Why Did You Summon Me?

Seeing as Baiyi had ignored her again, Mordred, who has assumed the form of a kid again, lunged towards him in a fit of anger and sank her teeth into his shoulder.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong now?” Baiyi jerked his shoulder, but she didn’t let go. She had on an expression of sadness; it was as though her father figure had bullied her.

“Um, Mr. Hope? She’s the one who contributed the most towards the separation of Duat and Isythre, you know,” Mia quickly explained. She wrapped her arms around Baiyi from behind and moved her cheeks beside his facemask, cooing in a soft voice, “Now, if you want  to know what happened, Mr. Hope, you must first promise us that you won’t punish us for what we did…”

Mia had not been made such intimate gestures since she was a kid; she probably found it childish now, or she realized that gestures like these were not innocent. However, she sometimes behaved like a clingy daughter whenever she needed Baiyi to lighten a punishment awaiting her. Baiyi also enjoyed the warm and intimacy of such actions.

“Huh. Are you telling me that the micro-realm you two visited for your field trip… was actually the key to pulling the two realms apart?” A surprised Baiyi mumbled as he tugged on Mordred’s cheek.

In pain, Mordred, the little troublemaker, finally let go of his shoulder, and Baiyi raised her by the scruff of her neck and placed her down before him.

“Hmph, Papa will never believe that I could do something good!” Mordred pouted and turned her face away.

“Why won’t I?” Baiyi replied, amused. He ruffled Mordred’s hair and said, “If I don’t believe in you, I wouldn’t have allowed you to lead an excursion, would I? Neither would I entrust you with such a valuable and powerful set of armor! I trust you, Mordred; I’ve always trusted you.”

Baiyi knew that in Type-Moon history, parental distrust and a lack of acknowledgment had led this girl’s namesake down a dark path, which ultimately led to a tragedy; with that story as a warning, he became very careful with his version of Mordred. Even though this girl and Mordred were different people and different experiences and backstories, Baiyi was still wary as both girls had the same name. One thing was certain: he was never going to make the same mistakes that Comforter had made.

Thus, this Mordred had grown up with no shortage of love, affection, and encouragement from Baiyi himself and Aya. This was why Mordred had a far better attitude and less extreme ideas. A dragon’s innate nature to create chaos was the only reason she was a troublemaker. Baiyi also knew that she caused trouble many times because she was not happy that “Papa” had yet to tie the knot with her mother, Aya.

Mordred was easily satisfied with Baiyi’s reassurance, though. However, he had only said it quickly to appease her. Afterward, Mordred joined Mia to explain their side of the story.

Their story was quite simple: when Mordred and Mia discovered the Lich and some undead on their excursion, Mordred turned into a dragon and Mia climbed rode her towards the enemies. The dragon barrelled through the ranks of the undead, spewing flames everywhere it could, and Mia, who was riding it, cast spammed spells at the undead, as well.

After a short while of doing this, the duo had slain every undead in sight. This prompted the Lich, whose name was Xander, to come forward. “I am the most powerful necromancer in Duat, the Grandruler’s most trusted subject.”

After a lengthy self-introduction typical of villains, Xander issued a threat: “The consequences of defying my will and that of the Grandruler is a transformation into a skeleton dragon!”

Sensing that the situation could quickly take a turn to the worse, Mia immediately pulled out her trump card from her storage pouch and yelled out a command, “Sharkie, bite him!!!”

On cue, Sharkie the hammerhead plushie split into four copies, and all form assumed different positions. In a second, the four plushies spammed an endless amount of magical attacks at the Lich; it was scenery flashy enough to trigger a migraine. The messy scene would not be out of place in a famous Japanese bullet hell shooter game.

When the bombardment — which was no different from national day pyrotechnics — ended, the hammerhead shark had run out of power, and it transformed back into a harmless plushie. Xander the Lich had been vaporized, and the magical formation it had so laboriously set up was destroyed

“That was how the two realms separated?!” Baiyi exclaimed in amusement. Had the world just been saved by Mia, who only needed to raise her plushie adorably?

The answer was yes. Apparently, if one was sufficiently cute, they  could  save the world — by being cute. [1]

Mia’s actions had been instrumental in saving the entire human race. Arfin City had held the upper hand against the undead that tried to invade it, but many other cities were less fortunate. Had Duat and Isythre been separated any later, humans would have suffered even more casualties.

“Attie and I had conducted a thorough investigation, and the conclusion we reached is quite enlightening,” the Scholar Walker began. “While it is within the power of the Grandruler’s Law Fragment to superimpose two realms, this unstable state cannot persist without supplementary measures. This is due to regular Spatial Laws, which allow the two different realms to remain distinct and apart from each other, acting antagonistically to the Law Fragment’s power. Hence, to overcome the repulsion force between Isythre and Duat — such that the time both realms can stay superimposed could be extended — one must establish a few “anchors” to hold the two realms into place. An apt analogy to this would be placing buttons on a shirt.

