A shopping mall near the academy.
The place glittered with colorful magical lights.
Students bustled between rows of display stands lined up like a general store, and Yurika darted through them like a flying squirrel, piling items into the cart.
“You said you’d be doing research, so basic books on magical engineering… and I need to get nutritious snacks for Seeker and Whisper too….”
Yurika picked up a pouch labeled premium turkey jerky from the shelf, then turned back to me with shining eyes.
“Should I buy some jerky for you too, Taesan?”
“Ah, no! I’m fine. Seriously.”
I waved my hands in disgust.
She did this last time too, and now she was starting again.
“Oh, come on. You ate it just fine last time. They say this one’s really good. Summoned beasts supposedly go crazy for it.”
“You don’t use the expression ‘go crazy for it’ on a person. And last time, I only ate it because I was hungry and had no choice.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to buy it? You’ll regret it.”
Yurika fiddled with the jerky pouch, putting on a deliberately regretful expression.
The turkey illustration on the front of the pouch somehow made my mouth water.
Damn it.
“If you insist that much, then buy one.”
When I muttered while pretending to look elsewhere, a mischievous smile spread across Yurika’s lips.
“See? I knew you’d like it.”
“No, it’s for Whisper. Whisper. I’m not going to eat it.”
“Yes, yes, I understand. Eat it together with Whisper.”
Listening to the jerky pouch land in the cart with a thud, I asked,
“…But are summoned beasts usually this free of things to do?”
“Who knows? It’s not like I’ve attended the academy either.”
She tilted her head, then grinned.
“But maybe it’s because you can communicate, Taesan. Normally, summoned beasts get anxious when they’re separated from their masters.”
“Really?”
“Yes. But since Lady can talk with you, there’s no need to keep you tied down.”
Yurika paused for a moment and pointed into the air with her finger.
“That’s why Whisper went into basic battle class with the young lady right now.”
“Basic battle class?”
“Yes. You heard earlier, didn’t you? She said she’d be taking basic summoning and theory classes in the morning. I heard they also practice coordinating with their summoned beasts there. Whisper is a beast she can’t talk to, so she took him with her, and you, Taesan…”
Yurika narrowed her eyes and looked me up and down.
“You’re already perfectly in sync with the young lady, aren’t you? She must have judged that you don’t need to take the basic class. Because she trusts you, Taesan.”
Yurika trotted back toward the display stand.
I watched her from behind and let out a small laugh.
***
Professor Raven was sitting at the lectern with his legs crossed.
He was easing his boredom by rolling a corpse summoned beast—a single severed hand—around like a toy with the tips of his fingers.
An old tome lay open on the lectern, but his gaze drifted blankly through the air.
The classroom was a mess.
“Grrr!”
“Kiiik!”
“Quack!”
The cries of uncontrolled summoned beasts and the desperate voices of students trying to soothe them mixed together, making the room seem like a marketplace.
There was a fire lizard running across desks, a flock of bats hanging from the ceiling and flapping their wings, even a slime dragging itself across the floor and smearing mucus everywhere.
A student sitting in the front row cautiously raised his hand.
“Um, Professor.”
Raven stopped the hand he had been rolling with a tap and turned his head.
“What.”
“When are you going to teach the class?”
“This is the class.”
“Pardon?”
The student asked back stupidly. Raven propped his chin on his hand and swept his gaze around the classroom.
“Look at that. They can’t even properly control their own summoned beasts, so they’re making a scene. That’s why I’m giving you time. So you can get close to them yourselves.”
He added while suppressing a yawn.
“For a summoned beast to read its master’s will and know how to stay still. That is the first step of summoning, and also the end. Look at those states they’re in. Does that look like following their masters to you?”
Raven’s point was accurate.
Most of the students were sweating profusely trying to stop their summoned beasts from running wild.
Rather than communion, it was more like they were forcibly holding their leashes.
In that pandemonium, the summoned beasts quietly staying in place could be counted on one hand.
By the window, the white owl sitting quietly on Yustia’s shoulder and preening its feathers, Wind Whisper.
In a corner at the back of the classroom, a faint cluster of light hovering beside Evan, the legless boy.
It carried the aura of a high-ranking spirit, but its form was indistinct.
And the small stone giant golem standing silently beside the desk of Elvis, the fourth prince from the Kingdom of Gordin.
Screech.
The sound of a chair scraping the floor cut through the silence that was not quite silence.
Someone in the back abruptly stood up.
“Ah, this is pissing me off. What kind of class is this?”
It was a sharp, prickly voice.
A red-haired male student who looked short-tempered shoved his textbook into his bag.
At his feet, a fire lizard snorted along with him and struck the floor with its tail.
