Summoned A Hundred Years Too Late

Somewhere deep in the Kushtar mountain range, inside a valley like the thousands of others across the range, there was a village.

It was a normal village. Like most villages in the mountains, its people were self-sufficient, living off the land and their flock.

Inside the village, there was a house. That house was slightly larger than the rest. Nothing extravagant. A few more rooms. Some prettier flowers in the garden. If asked about it, the locals would have said that the person living there had done well for themselves.

They would have also said they’d never seen the owner.

Nobody ever asked.

Inside the house, there was a room. It was a bedroom. The bed was wide, the mattress soft and comfortable, the kind you’d spend the day in and the next without worrying about your back aching or your legs itching.

Ines liked her bed. She took decades to find it, and more decades to escape from any responsibility she might have. As the apostle of Oc, her duties weren’t much. Still, she’d never asked to get summoned and thrust into this role.

“To think those assholes from Millenia got the hero roles…” she grumbled, rolling on her back.

Her friends from Legion hadn’t been so lucky. Apostles were forced to deal with the less savory aspects of this world.

All things considered, as the envoy of decay on Laika, she wasn’t the worst off. The followers of Oc were a strange bunch, most of them content to wait for the inevitable decay of all things.

That it wouldn’t happen in their lifetime didn’t seem to bother them. Ines didn’t mind either. She wasn’t very end-of-the-world-minded.

She hugged a pillow and pulled her blanket over her head.

If only those idiots in the Gray Basin hadn’t suddenly decided that waiting forever wasn’t enough.

Lucas had sent her a message weeks ago, asking her to do something about it. She’d been debating taking action ever since.

Honestly, she didn’t think the small bunch of heretics in the basin would amount to much. Sure, they may cause catastrophic damage to the region, but it wasn’t her problem. There were a million fires constantly popping up all around Laika.

Let the heroes handle it.

After all, she was supposed to be on the demons’ side.

Her old guild leader may not like it, but so was he, and if not for Jade, he might have already led his fiend armies to rampage across the continent.

“Probably not.” She chuckled.

Ines had a hard time seeing Lucas do anything of the sort. He was a good person. They all were, or used to be.

Someone knocked on her door.

“Come in.”

It was her butler. Yes, she had a butler, a perk of being the leader of a cult. She didn’t quite remember his name. John? Jake? Maybe Jason or Jeremy?

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She shrugged. Her employees came and went.

“Mistress, the envoy from the abyssal fissure is asking for an answer again.”

“I already told him I wouldn’t act.”

“He said the danger to your friend was real.”

Ines sighed. Why did it always have to be complicated?

“Tell him I barely remember her. We were never close in the first place. Why should I help?”

Besides, the rebellious cell would never be able to complete the ritual. They’d need a solar elemental source for their purpose. Nobody in the basin could hunt one.

“Go,” she said, pulling her blanket tighter.

The butler bowed. He closed the door behind him.

*

Jenna loved flying. There was something about feeling wind part around her that nothing could quite match. Hiding in the clouds, she observed the ground far below, watching a group of undead wander the desert.

Another unmarked grave. She shook her head. Would the people of Laika ever learn?

This group was half-skeletons, half-mummies. Not a great sign. Commoners rarely had the means to embalm their dead. Everything pointed to an actual necropolis.

Unwilling to reveal herself to the potential lich controlling those undead, she went past them and followed their traces deeper into the desert until she reached a complex of sandstone buildings buried in the sand.

She had to give it to the idiot who built the necropolis. At least, they had the sense to build it in one of the most isolated corners of the continent. Nobody would stumble upon it by accident.

That was the only good news about the situation.

Being out of the way, the tomb had had time to produce a rarely seen concentration of death essence. Mixed with the special blend of conceptual truth one would typically find in a desert—sand, dryness, isolation, desolation—it created a lich.

“Fantastic,” she said, hovering far above the complex. “Fucking fantastic.”

At least she was the perfect match to take care of the issue before it spilled out of the desert and destroyed half of the continent.

Maybe sealing the necropolis would give her some hints about conceptual truths.

She smiled and started setting up her formation.

It was going to be fun.

She just felt like she was forgetting something.

*

“She said no,” Lucas lamented as Jade sneaked into his fortress.

“That’s what we expected.” Jade grabbed his hand. “I’m more concerned about Jenna’s lack of communication.”

Lucas sighed. He looked at the vast, empty hall in front of him. “Why does everyone have to be so unreliable?”

“Not everyone, but you don’t want to deal with the reliable ones.”

Lucas grimaced. Out of the six apostles and seven heroes who were summoned a hundred years ago, only a few turned out decent. A disappointment. Many of them had been his friends. Whether they were his subordinates in Legion or his rivals in Millenia, they all came from two of the top guilds of Lone World Online. They naturally got to know each other.

“Did you send your trainees to the basin?” he asked.

Jade nodded. “They are en route.”

“When will they arrive?” Lucas asked.

“A few weeks, if nothing goes wrong.”

A few weeks. He leaned on the large, ever-empty table that separated the hall in two. It should be fine.

“I hope Alex will fall on the right side,” he said.

Jade looked at him. “Reliable? If my memory serves me right, it could go either way.”

“I’m just hoping she doesn’t turn into a manipulative asshole.”

Jade smiled. “If not her, maybe Cillian will get summoned next.”

“Who?” Lucas asked.

“What?” Jade raised an eyebrow.

“You said Cillian.”

“Did I?”

Lucas frowned. He spread his senses to cover the entire fortress, then his side of the abyssal fissure. He crossed the lava river and examined Jade’s fortress.

Nothing.

“Strange.”

“What is it?” Jade asked.

“I don’t remember.”