Why Did You Summon Me?

What would Baiyi normally do when his favorite, youngest child, asked for his attention?

He would put down the work he had at hand, stand up from his chair, carry the little princess back to her own room, and place her on her bed.

This was exactly what he did. “Get yourself changed, then we can wash you a little,” the Soul Armature said and turned his back at her.

“Mm!” The girl replied happily, and soon, the sounds of clothes falling to the floor was audible. After a while, Baiyi turned around and saw that she had already put on her nightgown. She just sat the side of her bed, with her tiny feet hanging off its edge, grinning at him.

“How many times have I told you to put your clothes back to where they belong?” Baiyi stared at the scattered clothes. With a sigh, he bent down to pick each item up, folding them into shapes. He placed the folded pieces of clothing on the chair close to her bed, including her black stockings.

Her clothes still emitted the fragrance of a girl’s body.

“If you don’t look after yourself properly, you won’t be a good wife, you know? And no one would want to marry you!” Baiyi tried to scare Mia with one of a Parent’s Classic Threats.

“Ha! If no one wants me as their wife, I guess I’ll just be Mr. Hope’s!” Mia retorted in jest, but her face suddenly reddened.

“Oh my, just listen to yourself!” Baiyi replied with a chuckle, poking her cheeks. The dim lighting in Mia’s room concealed the blushes on her face.

Of course, he easily dismissed her words; Mia was still a child, after all. Her words had no serious implication; at least, that was what the Soul Armature believed.

Next, he summoned a wooden basin that was placed at a corner of her room with his mana and filled it up with water through magic. Then, after heating the water with his own magical flames, he placed the basin under Mia’s feet. Usually, this was part of the students’ daily chores, which also doubled up as their chance to practice magic.

However, since Mia seemed to be exceptionally cute today, he would just give her a little more leeway.

“Hee hee!” Mia chuckled lightly as she dipped her feet into the hot water. With a contented “Ooh, so comfy!”, her fair feet began moving in the crystal clear water like a pair of jade fish.

Baiyi did not stop his task, however. He unfashioned the girl’s hairpin and let her twin tails down. Then, out from nowhere, he grabbed a piece of towel and rubbed her face.

After washing, Mia climbed into her cover. Baiyi walked to her side and stroke her head, and then he bent down to press his mask on her forehead lightly. “Now you’re all set to go to sleep, right?”

The little girl was different today; she actually shook her head sideways, signaling that she wanted more. She wrapped her arms around his gauntlet to stop him from leaving.

“Mr. Hope, can you talk me to sleep? We haven’t talked like that for a loooong time,” she said sweetly.

He froze.

He remembered the times when the two of them had just met. The two of them had to live in the same room in the girl’s dorm. Mia was not as close to him back then, and she was always so busy with her classes and school curriculum. Back then, they did not have the time to talk to each other as frequently as they do now. However, Baiyi had needed to bond with her as soon as possible, so he always had to wait until night in order to spend some quality time talking with her.

Back then, they had a lot to talk about: Mia would tell him the things that had happened in her class, and in return, Baiyi would tell her stories about Earth, which always made her laugh.

However, the two would often spend time thinking and planning about the future. Mia would always count the money she had saved in her kitty purse and tell Baiyi how she had met a really handsome Soul Armature somewhere; she would also tell Baiyi that she was saving up to get a set of new armors for him. Baiyi would tell her that with great power comes great benefits, like lots of lots of money and the ability to travel to all kinds of places.

Eventually, they moved into the Aegis mansion, and the number of girls Baiyi had to look after increased. Money became less of a problem, and their living conditions became better and better.

However, they never had those nightly chats again.

“Mr. Hope, do you remember this?” Mia produced her kitty purse under her pillow and shook it in front of him.

“Hmm? You still kept it?” Baiyi had prepared a number of storage pouches for each girl, so he did not expect Mia to still need this purse.

“Of course.” She nodded and opened it. Inside the kitty purse was a few silver and gold coins; however, the amount could not be compared with the allowance Baiyi normally gave them.

“Back then, I used to save all the time. Now, they don’t really mean much anymore; however, earning them and saving them had been so difficult, I can’t bring myself to spend it… even till now,” Mia added quietly. “You know, I think I’m pretty silly, right? I can’t even think of a single way to earn a lot of money, so all I could do was to save as much as I can. But Mr. Hope is so different. You can make money out of everything!”

