Unruly Summon Chapter 48: Minoru (Patreon)

"This isn't fair. I want to see," complained Wendy, her voice slightly muffled on account of the canvas bag tied over her head.

"All you have to do is promise not to laugh," answered a deep, growling voice that I found it difficult to believe was coming from Minoru.

I could believe it was coming from the twenty foot of cat in front of me, though.

The fact that such a large feline was very obviously a scaled up house-cat—and not something like a lion or tiger that I might instinctively think of as a threat—made Minoru's new appearance more surreal than scary. The fact she was completely covered in neon pink fur helped, too. I could see where she was coming from when she got self-conscious about this appearance.

"I'll try my best not to laugh?" tried Wendy.

"Not good enough."

Wendy fell uncharacteristically silent. I imagined her pouting beneath the bag.

"Well, I think you're cute," declared Mary, who was trying her best to fulfil her promise to give Minoru ear scritches, but could no longer reach her ears.

"Anyway, this is something demons can do as a sort of second stage to body strengthening. Or rather, the more mana we pour into body strengthening, the harder it gets not to transform. And the more mana, the bigger we get. This is my limit, and I can only sustain it for a few minutes at a time."

"Pity, or we could have ridden you. Would have been faster."

The giant pink cat glared at me. "If you happened to have a spell to triple your size, would you be happy carrying the rest of us?"

"Yup. No reason why not."

Minoru blinked her massive eyes. "Oh. Fair enough, then. But for demons, suggesting we give rides like common animals is kinda demeaning."

"Ah. Sorry. Can you deliberately use a small amount and end up the size of a real cat?" I asked, changing the subject as Mary gave up trying to stretch and used her own body strengthening to leap onto Minoru's head.

"No. I don't have the contrrrrrrrollll," answered Minoru, falling into a slur as Mary started working on an ear. Given the size of it, what Mary was doing was better described as kneading than scritching, but it still seemed to have the desired effect.

"Eep!" exclaimed Mary as Minoru rolled onto her back, throwing her off.

"Ah, sorry. That was instinct," said Minoru, before the oversized cat vanished with a pop and left the usual-sized cat-girl in its place. The naked cat-girl, because the ability had no effect on their clothes, so she'd needed to strip beforehand. Apparently, the armour the soldiers wore was designed to pop off during such transformations, although I imagined that once the fight was over and a hundred soldiers were trying to figure out which bits of discarded armour were theirs, things wouldn't go quite so smoothly.

"Thanks for showing us," I said, turning my back as she redressed herself. "Whatever you think, I think that was cool."

"It's not supposed to be 'cool' or 'cute'," sighed Minoru. "It's supposed to be ferocious. But no matter. As I'm sure you can imagine, the first hero was... bigger. Substantially so. And those who die while transformed remain so, so I hope that explains Bonehill. I'm done dressing, by the way."

I turned back to find Minoru staring at me appraisingly.

"What?" I asked.

"I can't help but feel you have the wrong impression about me," she said.

"What?" I repeated.

"It's true that I'm naturally outgoing and friendly. I took Wendy's advice and stopped trying to act in front of you, but that doesn't mean I can't act. You've seen me as a sultry seductress, however briefly. For other assignments, I've been dirty beggars, high-class escorts, holy priestesses. And, when jobs go bad..."

Minoru blurred, moving at the superhuman speeds only made possible by drawing on mana. I tensed, my mind—still not used to a world where mortal combat was a regular occurrence—split between panic that Minoru was attacking and confusion that Minoru would never attack me.

She didn't, heading towards Mary instead, getting behind the girl before she could react. That just confused me more. Part of me wanted to sling out spells to protect Mary, while the rest was still insisting that Minoru was a friend. Once again, I froze up.

Minoru sprouted claws from each finger, apparently useable to her even while not transformed.

Mary burst out laughing as Minoru launched a savage tickle attack.

"What?" I repeated for the third time.

