we already had permission, and charged in on our own.

Because the end result had been the right one, they didn't press any serious charges. Instead we were handed an unwanted vacation under the name of "self-reflection." Exactly one week.

I genuinely thought it was fine. The others, apparently, did not find it so easy to accept. Free rest, and they still wanted to suffer? I was so sincerely baffled that I told them to their faces they couldn't even tell a formal slap on the wrist when they saw one. Only then did they swallow it.

Honestly, if you don't spoon-feed them right next to their mouths they never get it. How long am I supposed to keep giving them remedial lessons? I ground them down so thoroughly that the others finally caught the mood and told me that was enough. Thanks to that, my own self-reflection period got extended by two extra days. The reason? You can figure it out without me saying it. Let's just note that a small "conversation" (physical) took place.

I was grateful for the extra days off, so I shut my mouth and accepted it. Outwardly, though, I still had to look like I hadn't accepted anything, so I spent the entire interrogation day wearing a thoroughly sour expression and scowling for real.

In the end the incident was resolved cleanly. The culprit had already been identified and caught, and the whole disturbance had been handled inside the Academy, so it never blew up into anything larger. The fact that our punishment stopped at simple self-reflection was proof enough.

That was the end of what happened that day.

The important part was me.

More precisely, the rewards and experience from clearing the dungeon.

The reason the number of enemies Riri and I had swept up felt unnaturally high was that they had been tangled in from other dungeons. In other words, the monsters that appeared weren't only the ones native to the Temple Encroached by Madness. Creatures from other dungeons had mixed in because the dungeons had been temporarily linked.

The Residue of the Evil God—specifically the power called Opaque Connection—had made the impossible temporarily possible. Even a residue of a "god" still carried authority-level power, so of course it could. The fact that it had been parasitically nested in the temple that served as the dungeon's backdrop played a big part.

Or maybe I should call it a blessing?

In the end, more rewards than a single dungeon should ever yield poured into me at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠once. While I was still worrying about raising Keres, she blasted past level 25 and slammed into level 30, which left me making a strangled noise of pure disbelief.

The real problem started now.

"...Fuck. What the hell is this supposed to be?"

I stared at the status window that kept flickering insistently in front of my eyes and could only sigh.

Up to there it was the usual. The problem started with the brand-new [Job Change Available] marker that had never been there before.

I had planned to raise Keres and a new summon to a decent level first, then move on to the next step. When I tried to ignore the prompt and do something else, the status window kept popping up and blocking my vision.

That forced insistence went past mere annoyance into outright suspicion. I used an old trick—leaving the window open and pinning it to the corner of my vision. The normally translucent window turned completely opaque, then finally filled my entire field of view so thoroughly I couldn't even move.

It looked exactly like a tantrum demanding I do it right now, which only pissed me off more. Since I was already stuck in self-reflection, I shut my eyes tight and decided to ignore it completely—vision be damned.

Doing what it wanted would feel like rolling over for that god bastard, and that was just too galling.

Even if I abandoned my eyes, I still had my summons, so it wasn't that inconvenient. I thought I could ride it out for a day or two. Then the thing started pinging me with notification sounds nonstop. When I tried to sleep through it, the noise got louder and more frantic. And because only I could hear it, there was no way to report it or shut it off.

The only solution was to perform the second job change right now. By that point, pure spite had kicked in and I wanted to do it even less.

The problem was that enduring it for a day or two was one thing; if this kept up I was going to develop a full-blown neurosis and die of rage first. Even if I fixed it, the endless ding! ding! would probably keep ringing in my ears for a while and spike my blood pressure.

I genuinely felt like I was going to go insane.

Still, I held out. How many days? Three more full days.

Because of it I even gained the skill Mental Attack Resistance, and leveled it once in that short span.

Even with the resistance, I couldn't take any more.

