Chapter 3
A GREAT PYRE was soon lit on the field beside Mierte Forest, and the knights fed the goblin corpses into the flames. The smoke belching forth was black as pitch, a hellish miasma crawling its way skyward. Graia and Mira conversed as they watched the men work. Without complaint, the knights cleaned up the mess she had created.
“Lady Mira, eh? I’ll make sure to remember that. I never expected a summoner to be so powerful.”
“Surely this isn’t anything out of the ordinary.”
“Sure, they were just goblins.” Graia shook his head, gazing at the Dark Knight standing by Mira’s side. “But to have slain them so quickly…and at such a young age! You must have had an amazing teacher.”
“Hrmmm, well, I suppose I did.” Another white lie. She hadn’t had a teacher, but it was certainly easier than coming up with a complete cover story on the spot.
“News, sir!” said a knight rushing up to Graia. “The escaped monster has yet to be found. One of the pursuit groups has returned, but we’ll continue our search.”
“I see. I’ve never seen such a creature before. Shame that it got away. Continue the search while the rest of us finish cleaning up.” Report received, Graia summoned another knight to deliver a message to their garrison. The runner eyed the Dark Knight with trepidation, and the captain noticed. “What do you think? This here’s a Dark Knight, a summoned armor spirit.”
Graia beamed at the spirit almost as if he had summoned it himself.
“A summon, sir? Those are quite rare. I’ve heard of armor spirits, but I never imagined them to be so…intimidating.”
“Indeed! It surprised me as well.”
Mira eavesdropped on their conversation, certain parts piquing her interest. Had summoners really become so rare? To be sure, the class was less popular than others—especially when compared to Priests, who specialized in recovery and support techniques. Those guys were indispensable when forming a party. But still, summoning hadn’t been uncommon.
Maybe the steep learning curve had dissuaded others from pursuing summoning during the intervening years. Back then, mage classes started with minimal skills, and summoners got Contract Forging. It had no inherent offensive or defensive power and could only be used on defeated spirits, allowing a young mage to use them as summoned pets.
Summoners were incredibly powerful in the end game, but the early days were brutal. The catch was that if a summoner wanted to bind a spirit, they had to do all the damage themselves. No asking a friend or hiring a mercenary to whittle it down first—the summoner had to deal every point of damage. Many people avoided the class entirely after reading about the difficulties on the message boards.
But Danblf had stuck it out. After stocking up on large amounts of recovery items and explosives, Danblf spent two hours at the Ancient Yubeladius Battleground pummeling armor spirits until he finally bound a spirit in a contract. That was the Dark Knight, and since then, they’d forged a deep and lasting relationship as master and minion.
In many ways, his success served as an advertisement for the class. Others flocked to become summoners because they admired Danblf and read about his exploits on the forums. Mira worried that without her presence over the past thirty years, the class might have taken a nosedive. It had been a long time; a lot could have happened.
“Pardon, I was hoping you might be able to answer a few questions.” Mira took the opportunity to pump Graia for as much information as she could while the knights continued to clear the battlefield.