When I activated the skill, a list of summonable yokai—the ones in my encyclopedia—popped up.
“Umm, I summon you, Sunekosuri!” Akari said.
Of course she’d pick that one. No surprise.
“Sneeeh!”
“Hello, cutie!”
Akari played happily with the Sunekosuri, which had a weasellike body and catlike face. It hung around like any other summoned creature. The sight of a cute girl giggling and chatting with the small animal on her shoulder was very picturesque. But I knew Akari would play with the Sunekosuri forever unless I intervened.
“You should try sending it back too,” I suggested.
“Oh, I’m sorry! I got so distracted! Right. Sunekosuri, return!”
“Sneh? Sneeeh.”
Having understood it was being sent back home, the Sunekosuri waved its tiny paw goodbye as it disappeared.
“Awww, it’s gone,” Akari said sadly.
“That part’s very Summoner-like too.”
It was an interesting skill. And there was something exciting about being able to summon yokai at will! I need to get more yokai ASAP!
“I’d like to try this out some more,” Akari said.
“So would I. Should we look for a safe area to do that?”
“Smart thinking!”
And so, Akari and I decided to try out Yokai Summoning a bit before returning home. It was dangerous to test out a new skill in Zone Ten, so we teleported back to the Town of Beginnings.
“Oh, Yuto! There’s a Fanged Rat over there!”
“Wow, good eye. It’s so far away.”
“I have a skill that improves my eyesight!”
I would expect nothing less from the Ruby Red Explorer.
The Fanged Rat hadn’t noticed us yet, so at this distance, it was like a sitting duck.
“Okay Yuto, you first!”
“You sure?”
“Yes! Show it what you’re made of!”
“Right! Leave it to me!”
I strutted forward, stuck my right hand out in front of me, and yelled, “I summon the yokai, Sunekosuri!”
“Sneh sneeeh!”
Poof! There was a puff of smoke, and then the Sunekosuri appeared.
“Get ’im!”
The only skill the Sunekosuri could use was Telekinesis. I couldn’t wait to see how powerful it was going to be.
“Sneeeh!”
“Huh?”
Um, what? The Sunekosuri vanished without doing a single thing. I thought maybe it had used its invisible attack, but nothing happened to the Fanged Rat. Or maybe the Sunekosuri had missed? I looked at my MP. Some of it had been consumed. Okay, so I did use Yokai Summoning...
“What happened?” Akari asked.
“No clue.”
“Why don’t you try summoning a different yokai?”
“Right, good idea!”
I used Yokai Summoning again, this time calling in the Kappa.
“I summon you, Kappa!”
“Gwak.”
“Now, atta— Oh, come on!”
The Kappa vanished without making a single movement, just like the Sunekosuri. According to its description, it should have been able to use Water Arts and Sumo... Maybe Water Arts only applied buffs or debuffs? But it didn’t seem like that had happened either.
I should have asked for more details about the Kappa’s abilities when I was buying information from the Cats. I’d neglected to ask since I hadn’t been planning on acquiring Yokai Summoning at the time. I had heard that if you learned several command-type skills and tried to level them all up, you’d end up not becoming fully proficient in any of them. For that reason, I had planned to only use my Taming skills.
“Tea Kettle Tanuki! Come out!”
“Pom poko!”
“Gaaah! Not Kettle too!”
I had no idea why, but this skill was clearly not functioning right. My yokai returned home without moving a muscle, let alone attacking anything. What was going on? Was this a bug?
“I-I’ll try this time,” Akari offered.
“Th-Thanks.”
I was crouched over on the ground groaning in frustration when Akari suggested she try. Uh-oh, did I make her cringe? Did I overreact? But really, it wasn’t fair. I couldn’t use the skill I just got. I had spent eight points to get it—I didn’t want those to go to waste.
“I summon the yokai, Sunekosuri!” Akari cried.
“Sneeeh.”
“It worked! It’s here!”
Akari’s Sunekosuri appeared, and it looked more or less the same as my own Sunekosuri. Yokai didn’t seem to have very many unique characteristics that distinguished themselves from one another. Also, I realized that Akari had also had to endure the Sunekosuri’s tickling hell. It was funny to imagine Akari cracking up with laughter while getting tickled.
Anyway, this was the moment of truth.
“Sunekosuri! Attack!” Akari yelled.
“Sneeh sneeeh!”
“Yay! You did it!”
The Sunekosuri used its Telekinesis to send the Fanged Rat flying. Its attack was strong enough to kill the rat in one hit. Was its Telekinesis skill stronger than the one used by players? It was an invisible attack, so it was perfect as a diversionary tactic. If I could use it, that is!