"You keep forgetting that I made my way to Odimere alone," said Minoru. "And if you think for two seconds about the timings, you'll realise that either I moved very fast, or else I was already inside the Ricousian Kingdom while the war was still on. Believe me, when cornered, I am not 'cute'. I killed more than my fair share of would-be bandits on my way to Odimere."

"That... that was... mean..." panted Mary, who'd been reduced to a twitching puddle on the ground.

Minoru giggled. "Sorry," she said, completely insincerely.

"Hey?! What's going on?!" complained Wendy, struggling with the rope that kept the bag tied over her head.

"Minoru was making a point about how ferocious she is, I think."

"I was making the point that just because someone has a friendly face, it doesn't mean they aren't dangerous. Don't think I didn't notice the way you froze up again. If you trusted me, you should have remained relaxed. If you didn't, you had a range of options; blue magic to blast me away, brown magic to block my route or simply racing into melee range yourself. Either way, freezing up in indecision was not the correct answer."

"I trusted you. Mostly," I admitted.

"Not good enough. If you thought there was any chance I was an enemy, however small, you needed to react. A barrier wouldn't have hurt me if your trust was well placed, but you only need to be wrong once, and the consequences will..."

She paused and frowned.

"... Normally, the consequences would last forever. Given your ability to resurrect people, perhaps that doesn't apply quite as strongly to you as normal, but please don't rely on it. You froze up with the bandits, too, and even at the human side of the border, your reaction to their aggression left a lot to be desired."

Wendy sighed, blinking in the bright sunlight as she finally got the bag off. "Heroes come from a peaceful world. The ability to make split-second decisions with lives on the line isn't something they naturally possess, nor is it magically granted by the divine blessings. It needs to be learned."

Minoru peered thoughtfully. "I agree, and I have an idea. Thomas isn't going to like it, but... well... I would advise him to do it anyway."

"Oh? What idea is that, then?" asked Wendy. "A simple jaunt into the corrupted lands won't suffice; there's a qualitative difference between fighting monsters and intelligent humanoids."

"Exactly. Which is why I think he should enrol in the arena of each city we stop in that has one."

Wendy grimaced.

"What's an arena?" asked Mary.

"A place where people fight for entertainment," I answered. "And I should also point out that my world was far from peaceful. My homeland was mostly safe, as long as you didn't walk down the wrong street with the wrong colour skin, but the world as a whole was pretty violent. There are almost three dozen separate wars going on at the moment."

"Three dozen?" asked Wendy. "Sheesh, how many kingdoms is your home split into to even have that many possible combinations? No, never mind. Back on topic, while that was a completely accurate description of an arena, it doesn't really cover Minoru's suggestion."

"A place where people fight each other to the death for entertainment?" I tried, thinking of some of the more violent events staged in ancient Rome.

"Yes," said Minoru. "Although the entertainment is just a happy side effect. It was originally a method of execution, although more recently, they opened the death matches to anyone, so you should be able to participate without a problem. There are also good rewards for the winners, so you can pay back the money you owe."

"Huh? What reason would they have to let anyone compete if not for entertainment?" I asked, before remembering what planet we were on. "... To reduce the population," I guessed, answering my own question.

"No, not really. There's nowhere near enough sign-ups for that. It was more to provide a legal alternative to people who might otherwise be tempted to resort to banditry or similar."

"Okay, slightly better, but even so..."

"Yeah, I knew he wasn't going to like this," said Wendy.

"Me too," agreed Minoru. "But it's still the best option I could think of. If we were still in the human kingdom, I'd suggest provoking more bandit attacks, but I can't imagine fooling demons into thinking we're a viable target."

I stared, slack jawed at the thought of people deliberately entering death matches, until I remembered the reason the humans had stopped using slavery as a criminal punishment. People gripped by desperation shouldn't be underestimated, and some would throw themselves into horrible situations simply because the status quo was even worse.

