Heroine Creation: All My Summons Are Custom Made

Espel took Lancet to the prestigious Platinum Dorms. Throughout the entire ordeal, Lancet tried to not look overwhelmed by the castle-like, glistening building, but once he entered her room, there was little he could do to hold back his awe.

The room was enormous.

It made the Gold Dorm feel cramped by comparison, and the Gold Dorm had already felt like a massive upgrade over the Bronze Dorm.

Here, the ceiling was higher, the windows larger, and the furniture arranged with elegance and functionality. The room, just like the entire building, felt like a cathedral with pale stone walls softened by expensive fabric.

There was a wide sitting area near the center, and a bed positioned near the far side beneath long drapes. Yet, despite the immense luxury, the room was a perfect mirror of Espel’s detached, apathetic soul.

There were no messy piles of textbooks, no personal trinkets, and no vibrant decorations. The color palette was strictly confined to pristine whites, soft translucent pinks, and muted gold accents.

Espel walked calmly toward a high-backed vanity, dropping her school notes on the marble surface. She turned around and looked at him with those piercing cyan eyes.

”You should prepare,” she said flatly.

Lancet felt his throat go dry. The unvarnished reality of the situation hit him squarely in the chest. For all his grand calculated strategies and authorial pride, he was still a young man standing in a beautiful girl’s private quarters, facing down a completely unprecedented transactional demand.

Trying to get a grip, Lancet walked over to a small, low-profile white armchair and sat down. He leaned back, crossing one leg over the other, trying to exude a casual confidence he absolutely did not possess at the moment.

Lancet cleared his throat. ”Before we do anything... do you actually know anything at all about sex, Senior Espel?”

Espel’s serene posture stiffened instantly. A flush of red touched her cheeks, and though she tried to hide it, the shift was obvious enough to make Lancet immediately realize he had touched a nerve. She drew herself up a little, suddenly more guarded.

”Of course I do,” she said. ”I’m your senior. Why wouldn’t I?”

Lancet blinked.

She looked away for half a second, then added more quietly, ”Though I admit my knowledge is limited because of my lack of experience. I’m not completely unaware.”

Lancet found her defensiveness a little amusing. ”Alright,” he said, leaning slightly forward. ”So what do you know about it?”

Espel stared at him, the red in her cheeks deepening a little. She pulled her shoulders back, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. ”That’s a rather inappropriate question, don’t you think?”

Lancet laughed under his breath. ”Inappropriate? We’re about to have sex. How could talking about it be any more inappropriate than that?”

Espel went silent for a moment, clearly forced to concede the logic whether she liked it or not.

Then she cleared her throat. ”Well,” she said, recovering some of her composure, ”I’ve encountered people in the act before.”

Lancet’s eyebrows rose. ”You have?”

”It was a mistake.”

Lancet shrugged. ”Tell me about it.”

Espel crossed her arms tighter, her face still faintly flushed as she began to explain. ”It was last semester. I went to the old greenhouse to harvest a specific strain of lunar moss for my research. I assumed the facility was empty given the late hour. However, when I parted the heavy ferns near the back oasis, I found two Enchanters on the ground. They had no clothing, and were entangled in a manner that defied structural efficiency, and they were making the most bizarre noises.”

Lancet tried to keep his expression neutral. Failed. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

Espel continued, sounding increasingly like she was speaking from the memory of an event she would rather have had erased entirely. ”The boy was startled. The girl was not. He looked horrified. She looked... irritated that I was there.”

Lancet laughed then, actually laughed, and Espel stopped speaking to glare at him in obvious irritation.

”What?” he asked between breaths. ”That’s all you saw?”

”I was not going to remain.”

Lancet laughed again. He couldn’t help it.

Espel stared at him blankly. ”I never thought it was humorous,” she said after a moment. ”I was very ashamed. The girl had this gigantic glare on her face. More than the boy, she wanted me to leave quicker,” Espel added, as if that settled her humiliation in some way.

Lancet shook his head and forced himself to sober up enough to answer properly. ”Well,” he said, ”that makes sense since sex is mostly about pleasuring the woman.”

Espel went quiet and looked at him with a kind of careful attention, as if she were taking notes in her head.

