I Only Summon Villainesses

In less than a minute, Maggie returned with a black spirit core.

”A black one. I’ve never seen a black spirit core before.”

”That is what the spirit core of a Profane Beast should look like,” Kassie commented, then shifted her gaze to Maggie. ”You killed a Profane Beast in less than a minute, what trick did you use, did you slam it down with your ugly ass?”

Maggie gave a vicious grin.

”Something you could never do, whether with ass or arms. You’re useless anyway. Jealous again?”

I glanced between the two of them and, for a moment, missed the days when they weren’t quite so vocal about hating each other.

Then I sighed and put my attention back on the task in front of me.

[Your Soul Sanctum has expanded]

[A New Building Has Been Unlocked]

[The Crypt]

Function: Memorial Preservation. You can store the signature/essence of one defeated enemy. This doesn’t directly copy their powers, but it gives you an intuitive understanding of how to counter similar or the same techniques. As the Soul Sanctum expands, more storage slots open and the degree of understanding deepens. Eventually you might be able to adapt one aspect of the stored techniques.

It was a pity, though, that I couldn’t step into my own soul and see what this Crypt actually looked like. Still, I was glad this one, for once, did something for me directly, and not just for the villainesses I keep summoning.

Then I moved to the next message.

[You are able to summon a New Villainess]

[Do you want to summon a New Villainess]

I inhaled and channeled my essence into the core.

”Yes.”

I kept the channel steady, the core warm in my palm, hoping it would go the way I’d worked out it should. I knew exactly how bad my luck could run, and I didn’t want this to be one of those times, so I prayed, plain and earnest, for it all to go well.

Then a magic circle with a golden hue bloomed across the ground. Its light reached into the darkness and somehow came out no brighter for it, as if the black around us simply drank it.

An amber shape sprang up out of the circle and slowly pulled itself into a rigid form. The light shattered, and a stalwart woman stood in front of me.

Kassie stood to my left, Maggie to my right. Both were silent, attention rapt, waiting to see who had come through the door after them, and both ready to put themselves between me and her if it came to that.

When Maggie saw who it was, though, the grin fell clean off her face, and she took a step back before she seemed to notice she’d moved.

”Impossible.” Her voice shook. ”How...”

I spared Maggie only a glance. If I’d wanted to give her my full attention right then, I promise you, I couldn’t have.

The reason, and I won’t pretty it up, was the two gigantic balls this villainess was carrying for breasts.

She wasn’t that tall, about five-eleven or so. But she had a strong, imposing build, and a chest so massive it was a small miracle her armor kept it contained at all, as though she’d strapped two entire worlds to her front.

She had platinum hair that spilled well past her shoulders and amber eyes that shone with a cold lethality. She wore ornate golden armor worked with religious motifs and horned decorations, and beneath it a purple ceremonial cloth hung almost to the floor in place of a skirt.

She held a thin golden cross staff carved over every inch with thorns, and the air around her sat unnaturally calm, a faint scent of funeral flowers drifting off her.

She scanned the darkness with care, watching me. Then Kassie. Her gaze rested on Kassie a moment, long enough that Kassie’s shoulders drew tight. Then it slid to Maggie and stayed longer still.

While her eyes did their slow rounds, I was reading her profile.

[SPIRIT PROFILE]

Name: Celestine The Radiant

Title: The Betrayer Saint, The God-Empress of Ashes, The False Prophet, Mother of the Gentle

Class: Caster/Support

Spirit Tier: Calamity

Fortitude: 8.0

[SIGNATURE ABILITIES]

AURA OF ENDING

Effect: Within a 30m radius, Celestine can use her passive aura to suppress the survival instincts and aggression of enemies. The strong-willed will resist but still feel death’s pull, while weaker enemies surrender or flee.

Cost: 20 SE per minute. Allies within the aura must pass a will check or feel drowsy.

MERCIFUL END

Effect: Celestine can grant an instant, completely painless death to any target her will surpasses, and absorb their life force to heal.

Cost: 30–300 SE depending on the will of the target. Requires physical contact.

THE CRUSADER’S JUDGMENT Effect: Celestine can point her scythe at a target and declare them a heretic. They cannot be healed, defended, or buffed in that state until the target submits or dies.

Cost: 400 SE. Can only mark one target at a time.

Staring at that profile, I nearly let my jaw drop on the spot. She was overpowered. She was a different kind of powerful from Kassie and Maggie.

’I guess I expected her to be a vanguard or something, from the way she’s dressed and the fact that she’s holding a death scythe.’

She clearly wasn’t, and reading through her abilities, I could finally see why the scythe made sense anyway. She read more like an Angel of Death than any Saint. There was something ominous sitting under her titles.

’What is a God-Empress? I thought Kassie was the only Empress around here.’

Although, I had a feeling the name was self-proclaimed, for the simple reason that I was the one who’d summoned her here.

After her eyes finally drifted off Maggie, she turned to me, her downturned eyes softening as a warm smile spread across her face. Something about her reminded me of a certain landlady ahjumma from a certain comic.

She came closer. Her movement stayed completely hidden from me. It was one step, just the one, and yet it swallowed the whole distance, and then she was standing right in front of me.

Then her voice came, and there was something pearly in it.

”You must be my summoner.”

I nodded.

And at once she took my head and pressed it into a chest that gave like a pair of pillows.

”Thank you, my dear. Thanks to you, I get another chance.”

I stayed speechless for a long while, head against her breasts, eyes blinking at nothing.

’This cannot be happening right now...’