It wasn't as if they could use monsters in the arenas; they'd end up corrupting the cities with miasma. In this world of mana, regular animals wouldn't pose much of a challenge. So if arenas existed at all, they needed to pit people against people. Did they also hold fights that weren't to the death? Probably, given that Minoru had explicitly referenced death matches, but even if they did, they wouldn't serve Minoru's purpose. It was a thought I'd had before, but this world was seriously messed up. "So you want me to enter the arena and execute a bunch of criminals for you?"

"Not for me. For yourself. I'm not going to force you, but if you don't, and in the future someone gets hurt because you freeze up, think about how you'll feel then. Better to get used to fighting people seriously—and killing when necessary—by using people who are going to die anyway."

"Everyone dies eventually," I pointed out. "... But I'll think about it."

More accurately, I couldn't not think about it. The thought was stuck in my head as we resumed our trek along the dusty road.

Oddly, no-one raised the possibility that I might lose. I knew my own power, and I was pretty sure that anyone who could match me wouldn't need to resort to crime to survive, but that didn't mean much. I could imagine bandits in it for reasons other than money, or I could simply freeze up again. If I was going to freeze up, out in the wilds with a team to cover for me was a far better option than a solo fight to the death.

On the other hand, she was right. During the bandit attack, I'd frozen completely, and it had been Wendy that slew our attackers. Minoru had needed to heal Mary, and until the fight was over, I hadn't even healed myself. At the human side of the border, I'd acted flippantly, believing them not to be a threat and being more concerned about the safety of our attackers than my own party. As a result, Wendy had needed to deflect their arrows. When Minoru 'attacked' Mary just now, I'd just stood there and let it happen. With Wendy indisposed, Mary hadn't stood a chance. If the attack had been real, Mary would have died, and I no longer had Vena's Grace with which to resurrect her. From what I'd seen of this world, I rated the chances highly that one day I'd have to defend someone without Wendy being available to cover my arse.

The problem was that I could make as many logical arguments as I liked, but I didn't want to be the sort of person who could kill without hesitation. I could convince myself that sometimes death was the correct solution, but to be the one inflicting that death? That wasn't the sort of hero I wanted to be. I'd told Anypha I'd save everyone, and what part of saving everyone involved killing people?

... Admittedly, Anypha had laughed at me when I'd said it, and while she hadn't explicitly used the word 'naïve', she'd sure as heck implied it. Having a literal goddess laugh at my naivety was a fairly solid argument for reevaluating my world view.

By the time the tall walls of a city came into view, I'd made up my mind. The criminals would die anyway, so what difference did it make if I was the one that killed them?

"I have conditions," I said. "It must be a match that only involves criminals sentenced to death. I want to keep my identity secret. And if by some chance I lose, make sure Mary gets back to her parents."

"I don't think that will be an issue," agreed Minoru. "We'll need to come up with an interesting backstory in later cities to arrange things like multiple opponents ganging up on you, but for your first fight, there won't be a problem."

"Oh? You're actually going through with it?" asked Wendy. "I'm surprised."

"Really? Actually, you're usually full of historical facts. What did other summoned heroes do about the freezing problem?"

"Most of them only fought monsters or dragons, so the problem never arose."

"It sure as heck did for the first summoned hero."

"True, and some of the others, too, but I'm afraid the historical documents I've read don't go into that much detail. Something I can tell you is that several heroes lost a party member to sapient opponents early on in their campaigns, but none lost a second. Perhaps that fact is related."

Ouch. Well, I certainly wasn't going to wait for bandits to kill a party member before I stopped freezing up. "It wasn't to sapient opponents, but I've already lost one member. I have no intention of losing more."

Besides, I wouldn't say I'd promised, exactly, but that lost party member had asked me to rescue her sister. The least penance I could offer for Christine's death was to fulfil that request of hers, so I fully intended to return to Ricousian one day, and how was I supposed to free what was legally someone else's property without getting into a fight with other humans?

Despite my misgivings, Wendy beamed proudly.