The next time I see that god bastard's face I'm going to grate it like a radish on a steel plate. Blasphemy this, blasphemy that—fuck all of it. No one can stop me now. I have a legitimate grudge.

That bastard decided to torment me on purpose, so I've decided to do nothing but things that bastard will hate.

First on the list: keep feeding Ban Taewung the idea that this god is a complete piece of shit and the black curtain that was controlling him all along, until the two of them end up permanently at odds. That's locked in. No room later for any "there were circumstances" laundry cycle. I'll drive the nail in so hard it never comes out. What's so great about this world anyway? It's this fucked-up shape because that bastard couldn't even manage his own shit properly.

Am I wrong? No, I'm right!! Get openly cursed out by the kid you played favorites with and take a knife in the back, you absolute son of a bitch.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding-ding-ding!!!

The system alarms in my ears started wailing like a full-blown siren. You mad? You mad??? I'm mad too, you piece of shit. Finally feels like we're having a real conversation. Makes me so happy. You fucking bastard.

Thanks to the poison you poured out, I know exactly what you hate, so look forward to it. Whatever you imagine, I'll show you something beyond imagination. You know the person with nothing left to lose is the ugliest and filthiest of all, right? You didn't. That's why you pulled this shit on me.

If you'd known, you never would have dragged me into this shitty world in the first place, and you never would have handed me that ridiculous "destined class" at the start!!

"...Haa."

So this is just one step back so I can take two steps forward. I am absolutely not folding because I got caught. I seriously considered whether a quick suicide might be more peaceful than putting up with this any longer. If you've got complaints, take them up with the god bastard who pushed me this far.

After thoroughly cursing the god out in my head, I kindly pressed the [Job Change Available] button with my middle finger—nice and slow, the same way I used to put out a cigarette in my past life.

It was a habit I'd practiced to death back then, so a few years off hadn't rusted the skill. Not that putting out cigarettes is a skill that can rust in the first place.

Ah. Now I really want a cigarette.

Thud.

The moment I lifted my finger, the endless noise stopped as if it had never existed. Goddamn son of a bitch. Chewing him to death wouldn't even be satisfying enough.

I checked the new window that appeared the instant I released the button.

"...Haa?"

The sigh got stuck halfway and turned into pure confusion. Calling it a job change was generous; this was just the system trying to grab me by the scruff and drag me the direction it wanted. The universal path's High Summoner was, looking at the results alone, a downgrade from what I already had.

I was already running primarily on contracted summons. There was no need to average my abilities out into a generic summoner who could call up random other things.

And yet that option was sitting right there. In other words: if you won't move the way I want, then stay crushed in the dirt.

"Fuck off."

I skipped the first one immediately. The second and third weren't even worth considering.

"Shit. I rejected it as my destined class and now you're shoving it at me again as a job change?"

The third one was the destined class I had already refused once. Just because I came from a ruined world, I was supposed to turn this one into the same thing? Quietly become growth fodder for the protagonist? I'd already laughed in its face about how cliché it was for the childhood friend to show up as the villain and told it to go fuck itself—less than ten years ago.

That rejection was basically the reason I chose Summoner in the first place. Did it seriously think I'd pick it now? Was it actually brain-dead?

Choosing any of those three would be the most unfunny joke in existence. Why the hell would I pick something that looked that much like a pain in the ass?

"And what the hell is the last one?"

I couldn't begin to understand what kind of stunt it was trying to pull that the letters themselves came out completely garbled. I pressed my throbbing temples and, almost on reflex, opened the Book of Summoning.

Even I didn't know why I did it. It just felt like the right move—the same gut instinct that had kept me alive since my previous life.

"Book of Summoning."

Shrrraaak!!!

The moment the book answered my call, its pages began flipping like mad. The dramatic change I'd never seen before told me I'd hit the correct answer.

"Ugh..."

Just like the first time I ever opened it, the book started sucking mana at high speed to form letters. I felt a strange nostalgia at the sight.

