Unruly Summon Chapter 55: Extraction (Patreon)

I woke up alone. Despite Minoru's thoughtfulness, Eve and I hadn't engaged in, as Wendy had called it, 'private physical training'. Eve was too pissed at me for that; she hadn't even wanted to remain in the same room. Or perhaps she was hoping that if she hid in another room, she wouldn't get summoned back to Earth with me. Logically, she could understand where I was coming from, but that just made the emotions worse.

Yes, her strength had increased a little further since the morning, but it was so little that it would take months for her to catch up with me. Even that assumed I would stand still, which I wouldn't. Mary was the same. Yes, she'd turned out to be able to cast Parvus Ignis or Parvus Ventus, but that hardly changed the calculus of her value versus her safety. If she'd learnt Scutum, then maybe, but she wasn't going to defend herself with a tongue of lukewarm flame an inch long.

She could at least use a low level of body strengthening and heal herself, which was an improvement over Eve, but even so, on balance, I didn't want to risk her. And yet, despite making that decision...

With a sigh, I threw open the curtains, letting in the morning sunlight. There had been no dream, and we hadn't visited Earth. Had Simon not drawn the circle as promised? Had he drawn it, but I hadn't been able to reach it? Was there a cool-down? Without knowing how travel worked in the first place, how could I even begin to work out what had gone wrong? I even had to consider the possibility of Eve doing something to sabotage it. But, whatever the cause, the result was that Eve and Mary were still here, the other side of a thin wall.

Should I draw a circle of my own, or get Wendy to do it? If it behaved like the time Wendy sent me home, I'd just need to charge it and throw Eve into it. There wasn't time to draw it before everyone else woke up, though. In fact, a couple of them were up; the fidelity of Maius Omnia Visus was sufficient to tell if eyes were open or closed, and Mary and Minoru's were definitely open.

... Yes, I was spying on a room of girls with magic that let me see through walls and clothing, but only because I wanted to confirm Eve and Mary were still there. They not only were, but were sharing a bed, thanks to the room only containing four. Their brief bout of animosity had probably been forgiven as the pair found a common opponent in me.

A few minutes later, the girls were up and moving around—in Stephanie's case, only because I shouted at her through the wall—and it wasn't long before they were dressed and I'd rejoined them.

"Well, that didn't go as planned," said Wendy, stating the bloody obvious.

Eve gave a non-committal shrug.

"... You knew," I accused, noting her lack of surprise. "Did you plan this beforehand? Asking for a circle in twenty-four hours was code that meant that he wouldn't make one at all? No... You were too desperate yesterday for that. You weren't sure, but you aren't surprised."

"I'm a little surprised, but not massively. We're probably into outcome four; our plans were interrupted by someone on Earth who knows about magic. Don't worry; we have contingencies for that, too. With the way you confirmed magic didn't work on Earth, that the number of heroes were small, and that before you, it apparently hasn't been possible to cross multiple times, it's unlikely any ex-heroes are able to run big, clandestine operations. Simon should be safe, but just a little delayed, so sorry, but you're stuck with me."

"No I'm not; I can just make a circle of my own."

"Will you? Are you sure I'll be safer on Earth than here? After all, something happened there that meant Simon wasn't able to make his circle on schedule."

"Ha. You sure know how to pick them," laughed Wendy. "I bet you're wishing you'd taken the harem option now."

"No. I'm not wishing that at all. In fact, I find myself reminded that there are ways of measuring 'strength' that have nothing to do with muscles."

Eve grinned triumphantly.

"Fine. Since we have no idea what's happening Earth side, we're probably better off waiting for Simon. I'd vote we go and check up on him, but magic doesn't work over there, and we have no way of fighting back against Earth weapons. In that case, since you're staying here, we should do something to improve your survivability. Can we get Eve and Mary some daggers or other simple weapons on the way out of town? Maybe some light armour?"

"No to the armour; it needs fitting, so it's not something we can just pick up off a shelf. Perhaps we can get something temporary once we reach our next stop," answered Minoru. "No problem picking up a couple of cheap daggers, though. We can arm them properly once we reach Bonehill."

Eve's triumphant grin grew wider.

"Hopefully, they won't be with us for that long," I said. "But... in the case that they are... fine. It's not like they're dead weight. We can never have too many healers, and there's no-one quite like Eve for warning me when I'm being an idiot."

"Speaking of dead weight..." sighed Wendy, eyeing up Stephanie. "If we keep Eve, we now have as many non-combatants as combatants, but Stephanie is the real problem. She won't even dodge without being told to. Trying to protect everyone in a fight will be... difficult."

"I know!" I exclaimed. That was why I was trying to get Eve and Mary back to Earth!

"I know you know. I was just thinking aloud. I know you want to keep her close for her own safety, and sending her to Earth isn't viable even if we could travel there freely, but perhaps there's something else we can do. I'll have a think."

