Why Did You Summon Me?

After losing the rogue makeup, Tisdale now looked as she did before. She nodded and took notes as Baiyi spoke to her. It seemed that her makeup rebellion was just a misunderstanding, after all.

‘Yep. I prefer this version of Tisdale over any other alts, any day, ‘ Baiyi remarked in his head. “Well, that’s all for my end of the business. Anyway, please don’t play too hard, girls; It’s a school night.”

“Understood, Sir. By the way, there’s something else I would like to discuss with you. Alone, ” Tisdale said hurriedly, bolting up from her seat and started towards the gazebo outside of Mia’s chalet.

A few pots and plants hung or sat around the gazebo quietly. They belonged to Mia, though she did not start taking care of plants purely to follow Mr. Hope’s example. If anything, these plants served as her emergency consolations to the Fifth Walker should he accidentally killed one of his own plants again.

Alone in the gazebo, Tisdale appeared to be lost in her thoughts as her delicate fingers fidgeted with one of the plants’ leaves nervously.

“Is this about Laeticia?” Baiyi asked in a low voice.

She jolted and accidentally plucked a leaf out. “Sigh, yes. I know you’d given the job to me, Sir, and I have been spending time with her these few days but…” Tisdale hesitated as a look of concern rose to her beautiful face. “I haven’t found an opening to tell her about it at all.”

“You know, I started to think that maybe the best person for the job would be… Well, you, Sir. I know she’s Uncle Joel’s student, but she looked up to you the most,” Tisdale added hopefully.

As the conflict between the Voidwalkers and the Church escalated, Baiyi and Tisdale started to worry about the only devout follower within their tight-knitted group. Laeticia accepted the Voidwalkers and became a protégé of one of the most notorious and foulest Voidwalker, which showed that her outlook towards her faith could be a little less black-and-white; however, she was still more or less an ambassador of the Church in Da Xue. If Da Xue and the Church went into war, where would her allegiance stand? More importantly, would it cause her to snap?

She was never just a Vice Principal of the Theological Faculty; She was also a canonized Saintess, tasked as an ambassador of goodwill serving all kinds of diplomatic missions between the Church and the academy. It was a role delegated to her back when the organization was still headed by the moderate faction—one of their efforts to remain friendly with the Voidwalkers despite their schism in beliefs.

Now that Da Xue was about to take up arms against her Church, would this Saintess’ faith be shattered along the way, so much so that she became disillusioned and turned into a Fell Saintess just as the Shadow Walker did?

By “Fell Saintess”, Baiyi meant a Saintess who had crossed over to the dark side after she snapped—he was absolutely, positively sure that he was not referring to any sort of kink about naughty nuns…

Granted, Baiyi and the Church’s escalating animosity had yet been made public to the common folks; The news and the speculations it spurred mostly circulated within those with the incentives to gather intel for their motives, such as elite nobles. Not only that, it was Laeticia’s nature to be simple-minded; she rarely thought too hard, thought too much, or overthink at all. In other words, she was still blissfully oblivious to the growing conflict.

This was why Baiyi had tasked the job of breaking the news to her to the big sister of the group. He even reminded Tisdale to act as a counselor if the girl broke down.

Baiyi was not at all concerned with whatever the Church may do to Laeticia once the radical, war-like faction took over. After all, there was no way those people could storm into Da Xue, grab the girl, tie her up on a stake and burn her like a witch without being knocked out by Da Xue’s members. If that happened, Baiyi was sure that the first person to charge at the Church with godlike wrath would be the Church’s very own, most revered Apostle for over two thousand years, Saint Joel himself!

Thus, Baiyi’s main concern was Laeticia’s mental welfare. How well would she be able to take the news? Would she snap when forcefully thrust into the dark underbelly of the Church, who had always been the representative of the god she steadfastly believed in? How well could she hold up against a bleak reality whereby her religion’s authority decided to mete out wrath to a canonized Saintess like herself?

