Unruly Summon Chapter 52: Circles (Patreon)

The previous few minutes had involved so much activity that even the events of the arena had been pushed out of my mind. Fortunately, this latest event hadn't involved any actual danger.

Danger for the people directly involved, anyway. I imagined that if Eve's mum—Mrs Evans, who insisted on the Mrs in much the same way as Ricousian's knights insisted on armour—had poked her head into her daughter's room to see what the noise was about, she'd have had a heart attack. Thankfully, she didn't seem to be home.

... Yes, my girlfriend still lived at home with her parents. There was nothing wrong with that. She was a university student, like me, and dorms were expensive. There was much said about the 'proper' student experience, and while many people were willing to push themselves into extensive debt to get it, she wasn't. The university she went to was local, so why waste money?

No, what was far more concerning than the status of her home was the summoning circle that occupied a substantial portion of the carpet, drawn onto simple sheets of printer paper, taped together on their backs.

"Putting aside how it worked for the moment, how did you even know the design?" asked Wendy, looking around Eve's bedroom with unbridled curiosity. The bulk of the activity had been because it wasn't just me who'd ended up here, but everyone.

"Thomas left one on his dorm-room floor," answered Eve, giving me a glare. Or maybe the glare was aimed at Mary, who was hiding behind me. "I was hoping it would teleport me to him, rather than the other way around, but this outcome is acceptable."

"I think I can answer how it worked, although if I'm right, it's going to make getting back rather complicated," I said. "But what really worries me is that time's not supposed to pass in this world while I'm in the other one. Something's changed since my last visit. Also, why are you glaring?"

"Yes, Simon did say that the first time around you didn't vanish, just fainted for a few seconds. And I'm glaring because I'm waiting for you to explain why you turned up here wearing very little, in the arms of another girl who was wearing nothing but a nightie. Who is still clutching you, I might add. Not to mention the other three girls with you, all in various states of undress."

Mary squeaked and shuffled a little closer.

Wendy snorted. "That's certainly something you don't need to worry about. He's so loyal to you that he rejected an actual princess."

"So I've heard. But it's not loyalty, as such. He's just plain nice. The effect is the same, though; I trust him completely, hence my confusion. Since I can immediately rule out the obvious, I am rather interested in the explanation."

"I murdered a couple of people and was seeing visions of them dying every time I closed my eyes, so Mary hugged me to sleep," I answered.

Eve blinked.

"It wasn't murder," pointed out Wendy. "It was all completely legal. And I believe that you're technically owed quite a lot of money for it."

"Uh..." said Eve.

"Hang on a minute," I said to Wendy, as something finally occurred to me that I really should have thought of a while back. "How come Eve can understand you?"

Wendy and Eve peered at each other, both sporting confused expressions, albeit almost certainly for different reasons.

"We're all speaking English. Why wouldn't I understand it?" asked Eve.

"... The heck?" asked Wendy.

Yup, I called it. Different reasons.

"I'm not aware of anyone in their world speaking English. I can understand it because of hand-wavy magic. It shouldn't work for you."

"Unless she counts as a summoned hero," pointed out Wendy. "She did mess around with a summoning circle."

"Or you actually are speaking English, and that's why your mouth moves in time with the words," I suggested.

"Nah, previous heroes did experiments. We can repeat them if you like. I say sentences, and you and Mary both count how many times I move my mouth in specific ways. You'll come up with different answers."

"... Maybe later."

"Yes, later. Let's get back to that topic of Thomas murdering people," said Eve.

"No, please don't..." I said, not wanting to discuss that again.

"Just what are you making him do over there?" demanded Eve. "If you're taking advantage of him because he's nice, you're going to find yourselves answering to me. And believe me, I am not nearly as nice as he is."

"Ha. He might be nice, but he's not gullible. People tried to take advantage of him. Now they're dead, or in one case, that."

Wendy gestured at Stephanie, who was standing around with her usual blank expression.

... Actually, speaking of Stephanie. "Hey, Stephanie, give us a twirl," I called.

She didn't react.

"What was that for?" asked Eve.

"Uh oh," said Wendy.

"Yeah, no mana," I agreed. "Her collar isn't functional. We're not going to be able to get her to eat or drink while we're here."

"What the heck?" asked Eve.

"This is all very interesting, but could we perhaps continue this conversation elsewhere?" desperately begged Minoru, who had a vastly more sensitive sense of smell than us humans, and hence was having a very unpleasant time with the lingering scent of perfume. She was hiding in a corner, nose clamped shut with one hand, while the other was over her mouth. Unfortunately, she needed to breathe, however much she didn't want to.

