The Summoner of Rest (21)
An empty stomach is the finest spice—and at the same time, a drug that drives a man mad.
When true hunger sets in, nothing else occupies the mind except the desperate need to eat. Have you ever stretched a single mouthful of water into another hour of life, coaxing a hollow belly into temporary silence?
I have. In my previous life, to be exact.
I understand, down to the marrow, the torment of emptiness, the crushing frustration of knowing relief is out of reach, the slow slide of every thought into darkness, and the raw craving that follows. I know that entire process far too well.
So what goes through a person’s head when their own gut is twisting with hunger while someone right in front of them casually devours something delicious?
I could read that exact emotion on the faces of the many students ringed around the cabin.
The sun had sunk halfway, painting the world in the colors of dusk. Figuring the time was about right, I drained the last of the can, crushed it in one hand, and tossed it carelessly into the corner.
Clank.
It landed atop the growing pile of empties with a noisy rattle. Their expressions twisted at the sound, as if the noise itself offended them.
Of course they were pissed. I was enjoying things this island simply didn’t offer, treating them like everyday luxuries. From my perspective it was absurd, but they clearly didn’t see it that way.
How many truly selfless people exist in this world, anyway? Anyone with half a brain wouldn’t be standing out here having a staring contest—they’d be off doing something useful with their own two hands. They wouldn’t waste time posturing like this after spotting Kallion and Growl and freezing in terror, either.
“What?”
I rose from the wooden chair and asked them. Apparently deciding there was still room for talk, the woman leading the pack spoke up from their midst.
“Th-those things! This house, the food—where the hell did you get them?”
The sheer entitlement in her demand made my head tilt sideways on its own. I’d listened out of curiosity, wondering what grand conditions she’d try to negotiate, only to get a simple question.
She must have assumed I’d found everything somewhere on the island. I shattered that notion by pulling another can from the shadows via Hive.
“The food I brought myself. The house I built myself.”
“What?! Liar! There’s no way you could build a house like this so easily—”
The way she rejected my words without a second’s thought told me everything about her personality.
This woman wasn’t the sovereign type who led by example. She was a queen-bee type—someone who seized the mood and emotions of the moment. Strictly speaking, a queen bee is less a leader and more a schemer who pulls strings from behind, but schemes still need a hive to work.
People like her are almost always specialized for group living; the idea of stepping outside the herd fills them with instinctive revulsion. If someone has to take a risk, they’ll push another forward and only claim credit when there’s clear profit. Repeat that enough times, shore up their position, and they start controlling everyone around them. I doubted even twenty percent of the faces behind her had been her allies back at the Academy. They’d simply fallen in with her here and the group had swollen by chance.
In other words, she had stepped forward to prove how solid her footing really was—how truly impressive she was. Succeed, and she kept her throne while recruiting more worker bees. Fail, and she risked losing the ones she already had.
None of that was my problem, of course.
Still, ignoring them meant they’d keep camping on my doorstep, so better to clear them out quickly. This type never stopped throwing tantrums until you showed them with their own eyes. Classic pain-in-the-ass.
It wasn’t difficult. I jerked my chin at Haze and Kallion, ordering them to prepare timber.
Crack! Whoooosh!!
“...Wh-what...?”
Magic unfolded in an instant. A log appeared before me, and I casually carved it into building materials with my shadows. The woman gaped like a goldfish, her pupils trembling as if the ground itself were shaking. She looked thoroughly rattled.
She could freely wield the insane resource called mana, yet a simple house left her stunned?
Having to prove myself like this was ridiculous in the first place. Who the hell was she that I had to put on a show? The generous mood I’d built up from peaceful rest shrank right back down.
...This was getting annoying.
“Satisfied?”
Pssht!
I shoved the timber aside and cracked open another can. Audible gulps rose from every direction. If they needed water, the river was right there—boil it over a fire if they had to.
These spineless kids without a scrap of personal conviction were supposed to become the Awakened who would one day shoulder this country? The thought alone was suffocating.
Maybe I was asking too much, but facts were facts. They still acted like children, yet the moment they stepped into society they’d puff up at being called geniuses among their peers. Unbelievable.
Someday I’d have to overturn the whole education system.
This Academy was fine in most ways, but it focused far too heavily on combat classes. If it was replacing ordinary high school, shouldn’t it also teach common sense and basic morality?
Looking back, the first week had been nothing but relentless beat-downs. I knew the Academy considered that “consideration,” but they could have just filtered people properly from the start.
All because of that bizarre founding doctrine of theirs.
We’ll get tangled up eventually.
There’s no way the protagonist stays out of a juicy event like religion. He already had two people connected to it nearby, so something was bound to happen. The classic religious arc was a full-scale war against a corrupt faction. And conveniently, the highest religious symbol of all—the Saint’s seat—was vacant.