Yeah. Back then, too, I'd told everything to fuck off and chosen Summoner—one of the most niche basic classes.

Regret? None. If I went back to that day and the same choices appeared, I'd pick the same one a hundred times over and live that day again. I can say with complete confidence that I did it right. I didn't do a single thing wrong.

Shrrrk!

The endless mana-sucking finally stopped.

The letters on the page were scattered and jumbled, hard to read at a glance, but my skills—Speed Reading, Record, and Dismantle—quickly broke them down, recombined them, and turned them into proper, readable text.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"..."

I almost spoke the words out loud before I managed to stop myself.

The book's contents were as follows.

...It was so perfectly aimed at exactly what I needed, so perfectly targeted at me, that I felt suspicion instead of relief.

But the reality was that I had nothing else worth trusting.

If I put the decision off here, the alarms would start screaming even harder and scrape my sanity raw. It might even start assigning meaning to every tiny action I took and force me into choosing only what it wanted.

That kind of insanity had to be avoided at all costs. Better to take the risk and pick number 4.

Whatever I chose, my current summons wouldn't disappear. The Hives were linked to my soul. The only real risk was that further growth might be blocked from this point on.

That single fact was what made me hesitate.

In the end I closed the book and opened the job-change window again. Number 4 was still completely garbled; I still couldn't tell what sat there. But it was the only option left.

Number 1 was out of the question. Numbers 2 and 3 I absolutely refused to take.

I pressed 4 without further delay.

Shrrraaak!!!

Pages tore free and flew toward the broken letters. One by one the shattered characters found their original shapes and became readable text again.

Something had been attached to the previously blank name. Levels had risen a little. The completely useless Taming had turned into a new skill called Book of Combination.

Its level had dropped to 4—same as the Book of Summoning—yet my stats had gone up, which was a strange phenomenon.

Combat Command, which I had mostly handed off to the Hives, had become a new skill called Link. Information transfer that used to be somewhat vague was now smoother and more certain, and I could even open temporary channels through Link with beings that weren't my summons. Efficiency was poor if they weren't mine, but the fact that a similar effect was possible at all felt significant.

"...Is that everything?"

With the job change finished, the noisy alerts stopped and nothing blocked my vision anymore.

In truth, not much had changed. Just in case, I checked the Book of Summoning; the only real difference was that the number of summons I could call had increased by two, bringing the total to seven. Nothing else major.

That left the Book of Combination, and I still had zero idea what it actually did.

Unlike the Book of Summoning, it showed no intention of appearing even when I tried to use it, so some condition probably still hadn't been met. I sighed and simply closed the status window.

"...For now, maintaining the status quo is good enough."

Yeah. As long as nothing got worse than before, that was enough. If I could properly uncover the name later, I might be able to start making deductions from it. Right now there was nothing I could do.

My head just hurt.

I couldn't even leave the room during self-reflection, so I might as well sleep. Maybe my brain wasn't working because I hadn't rested properly.

Sleep. When I wake up, something will probably come to me.

Without a single further thought I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes.

Knock knock.

"...Fuck."

Not even a full minute after my body hit the mattress, someone started knocking on the door.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

I let out the sigh that had already become a habit and got up. I already had a rough idea who it was—Hong Su-ah or someone in her orbit, most likely.

Self-reflection period or not, pretending I wasn't here would just earn me more demerits. What an unreasonable world.

"Ah...!"

When I opened the door, the person standing there shattered my expectations completely. Blue hair. Shin Na-rae.

The disciplinary measures only applied to those of us who had entered the dungeon without permission. The actual victims were just that—victims—and the moment they received clearance for daily life they had gone straight back to their normal routines.

She was one of those victims.

I had heard that, driven by the single-minded desire to save everyone, she had squeezed out the last of her divine power to create a signal flare, only to be surrounded by enemies right afterward—until Ban Taewung pulled her out.

So why was she standing in front of my door?