The Summoner of Rest (16)
Joyful or peaceful times have a strange way of flying by.
I’d already scarfed down a rough lunch and was full enough that I was just about to catch a nap when the people who emerged from the far side of the thicket shattered the hard-won peace I’d only just managed to reclaim.
Drawn by the delicious smell of food like mountain beasts lured by prey, the six of them arrived, took one look at us lounging around in our magically constructed camp, and wore expressions of pure exhaustion.
“W-what on earth is this?”
“A camp.”
“No, what I mean is… haaah…”
The deep sigh that followed—as if he had a mountain of things to say but couldn’t even bring himself to put them into words—gave me a strong sense of déjà vu.
Yeah, I know that feeling well. That sense of utter hopelessness when you see things veering completely off the original goal.
But that’s that, and this is this.
I had tried to play along at first. We’d come here for survival training, so I figured I’d match the vibe. I’m a guy who can read the room and take a hint, after all.
What smashed that plan and shoved reality in my face were these two walking disasters. So if anyone’s going to get cursed out, it should be them, not me. I just hopped on the bandwagon.
Isn’t freeloading bad enough on its own? After getting dragged out on a golden weekend and tangled up in this nonsense, I’m allowed a free pass.
The only people who get to throw stones at me are the pitiful souls who got dragged out by their boss against their will on a weekend.
…For some reason my past-life PTSD flared up and my brow furrowed on its own. This was basically spitting in my own face. I don’t have a self-harm hobby of throwing rocks at myself.
“Whoa… this is seriously hardcore. Is that curry?”
“It is. Sniff sniff… whoa, just the smell makes it look delicious.”
Before I knew it they had gathered around the pot I’d been keeping warm for dinner.
They weren’t drooling outright, but the way they clutched their stomachs or swallowed hard made it obvious they still hadn’t had a proper meal.
Awakened need high base metabolisms to generate mana, so even a little vigorous activity leaves them starving in no time.
In a way it’s the height of inefficiency, but since they can squeeze out efficiency that more than makes up for it, a penalty like this barely even counts as a drawback.
Besides, high-calorie foods designed to fix exactly that problem are everywhere, so whether it even qualifies as a flaw is debatable.
Of course, the energy needed to keep the body alive and the energy used to produce mana are treated as separate things.
An Awakened can last longer and harder than a normal person on the bare minimum of food. They can even hold out without eating at all, just by conserving mana.
I don’t know the principle. It’s like breathing. You just do it because that’s how you stay alive.
Producing mana itself is a kind of self-defense mechanism to protect the body, so energy made for survival wouldn’t threaten survival—that would be pointless.
So even if you left them alone for a day or two, they weren’t going to starve to death.
And they weren’t idiots. If they actually set their minds to finding food, a meal would be easy enough to sort out.
The problem was that even then, there was nothing in it for me. Rather than keep staring each other down like this, it seemed better just to hand the food over.
Food was something I could get Lee Se-rin to pull out with a word, just like earlier, and if I could buy a little goodwill with something this cheap, nothing better.
Using it up would mean having to cook again for dinner, which sounded annoying, but I’d leave that to future me. If I really didn’t feel like it, I could just tell her to bring already-cooked food from the start.
With that thought I glanced sideways. Lee Se-rin gave a soft smile and a little nod, as if to say I could do whatever I wanted.
I always think this, but her ability to read the room is disgustingly sharp. It felt like she could see straight through whatever was in my head. Which only made me like her less.
She could easily do all this herself, but she’s deliberately making me suffer.
Just because it looks fun, she can drop someone’s entire life into hell in an instant—that’s her true nature.
Right now she was role-playing the ideal fiancée and acting demure, but if I ever fell for that act, that would be the real start of hell.
I stood up as if fleeing from those gently curved eyes, reformed the shadow table I’d cleared away earlier, and added plates and utensils.
I jerked my chin at Ban Taewung and the others, who were staring blankly, urging them to sit down already.
“Huh?! Is this okay?”
“Doesn’t matter. I threw it together, so I can’t guarantee the taste. If you’re planning to complain, don’t even start.”
The meat was already gone; all that was left was curry and a few vegetables. The seasonings were still there, so if I stir-fried the veggies with them it would be good enough for them to eat on their own.
I ordered Echidna to set the pots of rice and curry on the table. Ban Taewung caught the motion immediately and stepped forward first, taking the weight from her hands as if to help.
“I’ll give you a hand.”
The bright smile that showed a flash of white teeth was pure pretty-boy perfection, like something out of a painting. No wonder girls flocked to him.
An ordinary woman would have felt at least a little goodwill at that sight. But Echidna only looked human on the outside; she was a full-fledged devil and my summon.