For anyone who wanted to seize that symbol and shake the Church’s interests, it was the perfect opportunity. Shin Na-rae, still only a candidate yet already showing clear fragments of true sainthood, would inevitably be targeted by those schemes. Ban Taewung, already her friend, would want to free her from that suffering.
Once things heated up, crises would appear that could only be resolved by eliminating the client—assassins, or something just as bad.
What a pain.
I sipped the now-lukewarm drink and organized my thoughts about the inevitable future—until something approached me with a soft step.
The queen bee, recovered from her shock.
“...What now?”
“Ugh...”
I scowled, packing the look with killing intent and irritation. Getting further involved would only be a nuisance. She visibly flinched.
“Th-that. Share some with us too!”
“Why should I?”
“B-because we’re students from the same Academy!! You’re just going to let your friends starve to death?! That’s wrong—morally, common-sensically wrong!”
Hearing the words “morally” and “common sense” tumble out of this empty-headed girl’s mouth left me speechless. Did she think I was some kind of volunteer worker?
“You forget this is a test?”
“...Ahem! This is an emergency! The teachers told us to hide on this island until they deal with the criminals! So tests and all that don’t matter right now!”
She planted a hand on her chest as if she’d caught me in a brilliant argument and launched into a proud speech.
Bounce—!
The motion set her heavy midsection into a violent up-and-down that almost produced an audible slap. D-cup? E? Maybe even F. Hard to judge by eye alone.
One thing I could say for certain: every nutrient that should have gone to her brain had been rerouted to her chest.
Perfect for teasing. Even when I’d smacked her earlier, the impact had felt satisfying. Her reactions and thoughts showed so clearly on her face that it only made it better.
At the very least, it was a size I’d never seen even through a screen in my previous life. In a world where non-standard mana was openly used, other non-standard things naturally existed too.
I let out a different kind of admiration and finally understood how this airhead had managed to play queen bee—and which body part had enchanted the fools behind her.
Silently, I planted both hands on my hips, took aim at the forehead of the preening woman, and flicked a sharp forehead flick.
Thwack!!
“...!?”
I hadn’t even put mana into it, yet thanks to the elevated stats from Bihos’s activity and the stacked effects of Subjugator, the impact sounded anything but ordinary.
It must have landed solidly. She couldn’t even scream—just crumpled on the spot, clutching her forehead and streaming tears.
Being an Awakened, she was unnecessarily pretty, so at least the sight wasn’t painful. If it had been, I might have snapped her arm instead of settling for a flick.
She blinked up at me, unable to comprehend why she’d been hit. I looked down at her coldly.
“You thought the Academy was that sloppy? That whole story’s a load of crap, you idiot.”
“Uh, ha... but... still...”
She floundered, mouth opening and closing again. I sneered.
“...Then again, the kind of trash wasting time on crap like this would never understand illusion magic.”
Explaining was too much trouble. No obligation, no benefit. I leaned in slightly so only she could hear.
“If you’re not serious about this, just drop out and look for work in a different field.”
Then I jabbed a finger hard into the soft mass that kept trembling with her body, shoving her over.
“That might actually be your true calling.”
Anyone listening would call it crossing the line. I knew that. I chose the crude language on purpose—because it was more insulting that way. If she had any pride left, she wouldn’t bother me again.
The girl who couldn’t even negotiate properly was a problem, but the idiots who’d put this airhead forward as their leader were even bigger idiots.
This time I raised my voice so the whole pack could hear, layering it with killing intent, mana, and even Charisma.
“Get lost. There won’t be a next time.”
At worst I’d just break an arm or a leg, force them out of the test as combat-incapable. That male teacher had already given off the vibe that he was quietly watching this side, hadn’t he?
He knew better than anyone that I wouldn’t actually kill them.
They, of course, had no way of knowing that. They turned pale on pure assumption and scattered into the forest without even thinking of picking up their fallen leader.
They’d come this far together, called her their leader—yet they ran without a second glance. They’d truly hit rock bottom.
“Ha. You bring trash like that along and call them comrades? Your popularity matches your level, huh?”
“...Kuuugh! Waaaaaah!!”
Face flaming red, the woman finally burst into full tears and fled. She vanished into the forest so fast she left no afterimage. I clicked my tongue.
Even with that size she could still move that fast. What a bizarre world.
“Haa...”
The trash occupying my front yard was gone. Since I was already up, I might as well take a light look around.
“Closest place from here... the waterfall, right?”
Follow the stream upstream and you’d find a waterfall decorated with suspiciously ornate structures. Checking it out while waiting for dinner seemed fine.
