[POV: Sloth]
Where did the summoner end and the summon begin?
I hadn’t really thought too deeply about it before. I had only skimmed through the flavor texts and learned just enough of the lore to get by, so I never had much reason to question what my summons actually were. In a new world like this, however, I couldn’t help but wonder about their individuality and uniqueness.
Were they still being controlled by the game’s AI? Or had they developed some form of temporary awareness that allowed me to control them? Maybe they were something like robots, following their programming while responding to my commands.
I was already getting tired just thinking about it.
Using brainpower for things like this was annoying.
Normally, the gamer mentality would have kicked in immediately. The moment the rules changed, I would start figuring out the new rules, testing their limits, and devising strategies to adapt. That was what gamers did when thrown into unfamiliar systems.
Unfortunately, I was way too sleepy for that shit.
I raised my barriers anew and hugged my blanket tighter, while I tapped into my summons.
All of my summons had preset behaviors that I had designed around different scenarios. Their default priority was survival. If something went wrong and I stopped giving them commands, they were supposed to stay alive until I could take control again.
For Nature Sprite, that meant using Fake Death, an ability that literally faked her death and made enemies believe she had already been defeated.
The Gryphon had Windbreaker, an absurdly useful ability that gave it a second of invulnerability before applying an invisibility status. It was perfect for dealing with inexperienced players who had no idea about the summoning meta.
As for the Golem Guardian, it was a tank. Its job was to take hits. I seriously doubted even that golden dragon could kill it in one go.
Apparently, I had been right.
With a thought, I could vaguely feel my summons through the mental connection between us. The sensation was strange. It wasn't exactly like hearing their thoughts, nor was it anything as clear as seeing through their eyes. It was more like sensing that they existed somewhere out there.
I yawned and mumbled, "Come and protect me. I want to sleeeeeeep..."
Seriously, I felt like I was overdue for a really, really long sleep for some weird reason. The kind of sleep where someone could bury me under an entire mountain of pillows and I wouldn't complain.
I sighed contentedly at the thought.
Hah.
How awesome would it be if I had a pillow fortress?
...
..
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[POV: Golem Guardian]
The Golem Guardian had Stalwart. If a killing blow landed on it, the ability would allow it to survive with one percent of its health remaining. It was a life-saving ability that had allowed it to protect its summoner time and time again.
...
However, this time, I had failed. It was in the name. Golem Guardian.
The failure to guard my master was a shame I would never forget.
I stood amid a field of shattered trees and scattered boulders, a long trench stretching behind me where my body had been dragged through the earth. Pieces of stone and splintered wood still clung to my armor.
I had been defeated, yet my master had called for me once more.
When I received the order to return to his side and protect him, I felt unworthy. I had failed in my duty, and no knight worth his honor could simply ignore such a failure. I would've given up my life in favor of atoning for my mistake, but my summoner still had a need for me.
As his knight, guardian, and summon, I swore upon my honor that I would never fail again.
However, as I marched toward my master's location, another thought began to gnaw at me. The longer I remained here, the longer I left my summoner without protection. I felt ashamed once more at the slowness of my legs. What kind of knight left his master prey to such a dastardly beast?
Surely my mighty lord had already slain the creature in my absence. He was, after all, the greatest master I could ever have asked to serve. Even so, I could not bear to spend another moment away from his grand and majestic presence.
My heavy foot stomped against the earth, then again, and again. Each step sent small tremors through the ground as I marched forward. I had been sent quite far away when that beast seized me by the torso and hurled me into the distance. The journey back was long, but I did not allow myself to slow down.
My pace gradually increased.
Soon, I was jogging. Flowers were crushed beneath my feet. Rocks were kicked aside. Trees shattered against my armored body as I charged through the forest rather than waste time walking around them. I felt anxious. What if I failed my great lord again? I could not allow that to happen. Nay! Never again!
I would protect him. I would stand between him and every enemy that dared threaten him. I would become an impregnable wall.
"You look beaten up."
Something small, fair, and maidenly landed gently upon my shoulder.
I turned my head as much as my armored body allowed and saw Nature Sprite. It was rare for lowly servants such as ourselves to converse like this. Summons generally received their master's commands and carried them out. There was little reason for us to speak with one another, yet she looked at me with concern.
"Let me heal you," said the Nature Sprite.
A gentle warmth spread through my body. I felt my health steadily begin to recover.
I inclined my great stone head toward the tiny figure perched upon my shoulder and spoke in a deep, sonorous voice that rolled like distant thunder. “My thanks, fair Sprite. Your kindness restores more than mere health. It restores a knight’s resolve.”
“Oh, you,” Nature Sprite replied, her tone suddenly embarrassed. “I didn’t think you were quite the flatterer, Guardian. I must say, this new world has changed us in ways that we can never come back from. Ah, how should I call it?”
