Why Did You Summon Me?

By the time Laeticia awoke, the sun had set. In a panic, she leaped out from the hammock. Despite landing weirdly, she dashed towards her desk, whilst ignoring even her crinkled undershirt.

“Now, now. There’s no need to rush; fix your clothes first.” Baiyi’s voice rang out from behind.

She turned and caught him in the middle of tidying up her documents on a shelf.

“M-Mr. Hope! Oh… Oh my!” She exclaimed. It dawned on her that her work of the day had already been cleared away while she was peacefully slumbering. Warm gratitude ballooned in her chest and she gave a slight bow to convey her appreciation.

Less frantic, she continued towards her table and started putting her unorthodox armor back on.

Baiyi gave a sigh of relief. It was painstakingly obvious that Laeticia had zero fashion sense or even a basic instinct to put different clothes together to make a workable match. For crying out loud, despite wearing a fairly conservative white blouse of austere design as top, she paired it with a pair of hot pants and sexy, lacey black pantyhose, as if the thought of being discovered in such an inviting combo had never crossed her mind.

Then again, given that she was almost never seen without her Saintess armor in public, perhaps Baiyi was the only one who would ever have the pleasure of seeing her in this.

Originally, Baiyi had planned to debrief the girl the first thing she woke up from her sleep, yet by the time Laeticia was awake, he had decided against that initial idea. Apparently, Baiyi had been engaging in an atypically serious discussion with the Cleric Walker; it was he who was adamant that the best course of action to solve this matter was to let the girl “figure things out on her own”.

‘Figure things out on her own?!’ Baiyi had fumed. ‘ This was precisely why the Cleric Walker is always the least dependable adult in the Void!’

Was the Cleric Walker really that blind to how helpless his protégé felt as she was crushed by this imbroglio? Would he not worry about her going to the deep end out of confusion and disillusionment? Or was her descent into the same abandon he had allowed himself into upon being betrayed by his god’s promise, exactly what that sly fox was going for all along?

However, Baiyi’s criticism was met with uncharacteristic, and frankly, strange — seriousness. The Cleric Walker was relentless and stubborn in their discussion, surprising Baiyi a little because he was quite used to that pervert instantly cowering into a meek protest whenever Baiyi slammed him down with his snarks.

Adding to his strange sobriety was that the Cleric Walker had also forgone using any of his favorite words like “F***ing son of a b****” or “you bastard of an admin” in his arguments.

“You atheists will never understand that indescribable understanding we the faithful harbor towards our beliefs,” the Cleric Walker explained as matter-of-factly as possible. “It’s only natural, then, that you will find people like me completely unfathomable because my faith is beyond what is presented in the pages of the Scripture. You see, when your faith had reached my level, you enter a certain, transcended state of mind. This is why despite my occupation with the pleasures of beautiful girls around me, in my core, I’m still pure and uncorrupted!”

“What I’d betrayed was not my faith but the Church’s deluding dogma. As my protégé, Laeticia must be able to realize this to liberate herself from that bondage. It’s simply a journey that she has to walk alone. Any forceful help from us might actually obstruct her progress instead.”

It sounded right until Baiyi really combed through the Cleric Walker’s arguments, which by that point, it just sounded like someone espousing a whole lot of bulls*** with a completely straight face. The first thing Baiyi could pick apart was that religions had always been born from those made-up teachings in the first place. Without these teachings, there would not be anything resembling a religion! In other words, if one denied the teachings of a religion, then could that person still call themselves an adherent at all?

Baiyi had not even gotten to the apex of the Cleric Walker’s bunkum. The idea that “a state of mind” itself was enough to be called “faith”. If that were true, then maybe one could argue that the state of being a pervert was a faith of its own!

