The Summoner of ■■ (15)
The people taking part in this experience totaled seven: Ban Taewung, Luicia, Riri, Onohara Erika, Cheon Jang-mi, Shin Na-rae, and Sena Bright. Including me and Lee Se-rin, that made nine.
Unlike the usual Heroine Number One and Number Two who always stuck close, the two still-narrow-foothold candidates for the harem had no reason to turn down such a delicious event. They volunteered their attendance before Ban Taewung even had the chance to ask.
Onohara Erika was a second-year, but she joined partly to repay earlier gratitude and partly because she wanted to be of even a little help. Sena Bright, for her part, got swept along with the feeling that if Shin Na-rae was going, she would go too.
One by one they gathered so naturally that the headcount ended up rivaling a large family.
It was already like this now—how many more did he plan to add later? I was sighing already. The more people you piled on, the more incidents and accidents were bound to follow.
“Hmm. There are three of you with a decent amount of survival knowledge. Given the numbers, we’ll divide the teams around those three.”
At Drown Traveler’s words a quick exchange of glances passed among the girls. The three with survival knowledge he had mentioned were me, Ban Taewung, and Sena Bright.
In my case I had been forced to learn just to stay alive in my previous life.
Ban Taewung had picked up plenty while tagging along on family camping trips, and Sena Bright said she had learned because a holy knight’s duties sometimes required lying low and sleeping rough.
Conveniently there were nine of us, so splitting into three teams of three lined up perfectly.
Of course it had to be these three.
The teams that formed were: Team A—Ban Taewung, Luicia, and Cheon Jang-mi; Team B—Sena Bright, Shin Na-rae, and Onohara Erika; and finally Team C—me, Lee Se-rin, and Riri.
“Jang-mi’s a surprise. I thought this kind of thing would be her specialty.”
“W-well… I’ve barely ever left the city, so…”
The biggest surprise was Cheon Jang-mi.
Raised in the underworld, I had assumed she could handle just about anything, yet she showed the clear marks of a sheltered upbringing when it came to outdoor work. She simply had no knack for it.
Good raw material that she couldn’t quite bring to life—that was the feeling. The biggest obstacle was definitely the lack of specialized knowledge.
“Luicia… yeah, hang in there! If it comes down to it we can just stick together even on the island.”
“Uuuugh… for a daughter of the Valentia family to be this useless at something so basic… I’m so ashamed.”
Luicia, on the other hand, was hopelessly lacking in talent. True to her chaebol-heiress roots, everything from ordinary housework to crafting anything from scratch in the wild was clumsy for her.
The one saving grace was that she was excellent at gathering materials. With her absurd base specs she could just muscle her way through and bring back almost anything.
Sena Bright’s side was solid overall.
Onohara Erika had already gone through this as a first-year, so while she wasn’t an expert she could still put her experience to work and get things done. Shin Na-rae might have been short on survival know-how, but her basic domestic skills were excellent—good enough to gift homemade food.
The problem was my side.
One was an unexploded bomb that could go off at any moment; the other was dead weight the moment you took magic out of the equation.
Even now she was glued to my side, shooting heart-eyes and cosplaying as my fiancée, so I wasn’t expecting much from her. The other one was half-asleep, leaning against a book floating in mid-air.
In a three-person group I was basically the only actual human.
The moment that guy realized she was connected to Lee Se-rin I had roughly known the two of us would end up on the same team, but I never dreamed the remaining slot would also be filled by dead weight.
“Heh-heh.”
From that irritating little suppressed giggle I could already guess her reasoning: This will be more fun. I didn’t even need to peek into her head to know.
“The foundation of survival begins with securing good terrain. An elevated spot with access to drinking water and shelter from rain and wind is ideal. But you won’t always find such a sunny, perfect place.”
Traveler launched straight into the lesson and started moving; everyone focused and followed.
“That’s when you have to read the surrounding landscape carefully. Rocks and trees that look like nothing can become excellent pillars and walls. In a pinch you can even dig into the ground and live inside it.”
The class itself was thoroughly peaceful. Even if we were Awakened, this was just basic survival knowledge—nothing dangerous was going to happen.
The whole reason they ran this on private land was to keep unexpected accidents under control in the first place.
As we walked the forest path he casually dropped practical tips—how to tell good drinking water from bad, how to check for poison—with the practiced ease of a veteran explorer.