A single word rose unbidden in my mind. “Enlightenment.”
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She smiled. “Indeed, we are enlightened.”
I felt the truth of it in every crack of my body. The way the elements themselves moved had altered. Spirits that once flickered with weak, pale light now shone with greater lustre. All of it was owed to our great and almighty lord, whose incredible generosity allowed him to share his mana and selfishly sustain our small and mundane existence, even though the powers and greatness he possessed far surpassed anything we could ever repay.
Nature Sprite began to vibrate with excitement, her little petite form no larger than my hand.
“Truly, our master is beyond compare!” she declared, eyes sparkling with pure adoration. “His wisdom rivals the stars themselves! His mercy is an ocean without shores! Even the greatest gods of this world would kneel and weep tears of joy simply to stand in the shadow of his magnificence! To serve him is the highest honor any existence could ever dream of receiving!”
A piercing cry split the air.
The wingbeats that followed stirred the winds and sent leaves spinning in wild circles. The majestic Gryphon descended upon us in a sweep of golden feathers, landing with natural grace before lowering its proud head as though offering its broad back.
I regarded the noble creature with due reverence. “Does this majestic beast mean for me to ride upon its back?”
The Gryphon answered with a slow blink of its keen eyes, followed by a series of soft, affirmative chirps. As a higher-class summon than either myself or Nature Sprite, the offer was a profound honor.
“Hurry, Guardian!” Nature Sprite urged, already fluttering toward the Gryphon’s neck. “The noble creature has already given its permission, so there is no need to hesitate!”
I climbed carefully onto the broad back. The majestic beast bore my considerable weight with ease. It charged forward to build momentum, leapt in a single beautiful arc, and then soared into the open sky. I held its feathers as softly as my stone fingers allowed, careful not to cause the slightest discomfort.
Nature Sprite laughed with pure delight, arms spread wide to the rushing wind. “Ahhh! This is wonderful! Look at the world from up here, Guardian! Isn’t it glorious?!”
From our vantage high above the canopy, the sight below was impossible to ignore. Bouncing blue slimes surged across the forest floor in greedy waves, their translucent bodies swelling as they eagerly devoured everything in their path. Trees, undergrowth, even the very soil seemed to vanish beneath their relentless advance.
I tightened my careful grip on the Gryphon’s feathers and spoke in my deep, measured tone. “Lady Sprite… those creatures. They consume the land itself. What purpose could our lord have in allowing such devastation?”
Nature Sprite hovered near the Gryphon’s neck, her tiny form still bright with residual excitement. She peered downward, then gasped as though struck by revelation. “Is it not obvious, Guardian? Our magnificent master must be testing the forest’s worthiness! Only by stripping away the unworthy can the true potential of this world be revealed! Truly, his foresight knows no bounds!”
The Gryphon gave a soft, questioning chirp, as if uncertain.
I considered her words carefully. “Testing…? Yet the destruction appears thorough. Perhaps he seeks to clear the land so that a greater fortress may one day rise in its place, one befitting his majesty.”
“A fortress?” Nature Sprite spun in the air, eyes sparkling. “No, no… something far grander! Our lord is surely preparing an arena of trial, where only the strongest may prove themselves worthy of even a glimpse of his greatness! The slimes are his loyal vanguard, purifying the weak!”
The Gryphon chirped again, this time with a slightly longer, almost skeptical note.
I frowned beneath my stone features. “Vanguard…? But they devour without discrimination. Could it be that our master intends to starve some greater threat by removing all sustenance from the land?”
Nature Sprite gasped once more, pressing both hands to her cheeks. “Starve a threat? Brilliant! Yet still too modest an interpretation! Our almighty lord would never settle for mere starvation. No, he is rewriting the very laws of this world’s ecology so that only those who recognize his supreme existence may thrive! The slimes are the first wave of his enlightenment!”
I fell silent for a long moment, the wind rushing past us as the Gryphon banked gently. Piece by piece, her exaggerated praise and my own cautious reasoning began to align into a single, shining truth.
“…Enlightenment,” I rumbled at last. “Now, I see it clearly. Our lord does not merely protect or conquer. He intends to enlighten this entire world to the measure of his greatness.”
Nature Sprite beamed so brightly I feared she might take flight from sheer joy. “Yes! Exactly so! The blue slimes are but the opening proclamation of his will! Soon every living thing shall look upon the works of our master and know true awe!”
…
..
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[POV: Villager]
I was just a villager from far to the east.
It had been more than a couple of days since I first stepped into this forest, and I was scared out of my mind. All my life I had dreamed of becoming a cultivator. Someone who could strike fear into his enemies while rescuing countless jade beauties along the way. Reality, however, still felt a long way off.
