I Only Summon Villainesses

As the man said that, he staggered back, staring at the lady. She was looking at the device in her hand, and her eyes were shaking.

“It really is, isn’t it?”

The man trembled. I couldn’t tell if it was excitement or fear.

“What are you doing standing around like that? Go get the Colonel. Now!”

The lady flinched.

“Y—Yes!!”

She bolted, clearly not ready for such sudden movement, because she staggered and nearly fell before catching the doorknob and wrenching it open. The door slammed behind her, and the sound echoed through the stone corridor like a gunshot.

I stood there, dumbfounded.

These two had been perfectly composed when they were strapping wires to my body and poking at my essence not two minutes ago. Now one of them had nearly broken her ankle running out of the room and the other looked like he had seen a ghost.

I turned to the guy and tried to put on a smile. If these people were joking with me, I swear I was not going to be having it. I would summon Maggie and let her burn the entire castle down with her signature ability. I had the essence for it. Barely. But I had it.

“Care to tell me what’s going on?”

“Sir, did you ever check your Summoner’s rank?”

I chuckled, making light of the serious tone he was using on me.

“What do you mean did I ever? Of course I did.” I glanced around the room. “Not in this grand manner, though. There was an orb and we were asked to inject our essence into it, and it brought out our ranks.”

The soldier looked at me like I had just spewed complete nonsense.

“And what rank did it bring?”

I scratched my sideburns.

“F rank?”

His expression went stern. Almost reproachful, as if I had personally offended him.

“Of course it brought F rank. Such a cheapskate method of measurement only works for Regular Summoners.”

He shook his head, agitated, and I noticed his hands were trembling. Not from cold.

“There are ranks for Regular Summoners and separate ranks for non-regular Summoners. Lesser and higher. The scales are completely different, and a cheap essence orb cannot even register the higher ones.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“What do you mean?”

His tone was hasty, words tripping over themselves. He was trying to calm down and failing at it. Around us, the others had started muttering, leaving their respective posts to look at me. They had discipline enough not to start gathering around, at least, but the glances were not subtle.

“Were you measured before or after your summoning, sir?”

’Man, just drive to the point.’

“Before?”

He shook his head grimly, as if something was terribly wrong.

Maybe something was terribly wrong.

“The people responsible for your first rank evaluation were incompetent. That is the only explanation for this.”

I snapped at last.

“Bro, you’re going to tell me what my rank is or what?”

At that exact moment, the door slammed open.

The energy in the room shifted before I even saw who it was. Every soldier nearby straightened. Some stepped back.

Atlas walked through, but he was not alone. Flanking him were soldiers in armor nothing like what I had seen so far. Theirs looked like they had been crafted in a pool of ethereal liquid darkness, swallowing the little light that seeped through the windows rather than reflecting it. They had to be Commanders.

Even Lady Fintan was with them.

Atlas came straight for me and grabbed my shoulder. He was grinning, and it was almost as if stars were sparkling in those deep eyes of his.

’Eww…’

I twisted my shoulder out of his grip with practiced ease.

“I still don’t get what is happening here.”

Atlas pinched the bridge of his nose, still grinning. He had not stopped grinning since he walked through the door. Behind him, every commander wore the expression of someone who had just found their salvation after years of searching for it.

’That cannot possibly be good for me.’

“What is it, man?”

“You are a Sovereign Summoner.”

The room went quiet. It was like everyone just simply stopped at once.

I frowned.

“Sovereign Summoner?”

Atlas shook his head.

“I knew we couldn’t depend on the knowledge of that strange Academy you said you attended. I asked around and no one has even heard of it. Must be a fraudulent place.”

He turned to the woman beside him, the same one who had bolted out to fetch him.

“Explain.”

She straightened and counted off on her fingers.

“The ranks you’re familiar with, F through S, those only apply to Regular Summoners. Non-regular Summoners operate on a completely different scale.”

She listed them with the brisk efficiency of someone who had recited this before.

“Mortal, Awakened, Elite, Champion, Hero, Legend, Myth, Sovereign, and Calamity. There are only five known Myth-rank Summoners alive in the world today.”

She paused, letting that land.

“Sovereign is above that.”

’Above the tier that only five people in the entire world occupied. Sure. Normal Tuesday.’

Atlas picked up from there, unable to contain himself.

“Sovereign Summoners are beings who command Transcendent entities. God-like existences. They are capable of summoning Immortal figures that ascended to the Spirit Realm without ever having to taste the concept of death.”

His voice carried the weight of someone reciting scripture, eyes burning with a light I had never seen in the man before.

“You are not an F-rank Summoner, young one. You never were.”

I nodded slowly.

“Ah, I see.”

Atlas blinked at me.

Behind him, the commanders were still murmuring amongst themselves, all of them looking at me with that radiant, almost hungry light in their eyes. Like I was the answer to a question they had been too afraid to ask out loud.

He looked genuinely thrown by my calm. I felt like it was a bit unfair that I was not shouting and yelling and probably crying, but what could I have done? This was not surprising. Not in the least.

I had two Calamities in my soul. Two! The least I could have been was a Calamity Summoner myself. What the actual fuck did they mean, Sovereign?

There was not a single Sovereign-tier summon that I had. Not one.

’Fuck them all. Their system is just as broken and cheap too.’

I raised my gaze to meet Atlas’s expectant face. Then, with an unapologetically dry tone, I asked.

“Am I going to enter the Night Auction now?”