Chương 7: Summoning a Demoness

Ch 7: Summoning a Demoness

"Oh, fuck." That was all I managed to say as the heavy doors of the school jail slammed shut in front of me. The image of Sahirah chasing after Principal Zorik was still fresh in my mind. She had tried to stop him from dragging me away, but to no avail. With the certainty I was on my own now, I immediately inspected the cell. It was made of reinforced stone walls covered in scratches that definitely hadn't been made by human hands. It had no windows.

And there was a dirty wooden bucket in the corner that was apparently my toilet. Seeing all that, I couldn't stay quiet. I threw myself at the door and started pounding on it.

"Get me the fuck out of here, dickhead! You have no idea the kind of problem you're creating for yourself! Once my system becomes this world's main piece of infrastructure, you'll get a lot worse than a funny title in your status window, you authoritarian freak!" My resistance slowly burned itself out. When my burst of outrage finally faded, I slid down the cold wall beside the door, cursing the mana gag Principal Zorik had used to silence me during the walk here. Yeah, I hadn't been allowed to defend myself.

I hadn't been allowed to question the accusation that my system had killed a student. They didn't even let me check the data crystal that might prove what had actually happened. Worst of all, I hadn't even been able to utter the name Elitha Hearthstrong, which was probably my best chance of getting out of this mess and receiving a fair investigation instead of being thrown straight into jail on a manslaughter charge. Once I'd calmed down enough to think clearly, I started considering my options.

I didn't have any mana-conductive ink, so using runes to escape wasn't possible. Well, not unless I wanted to spend the next few years figuring out how to meditate and cast without ink, and that wasn't exactly an appealing plan. Which left me with two choices. Either hope Principal Dickhead came to his senses and let me defend myself... or try something else.

If I remembered correctly, Teacher Lathara had been terrified of saying the Archmage's name aloud, convinced Elitha might somehow overhear conversations through the translation spell. If that fear wasn't completely irrational... then maybe I still had a chance.

"Elitha Hearthstrong. Elitha Hearthstrong. Elitha Hearthstrong..." Like some idiot performing a ritual to summon a demon, I began repeating her name, hoping she'd eventually notice. Minutes passed. My optimism slowly faded until I was just standing by the door, peering through the narrow gap and muttering her name every now and then more out of stubbornness than conviction. Then, when I least expected it, a hand landed on my shoulder. I nearly jumped out of my skin as I spun around. There she was.

The Archmage, Elitha Hearthstrong, had somehow teleported directly into my cell.

"It seems you've gotten yourself into more trouble than you can handle, little lamb." She looked exactly as I remembered. Gray skin. Revealing clothes that showed off an athletic body covered from head to toe in tattoos, or rather, interconnected runes, which I recognized far better now than I had before. Her eyes remained hidden beneath the black bandana wrapped around the upper half of her face, yet everything about her radiated power.

"The illusion spell..." I said.

"I don't even know how much of it is responsible for my current... imprisoned condition." I wasn't about to lie to an Archmage. She'd only offered to help if I got into trouble because of the spell she'd given me, not to hand me a universal get-out-of-jail-free card for every stupid thing I might do. Still, as far as I was aware, she outranked Principal Zorik by a mile, and I wasn't about to pass up the chance to ask for fair treatment.

"Principal Zorik dragged me out of meditation class and threw me in here, accusing me of killing someone with an exploding spell." I met her gaze.

"I know you don't owe me anything, but could you at least help me examine the evidence? I need to know whether I'm actually guilty or whether I'm being punished for something I didn't do." A faint smirk touched her lips, but she didn't answer immediately. Instead, she regarded me through whatever senses she relied on behind that black bandana.

"I'm already aware of your situation," she said, turning away and slowly pacing across the cell.

"I'm willing to ignore Zorik's authority and conduct my own investigation... on one condition, little lamb." Before I could ask what it was, she stopped and faced me.

"Are you willing to spend the next three years locked in this cell if my investigation concludes that your sloppy rune work killed an innocent student?" The question stole the air from my lungs. For several seconds, my mind raced through everything. The new runes I'd added to make the system resistant to Sahirah. The safeguards I'd built in to make overloads fail safely. The care I'd taken to ensure Passive Mana Absorption could never exceed its intended energy threshold.