Not long ago, I had heard thunder and lightning crashing through the trees, the sound so violent it seemed like two dragons were locked in battle overhead. I quite literally shit my pants. The whole mess ruined my elixir hunting and set me back by days.
I was out here for the Test of Providence, the entry qualification exam the local sects used to weed out the weak. Pass it, and you became an outdoor disciple. Most of the other candidates had rich or well-connected parents who could buy them a place, bribe an elder, or at least put in a good word. Me? I was a nobody from a tiny village who hadn’t even seen a real city until a month ago. Every rich kid I met had snubbed me without a second glance. I had been furious about it… but all that fury was gone now.
“What in the nine hells, man?”
Strange blue, round, bouncy creatures were eating the forest. They looked almost harmless at first glance, yet the way they devoured entire trees was terrifying. Trunks and branches simply vanished inside their bodies within seconds, the disappearance clear to the naked eye. I gulped hard, suddenly forced to rethink my priorities.
What mattered more? My life, or the superpowers that could make a man rich, handsome, and long-lived? Some people called it the cultivation dream. Would I really give that up now? No riches? No beautiful women? If I managed to become even an average or low-level cultivator, I could retire to a mid-sized village, find the beautiful daughter of the village chief, marry her, have twelve children, then take a second wife from the neighboring village and have another twelve.
Oh shit. It was a no-brainer.
I needed to become a cultivator if I ever wanted to be happy. I steeled my resolve just as my eyes landed on one of the elixirs listed in the guidebook the aspirants had been given.
“Thaaat’s mine! Give it to me!”
I leaped for it.
The damn blob seemed to sense my urgency. It stopped bouncing, rolled sideways with surprising speed, and snatched the elixir right out from under me.
“NOOOOOO! JUST KILL ME!”
I broke down crying on the spot. The mad blue blobs began gathering around me in a tightening circle. Wait… could they understand me? No. That wasn’t the real problem.
“Get away from me! I know martial arts! Ah, crap!”
I turned and ran for my life.
“I don’t want to be a cultivator anymore!”
…
..
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[POV: Slime]
Bouncy-bouncy-bouncy~!
Life was so good. Soft ground, tasty trees, and lots of friends bouncing everywhere with me. I was having the best day ever, chasing the strange two-legged thing that ran and yelled and smelled weird, like fear mixed with sweat and something spicy. Heehee, it was fun watching him flail!
Whoa~ what’s that sparkle!?
Right there on the dirt sat a shiny rock. So round. So pretty. So… shiny.
I bounced closer. My soft body wiggled with excitement. Shiny things were the best things! Without thinking twice, I flopped right on top of it and sluuurped~! Into my tummy it went!
Ooooooh.
I felt fuller. Bigger. And somehow… shinier! My blue body glowed just a tiny bit more. I jiggled happily.
“Look! Look! Look!” I bounced up and down, calling to all my friends through that warm, simple feeling we all shared. Because we were little pawn-class summons, our thoughts were easy and soft, almost like one big happy mind. “I ate the shiny rock! It made me fuller! And shinier! See? See how I sparkle more?!”
The other blue blobs stopped bouncing for a second. Then their little thoughts lit up with the same excitement.
“Shiny?”
“Fuller?”
“More sparkle?”
In the next moment, every slime around me started looking for their own shiny rocks. One found a glittery pebble and gulped it down. Another spotted a bright crystal and rolled over it with a happy plop. Soon the whole group was bouncing around, searching, eating, and growing just a little shinier and fuller together.
Heehee~!
Best. Day. Ever.
At one point, word spread through our soft little minds like a happy ripple that somewhere far away up in the big pointy mountains, there were more shiny rocks! Shinier ones! Bigger ones! Rocks so bright they could make a slime sparkle like a whole sky full of stars!
My body jiggled with pure excitement. “Mountains! Mountains! Bigger shinies! Let’s gooo!”
All my friends felt the same spark at once. We had been a little naughty staying down here in the forest, bouncing around and eating trees when we were supposed to be somewhere else… but who cared about rules when there were bigger shinies waiting?
Welp, my summoner could suck a fat one!
We turned as one big blue wave and raced toward the mountains, the actual place where we should’ve been in the first place. If the summoner knew there were actually big shinies waiting for us there, he should’ve just told us.
Bouncy-bouncy-bouncy!
Trees went ‘slurp’ behind us. Rocks went ‘crunch’ under us. The ground itself seemed to cheer us on. Some of the smaller blobs lagged behind, but the rest of us bounced harder, faster, and higher. Our tummies already dreaming of the huge, glittering prizes waiting up high.
“More shine! More full! Best rocks ever!” I sang inside our shared happy thoughts.
The mountains grew closer and closer, tall and full of promise. We couldn’t wait to gulp down every last shiny thing we found.