Unruly Summon Chapter 46: Gate (Patreon)

"Is that the border?" asked Mary, gazing at the wall in front of us, stretching from horizon to horizon.

"Of course," replied Wendy, who, on top of the bags under her eyes, was still walking slightly bow-legged despite the application of judicious amounts of healing magic before we'd set off in the morning. Unsurprisingly, she'd declared her lingering afflictions totally worth it. "Why else would there be a giant wall in the middle of nowhere?"

"Well, that's why I was asking," replied Mary carefully. "It's not really... uh... giant."

She wasn't wrong. The wall wasn't much taller than I was, nor did it look as well made as the walls around Odimere. Instead of neatly cut grey blocks, it was a muddier brown, looking like lumps of earth had simply been smooshed into each other. If I had to guess, I'd say that no masons had been involved in its construction, and a bunch of mages had simply cast Terra over and over instead.

"It's new," explained the glowing Minoru, who had been skipping happily all morning, showing no signs of tiredness. "There used to just be checkpoints at the road crossings and occasional watch towers. It's only since the war that the wall was built to cover large portions of the border."

"It doesn't cover the entire border?" I asked, picking up on that little nugget.

"It only runs a mile or so into the corrupted lands down south," said Minoru. "Anyone who can go deeper in than that isn't going to be slowed down by such a hastily constructed wall. It's not like the one on our side is any better. Given the mutual distrust following the war, it's likely something more permanent will be built soon, though. I imagine it'll be a long time until we return to the days of open borders."

That admission was enough to sap away her lingering euphoria from the previous night's activities. As much as the Ti'zharr Empire tried to claim the war was a justified response to taboo magic being used on its citizens by citizens of the Ricousian Kingdom, it wasn't like the humans would just accept that and forget about it. Relations between humans and demons would doubtless be strained for generations.

But, circling back to that lingering euphoria, I found myself pondering something else as we approached the gate; why my divine blessing translated the name of their species as demon instead of beastkin. Minoru was blatantly a cat-girl. She had the ears and tail. She enjoyed scritches and showed an occasional cat-like mannerism. She even went into heat. 'Demon' had all sorts of negative connotations that didn't seem to apply, so it seemed an odd translation.

"Random question, and I have no idea what the translation blessing is going to do to it, but why are demons called demons and not beastkin?" I asked.

"Pardon?" asked Minoru. "Could you repeat that?"

"I said why is your species called demons and not beastkin?"

"Master..." said Mary carefully. "You just said the same thing twice."

"Huh... How interesting. I certainly didn't say the same thing twice, but apparently both words were translated to the same thing for you."

So the people of this world considered 'beastkin' and 'demon' to be synonymous?

"Languages are weird and stupid," said Wendy. "I wouldn't think too deeply about it."

"It's just that in my language, 'demon' has a bunch of negative connotations that 'beastkin' doesn't."

"Hah. That explains it then," said Minoru bitterly. "Ever since the first hero, the other races took to using the name of our race as a slur. To this day, referring to a non-demon as a demon implies they're evil and selfish."

Ah. So the reason it was translated to 'demon' was because, locally, the word did have negative connotations.

"It's not even fair," continued Minoru. "Back then, a third of the demon population sided with the second hero against the first, leaking information from inside the first hero's armies, carrying out internal attacks, or even making suicide strikes. Without their help, the first hero almost certainly would have won the war. Thousands were caught and executed, but now most people don't even acknowledge their existence, let alone how vital a role their sacrifice played in the defeat of the first hero."

My thoughts went back to my summoning and Wendy's brief history lesson. Christine had declared that she wished all demons had been wiped out back then, and Wendy had looked like she was about to object. So that was why. Still, that meant that two-thirds had sided with the genocidal demon lord, so it wasn't a complete surprise that some bitter feeling was left behind.

That depressing conversation was sufficient to reach the gate. It was a far sturdier construction than the wall; a two story structure of steel and gleaming white stone, flanked on one side by a taller tower, and manned by a few dozen soldiers. Perhaps more, if some were hiding inside the tower. It seemed a bit pointless if pre-war people could just walk around it, and even now the border wasn't exactly secure. Perhaps it was more for trade taxation than controlling the flow of people; a large caravan would find it hard to sneak over the border unnoticed away from any roads.

There was no traffic other than us crossing the border, which didn't come as a complete surprise. One of the guards spat on the floor as we approached. "More spies swaggering home to your burrows. Fine, run along. I'll just have to content myself with the hope that you're permanently scarred, forever cursed to look like us humans that you hate so much."

"Uh..." I commented, not quite sure how to respond. He obviously thought we were Toby-style demonic infiltrators.

"Just roll with it," whispered Wendy. "It's not like you have any identity papers."

"Fair enough, then. Yes, we'll be running along to our burrows now."

The guard's eye's narrowed in suspicion. Wendy facepalmed.

"What? It's not like you included acting classes in my education. You didn't even tell me what demons looked like, let alone what would be believable behaviour in this situation!"

"Who are you?" asked the guard, drawing his sword. A few others began moving toward us, too.

I took a step back, hoping someone else would deal with the threat of violent bureaucracy.

"Criminals who have been banished from the Ricousian Kingdom," answered Wendy. "Since we aren't wanted around here, Ti'zharr has agreed to take us."

The guard's eyes narrowed further.

"Seriously?" I muttered, suspecting that even I could have done a better job of de-escalation than that.

"Banishment is not used as a criminal punishment," replied the guard as the grip on his sword tightened. "So, you're traitors, then. You sold us out to the demons, and now you're running back to them to enjoy your reward. I won't let you."