Then I remembered the system surviving Sahirah herself without exploding, and how that was a hell of a field test. I took one deep breath.

"Go ahead and investigate. If I'm guilty, I'll gladly spend the next three years in here." To my surprise, she smiled. She raised one hand. Before I could ask what she was doing, she snapped her fingers, and vanished. There was no flash, not even a sound. One moment she was standing there. The next, the cell was empty. It was the smoothest teleportation.

So smooth, in fact, that I found myself thinking she could appear behind someone, slit their throat, and disappear again before they even realized she had been there. Scary stuff. No doubt about it. Scarier still, however, was what happened when I relaxed for a second, thinking her investigation would take hours. A green-scaled body, still drenched in blood, simply materialized on the floor in front of me. A moment later, Elitha Hearthstrong reappeared just as smoothly as she'd vanished.

In one hand, she held several burnt scraps of paper. In the other, a half-broken data crystal I knew all too well.

"Let's see what you've been up to during your first month on Navar." To my utter astonishment, Elitha tossed the scraps of paper into the air. Before I could even process the fact that this was all that remained of my system, bracelets of shinning runes, so tiny they were nearly invisible, materialized around both her wrists.

"Wait, what are you–" I never finished the question, the sight so impressive that my words simply ceased. The charred scraps suspended themselves in midair, then drifted toward one another as though pulled together by an invisible force. Matching edges fused seamlessly, while every missing fragment was recreated from glowing sheets of mana that perfectly mimicked the destroyed paper. Stroke by stroke, broken runes rewove themselves until every page stood whole again.

It was as though the spell remembered what it used to be and simply refused to remain broken. I stepped closer, unable to believe my own eyes. Even from inches away, every rune sat exactly where I remembered placing it, including every custom module I'd designed myself. Elitha smiled at my reaction. She closed her hand, and the reconstructed pages folded themselves into a sphere. The system activated on its own, mana flowing into it without requiring any manual activation.

"This is acceptable work for someone with only a month of experience. And you used memory exploitation masterfully to display the user's name," she said, apparently reading her own status window.

"But the modules can't accurately measure the power of most teachers at this school, much less mine." If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Oh, hell no, Eric. Not now. I cursed my own curiosity. I was trapped in a prison cell with an Archmage and a corpse, yet all I could think about was how badly I wanted to know what her status window looked like. Forcing myself to resist the urge, I pointed at the crystal.

"Can you show me the last thing stored in the data crystal?" She smirked. The crystal glowed, and an illusion appeared before me: the last status window my system had displayed before the incident in the storage room. [SYSTEM STATUS] Name: Hive Mimic Number Six ATTRIBUTES ‣ Strength: 22 ‣ Agility: 92 ‣ Constitution: 23 ‣ Mana: 107"What the fuck?" The curse escaped before I could stop it. Hive Mimic Number Six? A bug in my spell? No. I stared at the name and saw through the layers logic of my own design.

The name field read memory. It extracted information from whatever the target knew itself to be. Sahirah's window had printed the name she'd hidden from the intake clerk. This window had printed what sat inside that student's skull. And the consciousness inside that dead body called itself Hive Mimic Number Six.

"There was something wearing him," I said quietly.

"My system read it straight out of its memory." Elitha's smirk widened, as if I'd just passed a test she hadn't announced. She looked down at the scaled corpse and extended a hand toward it. Another ring of runes formed around her wrist. The body began to twitch in a deeply unsettling way. Its limbs twisted, its scales split apart, and finally a small mass of worm-like flesh forced its way out through the corpse's mouth. It floated through the air until it hovered inches from my face.

I recoiled, struggling to keep myself from throwing up.

"Why are you so uncomfortable, little lamb?" Elitha asked, sounding almost amused.

"My system... it proves my innocence," I said, swallowing my discomfort.

"Have I really found some hidden monster?" Was I reading it correctly?

"Oh? Do you really think the Riftstorm only bring civilized people to Navar and not monsters?" She dismissed all her spells at once. The reconstructed pages instantly reverted to burnt scraps and fell to the floor as she casually caught the floating wet tissue with her bare hand.