”And the man?”

Lancet’s smile thoughtfully. ”For men, it’s about relief. The woman relieves his urges, and the man satisfies her needs. If two people keep that in mind, they’ll probably have a spectacular time.”

Espel looked at him for several seconds.

Then she turned away quickly, as though she had caught herself staring too long. ”You seem to be quite knowledgeable on the subject. How many women have you actually done it with?”

Lancet thought for a second, then answered honestly in the only way that made sense. ”Lancet Leogardt has slept with only one. The former guy wasn’t a hotshot, but he also wasn’t a virgin.”

Espel turned her head back toward him, her delicate brows knitting tightly together. ”Wha—” She began the question, her lips parting to dissect his bizarre phrasing, but she stopped herself.

”You are very complicated,” she said instead.

Lancet smiled faintly. ”Don’t you like complicated?”

”Not always.”

Lancet’s gaze drifted past her shoulder, his eyes catching a specific detail sitting on the wide marble sill of her tall window.

It was a single, beautiful flower in a glass pot. Its petals were weak, not as vibrant as they used to be, but not dead either. There was a butterfly and a moth inside the pot with it.

It seemed the flower was completely locked in time. It wasn’t blooming further, it wasn’t growing, and it wasn’t showing even the slightest hint of decay.

Lancet remembered that this was the exact Minor Detail he had jotted down when designing her character profile.

He pointed a finger toward the window. ”That flower over there. You’ve completely stopped it from moving in either direction of the natural cycle. No death, but no real life either. It’s just... stuck. Why?”

Espel followed his gaze and, for the first time since he had entered the room, looked a little self-conscious.

”Curiosity,” she replied quietly. ”I have long accepted the absolute truth that nature dictates that a living thing must grow, and then it must die. That fact is the root of everything. All action. All emotion. I have wondered... perhaps my purpose is not to make people accept the inevitability of loss so they do not weep or seek violent revenge.”

Her eyes remained on the frozen flower.

”Perhaps the true solution is to remove the very elements of life and death entirely.”

Lancet stared at her. ”But if you do that, no one else would ever be born.”

Espel turned back to him at once. ”And no one else will die.”

A heavy silence returned to the room as gazes held for a long moment.

”We do not have to constantly worry about the agonizing pain of death,” Espel whispered, ”if the fleeting joy of birth simply doesn’t exist to begin with.”

Lancet stayed quiet for a long moment, wondering whether he’d gone a bit overboard with Espel’s motive. He gave her an incredulous smile. ”Hmm. And you say you don’t like complicated.”

Espel smiled back. In her own way.

After a moment, she spoke again. ”I want to tell you something.”

Lancet straightened a little in his chair.

Espel folded her hands lightly in front of her. ”I am still not completely comfortable with this entire arrangement... with the idea of being your bound Summon,” she admitted, her voice entirely honest. ”But I think... you are pleasant.”

Lancet’s eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise. A small chuckle escaped him. ”Is that your way of saying that you like me, Senior Espel?”

Espel gave him a flat look. ”I do not think I am capable of liking anyone. Someone who likes you would care if you died. I will not.”

Lancet smiled a little wider. ”So I’m just entertaining then? The jester.”

She looked at him without answering.

”And apparently,” he continued, leaning back slightly, ”I’m a gigolo as well.”

This time, a real smile appeared on her face. It was small and brief. But unmistakable.

”It’s too bad you don’t like me,” Lancet said after a moment, his tone lighter now. ”Sex is best enjoyed when both parties like each other.”

Espel looked at him, her delicate brows drawing together into a slight frown. ”But you do not like me either.”

Lancet shrugged. ”Then I guess this is going to suck for both of us, huh.”

Espel stared. She seemed to have no response ready for that, and looked completely out of depth.

Lancet watched her a moment longer, then let his gaze drift back toward the window and the frozen flower. He could tell, even now, how little she actually understood about intimacy.

When he looked back at her, he saw how uncertain she was, and he knew he would have to do a lot of leading to get her through this.

”Let’s start with kissing,” he said.

Espel stared at him for a beat, then slowly turned fully to face him.

”Okay.”