Why Did You Summon Me?

The scribble’s success was the Voidwalker’s real step forward in the last thousands of years.

In the grand scheme of things, it was a “baby” step forward, as the power coursing through the scribble was too minuscule. However, this took nothing away from the scribble’s significance, as, for the first time ever, the Voidwalkers had managed to break a path into the Void from outside it.

It was also the first fruit of Baiyi’s ongoing research in Laws.

The scribble was far from perfect, though. First, another scribble could not be made, as only one scribble could exist at a time; second, the scribble could not transport living beings — something Mia’s goldfish had proven. When Baiyi put the goldfish into the scribble, it appeared in midair and fell on Mia’s head — dead.

Hence, the Voidwalkers had no choice but to wait for it to be developed before attempting to use it to free themselves.

“Let’s give it a name, shall we?” Baiyi said to the Voidwalkers that were in the Void.

“I thought it already had a name, which was the First Walker came up with before he left? Isn’t it supposed to be called the Primordial Rune, ¹ or something like that?” The Cleric Walker, who was still locked in the Void, asked. “I know he’s not around now, but are you really going to dismiss his idea?”

“Pfft! C’mon, it’s precisely because he’s currently absent that we can quickly wrap up the naming process by ourselves!” Baiyi replied. “All that geezer knows how to do is steal names from established series; not just any name, but the most cringy and chunnibyo-sounding names!”

“Since the main component of this object is made of runes, and since it will be primarily used to summon a Voidwalker, I think we should call it a Summon Ticket ² ,” the Devil Walker, who had never left the Void, chimed in.

“Hold on… Et Tu, Devil? Did I miss the moment the First Walker, our senior Type-Moon fanboy, passed on his legacy of stealing names to you?” Baiyi said. “Or, have you been brainwashed into the cult by that geezer’s obviously exaggerated brags?”

“Oh, hell no.I’d prefer you do not degrade me that way. Unlike that geezer, I’m not the slightest bit interested in those stories, neither do I care about your 2D waifus. I’m just very intrigued with the lore and its story settings — hardly something to be mocked. Wouldn’t you agree?” The Devil solemnly said.

Baiyi was just about to pull that excuse apart when a voice suddenly rose above the ding. “Alright, alright. I guess it can’t be helped. As the Second-ranking Voidwalker, I shoulder the responsibility of demonstrating naming skill befitting of us powerhouses!”

It was quite the surprise that the Knight Walker, who just returned to the Void, had spoken. He seemed so pleased with Baiyi’s newest invention that he joined the Voidwalkers in a casual conversation — something he never did. The Knight Walker held the scribble in higher regard than he did the Pseudo-Descent Secret Technique.

“Um… You’re not gonna plagiarize names, too, I hope?” Baiyi asked.

“Of course not. Do not mistake me to be your pathetic old man. In honor of being the cream of the crop, I shall only give you names that are original! Second to none! Unheard of by anyone other than myself!” The Knight Walker answered, visibly brimming with confidence.

“Um, okay. Let’s hear it, then.”

The Void became silent; the Voidwalkers were waiting with bated breaths for the Knight Walker’s next words. He was, after all, an exceptional fighter — a lone wolf with a mysterious edge. He never spoke unless it was necessary, so now that he had joined in, the other Voidwalkers could not help but anticipate an elegant, imposing, and enigmatic name, which would have the right amount of gravitas.

“Someone said that the scribble was partially constructed from runes; this detail must be reflected in its name,” the Knight Walker solemnly said. “Ergo, I would like to name it ‘the Divine Rune of Cosmic Creator Shadow-form Sundering Samsara: Eight Level Chaos and Sixth Forged Golden Body of the Heavenly Master’s Descension’ [1]. Now, this is a name that meets all requirements, yes?”

‘…Holy s**t! Are you just trying to meet some word count quota?! ‘ [2] Baiyi was stumped! He never would have imagined that men as serious and gruff as the Knight Walker would have their moments of insanity — while wearing a deadpan expression!

What the hell was with that name? No matter how Baiyi looked at it, it resembled a suspicious combination of half-remembered from wuxia novels! Baiyi also agreed that the name was one unheard off by anyone other than himself. No one else could possibly come up with this lunacy!

“You al are unnaturally quiet. I did not expect that,” said the Knight Walker. “Is there something wrong with the name?”

“Uh hem, it’s… fine. Yes, thank you for your contribution! We should probably give others a chance to shine, as well,” Baiyi replied nervously.

“The name is too long, isn’t it? I can see why that may be a problem. Fortunately, I have another name — a simpler one. We may call it: the Death and Life Talisman!” He said, with a serious expression. “This name was inspired by a bullet-storm game ³ among us Voidwalkers?! Also, why must you add a 0 at the end? Is this yet another cheap attempt to ward off accusations of plagiarism, or are you just high?