"This school is officially suffering from a Mimic infestation."

"But..." I said.

"Why would my system explode because of this... Mimic thing?" Elitha turned toward me. Even with her eyes hidden beneath the black bandana, it felt as though she were staring straight into my soul.

"It didn't explode." She paused before revealing what had actually happened.

"Mimics are insidious creatures. When this one got too close to your spell, it probably realized it had been exposed. So it abandoned its host and transferred itself into another student after destroying your creation." She looked down at the corpse.

"Which means another student died in that room... except that one is still walking around with another consciousness inside their body." Those words hit me strangely, and relief washed over me knowing my invention hadn't killed anyone. Yet, at the same time, a bitter taste settled in my mouth. Yeah. This world was completely fucked up.

Not only did Navar suck for all accidental immigrants, with its complex magic and language barrier, but it was also a place where bureaucracy and rules provided only the illusion of safety. Body-snatching monsters? Seriously? Sahirah, me... every student in this school... We were all screwed. As though she'd read my thoughts, Elitha spoke again.

"Power is the solution. Become powerful, little lamb, and you'll have nothing to fear. No wrongful imprisonment. No cute little monsters taking over bodies. No incompetent principals who should've recognized a Mimic infestation before letting one into their school."

"I suppose you're right," I said, my voice still unsteady. Unable to look at the disgusting thing she held any longer, I averted my eyes.

"So... what now? How long until I can leave this place?" She smiled and rested her free hand on my shoulder.

"Half a second." The world vanished. Space folded around us in the blink of an eye, leaving me dizzy as I struggled to regain my bearings. The prison cell was gone. And even more surprising... I recognized where we'd arrived immediately. The oversized chair. The surveillance globe floating above the desk. And the Grey principal, completely unaware that we had just appeared inside the room. Yes. Elitha had casually teleported us straight into Principal Dickhead's office.

I was amazed that several seconds passed without him noticing us. The man was completely absorbed in the surveillance globe hovering above his desk.

"One locked away for good," he muttered.

"Now I just have to wait for the other one to break something expensive enough." A frown spread across my face. He hadn't mentioned any names, but why did I have the feeling he was talking about Sahirah and me? Fortunately for him, Elitha's patience had run out. Before he could make another blunder, she cleared her throat. He looked up, and his eyes somehow landed on me first.

"You," he began in a sharp voice, but the instant he noticed Elitha, the lion's roar turned into a kitten's meow.

"... Honorable Archmage. To what do I owe the pleasure? And why are you visiting my office with this human?" Elitha ignored the question.

"Open your mouth." Both Principal Dickhead and I stared at her.

"My... mouth?" She didn't repeat herself. She simply stood there, her presence alone making the air feel heavier. An electric chill sparked across my organs, and judging by the terror on Principal Zorik's face, he felt it far more intensely than I did.

"As you wish, Honorable Archmage." Slowly, he opened his mouth. Elitha wasted no time. One step. Two steps. When she was close enough, she shoved the disgusting piece of Mimic tissue into his mouth. Then she smiled.

"Eat it." I must confess, it took me exactly four seconds to start feeling sorry for the guy. He simply stared at her, clearly waiting for her to admit this was some elaborate joke. She never did. Several painfully awkward seconds passed before he glanced at me, then back at Elitha's expressionless face. Finally, with the resignation of a condemned man, he closed his mouth and began chewing. I looked away. Not because I thought principal dickhead didn't deserve punishment.

But because I certainly didn't deserve to be punished with him by watching something disgusting. When he was done, he doubled over against his desk, coughing so violently it looked as though he were about to throw up. Only then did Elitha speak again.

"What did it taste like?" Between coughs, he managed to growl, "How in the name of Navar am I supposed to know what it taste like?" But his anger lasted exactly one sentence.

"Forgive my tone, Honorable Archmage." Elitha finally took pity on him, or got bored enough to give up.

"I know what it tastes like. Mimic tissue." She folded her arms.

"Which you would have known yourself if you'd bothered to perform an autopsy before arresting innocent people."

"Mimic?" The principal's eyes flew open. He immediately dropped to his knees, shoved two fingers down his throat, and vomited onto the floor. Only after he'd finished did Elitha continue.

