I Only Summon Villainesses

The two stopped and cautiously observed the lady in obsidian armor that seemed to drink the light around it. She lifted her sword off her shoulder and the air bent around the blade, warping like heat haze over summer stone. Weight pressed down on the atmosphere, something immense and invisible bearing down on the world itself. The sky reddened, bruising under that pressure as if the heavens themselves were being squeezed by an unseen hand.

The sky looked like it was terrified of her. Terrified of the desert. Terrified of what was about to happen.

The sand rose in spiraling columns, scattered by forces that had nothing to do with wind.

The two fighters still stood on guard. Every hair on their bodies had risen to warn them of this immeasurable danger that stood between them. Neither moved. Neither breathed. The tension stretched like a wire pulled too tight, one wrong breath away from snapping.

The swords surrounding the thin lady stilled, all pointing towards the stranger in the middle of the desert. A constellation of suspended blades, frozen mid-air, each one aimed at the woman in obsidian like accusations waiting to be spoken.

Kassie examined the two of them through her featureless helmet. She noted the fox lady and the thin lady, and beneath her armor, a small smile curved the corner of her lips. At that point she passed a mental command to me, asking us to move, so I and the rest of the crew were already climbing out of the depth despite just reaching it.

When we got to the top of the desert, my eyes widened at what I saw.

The lady was thin and had a keen resemblance to Lady Yuan purely by the tattoo she had on her body. But Lady Yuan’s own was somewhat different. This lady’s tattoo seemed to glow with its own inner light, pulsing faintly like a second heartbeat, and her skin itself was so pale it was almost luminous alongside the markings. She was taller too, comparatively as tall as Kassie. But certainly not taller.

The lady turned her head as we stepped out of the depth.

I tried very hard not to look at her chest. Failed immediately. Completely and utterly failed. Thin ladies with massive proportions really could be a thing in this world.

’Focus. For the love of everything holy, focus.’

She turned fully, her eyes sharpening coldly at us.

Levi, Tristan and Nisha went stiff beside me. They muttered to each other in hurried whispers.

“That’s not who I think it is… right?” Nisha whispered, trying not to make it obvious that she was stealing glances at the glowing woman.

“I swear… I think it is…”

I looked at the two of them with a small frown and whispered back.

“What are you guys even talking about?”

Levi looked at me with a mix of irritation and pity. That specific combination that people reserved for when you’d done something monumentally stupid without realizing it.

“What’s that expression for?” I hissed.

He shook his head and turned back to the lady who was now facing Kassie some distance away. There was something else wearing white farther beyond Kassie, but I couldn’t make out the details clearly from this distance.

“In Ashara… no, in the world,” Levi said quietly, his voice barely above a breath, “there are several people who stand like mountains almost touching the sky. Because of their uncanny strength. They are called the Ten Sky Generals.”

“Are they part of the church?” I asked with a small frown.

Tristan stepped in, his voice equally low.

“We have two Cardinals who are also Sky Generals. I think the World Government should have one, some are unaffiliated while some also are affiliated to other religions and organizations.” He looked at me directly and added, “But you have to know that this doesn’t mean there aren’t people stronger than them. It just means these are the ones we know. Some others refuse the title, because of something even higher.”

I paused for a moment, digesting all that they had said. Ten people at the peak of the world. And we’d stumbled into two of them having a territorial dispute in the exact spot we needed to cross.

’Wonderful. Just wonderful.’

“Hmm, I see…”

I turned back to the lady, and that was when I realized she was walking forward… towards Kassie. I broke into step immediately, following her. Tristan and Levi tried to stop me but it was too late, so they had to follow.

The lady stopped about ten meters from Kassie. She watched me and the others hurry past her and stand behind our armored protector. Something flickered in her expression. Amusement, maybe. Or curiosity at the fools who’d positioned themselves behind the stranger rather than fleeing.

I whispered to Kassie.

“Should I summon Maggie?”

Kassie replied mentally.

