Unruly Summon Chapter 2: History (Patreon)

"We need your help," Princess Stephanie finally admitted. It really was an admission, too, spoken as reluctantly as if she was admitting a murder. "Our kingdom has been attacked by demons. We've been fighting them for months, but, frankly, as things are, we're going to lose. We need the help of a hero if we're to stand a chance of survival."

"Uh... Are you sure you've got the right person? I'm not any sort of hero."

"Maybe not right now, but you could be," she responded. "Hold up you hand, palm facing upwards, but closed."

"Uh..." I repeated.

"Please, just humour me," she said, holding up her own hand in the same way as she'd described. Wondering where she was going with this, I mirrored her. "Now focus on the contents of your hand. Picture the mana in the air rushing into your grip, forming up into a ball. More and more rushes in, the ball growing denser and denser, until there's so much there that it ignites. Then chant the spell. Lux."

Bright light poured through her closed fingers, and when she opened her palm, a golf-ball sized orb of light floated above it. Magic! And she thought I could do the same thing?! But her explanation was rather lacking. What was mana? How could I picture it when she hadn't even explained what it was? I tried anyway, imagining the air full of something, and that something collapsing to a point in my hand.

"Lux!" I tried to whisper, but the word oddly vibrated in my throat and came out vastly louder than intended. Odd harmonics and reverberations echoed throughout the room, but I was more focused on my eyes than my ears; like Stephanie's, my hand burst with light. I opened my palm to a floating ball of light, exactly the same as hers.

"Oh, you succeeded on your first try!" marvelled Wendy. "So this is the power of a hero. Even if it's one of the basics, that spell still took me half an hour to learn. You didn't even have any of the usual background knowledge!"

"Took me a week..." darkly muttered Stephanie, before mouthing something I didn't quite catch about geniuses. "Anyway, as Wendy said, that's the power of a hero. Or a part of it, anyway. You can use any spell of any colour, as long as you have sufficient mana capacity, and you'll find that as you train, your capacity will increase a couple of orders of magnitude faster than anyone else's. In the same way, you'll find your physical abilities improve by leaps and bounds with only small amounts of training. Speed and strength, skill and finesse. You can push all of them beyond human limits. And as you've no doubt already noticed, you can comprehend our language. The same applies for any language of our world."

"I dunno about magic, but my physical abilities certainly aren't anything out of the ordinary," I commented, doubtful of her claims. Yes, that answered my question about languages, and a little ball of light was cool, but neither of those facts would be helpful for slaying demons.

Even if I did have superpowers that would be useful in combat, I still wasn't sure I wanted to be fighting a war. That needed an appropriate mentality, as much as physical ability. Could I kill people, even if they were demons? Were demons people? Were they intelligent, sapient beings? She hadn't used the words 'invasion' or 'war', just 'attacked', so hopefully they were just dumb monsters.

"Your physical abilities weren't anything special, but the simple act of responding to our summons..." started Stephanie, before shaking her head. "Sorry, but Wendy can explain this better than I can."

"Then first let me explain a bit of history!" Wendy exclaimed, seemingly leaping at the chance to take over the lecture. "In ancient times, when this world was still young, there were four humanoid races. We humans lived alongside the elves, dwarves and demons. Four kingdoms were born, one per race, and they flourished. Each kingdom had their own speciality, leading to a healthy trade between all four. Everyone was happy and peaceful. It was a veritable utopia. But then the dragons came. They crawled out of volcanoes, the deep oceans, the very earth itself, and wherever they trod, they left destruction and corruption in their wake. From their corruption, monsters rose up. Deformed beasts born beneath the earth, forcing their way out, driven only by an insatiable hunger for humanoid flesh. The kingdoms—never having known war before—were quickly pushed to the brink, lacking any sort of ability to fight back. The people cried out as one to our gods for salvation, for what remained of our world to be saved. And the gods answered."

"Stop being so dramatic," interrupted Christine. "Hurry up and get to the important part."

"The background is required to understand the important part," sniffed Wendy, completely unabashed. "Anyway, as I was saying, the gods answered. One person was chosen, a demon, and each of the gods poured their divine blessing upon him. Practically unlimited mana and stamina. An affinity for all colours of magic. Physical strength that could match the dragons themselves. The gods created the first hero, and, at first, it was a resounding success. The demon hero fought the dragons with magic, spear and sword, and he brought to them the same ruin they'd inflicted on us. Legions of monsters fell to his spells, and the dragons broke, the survivors retreating back to the places of their birth, hiding back beneath the earth. And the people cheered, celebrating their champion."

That certainly answered my question of whether demons were people, and it wasn't the answer I'd hoped for. But if they were allies back then, why were they fighting now?

"Of course, the celebrations didn't last long. The kingdoms were in ruins. The land had been decimated by the fighting, but worse than that, it had also been poisoned. Where dragons had fallen, their corpses leaked miasma, and the miasma continued to give birth to monsters. Where monsters fell, their blood polluted the soil, spreading the miasma, and plants withered. Monster meat proved deadly, twisting anyone or anything that consumed it into unnatural forms, man or animal, giving birth to more monsters. The deep oceans became impassable, confining the races to a single continent. There wasn't enough food to go around, and the people once again grew desperate. And that's where the plan of the gods first cracked. The heroic demon realised that there wasn't enough food for everyone, and prioritised his people. He turned his power against the humans, dwarves and elves, driving them from the small amount of viable farmland that remained, seizing it for the demons. By all accounts, the result was a massacre. People stopped calling him the hero and started calling him the demon lord. Even his name was lost to time, as none but the demons dared to speak it."

