The Kind of Being No One Has Ever Summoned

Ho-yeon had mispronounced the final syllable of Jinmyeong's true name. As a result, something utterly unlike the intended target had popped out — a being of exceptionally poor quality.

She'd had a miserable time of it, holding the building together so it wouldn't collapse while trying to send the thing back where it came from.

And it hadn't been Ho-yeon who spent the three days after the summoning flat on her back in fever. It had been Jeyeon.

Right, that happened, didn't it.

The memory, dredged up after so long, was clearer than she'd expected.

Back then, they'd all been children. Brats who threw a fit over a single summoning and then trailed after her begging for praise the moment a contract was sealed.

Those same children had somehow grown up enough to surround her now, bouncing with excitement about preparing her first summoning for her.

It felt strange.

Not bad, though.

Sihyun opened her status window, invisible to everyone else.

One, huh.

Until recently, she had commanded twelve at once. Now, a single one.

And even that would be a contract for life. Once bound, there was no taking it back, no swapping it out because she'd changed her mind.

Whatever she chose would be with her for the entire early survival phase. Pick wrong, and everything unraveled from the very first stitch.

"Okay, then."

Jena clapped her hands.

"Let's figure out what we're attaching to our Sihyun."

Jisoo was already dragging the laptop over, and Ho-yeon pulled open the metal drawer at the side of the office.

"At S-Rank, we can't be picking from the usual first-summoning pool, right?"

"Should we be thinking Jeyeon-unnie level?"

"But we don't know Sihyun's mana wavelength."

All three hands stopped moving at once.

Jisoo stared down at the battered laptop screen.

"If only we still had that equipment from back then."

Ho-yeon looked at the drawer, empty now.

"The equipment, and those records too — none of it was ordinary. But the Association just kept saying they were lost during storage."

Exasperation bled into Jisoo's voice.

"Does that even make sense? Years of records, gone without a single trace."

The old Sung Jeyeon had possessed dedicated equipment that analyzed a summoner's mana wavelength to identify beings with high contract success rates.

The roster of summonable beings was updated constantly, too. Countless Sung Jeyeon hunters scoured dungeons and labyrinths, and every new discovery went onto the list in real time.

A guild where cutting-edge technology and a vast archive converged.

That had been Sung Jeyeon.

"Jeyeon-unnie gave us everything she had."

Ho-yeon murmured quietly.

"And we can't even give Sihyun half of what we received."

No one spoke for a while.

Jena stared down at the thin booklet for a long moment, then quietly opened the first page.

"...Let's start by pulling out everything we can remember."

Jisoo and Ho-yeon silently dragged their chairs over.

The three of them began to dig through old memories, writing down summoning candidates one by one.

"What about this one? Gentle temperament, easy to contract. Genuinely great for a first summoning."

"Looks weak."

"Then how about this one. Attack power's solid."

"Terrible return for the price it asks."

"This one?"

"Too slow."

"It has scouting ability, though."

"Lacks combat strength."

Every suggestion was met with a curt verdict.

Their hands grew slower and slower.

It was odd enough that a girl who'd awakened just yesterday was passing judgment like someone who'd field-tested everything on the list. But there was a bigger problem.

This was the best they had after ransacking all three of their memories. There was nothing after this.

"...Our Sihyun has expensive taste, huh."

Ho-yeon muttered, wiping sweat from her brow.

Meanwhile, Sihyun had her own thoughts churning as she paged through the list.

They're all good kids, honestly.

It wasn't empty flattery. Easy to call, cheap in price, obedient. For an ordinary summoner, it would have been hard to receive a better shortlist for a first contract.

Summoners chose safe beings for their first contract for one reason: you couldn't gamble when you didn't even know your own limits.

But Sihyun knew her limits down to the last decimal.

So she could push past the line no one else dared approach, from the very start.

No — she had to push.

To raise the name of Sung Jeyeon again, she needed to win overwhelmingly. And those well-behaved beings on that list wouldn't get her past Floor 10 before she was struggling.

That said, she couldn't just call down a being of high station at random. Separate from the contract's price, the summoner had to personally shoulder the influence a summoned being exerted on this dimension. The loftier the being, the fiercer the dimension's backlash.

At Level 1, her body would give out before the contract was even signed.

What she needed, then, was a being absurdly powerful for its station.

Among yokai and evil spirits, there were plenty like that — beings whose summoning burden was manageable but whose demands were vicious and whose tempers were foul.

Even so, the candidates were few.

Jisoo set the list down and asked.

"Is there a summon you especially want?"

Three pairs of eyes turned to Sihyun.

Sihyun considered how to phrase it, then answered with complete sincerity.

"A being no one has ever summoned before."

"What kind of being?"

"Something vicious. Ominous."

She thought for a moment, then went on.

"If possible, the closer to a calamity, the better."

"..."

Something seemed to occur to her, and Sihyun smiled faintly to herself before adding:

"Ideally, one look at it would bring the end of the world to mind."

"..."

"..."

"..."

The three of them looked at one another.

Their eyes darted busily back and forth. You say it. Why is she like this. You're the guild leader.

Jena slowly dragged her chair around and sat down across from Sihyun.

"Sihyun."

"Yes."

"If you summon something like that as your first summoning — no, forget first, you can't summon something like that, ever!"

"Why not?"

"How do you know what'll come out?!"

"I'll find out when it does."

"You're supposed to find out before it does!"

Ho-yeon cut in urgently.

"What if it demands a body part as the price?"

"Then I'll give it, if it's something I can afford."

Jisoo shook her head, dead serious.

"No! Absolutely not!"

Jena asked with a grave face.

"Aren't you scared at all? It could hurt!"

Sihyun looked at the three of them without any particular expression.

"I threw fear away a long time ago."

"...What?"

"Pain can't break me, either."

Her eyes cooled and settled.

"If anything, it only wakes the fury sleeping inside me."

"..."

"There's exactly one thing I'm afraid of."

Jena swallowed without meaning to.

"And... what's that?"

"Staying weak."

Sihyun answered in a low voice.

"Being unable to protect anything."

A long silence fell.

Then all three of them pressed their hands to their foreheads at the same time.

"This is a bit..."

"...Seriously concerning."

"Why did the chuunibyou wait until senior year to show up."

"Huh?"

Sihyun blinked.

What was wrong with that?

It was all true.

And above all, there was one being who fit every single one of those conditions. Sihyun already knew it.

The thing she'd encountered long, long ago, in the depths of a hidden labyrinth.

An evil spirit of low station that wielded power wildly disproportionate to that station — a being whose name Sung Jeyeon had deliberately kept off the archive, out of fear that someone might carelessly speak its true name.

Yes. You're the one.

Of course, she had no intention of telling the other three. The moment she revealed what it was, they'd tie her to the office floor and declare it absolutely forbidden.

"Sihyun, anyway, what I'm saying is, let's go over the list again—"

"Oh, I just remembered something I have to do! I'll head out, see you tomorrow!"

"Hey, Lee Sihyun!"

"Don't worry about the medium! We'll find you whatever you need!"

Sihyun snatched up her bag and slipped out of the office.

Even as she climbed the stairs, her mind was already grinding through the next problem.

She had to complete the contract before the first shoot, at the latest.

She was already prepared to spend a few days flat on her back from the backlash. The problem was location. She had no idea what the thing would demand, or whether it would accept the contract quietly. If things went south and it went on a rampage, a few crumbling walls wouldn't be the end of it. The run-down office was out of the question, and so was her cramped studio apartment.

I suppose I'll need to find a training ground with a barrier around it.