I Only Summon Villainesses

Chapter 506: Wearing My Voice Has To Be Another Low Move

I didn’t much care what it was that had chased the damn dragon away. It was gone. That was enough.

After chasing me endlessly, the beast had finally given up, and I dropped to the ground, catching my breath. Somewhere far off, the last of the dragon’s noise was still fading out of the air, and I let it fade. I lay there with Wren still in my hand, cheek against cold stone, chest heaving, staring up at nothing, and honestly couldn’t have cared less about anything in the world except getting air back into my lungs.

Okay. Fine. Maybe I did try to recount the experience — to work out whether jerking off while a gigantic chameleon watched me do it and lapped up the ropes of my cum counted as the single most deranged thing that had ever happened to me.

‘I’ve had the weirdest, most unreasonable experiences ever. How do I even explain this to a sane person?’

For the longest time, even back on Earth, I’d been convinced I was the most reasonable of them all. The sanest. Lately, though, I was starting to have second thoughts, and it wasn’t my fault. It was just how brutally this world had dealt with me. I didn’t see anyone else walking out of it as amazing and sensible as I had.

‘Kai would’ve cracked a long time ago, and Elena, pfft, she’d have turned into a whore, I’m sure.’

But look at me. Morally upright.

‘Not for long though…’

I frowned. That wasn’t my voice. It was Wren.

‘What? Me? What do you mean, me? I didn’t say anything. I thought that was some alternate personality hiding in that rotten mind of yours. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had one of those things.’

That one landed wrong. I propped myself up on one elbow.

‘Hey… Wren.’

‘What?’

‘For the next three hours, don’t say anything…’

‘Uhh, what balderdash are you spilling?’

‘Oh crap…’

I had no idea how to deal with this. I had an impregnable mental defense, built out of every Attribute I’d taken from Kassie: Tactical Omniscience, Emperor’s Dominion, even Voice of Authority. These were abilities that made me immune to even some high-level mental attacks, and so far, so good. I’d managed to deflect them, at least to an extent. Or recover faster than they could dig in.

This was different, though. I didn’t even know if I could call it an attack. There was a voice in my head that sounded exactly like Wren, and Wren swore it wasn’t her.

But that was the whole problem. It sounded exactly like her. And even though she’d said it wasn’t, how could I be sure this voice wasn’t the one still playing with me?

‘Damnit, I need to get out of here!’

‘To where? We should actually stay put, unless we wanna die!’

I frowned, displeased.

‘Hey, trash monster, I honestly do not appreciate you talking into my mind the way you do!’

‘Fool, I’m trying to save your life. Why do you think that old dragon ran away?’

‘I appreciate the help you wanna give, but can you not do it in my head?’

‘How else would I? You can’t hear me out loud, you’d most likely go deaf. I can only speak to you through your own mind’s voice.’

Towards the end of that, the voice slid from sounding like Wren’s to sounding like mine.

And it felt strange, hearing a voice that sounded just like yours while knowing full well it wasn’t. It would have been almost impossible to deny, if not for one thing: I wasn’t the one in charge of the thoughts it was speaking.

At some point I started to wonder: if it could stroll into my mind and speak whenever it liked, could it hear my deeper thoughts too?

‘Don’t worry. I can’t read the thoughts I don’t have permission to read.’ The voice, my own voice, answered inside my head with a light chuckle.

‘Uhm… okay. What do you want?’

‘To save you?’

‘Why?’

The voice sighed, and even the sigh was mine, and then it spoke, a certain casualness edging the words.

‘It’s been ages since I’ve seen anyone in the Dark Crowns. I’m delighted to meet someone, and you know how to speak. I try to talk to many beasts, you know, but none of them form thoughts as coherent as yours. I suppose you must be very special. I want to be your best friend.’

I paused, turning what it had said over in the depths of my mind. At the same time, I stayed careful about the manner in which I let myself think about it, keeping each thought small and flat, the way you keep still with a wasp on your arm.

And right in the middle of that thought, it spoke again.

‘Hey, it’s dangerous out there. How about you come closer, and then we can talk more, be friends. Else the Archmage will kill you. Let them not see you.’

I hesitated for a moment, wondering whether I could trust anything that wasn’t one of my Villainesses. It was speaking in my own voice, which made it convincing, and honestly, I did consider it.

Then I thought about how convincing I’d sound if I ever wanted to prey on someone.

‘You bastard. You wanna eat me that bad? Don’t want the Archmage to have your food?’

The next moment, something clasped around my leg. It was cold, colder than the stone. It felt the way a human hand feels when it holds you, fingers and palm and a deliberate press, and that was exactly what threw me off.

I yanked Wren up and struck her into the hand. The flames she’d once eaten flowed off her and burned into the flesh, and a piercing scream tore out and split my ears, so loud it went through the bone. My vision blurred at the edges. For a moment the only thing I could hear was a deafening drum pounding in my skull, shoving every other sound into the background.

And in the same breath the hand seized me again, faster this time, and more arrogant with it. It dragged me. My head slammed against stone, hard enough that the pain went white, and still it did not stop, hauling me farther, grit tearing at my back, deeper into the darkness between the buttes.