"You have a Mimic infestation in this school, and I'm not going to solve it for you." Her voice remained calm.

"You should assume several students are already dead. Perhaps even members of your non-academic staff. The teachers are powerful enough to resist." Only then did the full extent of his mistake became clear. Yeah... I was finding out how bad the infestation was along with him. And if his negligence had already cost several lives, plus my wrongful imprisonment, then I felt that being forced to eat Mimic flesh was a remarkably light punishment.

"How... how do I fix this, Honorable Archmage?" The desperation in his voice was clear now, the Grey man totally humbled. Elitha didn't hesitate.

"Your problem. Not mine." She rested a hand on my shoulder, and the world vanished once again. When my vision settled, I found myself standing inside my dorm room. Elitha was still there. She slowly looked around, silently judging my room, my writing desk, the amount of dust on the floor, and even how neatly I'd made my bed.

"So that's it? I'm a free man now?" I asked before she had time to inspect how clean my toilet was. She ignored the question entirely.

"Have you finished reading Magica Principia yet?" I hated how she had simply brushed my question aside, but I wasn't exactly in a position to complain.

"I'm halfway through the book," I said proudly.

"Slow," she replied. What? Sahirah had been impressed when I told her I'd read over seven hundred pages. But after everything that had happened today... I was able of guessing why Elitha's standards were so absurdly high.

"Well, I don't think I can go any faster. I'm attending meditation class now, and I have to rebuild the system. I don't even have enough credits to buy more conductive ink anymore, and... with the Mimics, I think learning a few combat spells should probably take priority." She studied me for a second through whatever sense she relied on instead of sight. Then a brief glow appeared, and two objects materialized in her hands through teleportation. One was a book. The other was a crimson crystal.

She placed both on my writing desk.

"The book is called Fire Moon. It's a classic on meditation and combat magic. Not the kind that's approved reading for a school full of Riftstorm arrivals." Before I could ask anything, she continued.

"The crystal contains five hundred credits. Consider both items payment for what I learned during this investigation."

"Wait... what?" I asked, convinced I'd misheard her.

"You may not realize it yet, Eric Nevermore, but your idea has value despite its poor execution." She paused.

"Some people would pay far more than I just did for the idea of using an illusion spell as a stationary interface the way you have." For the first time since my imprisonment, I smiled. Could this really be happening? Not only was I a free man again, but my startup had just earned its first revenue. Granted, it wasn't ideal that a potential competitor had inspected every rune in my system. But the current version wasn't exactly something worth copying yet. Reluctantly, I asked, "So...

I don't owe you anything for saving me today?" She smirked.

"I don't steal good ideas without compensating their creators appropriately. But correcting injustices and rescuing the unfortunate is not part of my job." She stepped closer.

"So consider yourself in my debt instead. A debt equal to however much I value my time. One day, I'll collect what you owe me, with interest." I swallowed hard. Once again, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd accidentally summoned a demon by speaking her name. Noticing my discomfort, she glanced at the book she'd left on my desk.

"By the way, chapter eight covers dual cultivation." A wide smile spread across her face.

"If you're going to ignore an interspecies taboo and do it anyway, at least do it in private... and with the proper technique." With that parting remark, she vanished without a sound, leaving me speechless. Only then did I realize that everything surrounding the Mimic incident had prevented Sahirah and me from discussing what had happened during meditation class. Yeah... There was no way that conversation wasn't going to be painfully awkward.

More importantly, I needed to check on her and warn her about the Mimics as soon as she returned to her room. As for what had happened during meditation class... well, rebuilding the system immediately for safety reasons sounded like a perfectly legitimate excuse to postpone that discussion. Letting out a long sigh, I looked around my room, my gaze landing on the two new items. There was no doubt my life had somehow become both easier and harder in the span of a single day.

I now had access to better resources than ever before, but the Mimic incident had also made it painfully clear that the school was far more dangerous than I'd imagined. And on top of everything else, I could only hope the dead Mimic wouldn't destroy public trust in the system before it even had a chance to grow.

Though, perhaps I could spin the whole incident in my system's favor and claim credit for exposing the Mimic, even if that risked worsening my relationship with Principal Dickhead even more than it already was.