“Anchors like these are required in great numbers, all over Isythre. When Duat was superimposed onto Isythre, the anchors activated in unison, acting like buttons binding two sides of a shirt together. However, the repulsion force between both realms was immense, and so if one anchor was lost, it creates a domino effect towards other anchors, causing them to malfunction, one by one.”

“In other words, the day was saved by two little girls, who fooling around with their powers and somehow luckily destroyed one of these anchors?” Baiyi said. Had Isythre and its residents really been saved by two little girls and a Powerpuff plushie?

“It is as stated in Lord War God’s wise augury,” Attie explained. “That reminds me of something: Lord War God had left a few comments for you, too.”

She cleared her throat and began to read out her god’s comments as monotonously mechanical as possible. “I still think your little penchant of bringing your students to different little realms is stupid, but at least a miracle happened this time, eh?

“Nonetheless, you are very useless, so very useless. I cannot believe you fell for some green blob’s scheme. What an embarrassment.

“However, I guess I should still thank you for solving at least one of my problems, so here comes your price. Congratulations, yay.

“But before you receive the price, there is something you must bear in mind. Now that my, uh, messenger has returned to the size and appearance you prefer, you must treat her better! Do not bully her! You must love her!”

Baiyi, who had been silently listening, said, “You added the last one yourself, didn’t you?”

“N-no, no way.” Attie shook her head vehemently in denial. “I could never change the words in Lord War God’s messages!”

‘Yes, theoretically, you wouldn’t dare. But judging from how much that dotard doted on you, I think he wouldn’t do anything, even if you made up your own ‘divine auguries’ and attached his name to it,’ Baiyi thought. He stretched his hand and said, “Now, where’s my prize?”

Attie ran towards him and, in front of everyone, she exclaimed, “Over… here! ” She planted a full kiss on his mask.

The first person was Mia, who jerked as though she had been struck by lightning. “W-w-what do you think you’re doing, Attie?!” She screamed.

“I kissed my Master! Is there a problem with that?” Attie retorted. “He doesn’t see me as his daughter anyway!”

That was when Mia realized that she had lost the argument before it even started.

Baiyi was frozen; Attie’s kiss had shocked him. However, he was always surrounded by females — half of whom showered him with affection, so he could not possibly react to receiving an unsolicited kiss with the dexterity and grace of a virgin, right?

“See? I gave him his prize~” Attie hummed proudly, licking her lower lip.

In reality, Baiyi was shocked because the Grandruler’s Law Fragment had been shoved into his hand. Before the Grandruler’s soul completely disintegrated, its Law Fragment was magically repossessed by the War God, who then gave it to Attie so that she could give to Baiyi.

“Master is going to savor my prize till night, I’m sure. Hence, our meeting ends here!” Attie announced haughtily; it was as though she had promoted herself to ‘ Mrs. Hope’.

Suddenly, Attie felt her feet leave the floor. She quickly looked back to see that the Warrior Walker had picked her by the neck.

“Big Sister Warrior? W-what do you think you’re doing?” Attie asked quickly.

“Yes,” the Warrior Walker said and left with Attie in tow.

A few moments later, the other Voidwalkers began to make their way out of Baiyi’s house, and they heard shrill screams ringing out from the Warrior Walker’s residence. When the Kitty Cat Maid returned to Baiyi, he noticed a few dark-red bruises around her wrists.

Baiyi cleared his throat and yelled, “Uh, guys, I actually received the prize, a real one! Come back so that we can discuss it, yea?”

“Over my dead body, bruh! You do your analysis on your own!” Someone exclaimed.

Baiyi walked back into his residence and stared at the empty hallway, feeling a little lonely. It had been filled with activity only a few moments ago; that made the current emptiness quite hard to bear. Even the two lolis, who Baiyi used all his wits to trick into coming with him, had left with someone else.

“Ugh. So, after this painstakingly long ordeal, I got nothing?” Baiyi murmured to himself, feeling annoyed at how disproportionate his ‘reward’ had been.

The War God had given him a Law Fragment, but to him, it was only as noteworthy as the corrupted, broken piece he got from Gouve a long time ago. There was no information regarding the Law, neither was there any signs of power within the Law Fragment. After studying it for hours, Baiyi was only able to learn that it was a lot more ancient than the fragment he had found in Gouve. This Spatial Law Fragment did not seem to be a work of nature; it was artificial — the result of deliberate calibration.

This was not surprising, though, as the Grandruler of Forgiveness had played around with the Fragment, which was his trump card, for a long time; hence, it was no surprise that the Fragment underwent some unnatural changes.

Why had the War God left this to him, though? Was the War God trying to tell him the differences between the two Fragments he had found so far? Baiyi thought hard about this. There was something that disturbed him: even if he could discern the difference between the two Fragments, what was the point of doing so, in the grand scheme of things?

“Ugh, you really are an unreliable fella,” Baiyi muttered sourly.