Baiyi stared at the coins in her purse, and an image flashed in his mind: Mia, counting every piece of money she had just to buy him a new set of armor. It was those moments that had moved him.

He was silent a while because he was lost in his memories. Mia, on the other hand, closed her purse and placed it back under her pillow.

She lifted his gauntlet and placed in on her cheek, and said softly, “Mr. Hope? A clumsy girl who can’t even keep her clothes clean, who also doesn’t have good looks like Big Sister Dale and the rest… no one would ever be interested in a girl like me, right?”

“Are you kidding me?” Baiyi pinched her cheeks. “Mia’s so adorable; there must be a lot who already had their eyes on you.”

“Well… Do you like me then, Mr. Hope?”

Baiyi smiled. “Of course I do. I like Mia the most.” He tapped her forehead. “Alright, time to sleep. You have classes tomorrow.”

“Mm hmm! Good night, Mr. Hope,” Mia said, pulling her blanket up to her chin. Baiyi curled every corner into her blanket until she was wrapped into a roll; only then did he take the basin with him, leaving her with a sense of assurance.

As Baiyi was having a peaceful family bonding session, on the far corner of this world, a majestic, towering cathedral stood.

It had the same structure as a regular cathedral; however, instead of being painted pure white, it had been painted with a decrepit grey color.

In the center of the cathedral were eleven gigantic stone pillars, supporting the dome overhead. With a bright, magical illumination being emanated from four directions in the hall, the color of each pillar became visible, along with different glyphs etched on their surface.

The glyphs looked simplistic, yet there was something about them that made them seem much more than they looked.

The pillars encircled a lone white pillar, which was at the center. Beneath this lone pillar, there were three figures hidden in the shadow it cast. For some odd reason, despite the light in the room, the attributes of the three figures could not be seen clearly. No one could even tell if they were humans.

The beautiful Duchess stood before the three figures, clad in a long black robe that hid her seductive body. On her face was a semi-transparent white that shrouded a little part of her dangerous attraction.

She was recounting the encounter she had with Baiyi to the three figures in a hushed voice. When her story ended, she lowered her head, awaiting their response.

The hall was completely silent for a long while, then the leftmost figure broke the silence. “Novice Butler Harllotte, you have failed the organization despite all the investment made.”

This figure was speaking the human language, and his voice sounded it was coming from a synthesizer. There was no tonal difference, no inflection, and most certainly, no emotions; no one could discern the sentiments hidden in his words.

“My deepest apology, Lord High Reverend,” the Duchess replied hurriedly, her voice audibly shaky.

This was her first time meeting the High Reverend of the Godsfall cult. Pressure compressed her, exerting itself on every cell in her body, piercing her with a chill that she could never shake off.

‘These three are not of this world! They are the manifestation of nightmares, terrors, fears!’ The Duchess thought that with the help she had received from the cult, her level would have long since passed the mere Legendary-level; yet, at that moment, she still could not summon enough power to lift her head.

She had met Grand Butlers, who all wielded powers far beyond her own, before; however, never had she ever felt so fearful and nauseous in the presence of one of them. One could not even compare Master Hope with these three figures; before these three High Reverends, he was nothing but a pathetic maggot. He could not even defeat her. At least, that was what Harllotte told herself.

However, the three figures obviously held other opinions.

“Describe the fight between you and Hope again. In details. I’ll not tolerate any missing piece,” the second figure said.

The Duchess froze. She was confused. Why would a godlike figure occupy themselves with the details of a battle between two maggots? Is such a battle not supposed to mean nothing more than ‘kids fooling around’ to these beings?

The figure seemed to had read through every thought that had crossed her mind, and he impatiently snapped, “Begone with your annoying curiosity, woman. Just answer my question.”

His words seemed to hold literal weight, crashing down onto her body, engulfing her and pushing aside the air around her.

Her knees buckled, and down she went. As a knee landed on the ground in a subservient manner, she quickly blubbered out the details of her encounter with the Fifth Walker.

Every excruciating detail, every inch of her memory; she sang them out like a canary, even including parts that would normally mean nothing, like how he had been interested in her body and how he had secretly scanned her more times than was warranted.

Her encounter had been short, but the description was properly elaborated.

The three shadows listened to the Duchess without interrupting her, acting as if they had all the patience in the world.