My head was ringing so badly I could hardly hear.
The announcer’s roar thundered through the arena.
Even that sounded muffled, like tinnitus.
[K-KicK Night. The winner of this light heavyweight bout is the rising star! Fighter Kim Jihoon!!]
The largest mixed martial arts organization in the country.
The largest mixed martial arts organization in the country, K-KicK.
Under those lights, what I faced was my third humiliation.
Cold reality did not permit any narrative of a comeback.
Ptooey—
I spat out my mouthpiece along with the coppery taste of blood pooled in my mouth.
Even that small act was painful.
The inside of my split mouth throbbed, but what was harder to endure than the sting was the emptiness left behind by defeat.
The team’s mood was at its worst.
Up to one or two losses, there might have been consolation and encouragement, but in the face of repeated failure, even the most hopeful words were bound to fade.
An discomfort like sitting on a bed of thorns wrapped around my entire body.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. You did your best.”
The coach’s calm consolation only dug deeper into my chest.
The result of doing my best was a measly three straight losses.
I wished he would rather push me more harshly, that he would coldly scold me and say my talent had failed to shine because my effort had been lacking.
But if I had done my best and still lost, then it meant only one thing in the end.
That I no longer had the qualifications to stand on a professional stage.
“Yes… I guess so. I did my best, but I still couldn’t win. Then should I quit now?”
“Huh? What’s gotten into you, Taesan… Next match, you’ll come out with more fight—”
“Coach, you said that after the last match too.”
In truth, I knew.
Even if I tried to hide behind cowardly excuses, the root of every problem was none other than myself.
That night, I ended up packing my things and turning my back on the cage I had devoted my life to.
The bag in my hand was light.
But the hollow wind blowing through the hole in one corner of my chest was unbearably cold.
Overall record: 8 wins, 12 losses.
The thrill and excitement I had felt when I first stepped into the world’s largest MMA organization had worn down and down until not even crumbs remained.
“Ha… What am I supposed to do starting tomorrow?”
When I stopped walking the path of battle to which I had devoted my entire life, all that stood alone in the mirror of harsh reality was a shabby loser who had accomplished nothing by thirty.
“I just wanted to taste a clean KO victory one last time. How the hell did I lose to a bastard like that….”
After finishing my shower, I collapsed face-down on the bed without even drying my wet body.
Even the unpleasant sensation of my damp skin touching the sheets meant nothing in the face of defeat.
[Please… Anyone will do.]
Was it an auditory hallucination born from the mixing of my splitting headache and the ringing in my head?
A frail, desperate girl’s voice lingered by my ear like a ghost.
[Send me a strong and ferocious summoned beast… one that can flatten the noses of those bastards who laugh at me!]
At that moment, a bizarre vibration rose from the floor and climbed up my spine.
Thinking it might be an earthquake, I hurriedly tried to get up, but my body sank helplessly as if swallowed by a vast swamp.
Flash!
A burst of light flared before my eyes, scattering my sense of reality, and a sharp ringing tore at my eardrums.
Then a floating sensation I had never felt before wrapped around my entire body.
And when I opened my eyes again.
“…Huh?”
I was lying alone on a stone floor, an unfamiliar, chilly cold seeping up my spine.
The texture of the cold stone against my cheek was vividly chilling, but the scene unfolding before my eyes was impossible to believe as reality.
“It worked!”
“Patriarch! Lady Yustia has succeeded in a highest-grade summoning spell!”
A mysterious blue light seeped through the thick gray smoke settling in the air.
Strange patterns carved into the floor, circles and letters intertwined in layers, turned and meshed together with intricate precision.
They formed a flawless geometric structure that allowed not a single error, radiating an eerie light.
Soon, as the smoke slowly cleared, dozens of figures wearing dark robes came into view.
All of their gazes were fixed on me, sprawled on the floor.
Within their eyes, shock and bewilderment swirled together.
“What is this… A dream?”
At the mutter I let out while gathering my hazy senses, the air surrounding me froze for an instant.
“Th-that’s…? A human?!”
“Did it not just speak? From the summoning circle, how could…?”
“A human? That cannot be. A summoned beast being human?”
“Could it perhaps be the disguised form of a gargoyle…?”
Everyone was staring at me and whispering in flustered voices, but I was certain the most flustered one there was me.
What in the world was this situation?
Summoning circle? Summoned beast? Gargoyle? Words I couldn’t understand reached my ears.
“Everyone, stop.”
Just then, a cold, oppressive voice cut through the commotion.
When the person in a dark crimson robe, who had been watching the situation from the very back, opened his mouth, silence fell at once.
“Yustia….”
“Father! It’s not true. There was definitely nothing wrong with the summoning circle. I checked it again and again—”
“Yes. Since Professor Lifedimer, who served at the Academy until last year, personally instructed you, there must have been no problem with the summoning circle. The problem is the summoned beast.”
“I… only wished for a strong summoned beast.”
“It is human.”
“…….”
The shoulders of the robed girl visibly shrank.
A shadow of despair fell over her deathly pale face.
No excuse seemed able to leave her trembling lips.
“An ordinary human male from whom not even the faintest trace of mana can be felt. Is this the summoned beast you wished for?”
The sharp-eyed man swept his cold gaze over me once more.
It was an insulting look, as though he were appraising meat put up for sale at a livestock market.
“I am deeply disappointed.”
He clicked his tongue briefly and turned away.
The hem of his dark crimson robe fluttered roughly.
“Handle the aftermath yourself. I cannot stand the sight of this. All retainers are to gather in the meeting room.”
Leaving behind only that cold command, the man in the dark crimson robe exited through the door.
As the footsteps of the aides following him grew farther away, the silence left in the hall pressed down on the girl even more heavily.