She had a self, sure, but at the very root of her thinking sat my commands and nothing else.
“I appreciate the thought, but I’m fine. This is a task Master gave me!”
If it had been anything else she might have accepted the help, but the single fact that it was “my command” made her refuse. Because the object of her doctrine’s faith was me.
An order given directly by the one she believed in. Carrying it out was both her joy and her duty. That was the kind of desire a devil like her carried.
“Uh, uh… okay.”
So Echidna, still wearing the world’s sweetest smile, lightly knocked Ban Taewung’s hands off the pot. She was smiling, but the firm will not to let anyone interfere with her work was clear underneath.
Seeing that, she really did resemble whoever her base had been. Humming as if looking forward to whatever came next, Echidna finished the job I’d given her and came to my side like a well-mannered child.
She looked up at me with faint expectation in her eyes, so I reluctantly raised a hand and patted her head the way I always did.
“…♩”
She definitely didn’t have that function, yet I could almost see an invisible dog’s tail wagging furiously.
If being a devil true to her desires meant a reward-seeking drive, then fine. The way her self-assertion grew stronger by the day made me tuck the thought into a corner of my mind that she might need some education soon.
“Aren’t you hungry? Go eat already.”
“Ah… yeah.”
Ban Taewung, who had been staring at me and Echidna with a somewhat dazed expression, scratched his head and went to sit with the heroines.
I, for my part, tossed more wood onto the campfire and used Haze to adjust the wind and build the flames. Stir-fried vegetables was nothing more than tossing veggies and seasoning into a pan and cooking them until they wilted.
It was done in under three minutes. When I brought it over, the others—who must have been starving—were already rapidly emptying the curry and rice pots.
The cheerful way they chatted and ate was pure popular-kid gathering, and my social tolerance was too low for that, so I handed the stir-fry to Echidna and headed back to where Growl was.
Honestly, after doing this much I was allowed to rest, right? This wasn’t even my house, and I had no obligation to look after a bunch of people who had suddenly barged in.
“Good work.”
“Don’t touch me.”
“Aww, so cold.”
The moment I lay down on Growl’s body she put a hand on my thigh as if it were the most natural thing in the world and tried to stroke it, so I roughly shook her off. Where did she think she was putting her hands?
I glared at her with murder in my eyes, but she didn’t care in the slightest. Still smiling, she pressed herself right up against me as if leaning on me.
The way she looked was no different from a lover head-over-heels.
But for the one on the receiving end it was pure discomfort. Because the reason she was doing this was pure animal instinct.
She was marking me with her scent, declaring that I was hers and warning others not to get any ideas.
Being so close to a god, she had strongly sensed something watching over Ban Taewung. That was why she was being so blatant about it.
The problem was that even that was only a secondary reason.
Her fundamental principle of action was interest, fun, and pleasure. So even if the first reason she latched on was to keep others in check, the reason she kept doing it was to watch my reactions and enjoy herself.
From the sweet citrus scent that dulled the mind, to her movements, her voice, even her appearance—there wasn’t a single thing that hadn’t been tailored to my tastes. Everything had changed solely to win my favor.
At first I thought it was meaningless, but now I had no choice but to admit the effect was showing, whether I liked it or not.
In the past I would have found it disgusting and either avoided her or actually attacked to peel her off before she could even stick. Now, whether she clung or did whatever, moving myself felt more annoying, so I just let it happen.
The fact that I had started allowing even a little physical contact meant the body she had changed to win my favor was already working.
What irritated me was that she seemed to think we had gotten closer, and was now closing the distance in real time, testing the line and seeing how far she could push it.
When I first realized that even in those brief moments she was constantly making tiny adjustments to figure out what she could get away with inside my personal space, even I—who thought I could handle most things—got chills.
“…What’s your goal here?”
“Hmm? This time there’s really nothing, you know?”
“‘This time,’ huh.”
The meaningful smile she gave in reply, without any real answer, was answer enough.
Yeah. I already knew there was still a big event waiting.
I’d said it a few times before: any incident this woman declared would definitely happen would come to pass no matter what.
It wasn’t something that arose from pure inevitability. If something blocked it, she would take over and make sure it happened herself.
And since she actually had more than enough power to do that, it was even worse.
If that damn god was a shady hacker poking at things from out of sight, this woman was a bomber who planted the bomb right in front of you and announced it.
If something looked even a little fun she moved first, planted a time bomb that could go off at any moment, then only announced that it would explode while cleverly hiding when and where.
After that she would drip-feed little hints and enjoy watching the reactions that followed—a pure psycho pleasure-seeker.
Looking at the results, this woman at least let you prepare a little, so she seemed better, but if you thought about it even a bit longer you realized they were six of one and half a dozen of the other.