I returned to the cabin, dumped the evening ingredients on Echidna with orders to watch the place, then called Growl and climbed onto his back.
“Let’s go.”
“Woof!”
Growl answered vigorously and kicked off hard enough to make the ground boom. The scenery in my vision began to smear and stretch like soft clay.
Just like me, he had received the stat boosts from Subjugator.
If he really put his mind to it, he could probably outrun a Formula car’s top speed without much trouble. Unlike a Formula car locked into a straight line, Growl could hit those speeds with a wolf’s body—sudden direction changes and all.
Rumble...
In almost no time we reached the broad river where the waterfall stood. I slid off Growl’s back and approached.
“Hmm...”
Nothing looked wrong at first glance. But the stone towers scattered around still bothered me. They looked exactly like something built to seal or enshrine a place.
Long neglect had let moss climb over them, only adding to the mystery.
I prowled the area with Growl at my side, then fixed my gaze on the base of the falling water. Of course the most suspicious spot was behind the waterfall.
Cliché or not, secret bases, hidden places, and mystic realms were almost always built where people wouldn’t casually look. Behind a waterfall was perfect—most people only admired the falls from a distance and never walked right under them.
I shaped my shadows into an umbrella, shoved the cascading water aside, and peered into the space beyond. Sure enough, the same kind of ornaments that stood outside were arranged at regular intervals inside.
“Bingo.”
Being a cave behind a waterfall, it had more moss and water stains, yet the carvings retained their original shape better than the ones outside that had been worn smooth by direct spray.
“Lanterns?”
The tops of the small stone towers had hollows meant to hold something, and inside them were clear traces of red-stained residue and melted candle wax.
The deeper I went, the darker it became. I coated my eyes with mana and sent one of Hive’s shadow crows ahead to scout.
No enemies, at least.
Not just enemies—no living things at all. Not even the usual insects. Some kind of barrier, maybe. The farther I walked, the quieter the waterfall’s roar became and the wider the space grew.
Then, in a place I’d thought completely lightless, a faint glow appeared. I reached the source and understood what was shining.
“Crystals...?”
Against the dark cave walls, dozens—hundreds—thousands of crystals pulsed with soft pale-green light all at once. It looked like a night sky packed with stars.
The green tint even made it feel a little like watching the aurora.
I stared for a while, then lowered my gaze and walked past a cluster of crystals shaped like a Japanese torii gate toward the shrine-like building standing in the center of the cavern.
“Caw.”
Tap-tap!
The shadow crow that had arrived ahead of me was pecking at something that looked for all the world like a treasure chest.
It was completely out of place amid the ancient atmosphere. The clasp bore a clear Academy mark, so this was almost certainly the “treasure.”
Just in case of traps, I opened the chest from a short distance with my shadows. Inside I found a note and a device add-on.
“...I see. So that’s how it works.”
The note was simple. Congratulations on finding this place. The add-on installed a function that displayed the points you’d earned and how you’d earned them.
Probably limited to this island, but even so it meant I no longer had to grind blindly toward a hundred points. Goals were always more motivating when you could see clear numbers and progress.
Without hesitation I slotted the add-on into my device and installed the program. A new “Privileges” tab appeared in the Academy app, complete with a sparkling effect.
You discovered the hidden crystal cave behind the waterfall! [+5]
You discovered the treasure within the crystal cave! [+5]
100 / 37
“So that’s how it is.”
Unfortunately the log didn’t show how I’d earned my previous points, but this was more than enough.
That said, the scoring was stingy. Twenty points lower than I’d expected.
I’d just gained ten and only sat at thirty-seven. Without this place I’d have been at twenty-seven. Even living every second of the five days to the fullest, most people would barely scrape a hundred—if they managed it at all.
Most would hit the five-day mark and hear the test-end announcement long before reaching a hundred. No wonder the instructors had smirked so leisurely when I said I’d finish early.
“...Looking forward to it.”
So far I’d spotted twenty-five suspicious points on this island.
I’d just cleared one, leaving twenty-four. Even assuming I monopolized every single one and none of them had treasure, a hundred points was still trivial.
In other words, me hitting a hundred was already a done deal.
When I casually filled the score and transferred up to the cruise ship, what faces would the faculty make? The thought of snapping their smug noses already curled a thin smile across my lips.
“...Might as well eat.”
The smile faded just as quickly, leaving my face blank.
A sudden emptiness had hit me. I’d realized there was nothing good about going this hard.
Cause trouble and the faculty marked you. Perform too well and they still gave you the side-eye. Quiet mediocrity was best—but with my personality, that was impossible.
Ordinary really was the hardest thing of all. Reminding myself of that truth once more, I turned and headed back out of the cave.
Dinner should be ready by now.
And so the first day on the island slowly drew to a close.