"Ventus," said Wendy, presumably trying to conjuror up a fresh breeze. Alas, nothing happened. "Ah, right. No mana. How can there be no mana? And how do we make the summoning circle work without it?"

"My best suggestion is that I go to sleep on it," I answered. "It's what I did last time. It's also how we got here; I fell asleep, ended up in the weird dream world with the fog and sand, found a summoning circle there, and poured mana into it."

"You don't half know how to make a researcher depressed," said Wendy. "You know that literally nothing you do makes any sense, right? And you're going to need to explain that 'last time' at some point. You've returned here before and came back?"

"Okay, let's do this one step at a time," said Eve, throwing open a window. "First, let's try to get your cat-girl more comfortable..."

"They open?!" exclaimed Minoru, rushing over and sticking her head out. "Still smells a bit weird, but much better."

"To be fair, your world stank of manure. You're just used to it. Besides, given how rare animal life is, I have my concerns about where all the manure comes from."

"Yeah... I questioned that once," said Wendy. "Believe me, it's a case where ignorance really is bliss."

Alas, I didn't need anyone to explicitly tell me to figure it out myself. It wasn't as if they had indoor plumbing, and while I'd never asked what went on at the other end of their toilets, for fear that someone would answer, it wasn't hard to guess. In a society dedicated to extracting every last drop of use from their soil, there were hardly going to just throw it away.

"Stop getting distracted," demanded Eve. "Next step; I need to call Simon and update him on what happened."

"Simon's in on this too?"

"Obviously," she answered, already dialling. "He's the one you gave all the information to. You didn't even feel the need to tell me what happened!"

"Only because I thought I'd be back before you noticed, and I didn't have any evidence."

Eve's phone clicked. "Hi! I wasn't expecting you to call so soon. What happened?"

"For a start, Thomas is here with me, and you're on speaker-phone."

"Ah..." came a quieter voice from the other side. "Thomas... I think I owe you an apology for not believing you."

"To be fair, it was a pretty unbelievable story."

"Umm..." shyly interjected Mary. "I thought you said there was no magic? Then how is a voice coming from that little box?"

"They don't have mana, but that doesn't mean they don't have magic," incorrectly explained Wendy. "It just runs on electricity instead."

"Huh? Who else is there?" asked Simon.

"Four girls from the other world who I seem to have accidentally summoned along with Thomas."

"Wait, you can understand them?" I asked Simon.

"Of course I can. A bit of an accent, but by no means the worst I've ever heard. But more to the point, your girls are there?"

"Why would he be classed as a hero?" asked Wendy cluelessly.

Mary cutely tugged on my back to get my attention. "Umm..." she said, still rather shy. "Eve summoned us, right?"

"I... guess so?"

"Then doesn't that mean we're the summoned heroes?"

Wendy blinked. "Oh! Oooooh! Woah! We need to go back right now."

"No you damn well don't," said Eve. "First, we plan. Properly."

"Plan how?"

"I didn't draw that circle for the fun of it. Neither Simon nor I have any intention of letting Thomas shoulder the responsibility for saving another world alone, so we're going to support you. We just need to decide how. I think, given the language thing, we can claim to have reached outcome two-D by a different route and can move straight to response five."

"I concur, albeit with the initial test period increased to twenty-four hours," said Simon from the other end of the phone line.

"Do we need the test period at all?"

"Yes. We've confirmed Thomas's safety, but not your abilities."

"I don't concur!" I exclaimed, even my language blessing not offering any clue what the pair were babbling about. "What the heck are you both talking about?"

"Like Eve said, she didn't draw the circle for the fun of it. This isn't a spur-of-the-moment thing. We carefully considered as many possible outcomes as we could think of and what we'd do in each case. Outcome two was Eve getting teleported to the other world, and suboption D was her finding you alive and gaining hero powers of her own."

I blinked, trying to fathom just how much thought they'd put into this.

... And of course, the reason that was option D and not A or B was because from what I'd told Simon, they had no more reason to believe the time dilation would break than I did, which gave a rather specific meaning to the fact that I'd vanished. They likely thought me dead, and were doing this anyway.

"So what's response five?" I asked, dreading the answer that I knew was coming.

"I travel with you, backing you up in the other world. Simon uses summoning circles to check in with us periodically. There are additional options depending on the exact behaviour of the circles and whether it's possible for him to supply us with equipment."

"No. It's too dangerous," I said, but without much enthusiasm. Even before the first word, I knew it was an argument I'd lose. Anyone trying to tell Eve how to live her life did so at their own peril, and indeed, the glare she gave me made her thoughts obvious.

"If it's too dangerous for me, it's too dangerous for you, too. Besides, I've already made arrangements with the university to repeat my year."