Every time Baiyi thought of the Walkers whose faith had been shattered, he could not help but become terrified for what may befall Laeticia. If that innocent, kind-hearted girl did snap and turned into a Fell Saintess, there was no telling how far her fall to the dark side could go—the best-case scenario would be her heart Blackening or something like that.

I mean, well, not that a Blackened Laeticia would be bad, of course.

In conclusion, Baiyi was very repulsed at the idea of “Laeticia, the Fell Saintess”, and would rather nip that possibility in the bud by appeasing whatever troubled feelings that arose before everything was too late. He even wondered if Santa, who had now assumed the role of Laeticia’s little sister, could replace Laeticia’s faith in her church as a mental anchor. That way, it would not agonize the girl when her faith eventually crumbled.

Unfortunately, Baiyi knew that he was a qualified counselor, neither was he capable of handling matters related to a girl’s heart. The methods he knew to make a girl happy could be counted on one hand. One: “no homework today!” Two: “Let’s go shopping!” Three: “I’m going to buy desserts and confectionaries!” Four: doing something as trivial as rubbing his cheeks against theirs or braiding their hairs. That was all he knew to do to comfort a troubled girl.

In other words, Mr. Hope had nigh inexistent instincts in counseling. Not helping his case was that the source of this trouble was related to the Church and matters of faith in general, which were something he was personally and principally against. Realizing his powerlessness, the Fifth Walker had thus delegated his job to Tisdale.

However, it seemed that even Tisdale herself was at a loss. Knowing how hard the task was, Baiyi could understand why Tisdale would rather push the job back to himself, which of course solves nothing.

What were their other options?

Must he really ask for help from the Voidwalkers? There were only two possible candidates for that job. First, there was Laeticia’s actual master, the Cleric Walker, who was so unreliable and perverted that Baiyi was sure he would leave the situation worse than he had started; Then, there was Shadow Walker, who had gone through a very similar experience and so could probably comfort the girl, not unlike an older survivor giving talks to other survivors. However, Baiyi had seen this ex-Saintess fell into frequent fits of malevolence and apathy too, which meant she might blacken Laeticia’s heart more quickly than the Cleric Walker’s lecherous ideas could…

In the end, there seemed to be one last choice left. He hesitated and thought about it for one last time before finally breaking the silence, “You know, maybe… Maybe we can ask Santa’s help in this.”

Tisdale was quite appalled. “Santa?! But… She’s only a kid, isn’t she? Are you sure we should place this huge responsibility on a child?”

“Hey, don’t look down on her like that. For a pipsqueak, she’s incredibly opinionated and mature,” Baiyi said. “Besides, sometimes it takes a child to do what an adult cannot do. I mean, it’s always the kids who pilot giant mechas to save the entire human race, right?”

Tisdale, amused by his reasoning, made a face. “Fine, I’ll try to discuss with Santa.”

“Good, because at this moment, she’s probably the best option we got. But then again… I don’t think we need to fret about Laeticia’s problem just yet, Dale. The news could not have spread among the mass and the Church is not likely to declare war soon. We still have some time to spare,” Baiyi said reassuringly. “Alright now, off to rest with you.”

“Mm-hmm. Goodnight, sir,” Tisdale replied sweetly. Then, before the call was terminated, she asked very quietly yet pointedly, “Sir, I was thinking… When will I finally be able to call you Dad?”

Baiyi froze at a question that seemingly came from nowhere before a sad smile surfaced on his emoji-displaying mask. “Hey now. It’s just a form of address, isn’t it? No need to misplace significance on it. But still, if you desire it… You can call me that on the day I finally exist in flesh; the day I could finally hug you with human warmth.”

“Oh, so it’s settled then. I’ll have to wait for the day you break free from the Void! I know it in my heart that it’ll come,” Tisdale smiled contently and ended the call.

The screen disappeared, leaving Baiyi alone in his room. He shook his head weakly as he mused about his eldest daughter’s words. He turned to his desk, grabbed a book on higher mathematics and started reading it, settling a personal debt he owed to his professor back when he was still in university.