I rushed forward, using body strengthening to insert myself between the pair. Not that I was worried about Wendy; I was more concerned for the guard. He showed none of the signs of extreme proficiency that I'd seen from combatants like Christine, and at the speed he was moving, Wendy's magic could have removed his head long before his sword reached her. Given what she'd done to the bandits, I was somewhat concerned that she would.

I easily gripped his wrist, stopping him dead. Of course, that did nothing about the fact we were surrounded by half a dozen more guards. I could also see sunlight glinting off a few arrow tips up on the wall.

Mary squeaked and edged backwards. Stephanie, of course, didn't react, simply waiting around for orders.

Minoru giggled at the display, apparently not bothered by it at all. To be fair, it wasn't the safety of me and my group I was concerned about here. Minoru simply had the advantage of not caring what happened to the guards. Which wasn't to say that she was just going to let things happen. "I have diplomatic papers," she said.

"Good for you," said the guard, struggling in my grip. "Give us a minute to deal with these traitors, then we'll check them and let you through."

"Does it help if I say I'm a summoned hero?" I tried.

It didn't, and a few of the archers above let loose. One of the buggers even targeted Mary.

Of course, the arrows simply pinged off Wendy's magical shields, cast subvocally faster than the archers could draw their bows.

The other six soldiers at ground level charged at me, but they were all just so damn slow.

"I suppose I have the option of just showing you," I muttered, before taking a deep breath.

Then I released it. "Uh... As requested, this is your prior warning," I added to the rest of my party before taking a deep breath again. In the intervening time, I'd needed to parry a few sword swings, but that hadn't proven difficult even with the handicap of still holding the first guard in my grip.

"Miraculum!"

The fighting stopped. It was hard for it to continue, given what happened to the guard in my grip. Held as he was, I'd shouted the spell right into his face, and his face hadn't liked it very much.

"Wow. I've never seen eyeballs explode like that before," said Minoru.

The guard blinked, his perfectly unscathed eyes staring at me blankly as blood ran down his cheeks. I released his wrist and tried to wipe the blood and chunks of flesh off myself.

"Is there such a thing as a cleaning spell?" I asked.

"Blue magic to wash, green and red to dry yourself off," replied Wendy. "Not really the time or place, though."

"What... what just happened?" asked one of the other frozen guards.

"I think Thomas decided to prove he was a hero by casting ultimate class white magic in your faces," answered Wendy accurately. "The volume caused some damage, but thankfully, Miraculum is a wide area healing spell and Thomas apparently considers you deserving, so it simply healed it all back up again."

The released guard backed away from me, looking somewhat haunted. To be fair to him, having various parts of his head explode and instantly regenerate was probably a rather strange experience.

"Wait..." said another of the guards. "Ultimate level? And it regenerated eyes in an instant. It was wide area healing? How wide?"

Before any of us could answer, the door of the tower was thrown open and a grizzled old man rushed out. He wasn't armoured, but was wearing civilian clothes, except that for some odd reason, his trousers only covered one leg.

... Ah. Lucky him, then.

"What in the hells was that?!" he demanded.

"Proof that I'm a summoned hero, hopefully. Normal people can't cast spells like that, right?"

The group of guards radiated uncertainty, but at least no-one was trying to kill anyone else, which was a step in the right direction.

"What should we do about them, captain?" asked the guard who'd first stopped us. "They claimed to be banished criminals, and they have a demon with them."

"I haven't heard anything about a summoned hero. Given the ignoble end to the war, it doesn't seem one was involved, either. And yet it would explain certain otherwise inexplicable orders received over the past week... If I had to guess, there was a hero, and when it came to it, they refused to fight."

"That's... accurate, actually," I admitted. "I'm impressed. Yes, I refused to take sides in the war."

The recently re-limbed captain snorted. "Any commander with a head on their shoulders could infer that much. What makes no sense is this claim to be banished criminals. Whether you fight demons or not, that spell alone makes you an incredible asset to the kingdom."

"You don't know the half of it," said Wendy. "That spell doesn't just heal. It purges miasma."

The captain's brows furrowed as he stared at Wendy with suspicion. "Peter?" he ordered.

"Magus Visus," said one of the other guards, who was presumably called Peter. "She's right. There's not a trace of miasma around."

"Frankly, I'd sooner believe you found some way of fooling Magus Visus than that you can truly purge miasma, and yet... it would explain the manner of the end of the war. But were it true, there is no way anyone in a position of power would banish you. The ability to purge miasma is so important that even a refusal to fight would be instantly forgiven."

"Ah, right. I should mention the dragon," I said.

"Please do."

"I just did. But to add a little more detail, it wants to kill me, and it launched a monster horde straight at Odimere in order to get at me. If a dragon is going to surface, your new king felt that he'd rather another kingdom be the one in its crosshairs, and since a couple of Odimere's priests have learnt Miraculum and have a good chance of being able to cast it by ritual, he feels I'm no longer needed. Also, the dragon may actually be some sort of evil god pretending to be a dragon."

The captain blinked.

"Captain?" asked the guard. "What do we do?"

"Let them through," he ordered.

"What? You believe that crap?"

"It fits the information I know, but truthfully, it doesn't matter."

"It doesn't?" I asked, somewhat surprised.

The guards' captain shrugged at me. "Be honest. If we tried to stop you passing, could we?"

"No chance."

"Indeed. We can't stop you. Besides, if you wanted to sneak in, you could have. With our army decimated, vast swaths of the border have minimal watch, and you're a small, powerful group. There was no need for you to pass through a gate to begin with. Even if you obey our orders, with your claim of banishment, we can't turn you back. All we could do was demand you wait while we sent inquiries and confirm your story, but our communications network is currently in shambles, and it seems that your very existence is an official secret. Trying to send enquiries would certainly cause information to leak. Just get moving."

"Thanks, I guess," I said as someone winched the gate open.

"And thank you for healing my leg," added the captain as our party continued on its way.