2 Catherine Lippi

Catherine was a bit surprised by such an ordinary answer. Usually, a summoned Soul Guardian would have a name that sounded somewhat more... heroic or intimidating.

"Hmmm, nice to meet you Miss Catherine, but this whole situation is a bit confusing. Can you explain to me what is happening?" she heard the spirit say.

Hearing those words Catherine couldn't help to feel a hint of worry.

"Spirit, do you know what Soul Guardians are?"

"Can't say I do, sorry," Joshua replied. He wondered if this somehow was a case of mistaken identity.

"Soul Guardians are spirits such as yourself who establish a bond with a Spirit Summoner like me to act as a battle companion." she started to feel a sense of dread.

Catherine came from a noble family of Spirit Summoners. Ever since her childhood, she had been trained in various combat arts & magic, as well as learned about spirits & Soul Guardians.

A Soul Guardian was a type of spirit that could only be summoned a single time when one reached adulthood. They would accompany the summoner for the rest of their life. The spirit would respond to their soul and the summoning would bring forth the most appropriate one for the summoner. Soul Guardians had various shapes.

Catherine's elder sister, Miranda had managed to summon a fire elemental.

Her brother Michael ended up with a 3-headed wolf.

Her mother's Soul Guardian was a Pegasus.

Her father was renowned for having summoned an angel as a partner!

"If I may ask, what sort of Spirit are you?"

"I'm not sure what you mean, but before I died, I was a regular human being."

Human souls as Guardians were extremely rare but there was still the possibility of...

"Where you some kind of legendary hero?"

"I once saved a kitten that was about to be overrun by a car, but I doubt that's what you mean..."

"..." Catherine's face was very pale at this moment. "Do you have any special abilities?"

"Well, I was a computer programmer in my previous life, so I can help with tech support or software development. I also specialize in creating artificial intelligence." Joshua replied.

"I have no idea what any of those are..." she sighed.

"Young Lady, I'm afraid neither of us understands what the other is trying to say."

Joshua knew he clearly wasn't what Catherine expected. However, at this point, he was severely lacking information.

"Forgive me to ask, but where are we exactly? Everything is dark except the two of us."

"This place is my personal spiritual world residing inside my soul. When a summoner gains a Soul Guardian, it becomes his home and he can remodel it to see fit. A Guardian can be summoned out of it by the summoner though."

"I see, so if this is still a mental world, can I change my form like before?" he wondered.

Joshua just started focusing again. This time it went pretty fast and his bright light form took the appearance of a young man in his late twenties wearing a t-shirt and jeans.

Catherine's eyes couldn't believe the ordinary appearance of the spirit she summoned. He looked completely useless in battle, the only noteworthy thing was his bizarre clothing style.

"Phew, that's better! So miss Catherine, what happens next? I don't think I'm very fit to be your Guardian. Can you send me back and summon someone else?"

Such an innocent question made her want to cry.

"I'm afraid the summoning can only be performed once," she said sitting down and hugging her knees.

"So I'm stuck here inside your world?"

"Unless I summon you outside, *I'm* indeed *stuck with you.* "

Catherine was usually a kind girl, but this failed summoning had made her mood hit rock bottom.

Joshua started pondering. There has to be a reason why this happened.

By now, he'd gotten used to making changes to the environment in this mental world. He made a table and two chairs appear and invited Catherine to sit in front of him. Having done that, he tried to make some coffee materialize. Surprisingly, it worked. The coffee might be imaginary but in this mental world when you drank a cup, it still felt like coffee.

He started to tell Catherine everything that happened so far. How he woke up in that strange room, the giant eyeball, the whole womb thing, and how he finally landed here.

"Any of this sound familiar to you?" Joshua finally asked.

Catherine had listened to the story in great detail. She wasn't angry at Joshua but rather perplexed so when he told her his story she was all ears.

"For a regular human you seem to have a more powerful soul than average to be able to manipulate a soul environment like here, but that doesn't explain how you ended up as my Soul Guardian."

Joshua started to ask her for more information.

She started by explaining her own situation. She was the third and youngest child of the Lippi family, a long line of summoners. Her father held a relatively high position in the king's court and her family was fairly wealthy. The ability to conjure spirits was pretty rare in the country and only 5 families were known to produce summoners, including the Lippi family. Everyone in her family was a summoner, including her mother who originated from another summoner family. The kingdom they were in was called Cestor. It was currently at peace, but there had been a war with a neighboring kingdom, Oscil, a few years ago. While a peace treaty had been signed, the situation was still fragile.

Therefore, the king had passed a simple law: everyone had to train to the best of their abilities. At the age of 6, every child in the kingdom had to take an ability test to determine how to maximize their potential. Most people received fighter training but the most talented could study magic. Summon magic was rare and usually, summoners knew other forms of magic as well.

From the way she explained things, Joshua guessed the level of technology was around medieval times compared it to Earth.T hen again, this world had magic, so there might be a few things out of place compared to his assumptions.

"Can you take me outside of here? I'd like to see what this world looks like."

Catherine nodded. Her soul form vanished and she opened her eyes in the real world.

She was standing inside a remote shrine that was part of her family domain. It was an area with high spiritual energy that had been used to summon Soul Guardians by her family for centuries. Various magic symbols were traced on the ground and on the walls.

She pronounced the incantation to summon her Guardian and Joshua appeared.

Joshua was glad he still had his legs despite being a spirit. He was about 185 cm tall and had short brown hair & eyes. His build was average.

Catherine looked at him. She had hoped once summoned he would reveal some sort of trump card but he still appeared to be an average guy. She could tell he was pretty smart, but that was a very meager consolation.

Joshua examined the room and found all the magic mumbo-jumbo very fascinating.

As a spirit, he found himself able to fly around, although he seemed to be limited to staying within 10 meters of Catherine.

Now that they were in the real world, Joshua took a good look at the girl. She was a relatively tall woman, at about 175 cm. Her hair was blonde and flowed down to her shoulders. She wore a long blue dress that gave her quite an elegant look. Her facial features were fair and she seemed to emanate an almost angelic kindness. What stood out the most for Joshua was she had purple eyes, which is a color he had never seen on Earth.

Catherine opened the door leading outside and Joshua saw what the outside world looked like for the first time.

The time appeared to be late afternoon. The sky was clear and some bizarre bird species could be seen in the sky.

They were standing relatively high up on a mountain and judging by the snow, it should be very cold around here. In the distance, he saw what looked to be a very big city.

"That's Capital City," she said.

Joshua loved practical names.

Looking down the mountain, he saw what appeared to be a small town.

Catherine explained: "My family lives there, along with our servants and students."

Joshua nodded.

Catherine pointed towards 4 other mountains and told him that there were 5 mountains in the kingdom and a family of summoners ruled over each one.

"I was supposed to remain here until the summon was successful, but I'm not sure how I'm going to announce to my family that I summoned a regular human soul," Catherine said in a sad voice.

Joshua looked at her, while she remained stoic, she didn't look well at all.

Joshua didn't blame her. He wondered if there was something he could do for her. He tried to summon a mind object but it didn't work in the real world.

He thought about it for a few minutes and smirked.

"Catherine, you said my home from now on will be your spiritual world and I can remodel it, right?"

"Indeed," she said in a monotonous tone. "You seem relatively skilled at manipulating that space, maybe you can make something nice looking."

She clearly wasn't interested in whatever vacation home Joshua would build there.

"OK listen, girl, I don't want to get your hopes up, but those skills I mentioned before and you didn't understand, maybe I can find a use for it."

Joshua returned to the spiritual world before she could say anything.

"Time to get to work!" he said.