Higher mathematics had always been a mainstay in a list of “Top Ten Subjects That Could Murder Your Grade and Your Soul”, which admittedly, Baiyi was no exception.

He had barely started reading when he suddenly heard a series of hasty knocks on his door upstairs. Hurriedly opening it, he saw that it was Lady Assassin wearing her trademark airhead grin.

“Oh, it’s your turn to wear this suit already?” Baiyi asked incredulously.

Lady Assassin Walker stuck her tongue out playfully. “Oh, if only! I would love to annoy you for the night, Doofus. But for now, I’m only here to curry favor for a good friend,” She explained with a twinge of regret. “As you know, that’s just what you get for having a friend with really thin skin; she gets embarrassed and bashful and somehow you have to do the heavy-lifting for her.”

She waved goodbye to Baiyi before switching places with the steely Warrior Walker.

“Urgh. Too much unnecessary information,” She murmured sourly upon appearance as if she was complaining about her best friend.

“What’s the matter?” Baiyi asked hurriedly.

She turned her ethereally-beautiful face away from him before mumbling in a voice so soft it was akin to the sound of a mosquito’s flight, “It’s… nothing. I… I just couldn’t sleep.”

Frankly, Baiyi almost exposed her right there and then: Soul Armatures could never go to sleep anyway, no matter how humanlike their host armor-body was. Just because she did not look like a set of armor like the rest of the Pseudo-descended Voidwalkers did not mean she really was in flesh! Was she already that quick to see herself like that?

Of course, he held his tongue before his playful jab slipped, and instead beckoned her to come in. He knew that if he did let out what he had just thought, he would be sealing an early and terrible demise…

“I’m reading at the moment. Would you like to join me?” Baiyi asked. It seemed like a waste to invite a beautiful and willing maiden into your room only to study Higher Mathematics, but in his defense, he could not do something “less wasteful” because of the body he currently possessed!

Besides, one had to admit that studying with a beautiful girl keeping one’s company was quite a highbrow and refined pleasure, right?

Since the Warrior Walker did not seem to have any plans of her own. She really was just looking for an excuse to see him. The Warrior Walker nodded and followed Baiyi to his basement. Once they had arrived, Baiyi lifted the book he had been reading earlier and began, “In the world I came from, math is the foundation for all sciences. It’s essential and fundamental to almost all other knowledge…”

The Warrior Walker was hardly interested in his reedy topic, but she was never one to interrupt his gab. Instead, she stared at him with her perceptive, onyx-black eyes, now filled with tender admiration while Baiyi continued to give his nerdy speech about the beauty and significance of math. As time passed, she even started leaning towards his body, placing her chin on his chest and nudging it gently.

“Uh hem,” Awkward, Baiyi halted his lecture.

“It’s nothing. Proceed,” She whispered, showing no sign of moving away.

“Um, right,” Baiyi relented and fashioned a bed wide enough for both using his mana so that they could both find a place to lie down. He continued reading his textbook while the Warrior quietly laid next to him, her fingers dandily caressing his chest as if she was trying to seduce him…

Well, even if she did manage to get a rise out of Baiyi, what use could that libido serve? In the end, nothing happened exactly because nothing could happen. The night was spent with the boy reading his math textbook while the girl just laid herself close by quietly.

It only took a call from the Engineer Walker to finally break the two free the next morning.

“Moshi moshi, you there?” The Engineer Walker began. “Us over here had started applying some of the theories and knowledge we’d read these days to create a prototype. If you’re free, come join us!”

“Already? That’s so soon!” Baiyi exclaimed.

“Please, don’t you know who I am?” The Engineer Walker replied with a tone reek of shonen anime protagonists.

“Okay, I’ll be over there really soon,” Baiyi replied and ended the call. Turning to the Warrior Walker, he said, “Join me?”

She shook her head sideways, though. “I’ve got lecture plans with the students from the Northern Continent today.”

Hence, they went their separate ways. Following the coordinates that the Engineer Walker had sent him, Baiyi flew towards a wasteland that was far from the academy.