“Disappointing, all of you! Expand your horizons beyond the concept of runes! The scribble is composed of both runes and formations, so why ignore the latter, huh? We should honor it, too, so let’s call it…t he Human Transmutation Circle! Oh! Even better, let’s call it: the Nationwide Transmutation Circle! ⁴ ”

‘Hold on a second. Are you just lowkey suggesting that I’m the Dwarf in the Flask, or even Father himself? ⁵ … Wait a minute. Hey, “Father” does sound like my kind of moniker.’

“‘Expand your horizons’, he said. And yet everyone’s name is still stuck on ‘runes’ or ‘formations’ or ‘magic circles’!” The Blacksmith chimed in. “I say we use an unorthodox name for an unorthodox invention. How about ‘The Gateway Portal’, huh? Or better yet, ‘Spacetime Wormhole’ ?”

‘Are you actually an alien disguising yourself as one of us? Baiyi gave himself a mental facepalm. Sigh. Every day I ask myself: do I really belong here? If yes, why am I not a lunatic like the rest of these asylum inmates?’

Their discussion went on for almost half a day, and yet nothing substantial ever came out of it. Finally, it forced another one of the Voidwalkers who rarely spoke, the Shadow, to weigh in. “You mentioned that this scribble was inspired by Little Mia, didn’t you? If that’s the case, why not ask her to name it?”

Baiyi froze. She was not wrong. Indeed, he did mention that much of the scribble’s form was inspired by Little Mia, albeit not by her endless “cute” antics but that erratically-drawn summoning circle she had created many years ago — the summoning circle that had pulled Baiyi out of the Void as a Soul Armature.

On a certain level, it was true that both Little Mia’s error-filled summoning circle and Baiyi’s scribble shared some similarities. For example, in theory, both of these objects should not have possibly produced any kind of result at all; And should these objects did produce a certain result, current theories would not be able to predict them either.

The Voidwalkers had long stopped bringing up Mia’s summoning circle for a long time now, even though none of them ever forgot about it. Once, there used to lengthy discussions among the Walkers and Baiyi about the nature of that erratic summoning circle (specifically, how did a failed summoning circle like that even manage to summon a powerful entity like the Fifth Walker?), which ended up with multiple experiments being repetitively conducted in the hopes of replicating its success. Trying to meet every possible condition to the summoning ritual’s success, the Voidwalkers even asked Mia to draw and perform it again.

Nothing ever came of it. The reason for Mia’s summoning circle’s success, therefore, became an unsolved mystery for years, until Baiyi made a breakthrough with his scribble.

He noticed that the scribbles he drew were always slightly different from the last. His last scribble was shaped like the alphabet “P”, and this one was shaped like an “R”, and so forth. They shared superficial form, but each scribble bore different details. In other words, there was just never any fixed form for each scribble!

This discovery was a direct clash to all academic theories humans had heretofore gathered, and Baiyi had no idea how to bridge the gap. He could only guess that it was once again the working of those ineffable, mysterious Laws.

Baiyi pulled out a communication slab from his pocket and murmured to himself, “Hmm. I guess I should ask Mia for her opinion on this…”

He hesitated. At this time, Mia was still pissed with him. There was no way she would not have wanted to talk to him now.

How did Baiyi enrage Mia? Well, once again, it all traced back to Baiyi’s experiment, this time—it was the aforementioned goldfish.

See, Baiyi needed a living being for his experiment, but he had none with him while almost none of his girls kept a pet. Mia was the only odd one out; she kept a school of little goldfish, and she loved them dearly and took care of them very carefully. Whenever she went out, she would always ask Nota — the most reliable of the sisters — to take care of them for her.

It was late evening when Baiyi decided to scout for a test subject, so he went to Mia’s place, but she was not there. As he wondered where the girl had gone, he grabbed a fish from the bowl and just tossed it through the scribble.

Unbeknownst to Baiyi, Mia was away because she was attending an upper-class dinner hosted personally by Emperor Walhart to honor Mia and Mordred’s contribution in saving the entire Isythre. It was a grand event attended by all of the most prominent nobles in the land.

Now, although the two only managed to save the world accidentally , their contribution still stood true. Besides, being two of the “Princesses of Da Xue”, they were apparently looked up high enough in society that the Emperor himself saw it fit to personally throw a dinner in their honor.

Unlike the clueless and thoughtless Mordred, who wore only her armor to the dinner, Mia, the daughter of a baron, harbored values different from Baiyi’s for events like this one. For that occasion, she had abandoned her default “cute girl-next-door” look and chose to dress up more maturely and elegantly, donning a beautiful sky-blue nightgown that was transparent from her waist down. Her fair legs were fairly visible through the fabric. In order to accentuate her lean legs, she had donned a pair of black heels. Then, complementing her attire, she bound her hair into an elegant noble lady’s bun and adorned herself with all kinds of gorgeous accessories. She had bought these herself.

After all, everyone knew that his fashion sense was far from satisfactory. Baiyi would only gift the girls “practical accessories”…

Anyway, just as the meticulously dressed up Mia turned into the center of the party’s attention and was trying to parry requests from a throng of noble suitors, a dead goldfish suddenly smacked out from nowhere and landed on her head…