I Only Summon Villainesses

Her words were almost confusing.

’What does she mean, the temple’s a spirit beast? How is that even possible.’

”Kassie, maybe you care to explain this more clearly to me?”

She glanced down and said,

”I don’t know the details of it. But something has contaminated this ordinary stone structure, making it capable of breathing. It’s faint. It’s no less than a plant. A plant is alive but bound in its movement, and yet it can, in its own way, sense.”

I nodded as she explained clearly, which was rare.

”So, the temple is seeing us.”

Kassie gave a small nod as she spoke.

”But that’s not what we should be worried about.”

”Then what are we to be worried about?”

”If the thing there is what gave this temple life, then that thing is most likely sharing the temple’s senses. And that means there’s a high chance we’re being watched.”

The moment she said it, the reality of our situation sort of dawned on me.

”Oh crap...”

A Beast definitely did not just watch me and Maggie fuck like that... right?

’Just how weird can this get. I thought I’d seen it all with that damn Chameleon!’

I fixed Kassie with a look. After what she said, I understood now why she’d interrupted Maggie.

”So... what do you suggest we do.”

Kassie was silent for a moment. Then she turned and spoke as she walked away.

”Follow me.”

I walked after her, and Maggie followed hesitantly behind me.

We reached the front of the temple and gazed into the horizon. And with my vision clearer than before, it wasn’t just darkness spread out before me anymore.

Of course, the plains were still dark, but I could very much see through the darkness.

And what I saw horrified me.

This place was a land of grotesque darkness. The darkness moved like smoke, stagnant overhead and forever trying to break free. It looked alive and yet it was frozen up there, and its immensity swallowed anything that could be called light. Maybe the sky even held a light that surpassed Ealdrim’s sun, but it was cloaked completely, hidden under that vicious, flowing smoke.

And then there was the horizon itself. The trees, the edges of the land, the very land itself, everything black and barren. The trees stood like shadows, their leaves dark with obsidian, as if painted black.

At the edge were snakes, millions of them, maybe hundreds of millions, squirming over each other. They were large enough that where they compounded together it was as though a mountain stood at the edge of the horizon, except this mountain could move. And it had decided to stay still at that edge no matter what.

The churn of them gave off a dry, endless rustle, the only sound the whole land allowed.

There were figures of humans, and monkeys, moving through the twisted black trees.

And birds in other corners hung from the dried-up branches of another forest to our south, all of them with their wings suspended mid-air like they were praising something. The hollow white of their gaze could be felt on us despite the kilometer and more between.

Nothing moved. Not a leaf, not a wing, just that suspended, waiting stillness.

Every one of them held that distance. They could only glare, and none of them made a move. The strangest part was, I couldn’t tell if they even saw us from so far away. I was starting to guess they weren’t looking at us at all.

If they were, though, this was going to get very eerie. And uncomfortable.

’What am I to do, what am I to do.’

I glanced at Kassie, who was staring back at them with a blank look on her face.

”I think... they won’t approach. Because of the temple.”

I added,

”In that case, it may very well not be the temple, but what is seeing through the temple.”

Kassie nodded.

My gaze fell to the ground.

”And you think it’s underneath?”

Kassie nodded.

”My memory of it is faint, but this has to be that place.”

This time she glanced at Maggie, who stood behind me, observing all of this passively.

”This was that place we passed.”

Maggie squinted at the horizon again, and a frown began to tug at her brows, slow at first, until her whole face turned hostile.

”I almost died a second time because of this damn hell!” she snarled.

”Why are we back here?!”

I glanced at the two of them, completely lost.

’Kassie mentioned that she came here after she died, I guess every villainess did? Wait, is it just villainess, or everyone? I thought they all go to the spirit world straight away.’

It seemed the journey to the spirit world wasn’t as simple as it was made to look. If I could tell nothing else, I could tell that Maggie had been through her share of hell in this place, going by the expression she wore.

’The sheer fact that someone like her would call this place hell is enough proof.’

I scratched my head and thought about it.

”So, I guess we’re in a world that sits between the real world and the spirit realm. Which, in a sense, is logical. Aren’t gates just leakage from the spirit realm? Then the question of where they go when they crumble after being defeated. This is the answer? They just fall here?”

I folded my arms and kept going.

”But then, what about their structures? Do they resolve into essence or...”

I turned around to look at the temple again.

”Hmm, I think I gave my answer.”

”This place is a heap of garbage that’s existed for, what, millions of years. We’ll meet horrors we never knew could exist, or ever existed. Like those creatures just now.”

Kassie’s jaw had gone tight.

And I watched her carefully.

’Kassie’s tense. I’ve never seen her this tense.’

Not even when she had to fight battle after battle, not even with Brunhilde, or with that Divine Summon.

But here, I could read the rigidity in her posture.

I inhaled and smiled.

”Well, then we both agree that we’ll be needing another hand, don’t we?”

She glanced at me. Maggie too.

A proud smile climbed my face as I let the cat out of the bag.

”Yes, I got the notification a while ago, while I was being molested. But I think my essence cap has been reached. There’s a new villainess knocking at the door.”