Couldn’t they just live quietly without something festering somewhere?
“The Academy’s more fun than I expected. If I’d known it would be like this I would have enrolled myself.”
“…Don’t. Seriously.”
I recoiled in genuine horror, not just for show. The place already had nonstop incidents and accidents; if a living disaster like her got involved it would be the actual end of the world.
I’d rather drop out on the spot and grow by grinding myself half to death alone than spend three blood-soaked years rotting my guts out in a place like that.
“It’s late to ask, but why me instead of him?”
I pointed a finger toward Ban Taewung. Lee Se-rin propped her knees up, rested her arms on them, and buried her face while sinking into thought.
“Ahh, he’s definitely a child favored by the stars, so watching him would have its own flavor… but it would feel subtly uninteresting, I guess? Too textbook. It doesn’t really grab me.”
Unlike her usual playful self, she started seriously mulling it over.
“In that sense, Doctor, you’re always thrilling. Like a bouncy ball that could go anywhere. Hmm, the way your words and actions contradict each other is part of the charm too.”
Saying that, she suddenly turned her head to look at me and tilted it.
“That’s why I can’t help following you with my eyes, wondering how far you’ll go? Cheering… no, not quite. What do you call this? Wanting to keep watching because I want to find the answer?”
For all the atmosphere she’d built up, the question that came out was rather anticlimactic and open-ended.
I had wanted an answer, not to answer a question myself, so I just left her alone. She muttered to herself for a while and then seemed to reach her own conclusion.
I wiped Lee Se-rin from my field of view and secretly chewed and swallowed a sigh.
I’d been thinking of diverting the attention aimed at me toward Ban Taewung so I could live quietly for once, but hearing her talk like this made it clear that route was completely hopeless.
She went around saying she liked anything as long as it was fun, but even among that there were firm likes and dislikes. From start to finish she was a thoroughly troublesome woman.
I shouldn’t have asked.
This woman who was nearly a god, and that piece-of-shit god himself—they were both the same.
I really wished they would all just disappear.
A long time passed and the sun was sinking toward the far side of the sky, yet no one showed any sign of leaving the base camp Riri had built—or rather, that we were using.
Instead they used the well-packed ground as a foundation, carved rocks with mana, mixed earth with water into mud for mortar, and built makeshift walls.
On another side they even displayed professional civil-engineering knowledge, felling trees, cutting grooves, and joining them like blocks.
What had started as a camp had become a perfect shelter by the time the Traveler appeared, a deer and birds slung over his back—whether he’d hunted them himself or not.
He looked around, confirmed the results of the day’s work, and smiled with satisfaction.
“Haha, cooperation in the harsh wilds isn’t a means—it’s a necessity. Even without me having to point that out, seeing you all gathered like this shows just how strong your friendship is.”
On the surface the warm words sounded like praise, but to my ears they somehow came across as a sarcastic complaint.
Translation: “I kindly taught you the knowledge and even split you into teams, so why aren’t you doing the survival training I told you to do and instead enjoying a healing camp all together?”
And I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. The faces of those who had eaten enough social dirt to read the room quickly stiffened or flushed as they looked elsewhere.
At least they had enough shame for that.
The problem was the idiots who heard the same words, completely failed to understand, and took them as pure praise, grinning foolishly.
They say you only see as much as you know. The fools looked so carefree I almost envied them. Of course, I had deliberately chosen not to learn and had cut open my own belly, so I could be shameless about it.
“Haha, hahahaha!!”
Perhaps even more impressed by the sight, the Traveler’s smile deepened and his laughter rang through the darkening forest.
Sparkle.
I thought I saw the light of the campfire reflecting and glittering deep inside his tilted head, but I decided it was my imagination. The way his face was smiling while looking thoroughly empty was also definitely my imagination.
If you’re going to resent someone, resent yourself for taking this woman as your boss. Nameless soldier.
I boldly used Growl’s body as a bed and lay down. An expert had arrived, so he’d take care of the food just fine. You were the one who cheerfully followed along just because a hobby got mixed into the job.
With that pointless thought I sincerely prayed for this worthless farce to end as soon as possible.
“…Then let’s wrap up today’s final lesson with night watch and the beasts you need to watch out for at night.”
My prayer was cleanly shattered by the middle-aged man’s stubbornness. I glared at him asking what the hell he thought he was doing, but the middle-aged man pretended not to see the look and stuck to his guns.
Employer? Employer?
I looked to the side with a sliver of hope, but the obligatory bright smile had started to take on a mischievous edge, and I realized that no amount of struggling would matter now.
…Ah, fuck.
Nothing ever goes right.