Wendy continued to look thoughtful as we left the inn, but if she had any good ideas, she didn't mention them. There was a dark part of me—a part I was doing my best to ignore, despite it growing more prominent since the arena—that hoped that we would get attacked, and that Stephanie would die as a result, despite my best efforts to protect her. That way, she'd be out of our hair, and it wouldn't in any way be my fault. A guilt free way of solving the problem forever, leaving me better able to focus on protecting the non-combatants I cared more about.

No-one commented any further on the subject as we did a small amount of shopping, Wendy picking up a few reagents for whatever enchanting she wanted to do while Mary and Eve picked up a simple dagger each and Minoru gave them a few pointers in how to wield them. Daggers weren't something I'd touched during my training with Christine, but once we made it out of town, I could at least spar with them a little during our rest stops.

As Minoru had promised, the next town wasn't all that far, and we reached it by early afternoon.

"Did we decide what we're going to do this evening?" asked Wendy.

"Rest in our inn room?"

"Seems a bit of a waste, given how energetic everyone still seems," replied Wendy. "Whatever scraps of the hero's blessing we've picked up have certainly done something. It may not be a tourist town, but we could still go shopping for non-necessities? We'd stand out a little less if we wore demon fashion, for example. And didn't you want armour for Eve and Mary? Preferably yourself, too."

"I'm already wearing armour," I pointed out. "And not all of us are... well... energetic," I added, glancing at the emotionless Stephanie.

"You are wearing the standard armour of the light Ricousian infantry," countered Wendy. "The uniform of people who, mere days ago, were at war with the empire. As standing out goes, that's a big one."

"Thankfully, the general population won't recognise it," said Minoru. "But it's certainly true that had you passed a guard patrol without me, things could have got messy. You might be able to find a replacement that's almost as good, and have it fitted by this evening or tomorrow morning."

"Fair enough," I agreed. "But we still have Stephanie with us. Remember, her collar is technically illegal."

"Yes, we should leave her in the inn," replied Minoru.

"Don't worry; I'll stay with her," added Wendy, before I had a chance to object. "My outfit stands out the least among all of us humans, and I'm not mucking around with armour. No need for me to change."

"... You've been wearing that same dress since the day I met you, except for that brief maid stint."

"I most certainly have not! I just have several the same. None of which I have with me now, admittedly... But don't worry; I'm keeping it clean."

"I'll keep an eye out for something that would fit you," offered Mary.

"And blue! There's no point it fitting me if it's the wrong colour."

As usual, Minoru got us into the town without any trouble, and half an hour later we'd dumped our heaviest bags in an inn room—a single room for six, this time—and wandered out to shop, while Wendy waved us off, Stephanie standing emotionlessly behind her.

————————————————————

Wendy carefully closed the door, then slowly counted to thirty. "Quies," she chanted, but unlike a usual spell, the sound was sucked away without a single echo. The effect was almost as strange as the alien harmonics of a normal spellcast. Sounds always have some echoes, but thanks to the wonders of the humanoid brain, people generally didn't notice. It wasn't that it edited them out, they were simply what people were used to hearing, and so became what people considered normal. It was thus their lack that sounded odd.

The mage knocked on a table a few times, happy to find that the sounds continued not to echo.

"Right," she said, turning to the motionless former princess. "It seems the two of us finally have some privacy. I'm not callous enough to wish you were dead, but honestly, if it was up to me, I'd at least have turned you over to the demons the moment we crossed the border. They'd assuredly protect you from your brother, given the valuable knowledge you hold. Luckily for you, Thomas is nicer than me, and doesn't want to turn you over to anyone who would take advantage of your condition. Since I have no intention of betraying him, I'll need to put a little more effort in."

She took out the enchanting tools she'd purchased at Ginnk and carefully laid them out of the table, then took the collar from Stephanie, who was impassively staring at the closed door, not having moved since the rest of the party left.

"Can't believe I'm doing this, but casting Ego with it active is the only hope I have of getting enough detail about its operation to modify it."

She stared at the evil thing for a few seconds longer, taking deep breaths as she tried to psych herself up.

"Right. This is almost certainly an orders-only model, and so won't do anything without someone giving explicit orders. But, in case it isn't, Thomas is nice. He wants to 'save' Stephanie. He's completely against mind control and slavery in all forms, and would never use this thing to enslave someone or force them to do something against their will. He'd be upset if he knew I was doing this, and would certainly never tell me to do it of his own accord, but he won't hold it against me if I do it myself without him watching and only tell him when I have results to share. I know what he wants well enough for this to be perfectly safe. Hopefully. Omnia Visus. Ego."

She took a few more deep breaths, then clipped the collar around her neck. Then she blinked a few times, looking around the room in mild confusion, before finally unclipping it again.

"Well, that was weird..." she muttered to herself.

She tried again. Again, the collar went on, and again it came straight back off.

"This isn't an orders-only model?! Then why is Stephanie... Oh... They wouldn't... Surely..."

Wendy stared at the unmoving girl in utter horror.