“I’m more than enough to take care of these two.”

Levi and Tristan had referred to them as some peak of humanity, and yet Kassie said she was enough. She sounded confident. More than confident. Like she was stating a simple fact about the color of the sky.

’Okay then.’

I surveyed past her and that was when my eyes caught the other lady standing at a vast distance away.

I noticed the massive balloons first. Then the white tails behind her, swaying and moving subtly as if the wind was stroking them with gentle fingers.

’Holy…’

I swallowed.

’Oh Jesus…’

I swallowed again, harder this time.

’What the actual fuck?!’

Those were, without question, in all honesty of both the lives I had lived, the most massive breasts I had ever laid eyes on across both worlds. An engineering marvel. A defiance of physics. A testament to whatever god had designed this reality and apparently lost all sense of restraint.

’How could this even be? Did she cultivate them?!’

I swallowed hard, still staring like an absolute idiot, until I felt a stabbing sensation at the back of my neck. I turned. Kassie was looking at me. Even though I could not see her eyes through her helmet, it was painfully obvious she was glaring holes through my skull.

“Who are you people?”

As the lady asked, the massively-endowed fox lady was already walking towards us. She moved like a force of nature, her chest swaying dramatically with each step, but she wasn’t even up to 6’5 as I could tell. Still taller than I was, though. Sadly.

Kassie was silent even after the lady had asked the question, so it was Levi who responded. He bowed his head respectfully and spoke with a carefully restrained tone, every word measured and diplomatic.

“We… we are merely travelers, ma’am… we can be on our way, right now.”

’Is he scared?’

Actually, it was pretty difficult sometimes to tell if Levi was truly scared or was just pretending to be scared. From what I’d observed about him over time, I would vote for the latter. It seemed that Levi really knew how to play the part when it suited him. Fear was just another mask in his collection.

The Sky General was silent for a long moment, observing Levi and the rest of us with those cold, luminous eyes. Her gaze moved across each of us like she was cataloguing threats. Or dismissing them.

“Let you go?! You interrupted us a lot!!”

The fox lady shouted, her voice harsh and surprisingly fitting her fierce appearance.

The Sky General standing before us closed her eyes for a moment, as if summoning patience from some deep reserve, and said:

“As much as I hate to admit it, what this barbarian said is true. You were the ones that interrupted us. So you have an obligation to answer who you are.”

I inhaled slowly. Exhaled.

“Actually, we really don’t owe you anything.”

As my voice came out, Levi’s whole body twitched like he’d been struck by lightning. He slowly turned to me, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. His eyes screamed what the hell are you doing.

I frowned and stepped closer to the lady.

“We were just trying to cross, but you two chose the exact spot to fight each other. To not get caught up in the animosity between the two of you…” I glanced between them. “All you had to do was stand apart silently while we passed.”

I added, my frustration bleeding through despite my best efforts to contain it.

“I’m so sick and tired of everyone in this world.”

Levi, Tristan and Nisha all turned to look at me, helping me realize what I thought was a mutter had been considerably louder than intended.

I frowned at them.

“What?”

I turned to the fox lady.

“We have no intentions to disturb you, no desire for unnecessary introductions. Even though I’d love to get to know you…”

’Those proportions are genuinely, cosmically unfair.’

“…but sadly I can’t because I have priorities.”

I looked at her again, hiding the regret in the depth of my eyes and the saliva I swallowed back down my throat.

I fixed them both with a final gaze and said:

“So… let’s skip the introduction, okay? We will be leaving and you both can… carry on with whatever it is you were doing.”

As I finished, Kassie moved.

Her sword came off her shoulder and slammed into the sand with the force of a meteor strike.

A torrent of sand exploded around her, rising in a wave that blotted out half the reddened sky before cascading back to earth like a broken tide. The shockwave rolled outward, pressing against my chest, forcing the air from my lungs. Even the two Sky Generals shifted their stances, acknowledging the display.

’Feels good having her on my side.’