I Only Summon Villainesses

Po escorted me into the cabin of the ship and told me to rest while he found someone to tend to my wounds.

It was no surprise that the Beastkin was sharp-witted. I had tried not to give myself away throughout the journey, but he must have caught the stiffness in how I moved, the way I favored my left side when climbing the gangplank. Pain has a way of leaking through even the best masks.

The room he pointed me to held a bunk bed with two spaces and a table and chair against the opposite wall. There were no windows of any sort, but ventilation hummed softly from the air vents embedded into the upper part of the metallic walls. The air tasted of salt and machine oil, and the faint vibration of the ship's engines traveled up through the floor and into my bones.

Afterwards, a nurse came around. She had black hair and was lean — one of the harbor staff Po had recruited. I opened my clothes for her to patch me up and at the same time minded my lechery.

I was a disastrously horny crook, but I was not a... every hole is a hole type of guy. I might be shameless and undignified, but even a beggar gives sometimes.

I simply stole glances here and there at her pale thighs. If she had sat opposite me perhaps, the color of her panties might've been possible to see.

But like I said... such lechery... is beneath me.

She gave me clear instructions to rest, her tone leaving no room for argument. Which I was happy to follow. I simply laid into the bunk bed beneath and found purchase in the warm blankets, letting the weight of them press against my battered body like a second skin.

It had been a very long week.

From the Spirit Gate, to the Lira, to running away from Athermere. It had taken us a whole ass week to run away from Athermere. Seven days of looking over my shoulder. Seven days of sleeping in snatches and waking at unfamiliar places.

I stayed there thinking about everything.

'It's been over a month now... since I was summoned here.'

And somehow I've lived the life of a rat. Scurrying through shadows. Eating scraps of safety wherever I could find them.

Tears tingled at the edges of my eyes and sobs bubbled in my throat, but I refused to let them loose.

Instead I swallowed hard and wiped my eyes with the heel of my palm, forcing my gaze to harden.

There was nothing more I wanted to promise the Eternal Light church than my return.

I will be back.

And I will bring their entire organization down.

And in order to do this, I was beginning to have a small understanding of what it was that I was trying to do. This was an organization that had the backings of noble houses, nations in fact. When I thought about their headquarters, the scope of their influence, the millennia of power they had accumulated...

'I might as well say I want to tear down an empire on my own.'

But that was the thing.

The thought did not scare me.

Weirdly, my heart danced with a strange and disturbing joy and expectation. This... this was fuel. The impossibility of it didn't crush me — it ignited something. A hunger I didn't want to stir deeper into.

'In fact...'

I closed my eyes and appeared at The Nave.

Kassie was not training nakedly, she wasn't also sleeping naked. She was standing, facing the broken altar, her silhouette still against the dim eternal light that filtered through the ruined windows of my Soul plane.

She shifted as I appeared and turned to me, raising a brow.

"Why are you here?"

I breathed. "You keep asking me that when this is my Soul plane."

"You should be resting."

I began to walk but not towards her. I strolled to the back of the pews, circling them, letting my fingers trail along the black wood as I moved.

"Resting, yes... but how can I rest? This past one week has been a definition of reality to me. My reality. Now, I feel like I have reached a rest, but now that I have reached a rest, now that I feel like I can finally take a breath—"

I paused, and touched my chest slightly. The phantom ache there wasn't physical.

"I feel so much unrest... so much discomfort. It's easy for people to forget hurt, it's easy for people to move on. But I don't want to forget. I want to punish myself to destroy what needs to be destroyed. I want to sever the fate of the church, and in order to do that, I must first sever my ties to comfort and rest."

I gave her a straight look from the back of the pews, behind one colossal column.

"You don't have to break me... I'm saying, help me do something, anything, as long as it matters to building strength."

Kassie's eyes froze for a moment.

And then they trembled.

'Huh?'

Her reaction was strange. Not included in the books yet again. Something in my words had struck a chord I hadn't intended to play.

I carefully observed her. "Is something wrong... Kassie?"

She trembled slightly, opening her hands and staring at them as though they belonged to someone else. When she spoke, her voice was unsteady at the first two words.

"Where did you... those words..."

"To destroy the church?"

She shook her head. "No..."

"To sever my ties with comfort?"

Her eyes widened further, and then it was as though there was a bright light blooming in her chest—red, shimmering, pulsing with a rhythm that seemed almost like a heartbeat.

[Tyrant Empress's Fortitude has increased by 0.2]

[Tyrant Empress has reached 8.5 Fortitude.]

[Some of her Memories have been accessed]

[When a Mortal Becomes a Spirit, Majority of their memories are locked. They only remember what the world remembers, and they act as a reflex of muscle memory.]

[Fortitude is what guides them back to their peak. Fortitude is the force that journeys them back to the impossible recollection of their individuality]

[The more you invest in the Fortitude of a Spirit Summon, the closer they get to their reality of their true self.]

[And this will manifest in different patterns that cannot be predicted or anticipated, even by the memory of the world itself.]

[Because there is what the World remembers, and there is what only the Summon can remember.]

[Congratulations, Tyrant Empress has unlocked a substitute Spirit Gear: Frostfang Sword]

[Congratulations, Tyrant Empress has unlocked her Spirit Mount: Cinderheart Destrier]

[Congratulations, the fact that your Villainous Summon has recovered a core of her identity means she has unlocked even more of her powers]

[Spirit Essence cost will also be reduced by 5%]

'Hey... what about me! I'm the one that wanted to get stronger — she was already strong enough!'

I paused standing there, the notifications still fading from my vision. The irony wasn't lost on me. I had come here seeking my own growth, and somehow handed it to her instead.

The light in Kassie's heart was already dimming. She staggered forward slightly, caught herself, and stood straight.

The lodestar was right. She had grown stronger. The air around her had changed in a way words could not quite capture — denser somehow, more dangerous. Like standing near the edge of a precipice.

Her eyes too had changed. They were as sharp as always, but there was a tender edge to them now. A softness that hadn't been there before. Like she had suddenly remembered really fond memories, things precious enough to gentle even her.

"Ka...ssie?" I hesitated.

She looked away from her hands and rested her gaze upon me. Something had shifted behind those eyes — recognition, perhaps, or the ghost of it.

"Summoner..."