It went without saying that Baiyi was utterly unimpressed by the Cleric Walker’s argument. He even wondered if this was ultimately the Cleric Walker’s very roundabout way of justifying his disgusting, horny behaviors…

“Well then, Sir Knows-a-lot, how do you explain my continuous ability to perform Words of God? You surely understand the rigorous demands of one’s faith to use this theurgical secret technique, don’t you?” The Cleric Walker retorted with gusto. “Face it, this is the definitive proof that the One True God acknowledged and accepted my form of adherence!”

“Meh. The only thing this proves is that your ‘one true god’ is either blind, stupid, or both. Besides, if he really cares about you enough to continuously bless you with those powers, then how come he ended up casting you into the Void instead of welcoming you to his paradise or whatever when you died?” Baiyi rebutted pointedly. “Honestly, he’s even less reasonable than the renowned scatterbrain himself, the War God. I guess this is what ineffability ultimately means, then — doing things without logic?”

The Cleric Walker had remained speechless, struggling futilely to refute Baiyi’s rebuttal with any objective arguments.

The Faculty of Theology, under his leadership, had always been devoted to this particular interpretation — the very same one that the Cleric Walker had tried to use to persuade Baiyi. Yet, other than personal anecdotes and subjective conclusions and speculations, there was never much of objective veracity of the Cleric Walker’s interpretation. Maybe it was enough to persuade students who were already believers of that religion, but it would be nigh impossible to use something unrooted in objective facts to convince atheistic, hard-liner academics like Baiyi.

Of course, when one really dug into it, that was all faith ever was, was it not? It was always about how the devotee personally feel and inclined to believe; It was never about proofs and evidence. Perhaps it was just as much a fallacy to ask for objectivity out of something like that.

Now, Baiyi may have appeared as the winner of their debate, but to be honest, he offered no wiser suggestion neither. This was why he ended up following the Cleric Walker’s advice and kept the questions he had wanted to ask to himself instead of laying them out with Laeticia.

Without an actually good solution to solve this sticky situation, Baiyi could only set Laeticia on auto-play for the moment and hope that something checked out in the end.

Noticing that Baiyi had only nagged her on taking good care of herself and getting enough rest without a single mention of the upcoming war, the girl let out a huge sigh of relief, as though a big load had lifted from her heart.

‘Wait. Could it be that the one she dreads the most was never the Church, the Cleric Walker, and even the supreme “one true god”? Is it… me?’ Hearing the girl’s audible sigh, an uncomfortable thought popped into his mind.

“I’m a bit worried that I might not be able to sleep at night, Mr. Hope, now that I’d slept a bit too much during the day,” Laeticia murmured, her eyebrows furrowing yet her lips quivered into a small smile — two expressions of very different emotions, yet when they appeared simultaneously, it made one steal a few more glances at her face.

She continued to wonder out loud, “Oh, maybe I should get some of those sleeping potions from the Alchemist’s faculty? I heard that they had invented a new and improved formula that can quickly get a sorcerer into a deep state of meditation—”

“Bad idea!” Baiyi quickly interjected, waving his hands for emphasis. “Do you even trust the sort of stuffs they make? I mean, I doubt that they themselves would dare take their own medicines. Really, I’m sure those stuffs are made just to con some money out of those nobles for the good of our academy…”

By this point, Baiyi was just being slanderous. Every single concoction the Alchemy Faculty manufactured was a commercial blast not only in the Southern Continent but also — with the help of Undine Dole — up there in the North. Their products netted in so much profit that they were the real golden-egg laying goose in Da Xue, generating far more money for the academy than the Smithing Faculty or the Engineering Faculty could ever offer, let alone any monetary contribution pure academic types like Baiyi could provide.

In fact, the Dole’s pockets were so constantly fattened by these sales that it was no wonder that Undine was so keen and willing to marry the boss who led them all!

However, Baiyi’s anxiety was not exactly unfounded. Every member in the Alchemy Faculty had a manic streak that Baiyi had long theorized to be inherited from their mad Principal Nobel. His students were so reckless that their faculty had always ranked first in accidents — the biohazard kind, no less. Explosions, food-poisoning, biohazardous gas leakage. So many exciting events just kept cropping up on their record of achievements that one sometimes wondered if the students were just deliberately keeping up a reputation through it.