The real highlight was the mana-based survival techniques unique to this world, things my previous life could never have imagined.
“…If you use mana like this you can filter out impurities easily. You can also lure specific animals by repeating certain wavelengths. It’s more of a hunter’s little trick than an explorer’s, really.”
When even the kind of information only people who genuinely enjoyed this lifestyle would know started coming out, I couldn’t help letting a few impressed noises slip.
Having this much knowledge when it wasn’t even his main job was impressive. He was probably the type who spent his days off doing explorer work for fun.
When a hobby deepens enough it can rival the expertise of a half-baked professional.
That was why he had been picked for this, after all.
From his perspective this was a windfall—getting paid to work while also indulging his hobby.
Shift the viewpoint a little and it was no different from a veteran teaching newbies.
New blood was flowing in, and the newbies even had good attitudes, so of course teaching felt rewarding.
That bright face that never stopped smiling was proof enough.
“All right, let’s put what you’ve learned into practice and build base camps. Experiencing something once is often easier to absorb than hearing it ten times.”
Everyone accepted Traveler’s words and split off according to their assigned teams.
I turned around to look at Riri, still half-dried and leaning on her floating book, and Lee Se-rin, wearing a meaningful little smile.
“So what’s the plan?”
Giving them the initiative wasn’t my preference, but I asked now so they couldn’t nitpick later with “I didn’t like this” or “that was no good.” Better to settle it at this stage.
That way, no matter what they said afterward, I would have something to hold over them.
“Mmm, personally I think somewhere close to the river would be nice.”
“Over there.”
Riri raised a hand and pointed at a flat, sparsely wooded patch. The complete lack of hesitation as she chose a completely empty spot made me smack my forehead.
“…Just so we’re clear, you both know this is survival practice and not a vacation, right?”
I pressed my throbbing temples with my thumbs and ground the words out. The two of them looked at each other as if they had rehearsed it and tilted their heads in perfect unison.
“Base. Magic is enough.”
“She says so. I think we should decide what we’re having for lunch first.”
“…Fuck.”
Yeah. The mistake was mine for ever thinking I could properly do something with these two.
Before I could even open my mouth Riri had already started whipping up a base camp with magic on a wide-open spot that had a clear view of the river. I simply gave up thinking.
Survival this, survival that—maybe none of it mattered if you were strong enough. Need something? Make it. See something nice? Take it.
I used shadows to fashion a chair and table, then dropped into the seat like I was collapsing.
Come to think of it, I didn’t even need to be doing this. I had ended up here half by accident; it wasn’t my choice. I had basically been dragged along.
“You already prepared food separately, didn’t you? Just pull it out already.”
“Ehehe, caught me.”
Clap!
The moment she clapped, all sorts of ingredients and cooking tools appeared on the table I had made. She didn’t seem to be taking them out of anywhere, and I couldn’t begin to grasp the principle.
“Whoa… waaah…”
The one who gasped was Riri, who had just finished the base camp.
Her usually half-lidded eyes flew wide open and sparkled as she stared at Lee Se-rin. She looked exactly like a child who had just discovered a brand-new toy.
“How space, folded?”
“Aha! So the eyes of a great mage can see it after all. Simply put, it’s an application of shrinking the earth.”
She looked delighted on the surface, yet the neatly folded corners of her eyes weren’t smiling at all. Having her secret exposed probably didn’t sit well with her.
Or maybe she just found Riri clinging to her annoying?
She had deliberately stuck us together because she wanted to watch me get irritated, but now Riri was latching onto her instead of me, so the original purpose had gone sideways.
Shrinking the earth, huh.
It was famous even in my previous life, so I knew it. The art of folding the earth. Exactly what it sounded like—folding the ground itself to travel great distances in an instant. One of the legendary movement techniques of the immortals, passed down only in stories.
That legend had survived intact even in this world that was practically a parallel one, and plenty of people tried to elevate it into magic or technique.
Especially for those who mainly used close-range weapons like swords, it was a clue to solving the chronic problem of attack range.
Looking only at the results, it was half success and half failure.
They had managed to develop techniques that used mana and a few footwork skills to move at extreme speed for an instant—reaching the realm of “Instant Step”—but they had never reached the true concept of folding the earth itself.
Yet she used it as casually as breathing and had even twisted it into the domain of magic.
