Episode 38: Summoning Magic
~Side ???~
The Eucrea Continent lies to the east across the sea from the Gruval Continent, where the Royal Capital is located. The Mystia Empire governs the western part of the continent, while the Augnes Holy Kingdom rules the east. Furthermore, the neutral underground kingdom of Gorgontia exists, sandwiched between the Empire and the Holy Kingdom.
If the Kingdom is a nation centered around nobles, the Empire is a meritocratic state. Emperor Caligula Clifford is a great admirer of the strong, and both the Imperial Knights and the Imperial Magic Corps, which the Empire boasts, have a system where the strong can rise to higher ranks regardless of their social status. Of course, nobles with more money and time are more likely to become strong, but occasionally, commoners with powerful Skills or high physical abilities are born. The Emperor of the Empire values such individuals and sometimes even employs slaves.
Therefore, martial arts schools and magic academies are always established in the countries, cities, and even villages governed by the Empire, ensuring that promising children receive sufficient education from a young age. The most outstanding among them are gathered in the Imperial Capital to bear the next generation of the Empire.
And now, at a magic academy in the city of Rainbow, about a ten-day carriage ride south of the Imperial Capital Mystia, one student was attempting summoning magic.
“Hey, Karst. Let’s bet on what kind of monster Aurora will summon!”
“Yeah, sounds good! Aurora is the only dropout in this class who doesn’t have a Summoned Beast. Even if she manages to summon one, it’ll probably be a Horned Rabbit at best, right? So, what do you think, Druid?”
“Ah, I was going to bet on a Horned Rabbit too… but that’s no fun if we’re the same, so I’ll bet on a Slime!”
While being watched by her classmates, who were making such lighthearted remarks, a girl was offering a prayer in the middle of a giant magic circle. Her name was Aurora. She was a summoner-in-training who had entered this Rainbow Magic Academy this year.
Her light blue hair was cut neatly at shoulder length, and her light blue eyes were currently closed. Compared to children of the same age, she was petite, and her fair skin and delicate physique made her look down upon by her classmates.
This was partly because, although she was able to enter the magic academy due to having the Summoning Magic Skill, her practical exam scores were barely passing, not to mention the written exam. In the meritocratic territory of the Empire, the weak tend to be oppressed.
As her classmates had mentioned earlier, the other four classmates had succeeded in summoning magic soon after entering the academy. Furthermore, they had all succeeded in summoning a second Summoned Beast.
The monsters they summoned were at least E-Rank, and Druid, who had made the bet earlier, had summoned two D-Rank Poison Snakes on his first summon and a D⁺-Rank Fang Wolf on his second, making him the most promising freshman in the academy.
(Please! At least an E-Rank, or preferably a D-Rank monster, please come!)
Aurora prayed desperately, beads of sweat forming on her forehead, as her magical power was rapidly consumed by the summoning magic.
Summoning magic, which involves chanting a long spell and calling a monster with a matching magical wavelength from somewhere in this world across space, requires a considerable amount of magical power to perform.
However, Aurora, who had barely passed the entrance exam, did not have enough magical power to withstand summoning magic. Therefore, while everyone else was challenging summoning magic and training their summoned monsters, Aurora alone had been training to increase her magical power.
It had been two months after everyone else that she was finally allowed to use summoning magic by the teacher in charge of this class. She had finally reached the long-awaited summoning ritual. Because she was behind everyone else, she wanted to summon a strong monster. Her face clearly showed such an expression.
“Oh, it looks like she succeeded.”
As Druid said, the light of the magic circle drawn at Aurora’s feet changed from blue to white. This was proof that a monster had responded to the summoning magic. Even if it was a low-rank, mindless monster, it would be forcibly summoned.
On the other hand, high-rank, intelligent monsters could choose whether or not to respond to the summoning. It seemed that the monsters could see the summoner’s appearance and a certain level of ability, which was why high-rank monsters rarely responded to low-level summoners.