The girl stared endlessly beyond the closed door with eyes thick with lingering regret.
…Right.
They looked clearly confused too.
But wasn’t the one even more confused me, sitting here without knowing why?
“Excuse me, but what is going on right now? What is this?”
“Oh my! You startled me…!”
The girl who had supposedly summoned me let out a short scream, clutching her chest as she stepped back.
“You… you can speak, can’t you? Are you really human?”
“Yes, human. I’m human, but… Would it be all right if I asked what I’m curious about first?”
“Yes! Anything….”
“I’m sorry, but first, could I get some clothes or something… It’s a little embarrassing to talk while completely naked.”
“Ah, I’m sorry!”
The girl’s face flushed red in an instant.
Dyed red all the way to the tips of her ears, she didn’t know where to place her gaze and let it wander through the air before dropping it to the floor.
“Please wait! I’ll bring… I’ll bring clothes right away!”
Trailing off, the girl abruptly turned around.
The hem of her robe swept across the floor, and she vanished through the door in a flustered rush, as if fleeing.
“Hah… What a damn mess.”
It was the moment I raised myself to escape the chill of the cold stone floor.
My body, which should have been heavy, rose like a feather.
No, as if the shackles of gravity had been undone.
“Huh?”
My center of gravity floated up into the air.
The mere motion of trying to get up had unintentionally turned into a jump.
As though the floor had sprung me up like a coil.
My knees flailed helplessly in midair, and my toes scraped at empty space.
I wobbled. My body tilted forward.
“Ah, wait!”
It was the instant I roughly stamped my foot down to regain my balance.
Crack.
A dull sound of rupture split the stone floor.
The solid flagstone beneath my foot cracked like a spiderweb, then sank straight down.
“What the hell?!”
Reflexively, I swung my arm, trying to grab onto empty air, but there was nothing to grasp.
Boom!
The impact of falling was far greater than usual.
I had only stumbled slightly, but the moment I collided with the floor, the entire hall shook.
When I inhaled, acrid stone dust filled my lungs.
“Cough… cough… Ah, shit.”
Against my palm braced on the floor, I felt the rough, gritty texture of cold stone powder.
“What happene… Eek! Are you all right?”
The girl came running in with an armful of clothes, then froze like a stone statue when she saw the mess I was in.
Her gaze naturally went to the floor beneath my feet, to the pitifully shattered cracks and the faintly trembling flagstones.
“How did you do that to the summoning circle… Ah! Clothes, clothes first—”
“What is this? Why does it break so easily? There’s something wrong with the floor.”
“That can’t be. The stone used for summoning rituals is harder than iron….”
Unable to hide her bewilderment, the girl hurriedly held out the clothes to me.
But her pupils were still fixed on the deep cracks running across the floor.
As I put on the clothes, I carefully rose again.
This time slowly, without using strength.
Even then, my body moved more than I expected.
The angle at which my upper body rose was greater than I intended, and before my feet could catch the floor, my center of gravity tilted forward first.
The strange floating sensation kept lingering.
Thud.
“…What is this?”
“Are you all right?”
“Something feels off… It’s like my body’s gotten lighter.”
“That can’t be….”
The girl’s eyes began to sparkle with a strange light.
“Wait. Could it be….”
The bewilderment from moments ago was nowhere to be seen, replaced by anticipation, as if she had witnessed some tremendous secret.
“Father may have been wrong. No, he was wrong. You are not an ordinary human. Are you?”
Her voice rose subtly, filled with conviction.
Life began to return to the girl’s face, which had been submerged in gray despair.
“No, I’m just….”
“I knew it! There’s no way an ordinary human would come out of a summoning ritual!”
“Excuse me, hold on… Could you explain this situation first? A summoning ritual?”
The girl moved her lips for a moment, then dropped her gaze downward.
“Summoning is… a ritual that draws ‘monsters’ from another dimension.”
“…Another dimension?”
“Yes. Those dimensions have many names. Some books call it the Abyss, and others call it the Otherworld….”
She pointed with her fingertip at the pattern of the summoning circle.
The geometry of circles and letters layered upon one another was glowing faintly on the floor.
“But the purpose is one. To summon a being with powerful strength into the real world in exchange for the summoner’s mana, and make it swear absolute obedience. That is the essence of summoning.”
“Absolute obedience?”
The girl’s voice gradually grew smaller, its ending trailing off.
She glanced at me, gauging my reaction, then carefully continued.
“Originally, a ferocious magical beast or spirit should have appeared….”
I swept my hair back.
“Hoo… Then there must be a way to send me back too. If you summoned me, then returning me—”
“There isn’t.”
The girl hastily cut me off.
“There are no records of anyone sending a summoned beast back… and I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“…What?”
For a moment, my mind went blank.
“U-um! First… please calm down! It’s not that there’s absolutely no way, just that there’s no way right now. There’s nothing impossible with magic. So….”
She rambled on, waving her hands through the air.
But none of her consolation reached my ears.
As if being driven out of the fighting stage I had devoted my life to wasn’t enough, now I had even lost the home I could return to.
“F-first, we can’t just stay here like this….”
The girl cautiously took the edge of my clothing.
“For now, we have a guest room at our house. I’ll guide you there. If you rest and… think about it slowly, I’m sure there will be a way. All right?”
At the desperation dripping from her voice, I barely managed to hold myself together.
Nothing would change if I collapsed here now.
I forced my feet, heavy as lumps of lead, to move and let myself be led by her hand.
“…Yes. Please guide me for now.”
The moment I stepped forward, that strange floating sensation wrapped around my ankles once more.
The feeling of stepping on the ground was hazy and dazed, like waterlogged cotton.
“Ah, yes! This way!”