1 And so I was Summoned

The penetrating sound of distant animal screeches was all I focused on, my thoughts revoking control over magic as I looked down on the burning pit.

First view after escaping calamity—a burned patch of land. The crumbling of a house in the sea of fire tore me from my reverie, underlining once more how utter destruction had come to the Pirrah.

How I know who the unlucky fellows were, now mostly ashes? Hach... the Great Consciousness spoke to me as mortals did to each other.

Banter, mostly. Of the kind that's frigging unbearable. Words of ridicule if a fish had fewer scales than its compatriots, for example.

Insults for when the stars up there flunk out to shine as brightly as they should. Scathing comments when immortals come to ruin while doing whatever.

Unpleasant and borderline demeaning when it came to my use of magic. Something was smelling burnt there, but at the moment I really didn't know what nor why.

In short, the banter was useless, most of the time. So I hated it. With vengeance. Yet here it was, explaining to me what no amount of grey cells could. And so I listened.

Catfolk known for their easy-going nature and teasing antics lived here. Well, no more, as my eyes confirmed.

I subconsciously trace along the sharp edges of my bent horns, angry that even the most rundown brothel didn't survive this massacre.

Of which I had great use for. If only... But no, nothing. "Useless," I grumbled, inconsolable. My soul bumped against the confines. I sighed. Again...

As a consequence of failing to find my summoner—shitty creature nowhere to be found after a whole day of fruitless search—a dark shine enveloped my waistbelt and with it, the booklet affixed to it with a thin chain.

My very nature would've liked to throw a well-deserving tantrum, but I couldn't. My summoner was down there, somewhere amidst the fire and ashes.

The few rules still binding me didn't allow me to endanger him or her on a whim. So I relaxed my back muscles and glided down.

Landing on the scorched ground, I walk past a singed signboard barely reading Hamstay. Crowded with merchants in the past, cared for by the diligent catfolk in this middle of nowhere.

Nothing remained of all that. How futile were mortal struggles? The answer surrounded me once again.

I walk past a medium-done corpse, Florian his name, a stray vagabond—Great Consciousness be thanked for the useless information. Past a bloodsoaked tent, the home of an old lycanthrope.

Left and right, bodies lay and smouldering embers recounted a sad tale. Not sadder than the one told by the Great Consciousness, but that one had always had a sharper tongue.

It somehow reminded me of the scorching fragments of Muspelheim or the vast growling mountains of Jǫtunheimr—land now destroyed. Nice memories, these ones.

But I couldn't indulge myself further before finding the fucking summoner. Only with that bitch played like a fiddle and the contract gone as a consequence would I really be me.

Then again, the summon set me free from whatever confines imprisoned me until very recently. "Shouldn't kill the lad unnecessarily," I mutter. "Might fulfil a wish or two. If sensible."

My tail lashed out in protest, razing someone's home to the ground as a cloud of dust and ash rose to my nostrils.

Yet before I could question this silly notion not so like me at all, the connection deepened. I perceived a location, beckoning me. "Waahhh~, uhhwahhh~."

I had to follow. So I walked past the molten remains of a drunkard dwarf into the crumbling patchwork that had once been the most prosperous inn in these parts of the mortal world.

There the summoner was. In the middle, placed upon lovely laid-out tissues whose wetness had protected the frigging, stuck-up asshole. "Uuuuuhh~."

To summon the likes of me, boundless arrogance was not the end of the long list of requirements. Or so I thought in the beginning.

Until a crumbling beam hit me on the head first, then the contract responsible for my summoning I couldn't avoid at all next. A headache ensured. But then, it became clear to me after.

"Flying rotten Valkyries and naughty High Elves, what in all the nine realms...?" Tucked away in what looked like dirty wrappings, the so-called summoner awaited me.

The creature I had to... no. "This shouldn't be possible. It's a big miss, an error incomprehensible." The contract tightly gripping my soul begged to differ.

I went through it, word by word, punctuation by punctuation. "Loophole, sweet loophole, where will I find you?" It didn't require much research.

Not everything was lost, it seemed! "I have a chance. I really do." My own voice turned unrecognisably happy, but that wasn't the worst as I came to realise soon after.

Approaching, I enter her terribly limited sphere of perception, awaiting a response. Most cretins out there would cry the moment their eyes espy me.

Then my aura, if not masked, would drive them mad at best or simply kill them outright. The few survivors had often come together for some reason and entertained foolish notions.

These were all people even I could not twist any further. Rare, but those guys did exist. In any case, what followed was repetitive.

"Ganging up on me wasn't nice," I huffed while grinning at the bundle of weakness with the meanest smile I could muster, "so was their end."

Normally, leaving her there would solve the problem. Expiring due to getting buried under a collapsing house or because of suffocation or the not yet completely burned-out fire was a solution to my plight.

But the contract... wasn't something I could go up against without endangering my very essence. So I decided to play it cool and waited for the problem to solve itself.

"Under fire, the youth would have suffered less. And now she's at risk of starvation," I mused while getting ready to act within the narrow timeframe she freaked out.

"Any second now. Smile... Smile like there is no tomorrow!" And so I waited, my facial muscles cramping, razor-sharp teeth wobbling. Patiently like a dark hunter of the abyss unending.