It was said that a legendary summoner who had exceeded level 50 and raised their Summoning Magic Skill to Lv 21 had once succeeded in summoning an A-Rank Red Dragon, but the highest rank of Summoned Beast currently in existence was said to be the B⁺-Rank Blood Wyvern possessed by the captain of the Imperial Magic Corps’ Summoning Unit.
The white light gradually grew stronger, and the magic circle, which had shone so brightly that it was impossible to open one’s eyes, lost its light the next moment.
And the monster that had been summoned in front of Aurora was…
“Meow~?”
It was a single, adorable cat.
“Bwahahaha! Hey, no matter how you look at it, that’s just a cat!”
“Hey, stop it, Druid! It’s rude to laugh… fufufu.”
“You’re laughing too, aren’t you! Isabella!”
“But it’s a cat, a cat. It’s not even a monster! Hey, Karen, you think it’s weird too, right?”
“No, I don’t really… that cat is cute…”
The laughter of the four echoed through the training ground. Well, one of them was saying it was cute without laughing.
Aurora thought she would be disappointed by the monster that seemed to be of a clearly low rank (it was even doubtful if it was a monster), but surprisingly, from the moment she saw the black cat sitting there, a strange joy welled up inside her.
(It’s the cat that I succeeded in summoning for the first time. It doesn’t matter if it’s not strong!)
She didn’t even know if she could summon anything, so isn’t it enough that she succeeded in summoning something? Besides, regardless of its strength, it’s a very cute cat, so it’s sure to be healing to live with.
“My name is Aurora. Thank you for responding to my summoning! I look forward to working with you!”
After introducing herself to the black cat, Aurora picked up the small body and hugged it tightly.
“Aurora-san, congratulations on your first Summoned Beast! I’ll appraise your Summoned Beast right away, so could you come over here?”
The one who said this was Elizabeth-sensei, the teacher in charge of the summoner class at Rainbow Magic Academy. She was a cute woman with purple hair that reached her shoulders and gentle green eyes, and she was also young, in her early twenties.
However, her ability as a summoner was certain, and despite her cute appearance, she was a strong person who had summoned a C-Rank Blood Bear. She also commanded a D-Rank bee-type monster, an Army Wasp, and if you wanted to find honey… no, her combat power was remarkable.
As Aurora approached the teacher with the black cat in her arms, Elizabeth-sensei held a transparent crystal ball over the black cat.
This crystal ball was a top-of-the-line item with “Appraisal” Lv 9, and it was lent out by the country. What was reflected in the Appraisal Crystal was…
Race: Cat
Name: None
Rank: F
Level: 1
HP: 50/50
MP: 20/20
Attack Power: 40
Defense Power: 35
Magic Attack Power: 20
Magic Defense Power: 20
Agility: 40
Skills:
Night Vision
“…I’ve never seen an animal summoned with summoning magic before.”
At Elizabeth-sensei’s words, the classmates all burst out laughing.
“To think it’s just a cat, it’s beyond surprising, it’s just pitiful!”
Druid was the first to react.
“Hey, can we even call an animal a Summoned Beast?”
Isabella, who asked Karst such a question, was also covering her mouth with her hand, trying to hold back her laughter.
“No way. We’re going to be defeating monsters from now on, right? A mere cat won’t be able to make it as a Summoned Beast.”
Karst answered Isabella’s question with a smirk. He was deliberately speaking loudly so that Aurora could hear him.
“I want to hold it too…”
Only Karen seemed to be in her own world, not joining in the laughter.
“Alright, alright, the teachers will think about what to do from now on, so you all go back to class.”
In the end, Elizabeth-sensei calmed the commotion and led everyone to the classroom. The students’ Summoned Beasts were waiting in the classroom, and they glanced at the black cat Aurora was holding, but they didn’t seem to care much.
Aurora, who had been thoroughly ridiculed by her classmates, showed no sign of being bothered by it, and happily took her seat while holding the black cat.
The lesson that day was about the history of the Empire, but Aurora’s mind was full of thinking about a name for the black cat.
~~~