“Why did it work for you?” I asked Akari.
“Hmm, I’m not sure.”
“Sneeeh?”
“If only my Sunekosuri could tell us, we’d know right away.”
“Sneh?”
“But you can’t talk, can you?”
“Sneeh.” The Sunekosuri tilted its head to the side.
“Hold on,” I said, realizing something, “why is the Sunekosuri still here?”
“Huh? Ah! You’re right, it is. Why is that?”
“Sneh?”
Akari’s Sunekosuri remained on the scene instead of being sent back home.
“Maybe yokai can only be summoned in as perma-summons?” I wondered.
“Oh! That must be it!”
Summoners had the ability to summon monsters in two different ways. One was as an Instant Summon, where the monster was brought in temporarily to use one attack, and the other was as a Perma-Summon, where the monster was summoned in as a party member. If you wanted to bring in a monster as a perma-summon, naturally you had to have an open slot in your party.
It seemed like Yokai Summoning could only be used for perma-summons. So of course I, with no free slots in my party, could not use it properly right now. I had my answer for why I failed.
“Dang, seriously...?” I groaned. “Well, this is a bust.”
“I’m sorry! I was the one who convinced you to get the skill!”
“It’s not your fault, I should have done more research.”
This sort of information was readily available on the forums, if I had bothered to look. This was entirely my own mistake.
“I can see myself using it in boss fights, so it’s fine,” I said, but was it really fine? I couldn’t level up the skill if I couldn’t summon yokai. Did I have to leave one spot open in my party just for them?
“Hmm.”
This was a problem, a problem that I decided to think about later. Maybe it was time I headed back home for now.
“By the way, do yokai eat anything?” Akari asked.
“Kappas eat cucumbers... But I can’t seem to remember what Sunekosuri eat.”
I had no memory of feeding my Sunekosuri anything at home.
“Okay then, maybe it’ll like this? Here, for you!”
“Sneh?”
“Aww, you don’t want it?”
Akari placed some herbal tea in front of the Sunekosuri, but the creature showed no interest in it. I tried offering a few different types of foods too, but it still gave no reaction. Maybe Sunekosuris really didn’t need to eat food.
Meanwhile, I was just curious about Akari’s herbal tea.
“I see your tea is called Akari’s Blend. Did you make it yourself?”
“This one? Yes, I did!”
A while ago, Akari had been inspired to learn Cooking after sampling my homemade herbal tea. I knew she had been making herbal tea on her own now, but I was surprised to see she was already making her own blends too.
“Would you like to try?” she asked. “I can give you some.”
“Oh, really? I’ll share some of mine too, then. I have a lot of varieties, though. I’m not sure which one you’d like...”
“How about we do a taste test of each other’s teas?”
“I like that idea! Where should we go? I could put a straw mat down here.”
“Hmm... Oh! I know, why don’t we go to your house?”
“My house? I guess that’s fine...”
“I’ve always wanted to go inside!”
Ah, Japanese-style houses must still be pretty uncommon. It made sense that someone else would be interested to see it.
Akari and I went back to my house, where we were promptly welcomed by the newest resident, the Demonic Ghost.
“Ooooh.”
“Already here, huh?”
“She’s so cute and affectionate!” Akari gushed.
As this implied, the Demonic Ghost wasn’t as terrifying as she was before. She now looked like a beautiful, translucent woman dressed in white. With her hair covering her eyes, it was kind of hard to tell if she was beautiful or not, but her chin, mouth, and nose all looked nicely shaped. I was sure she was beautiful. Fingers crossed.
“Ooo-oooh.”
“Booo.”
“Looks like the Demonic Ghost and Obake are getting along,” I observed.
Seeing how Kappa and Mini Kappa had also gotten along well, that suggested yokai and mascots of similar types were likely to become friends.
The Demonic Ghost, like the Kappa, was capable of farmwork, but similar to how the Kappa could only cultivate cucumbers, the Demonic Ghost could only cultivate poisonous crops, like Poison Hemlock and poisonous mushrooms.
Accompanied by the Demonic Ghost and Obake, Akari and I headed to the living room.
“Oh wow, a kotatsu!” Akari exclaimed when we walked in. “How cool!”
“I know, right?”
We relaxed under the kotatsu as we each lined up the homemade herbal teas that we were particularly proud of on the table. As we sampled each other’s teas and shared our impressions, we moved on to the topic of yokai.
“Since I’ve gone through the effort of obtaining the Kappa and Demonic Ghost, I’m thinking I also want to find the remaining two,” Akari said.
“Yeah, me too,” I agreed.
“They must be to the east and west, right?”
“Right, because the Kappa was in the south, and the Demonic Ghost in the north.”