I Only Summon Villainesses

With the news that Kassie brought, certain preparations had to quickly start going in place. However, those preparations were surprisingly easy compared to how things usually went in the Black Snow Company.

It was a little sad that Kassie had to ruin the critical moment for Yuan, and for some reason she seemed adorably vexed that she couldn’t receive my seed — at least where she wanted it to be received — even daring to stealthily shoot Kassie a scathing glare a few times.

But she had a number of things to work on in lieu of our movements.

Inasmuch as White Feather had her resources to depend on, and confidently expressed that she wasn’t broke, she could not at the moment provide the logistics needed for us to move the way we wanted to. And Yuan was more than happy to do so.

Which had her moving around the Clan a lot for the next few days.

In that time, though, before she finally concluded the preparations needed to carry us to the surface of the sea and even across the vast continental sea to the northern reaches of Solarium, White Feather, Shuiyao, and I had a different objective.

Another piece of information White Feather was able to extract from the Patriarch of the Crystal Deep clan was the nature of the allegiance between his clan and the folks who had betrayed her.

It had all been for the sake of the Thousand Wave Artifact — White Feather’s daughter.

Which led me to really bring the question to her while we travelled on Gilbert’s Nightyell.

“What is that poor girl… to be desired enough to even command treason from her subordinates?”

White Feather was silent for a moment, elegantly sitting on the graceless chair of the pitiful whale-wannabe.

Her silky white hair flowed softly, threads of it sweeping out of the crowd to cling to her face. The wind within the Moon Island was quite strong compared to others. They had a deep, dark and almost believable night even a full moon that hung beneath the dome of their island.

Yuan had called it a mere conjuration, though, but it was impressive nonetheless.

Turning away from the thoughts I used to kill time, I rested my gaze on White Feather, waiting for a response.

The expectation in my eyes was oppressive enough without words… I believe.

She gently opened her mouth and spoke unhurriedly.

“I guess it all dates back to the war that changed me… the dreadful battle of the Bloodsand Coast took far more from me than I was willing to let go. I couldn’t accept it. The honor of my clan, my comrades, my family… my daughter.”

Her voice shook, and she subtly held tighter to her thin robes. She sighed, letting all that tension go before looking at her palms.

“The original White Feather… this was the gift she gave me… willingly descending into nothingness in order to preserve my life. And that of my daughter.”

Then she fixed me with a look.

“The best way to tell you about what Autumn is, is to show you.”

I nodded, anticipating it now, even more than before. At the same time, something prickled at my inquisitive mind.

“But how… how did she manage to pull such a thing off? Even for a summon, that should be near impossible. Shouldn’t a human soul and a spirit soul be incompatible? They should be very different concepts of existence, right?”

I might not have done my homework like I should have, all respect given to the religious frogs who wanted to take advantage of us with limited knowledge, but I could still sort of deduce certain facts just from my experience with my own summons.

Summons had a body that was a mere materialization of spirit matter. That materialization was sustained by the spirit essence of the summoner. It was also why summons were usually weaker than their prime existence.

And it also contributed to the kind of summon you got. You had to have enough mana and soul strength to attract something that your reservoir would be able to embody.

Because there was no opportunity for growth for that reservoir, spirits — as desperate as they were to become summons — would rather wait for someone with a buoyant essence dam and a strong soul.

What a strong soul was, or looked like to summons, I had yet to figure out.

If we were to use standard measures, it doesn’t explain why five unthinkably terrible villainesses fought through a small door to get to be with me. Even though they could only enter my soul one at a time, five of them took the chance nonetheless, having to wait at the entrance until whenever my Sanctum was large enough to make room for them.

I might not have been entirely right, but I also knew I wasn’t entirely wrong.

White Feather looked at me for a moment and allowed a short, melancholic smile.

“How she managed to do something like that is embedded in who she was.”

I gave her my full attention, drawn in by her words.

“White Feather was said to be a celestial assassin who erased six imperial bloodlines in a single century. To many, she didn’t even exist enough to be recognized as an assassin because those who saw her only met their end. She was an angel of death who visited only to bring upon them their inevitable end. She was called a Demon-maiden, the right hand of the Death God.”

She smiled fondly, looking quite distant.

“But she wasn’t any of that. She didn’t talk much, but she knew how to smile. She remembered things very accurately and was an older sister obsessed with nagging.”

She lifted her head and looked at me.

“She was a Tennyo.”

I frowned slightly.

“Tennyo? What’s a Tenno?”

White Feather nodded elegantly.

“They’re true celestial being of the old heavens who came down during the Age of War, the years that rooted the supremacy of the Solaria Empire. She came wearing a feathered robe that allowed her ceaseless transition between the Old Heavens and Eardrim. However, the six churches took her presence far too extremely. They saw her as a vessel of divinity and didn’t want her to return. At first she moved among them in the early days of her descent, and was respected. But White Feather sought to stop the war and didn’t care if it was won.”

“This stark reason of hers was a problem for the Eternal Church, who wanted world domination… division began, and this division caused White Feather to lose her feathered robe. The churches connived to steal it from her and destroy it, making her unable to return.”

She inhaled deeply.

“This brutal act led to her becoming a nameless assassin. She learned the hard way the nature of humans and vowed to destroy the imperial bloodlines, along with the six churches. However, she was alone… in an unfamiliar world.”

I asked, my tone slightly apprehensive.

“Such a person… how did she die?”

A slightly agonizing smile appeared on her face.

“The robes that were destroyed were not actually destroyed. Instead, the Solaria Empire, after a few decades, found a way to use them to imprison her. For three hundred years she became an assassin for the Emperor of the Solaria Empire at the time, Aurelius Rex Solaria, the Sun King.”

“During her last mission to conquer the northern regions of Solaria, she fell into a bamboo grove after weeks of battle, and for the first time, felt thirst. A man offered her water. It was a random act of kindness, but it was enough for her to understand that humans were not the problem — her presence was.”

“It was sad that she couldn’t return to her home, but she understood that she couldn’t continue to live in the world… So she decided to live as a human. Following the man while pretending to still be on a mission, she lived with him for fourteen days… those were the number of days it took for her divine spirit core to shatter after driving a wedge into it in that bamboo grove.”

I sighed and lowered my head.

’Really is a sad story… man, humans ehn.’

At the same time, since it was mentioned… my mind had been on it.

’That name keeps coming back… where have I heard it before?’

She sighed.

“She had a depth of knowledge about really vast and seemingly impossible things. I really wish you had gotten to meet her, Lord Cade. She would have liked you.”

I chuckled sheepishly.

“While I do wish I had gotten to meet her too, I do not share your other opinion.”

White Feather stared at me purposefully.

“You’re a good person, Lord Cade.”

I smiled.

“I’m a fraud… but don’t worry, I’m fraudulent enough to want to help you save your daughter.”

She frowned, puzzled.

“A fraud wouldn’t do that.”

I chuckled at her pitifully.

“Four hundred years and counting and you know nothing about frauds? I thought you were a Grand Merchant or something.”

White Feather shot me an icy glare at that moment, making a cold shiver run down my spine.

I grinned.

“I’m looking forward to meeting your daughter.”

Hearing that, her gaze widened slightly, then she flushed as she lowered her head tenderly.

Another thing I was looking forward to was that Fairywind guy.

’Oh goodness gracious, I don’t know why I hate him, but I will beat him so much he will be incapable of making handsome descendants!’

At the same time, Nightfall drove further and further away from the lightless depths of the ocean.