The only consolation from this was that there were no actual casualties thus far, which was likely only because their neighbor was the restorative magic-heavy Theology Faculty…

All and all, Baiyi thought it was justified to doubt the reliability of the Alchemy Faculty.

While on this subject, the second and third highest number of accidents sorted by faculties would be the Literary Faculty and the Theology Faculty respectively. But this time it had nothing to do with the subjects of their study. It was all because of their “extra-curricular exploits”.

By now, everyone knew that a heinous beasts spat out from hell roamed the picturesque landscape of Da Xue. It was called the Jawflower, and it was a manifestation of the sadistic pleasure in blocking every man from their woman. Legends even had it that if one’s love could triumph the Trial of The Jawflower, then only could it ever come to fruition…

Of course, the legends themselves were composed by author wannabes from the Literary Faculty whose main hobbies, other than skirt-chasing, was ghostwriting confessions and making up stories for the public. Out of their personal vendetta towards the Jawflower, many untrue and purely libelous essays had been published about it; Some even composed popular fantasy novels with the Jawflower as its center antagonist which must then be stopped by all who still believed in justice and goodness—

Anyway, enough detours. Back in reality, Baiyi ended up suggesting tried-and-true classic methods in solving insomnia to Laeticia, such as counting sheep [1], cuddling with something soft and comfortable, massaging some parts of your body that could make you relax into a sleep, or drink a cup of black tea that could make you drowsy [2] .

“I guess I have nothing against most of your methods, Mr. Hope, but is there a black tea that could make anyone sleep?” Laeticia interjected inquiringly.

“Uh-hem, I think I got that one wrong. Please forget that one.”

It was only when the two were on the verge of parting when Baiyi remembered something too important to have forgotten. He crossed over the room to Laeticia’s side, patted her head, and said solemnly, “Please promise me one thing. Do not visit the Holy City for this upcoming Grace Day, okay?”

Every Saintess on outstation was required to return every year during Grace Day to meet the Church cardinals and received blessings from the One True God in the Temple of Auguries. Laeticia was no exception to the rule, too, and in the past when the Church was governed by moderates, she had always fulfilled that duty without being in any actual peril. The most she had to endure back then were the self-righteous’ harangue and mockery.

However, the situation had changed drastically this year. With the extremist taking helm, they might actually extend their malice towards Laeticia, which was why Baiyi wanted the girl to skip out on this tradition this time for her own safety.

The girl herself knew that, too. She nodded with a regrettable expression shadowing her face and replied, “Understood. I won’t go this year. Still, this reminds me… Are you still not going to join our family merriment during Grace Day?”

“Uh hem!” Baiyi gave his second conspicuously loud cough of the day. “I am one who enjoys quiet solitude. I don’t like ‘merriment’.”

With that, he excused himself awkwardly.

He really hoped that Laeticia would listen to him and ditched her return trip to the Holy City. He hoped that she was more of an obedient, sensible daughter than a blindly loyal devotee…

As Baiyi mused, he trudged absent-mindedly on the path home oblivious to the surrounding until he found himself gawking at his gate. There, sitting on the stone staircase to his door were Santa and Anna, each with an animal-themed tin can in their hands. Around them were other similar tin cans, the flowers erstwhile planted in them completely scattered while their pots overturned—

Those two brats thought my flowers were toys?! Baiyi was just about to blow up until his eyes caught the girls’ anticipating expressions and his heart softened. It was as if a pair of daughters were waiting for their father to come home…

In fact, when the two caught him in their sights, they threw the flowers down and started enthusiastically running towards him with their short, stout legs.

After a long, hard day, watching the kids running towards him in excitement just null any lingering rage he had for the demise of his flowers. [3]