"I knew this guy was going to cause some kind of surprise, a surprise just like his father had once brought!" Kai shouted, his grip tightening hard against the frame of the window ledge until his knuckles whitened.
"What a wonderful surprise he had tucked away in his pocket this entire time!" Roman roared with laughter, thoroughly amused by how absurd the entire scene had become.
"He’s going to get outright expelled, or maybe even taken away by the authorities," the girl known as Candy Girl remarked, a lollipop resting idly between her lips.
With an annoyed grunt, the giantess swung both her massive arms together, throwing off two of the hound summons that had been holding her down, but they simply reappeared in the very same position moments later as more chains wrapped tightly around her enormous body.
The muscles of her legs bulged with visible strain as she fought to break free from the shackles steadily working to restrain her balance and movement. Her teeth gritted together as she looked upward, then raised one massive leg high enough to deliver a crushing strike toward a giant bird glowing with condensed mana, its wingspan stretching a full hundred feet wide.
That creature was the true source of the binding chains that had trapped her, while the hound summons served only as the pulling force, their powerful jaws locked tight around the restraints. Recognizing that, she made the bird her first priority and primary target.
The bird slammed down to the floor with a heavy, echoing thud that rippled through the entire surrounding environment.
The whole scene had descended into true, unprecedented chaos. It was genuinely horrifying to witness the sheer number of casualties buried beneath the collapsed Great Hall, a structure that had stood untouched and unscathed for several decades before that very night.
The giant bird summon’s head was crushed instantly into a smear beneath the towering giantess’s foot. The chains wrapped around her body dissolved into a misty cloud of scattering mana, freeing her at last from the force that had been holding her down, and she rose to her full height once more.
The hound summons scattered like frightened squirrels the moment they sensed her renewed presence. Even as mindless creatures driven by instinct alone, something within them clearly understood just how insignificant they were compared to her.
She turned and began advancing toward where Mark lay, each heavy step sending tremors rippling across the floor beneath her.
Two giant eagles appeared high in the sky, circling above her in a swift, coordinated pattern as sparks began to gather and charge in the empty space between them. Their feathered bodies gleamed with crackling arcs of energy, and a moment later, a massive pillar of concentrated mana descended directly down over her entire body.
When the blinding light finally faded, hundreds of shackles had already dragged her down to both knees, forcing her into the posture of a captured slave. Neither of her limbs could move at all, and she was pulled down further still, left lying flat against the ground like a prisoner stripped of all resistance.
Mark’s vision blurred into darkness as his consciousness slowly slipped away beneath a wave of overwhelming weakness that had settled deep into his entire body.
He could not make sense of what was happening around him as everything faded to black, his surroundings vanishing completely the moment his strength finally gave out.
***
With a startled gasp, Mark jolted upright, only to feel the cold, unforgiving press of hard concrete beneath his palms. The room around him was almost entirely dark, save for a thin beam of silver moonlight streaming through a grated window overhead, and thick patches of moss clung stubbornly to the corners of the old, weathered walls.
He looked around slowly, trying to make sense of his surroundings, and quickly realized he was locked inside some kind of small confinement cell. Judging by the darkness, it was somewhere deep in the night, though he had no way of knowing exactly what hour it was.
"Wait, I’m in a cell?" Mark could do nothing but laugh bitterly to himself at the absurdity of it all. "Really? This was supposed to be my first day as an official summoner. Great."
A wave of anxiety struck him as fragments of memory slowly returned. His body still ached with a deep, lingering exhaustion left over from his earlier collapse, and he had no real sense of how long he had actually been lying here.
"My mana reserve must still be far too low for a new summoner," Mark muttered, rubbing gently at his temple with two fingers.
"That would explain why I went down so quickly, only seconds after calling my summon out into the world."
He shifted his position slightly, trying to find some measure of comfort against the unforgiving stone around him. "How are people even supposed to survive in here? This place is miserable, all cold rock and sharp edges."
Mark closed his eyes for a long moment, trying to piece together exactly what had happened earlier in order to fully understand the situation he now found himself in. His mind still felt strangely numb and sluggish, so he chose instead to simply inhale deeply and steady himself.
Still, he could sense the familiar presence of his summon somewhere within him, a quiet reassurance that told him she remained safe and completely unharmed, untouched by whatever chaos had unfolded.
He suspected he was about to become infamous across the entire school, from the newest freshmen to the oldest seniors, all because of the unforgettable disaster his own summon had caused without meaning to.
News of the incident had likely already reached the desks of the authorities who held real power over such matters at a national level, since something like this was exceedingly rare, the kind of event that had not occurred in decades.
Life at school was almost certainly about to grow far more difficult from here on, filled with unwanted attention and mounting struggles he would now have to face head on. He could already sense as much, simply from the fact that he had woken up locked inside a prison cell like some common detainee.
Still, he found himself wondering just how powerful his summon might eventually become as she continued to grow in rank and tier, especially considering how formidable and unshakable a force she already was even now, at her current stage.
Before his thoughts could wander any further, he heard the faint sound of approaching footsteps, and moments later two figures came into view. A pair of individuals dressed in guard armor were escorting an auburn haired girl with striking ruby red eyes, dressed in the familiar jacket of Amstral School.
He raised an eyebrow at her sudden, unexpected appearance as the two guards stepped back, granting the pair a measure of space and privacy. Hermione approached the grated door of the cell, her eyes carrying a clear mixture of concern and quiet pity.
Hermione leaned in closer, gesturing for him to come nearer to the door, which he did without hesitation. Their eyes lingered on one another for a long, quiet moment before she let out a soft, gentle chuckle.
"Haha, very funny," Mark said, rolling his eyes with a heavy sigh dripping in sarcasm.
"Yeah, pretty much," Hermione replied with a small smile, one hand rising to cover her mouth.
She then slid her bag off her shoulder and began rummaging through it, searching for something specific. After a moment, she pulled out a small drawstring pouch and held it out toward him.
"Here, it’s a potion I managed to get for your summon. One of the ingredients is pixie dust, and it’s meant to shrink her down to about a third of her original size. But don’t worry, she’ll still keep all of her original strength intact."
Mark hesitated for a brief moment before finally accepting the offer. He studied the little drawstring pouch with the wide eyed curiosity of an excited child.
"Don’t worry about what happened earlier. It wasn’t your fault. I understand, really," Hermione assured him gently, before turning to leave.
"Let’s hope that’s how the rest of the school ends up seeing it too," Mark said, dropping the pouch carefully into his pocket before sitting back down on the cold floor, crossing his legs beneath him and closing his eyes once more.
’Well, would you look at that. I just received a genuinely thoughtful gift, and it came straight from someone belonging to one of the strongest and most prestigious families in the entire region.’
He intended to meditate for a while, hoping to learn how to circulate and harness his mana far more efficiently, especially if he truly wanted to sustain his summon for longer stretches of time going forward.
The moment he opened his eyes again, he found himself standing in an entirely different space within his own soul, before the familiar sight of the great bronze double doors and the glowing stone tablet resting quietly beside them.
A/N: I hope that you enjoyed. Please help support the book by adding to your library and giving a powerstone or two. Thanks for your attention.