“The professor isn’t even thinking of teaching us and just leaves us alone? Summoned beasts are originally like this, so what are we supposed to do!”
He openly voiced his complaint toward Raven.
“What a waste of time, seriously.”
Raven did not even give him a glance.
He merely flipped through the old tome on the lectern, chin propped on his hand.
“……”
The male student roughly opened the back door of the lecture room and left.
Bang.
At the sound of the door closing, several summoned beasts startled and cried out.
That became the signal.
“Hey, let’s just go too. The afternoon is self-study anyway, right?”
“Yeah. It’s better to go to the training ground and practice than sit here spacing out.”
Students exchanging uneasy looks began to get up from their seats one by one.
Figures dragging their summoned beasts out by forcibly leashing them followed in a line.
“You’re not going to stop them?”
Evan, who had been sitting in the front row, asked blankly.
Only then did Raven raise his head.
Letting out a long, languid yawn.
“Why would I?”
He looked around the increasingly empty lecture room indifferently.
“Afternoon class is self-directed. Whether they listen or not is up to them.”
He turned his gaze back to the book.
“I’m not kind enough to pick up an opportunity they kicked away with their own feet and hand it back to them anyway.”
His indifferent words lodged coldly in the ears of the few students remaining in the lecture room.
Yustia stayed in her seat.
Wind Whisper quietly blinked on her shoulder.
‘This is a test.’
Her instincts whispered as much.
Yustia narrowed her eyes and stared at Raven.
As if answering that gaze, the corners of Raven’s mouth twisted.
As though he had overheard the thoughts circling near her ears.
“It’s not really a test or anything.”
He lowered the hand propping up his chin and added lazily,
“I’m really giving you time to control your summoned beasts.”
“Pardon?”
When Yustia asked back, Raven flicked a finger.
With that single gesture, the severed hand crawling across the floor sprang up and scrawled strange letters across the blackboard.
Communion.
“The traces of mana connected to a summoned beast, roughly speaking. Just trusting one flimsy thread like that and issuing commands isn’t nearly enough. That’s no different from gripping a dog’s leash and shaking it.”
Raven’s gaze moved to Wind Whisper sitting quietly on Yustia’s shoulder, then back to Yustia’s eyes.
“A true summoner must know the moment their mind aligns with their summoned beast. That fleeting instant when, as you breathe, it breathes too, and when your heart beats, its heart beats too.”
He tapped the blackboard.
“Only once you can do that do you truly grow stronger. You’re not forcefully crushing it with power; your will becomes its instinct.”
Raven looked Yustia over as if intrigued.
“As expected, one has to be at least a Rosenheart to come having learned that at home in advance.”
At his sarcastic praise, Yustia pressed her lips together.
But there was no need to correct him.
“Thank you for the compliment, Professor.”
Yustia answered in a deliberately calm tone and gently stroked Wind Whisper’s feathers.
The owl narrowed its eyes as if pleased and accepted her touch.
Watching that sight, a peculiar light settled in Raven’s eyes.
“Sure. Well, take it as a compliment if you want.”
Where Raven’s gaze did not reach, however, the air inside the lecture room was already in chaos.
The few students who had not left of their own accord were sweating bullets.
There were only four or five of them.
They were struggling to somehow turn the professor’s neglect into an opportunity.
But reality was harsh on novices driven only by enthusiasm.
“Hey! Hey! Stop! Please!”
In a corner seat, a female student screamed.
The swamp slime she had summoned was oozing up the leg of a desk.
In an instant, sticky mucus soaked the textbook.
The female student poured in her mana with a deathly pale face, but the slime merely fed on its master’s panicked mana and grew larger.
“Gurrrr…!”
Raven, thoroughly ignoring the summoned beasts and their masters struggling around him, turned his head toward the air as if conversing with someone sitting in the empty seat beside him.
His gaze landed on Evan.
“How did you end up crippled?”
It was a question so direct it was as sharp as a blade.
Evan flinched and stroked the faintly trembling spirit light with his fingertips.
His empty trouser legs hung limply beneath the desk.
“When I was young…”
Evan bit his lip and continued with difficulty.
“I failed while attempting a forced summoning, and ended up like this.”
A tremor mixed into his voice.
Raven clicked his tongue.
As if he had expected as much.
A smile tugged at his lips.
“Kya… I knew it.”
He propped his chin on his hand and looked up at Evan crookedly.
“Anyway, eyes like those really are different in some way. The problem is that they always insist on doing things they’re told not to do and create trouble.”
Raven’s finger pointed at Evan’s vacant eyes.
Evan lowered his head deeply.
“Don’t pull that shit while you’re under me.”
Raven’s voice sank low.
“I’m not free enough to clean up after you when you end up even more crippled.”