The fact that Riri could see it with her eyes meant at least some part of it overlapped with magic.
“Amazing. Do it again, please.”
“Aha, what a bold one you are. Personally I don’t dislike that reckless side of you.”
I shot a sidelong glance at the two of them as they happily started chatting on their own, then, once enough time had passed, began preparing the meal. We had plenty of ingredients, and I was lazy, so something easy and tasty like stew or soup would do.
Even with magic you couldn’t conjure a gas stove in the wild.
You could keep a fire going with magic, sure, but continuously burning mana for something this trivial felt wrong.
As if to fill the gap, a roughly shaped earthen hearth and a campfire were already sitting there. I tidied the area into something usable, then gathered fallen leaves and firewood from nearby.
Of course I didn’t do it alone.
“Growl. Haze.”
Snap!
I condensed mana at my fingertips and flicked it. What answered the summons were my reliable giant wolf—comfort food in living form—and the translucent fluff that now felt strangely incomplete if missing.
Haze used wind to gather firewood; I bound it with shadows and loaded it onto Growl’s back. Thanks to a spirit that was practically wind itself taking the lead, we had enough for a full day in no time.
When I returned to the base camp, Riri was still chattering away with questions while Lee Se-rin’s smile was slowly melting into a half-blank expression.
That was it. She had gone past finding Riri annoying and was simply losing interest because it was boring. If I hadn’t been here she would probably have erased her presence and vanished already.
I quietly started cooking so I wouldn’t get dragged into anything troublesome.
I sparked a fire by friction of mana, shoved some firewood in, and began prepping ingredients.
Thock, thock, thock.
I roughly washed the ingredients, chopped them into big chunks with a shadow knife, set them aside, then seared the meat in a heated pot over the fire.
Once the meat was cooked I tossed in the pre-cut vegetables, stir-fried them together, and when they wilted I poured in water. I dissolved the curry powder that had been among the ingredients and added it to the boiling pot, then adjusted the seasoning.
If it was too thin I mixed starch with water to thicken it.
A proper recipe would have a few more steps, but I wasn’t about to overthink something we were just going to eat outside. More importantly, I was lazy.
Edible was good enough.
I also mixed a sauce, skewered meat, vegetables, and mushrooms in turn, brushed them, and set them to grill. Even without proper equipment, fixing shadows into a roughly suitable shape was enough.
“Next, rice.”
I put washed rice in a pot and added water until it covered the back of my hand plus a little more. I wrapped the pot in shadows so the heat wouldn’t touch it directly. That way the rice at the bottom wouldn’t burn and stick.
While that was settling, the grilling meat reached the perfect point, so I grabbed one.
I bit into the skewer of nicely cooked meat and tasted the familiar, reliable flavor of store-bought sauce soaked all the way through.
“Gimme some too.”
“Wow, that looks delicious.”
The two of them had somehow taken over the space behind me, so I wordlessly gathered mana at my fingertips. The one I called was the most human-like among my summons.
“Echidna.”
Snap!
The moment I spoke her name and flicked the mana, the shadow beneath me twitched and spat out a shape that molded itself into something close to human.
Like drawing back a curtain, the shadow parted and a girl in a nun’s habit slowly revealed herself, releasing the hands she had been holding in prayer.
At the same time her carefully opened eyes sparkled with a soft pink light, fixed on me, and curved into a gentle smile.
“Take care of it.”
“Leave it to me, Master!”
Through the connection strengthened by the skill Link, Echidna instantly understood what I wanted. She moved, picked up the grilling meat, and handed it to the two of them, then put more meat on the fire.
Once the rice was done I transferred it to plates and finished the preparations. Watching the automation finally take over, I grabbed a few more pieces of meat and sat leaning against Growl, who was lying nearby waiting.
Even though it was spring, the nearby valley made the air a little chilly, but it turned cozy in an instant. Growl’s nature gave off a faint scent of blood, but it wasn’t unbearable.
If only the exam could be this uneventful. Back then it would just be me alone, so I wouldn’t need anything this elaborate.
My goal was nothing more and nothing less than filling exactly one hundred points and finishing the exam as soon as possible. Whatever happened after I left was none of my business.
Even if I didn’t step up, things would sort themselves out on Ban Taewung’s end, so I would just take the easiest route possible.
With that policy decided, I quietly enjoyed the vacation while accepting the meat Echidna grilled for me.