"You what?" I gasped.

"It's normal, when travelling for a long time, to inform the relevant people beforehand," she said flatly. From the way it was accompanied by another glare, I knew what she was getting at. "I'm officially going on a six-month sabbatical, to mourn your disappearance and presumed death, and as long as Simon makes check-ins and I can ring Mum on occasion, no-one is going to worry about me."

"Like I said, I thought I'd be back before anyone noticed I was gone! But that wasn't my point; why did you do that before you even knew the circle would work?!"

"Well, you weren't, and you panicked a lot of people. How were Simon and I supposed to explain to your parents that you'd gallivanted off to save another world, and had probably died in the process? Or the police, for that matter? And of course I needed to do it in advance; if the circle had teleported me to the other world with no way back, it would be too late to make arrangements later."

"Proper planning prevents piss poor performance," stated Simon.

"Ooo, I like these people," said Wendy, nodding, even if I doubted the alliteration worked in whatever language she was listening in.

"Wait, police?" I asked nervously, but of course they'd be involved if I just up and vanished from my dorm room.

"We think someone knows something, actually. Initially, there was the usual furore over a missing person. Police searches, your face plastered over every lamppost in the area, news reports, everything. But then it suddenly went away. A community support officer turned up at your parents' house and told them they'd discovered evidence that you were dead, but that it was unlikely a body would be found, without really giving much in the way of explanation."

"Interesting. We know I wasn't the first summoned hero to return home. When I returned the first time, my memories faded pretty quickly, but I suppose someone could have written down some notes to remind themselves. Perhaps someone recognised the circle in my dorm, and given that no time was supposed to pass, as far as a previous hero would be concerned, there's only one reason for me not to have returned. Actually, that's a good point; the memory loss doesn't seem to be happening as badly this time."

... Although that didn't mean it wasn't happening at all. It was hard for people's faces to fade when they were right there in front of me, so I wasn't going to forget my party members, but now that the subject occurred to me, I realised I couldn't picture the faces of others like the old king or queen. Perhaps that was another reason why I'd recovered from the arena incident; my memories of the whole thing had already become blunted. Hopefully, it wouldn't all hit me again when I went back.

"Anyway, we're getting off topic," said Eve. "I'm coming with you, and we're going to arrange regular check-ins with Simon. We're not going to let you vanish again, nor are we going to leave you to take on this burden alone."

"I think this is a bad idea. I'm not alone, and I not going to let you risk yourself to..."

Eve's eyes narrowed, and I stopped talking. She might not have been angry about me turning up in the arms of Mary, but there were a few things that really would rile her up, and repeating an argument that she'd already rejected was one of them.

"It's dangerous," I said instead, desperately rephrasing. "We've been in life-and-death situations several times, and I only got through them because I have ridiculous hero powers. If you're there too, and you can't defend yourself..."

"Hence the twenty-four hour test period," said Eve. "If I end up without hero powers, you only need to keep me safe for a day, then I'll return. Or do you have reason to believe that won't be possible?"

... We were in a safe-ish demon city, and while we'd spend the next morning walking, Minoru seemed certain no bandits would touch us. We were far from corrupted lands. If we could keep Stephanie safe, then Eve would be child's play.

"... No," I reluctantly admitted.

"Then it's settled. Let's get going."

"I feel that events are running away from me here," I mumbled. "You do realise there's no way I'm going to be able to fall asleep with everyone watching me, right?"

"Somnum," said Wendy. "Ah, right. No mana. I keep forgetting."

"Did you just try to magic me to sleep?"

Wendy whistled innocently.

"I'd have thought you'd want to take the opportunity to explore this world."

"I do! I really do, but without confirming the rate time is passing back home, I can't risk it. Not to mention the lack of mana is making me feel naked."

"Fine. Everyone inside the summoning circle, and I'll try to sleep."

We all looked at the circle, which was just about big enough for six people to stand in, but there wasn't space for me to lie down without everyone else ending up squished against each other.

"It seems that despite our efforts, we didn't plan for every eventuality," admitted Eve.

"How were we supposed to know he needed to sleep to move between worlds?" complained Simon. "Anyway, I'll leave you to it, and draw out my own circle tomorrow. Good luck!"

The phone clicked again as he disconnected.

The rest of us continued to stare at the circle. Except for Stephanie, obviously, who was as blank as ever.

"I could knock you unconscious?" suggested Minoru. "I know how to do it safely. The sort of missions I'm sent on are rarely the sort that permit fatalities."

"... Let's call that a last resort," I said as I curled up in the circle and everyone else tried to position themselves around me.