... Yup, that sounded like a pretty damn good reason to fight. But wasn't she still talking about ancient history?

"Once more, our people cried out to the gods, along with the dwarves and elves, hoping once again for salvation. But this time, the gods turned aside, disappointed that their people had fallen into conflict. 'Never again shall we bestow our power upon one of you, for power corrupts, and you shall become the very thing you fight against,' they answered. But the demon lord kept killing, aiming to wipe the three other kingdoms off the face of the planet and subjugate the other races under himself, and so the people kept crying out. And eventually, the gods compromised. 'We shall bestow our power upon an outsider', they decreed. 'One who will fight for you, but who will not be one of you. One without ties or attachments, who shall leave this world once their task is done'. And so the first human hero was summoned, and the hero fought the demon lord. The death toll was great, but in the end, the demon lord was destroyed, and, as the gods had promised, the human hero was returned to his home. So many died in the conflict that the reduced land was sufficient to sustain them all, and, for a time, there was peace once more."

"Of course, no-one forgot the actions of the evil demons," added Christine. "If only we had wiped them out back then..."

Wendy opened her mouth, as if to respond, before cutting herself off, simply giving a shake of her head instead. "Well, that was a long time ago. It holds little relevance now, but I hope it answers the question of why we call you a hero. Since then, in times of great need, when only a hero can save us, we've been able to summon an outsider to take up the role. It's happened maybe a dozen times in the past, when a dragon has re-emerged from their slumber, or a nest of monsters has grown out of control and caused a miasmic flood. Or, in this case, when the demons are once again on the verge of destroying humanity."

If my summoning was divine in nature, why were the princess and blue-green mage talking about mana? Was mana required for religious activities? Not that it was a particularly important question compared to the more obvious one. "So, it wasn't me specifically you wanted. Anyone from my world would have done?"

"I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings, but yes," confirmed Princess Stephanie. "You aren't special. But on the bright side, that is exactly why we're able to offer to send you home so easily. We know it takes a certain mentality to throw yourself into another world's problems, and we'd consider it no mark against you if you lack that. We simply need to keep summoning more 'heroes' until we find one willing to fight. It costs us nothing but time."

She gave a nervous look out of the window as she spoke, where the pillar of smoke had grown since our conversation started, and I had to wonder just how much time they had left. Given the strain the summoning had obviously placed on the princess, there was no way they could cast it repeatedly in a short amount of time. How many attempts had they already made? Was that why she looked so haggard?

"I... uh..." I started, wondering what I should do. Would I risk my life to fight for strangers? If everyone had been living in peace since the demon lord, why were they fighting now? If I demanded to be sent home, and they all died, would I care? Would I even know? I could simply tell myself they summoned someone else, they agreed to help, and everyone lived happily ever after.

Of course, the opposite also applied. Even if they did summon someone else who saved them all, would I be having nightmares for the rest of my life wondering if I'd killed them?

I took a deep breath. This was no time to panic. This was a time to consider things rationally. What did I want? What were my hard limits? If I was unable to kill someone, even in a state of war, then there was no point in me staying. It was really hard to imagine how I'd react until it actually happened, but I thought that if someone was seriously trying to kill me, I'd be able to defend myself. There was no way I'd be killing civilians or anyone who surrendered, though. Would that be a problem?

Frankly, I wasn't sure I would care if this human kingdom was destroyed. There were precisely four people on the planet whose names I knew. I'd seen a small city out of a window. Beyond that, there was nothing. It was hard to get attached to a place I'd never seen or people I'd never met.

However, back on Earth, there were people I cared about. How long would it take to fight a war? What would my parents think in the meantime? What was Simon doing right now, presumably having watched me vanish? What about Eve, who'd gone back home a little before us? Would she blame Simon?

That was a hard limit. I needed to let them know I was okay, and if that wasn't possible, I was going back.

"Can I send a message back home?" I asked.

"That won't be necessary," replied Stephanie. "I'm sure you're worried about the people you've left behind, but you don't need to be. It doesn't matter how long you spend here, you will return only a few seconds after you left."

Well, that neatly solved that problem.

... Wait. No it didn't.

"And if I die here?" I asked.

Stephanie winced guiltily. "Then no, you won't magically come back to life back home, as far as we're aware. But historically, only a few heroes have died in combat."

'Only a few'? As good as that sounded, didn't Wendy say only a dozen heroes had been summoned? That was a twenty-five percent death rate!

"Can you send a message back if I do die?"

"Uh..." demurred Stephanie, before turning to look at Wendy.

"I don't see why not," Wendy answered in her place. "All we need to do is put a sample of your blood in with the message, to ensure it links up with the correct endpoint."

"Then yes, it seems that you can."

I fell back into silence. That was nice, but still, twenty-five percent death rate! Was I really willing to risk myself for strangers?

"What caused this war?" I asked, deciding to get that vital question out of the way.

It was only for an instant, but I'd been watching carefully, and so I didn't miss the way Stephanie winced again. That was not a good question to wince at.