Chapter 45: Twelve Minutes of Mercy
Chapter 45: Twelve Minutes of Mercy
I woke up.
That was the first surprise.
I lay on broken concrete beneath a roof that no longer existed. Something cool and glassy spread through my ribs from the outside inward. The grinding had stopped. When I drew breath, it reached the bottom of my lungs.
A pale hand hovered above my sternum, palm down, without touching me. The woman withdrew it when my eyes opened. Nothing about her expression suggested gentleness. She looked like somebody repairing a damaged tool because she still needed to use it.
Seen clearly, she was unmistakably an adult woman rather than some ageless porcelain figure: tall, poised, and full-figured beneath robes tailored to conceal more than they revealed. The gold-edged layers followed her waist before widening over her hips, every line severe and immaculate. Her beauty was mature, distant, and utterly without invitation.
I spat blood onto the concrete. Then habit overcame shock, and I checked her status before speaking.
[Summon Grade: SS]
[Race: Human.]
[Age: 1,247]
[Native Realm: Translation unavailable.]
[Estimated Level Equivalent: Beyond current scan range.]
[Manifested Level: 10]
[Raw attributes and energy capacity synchronized to host level.]
[Desire: 10/100]
[Trust: 0/100]
[Resonance: 0%]
[Signature Status: Fading.]
[Repeat Selection Chance: 1% after an eligible SS-grade roll.]
Zero Trust. Zero Resonance. Desire ten.
The lowest Desire I had ever seen from a summon. Given Liora and Aria’s starting values, ten felt less like a number and more like a formal complaint.
[Manifestation Remaining: 09:21]
The woman rose. Her body moved with perfect economy, but not with the overwhelming physical force the ogre’s death suggested. The danger came from somewhere else—from the stillness around her, from the faint vibration at her sword, from the sense that every edge in the room had become aware of her.
I began sweating while lying down.
"You will explain," she said.
Her voice was calm. That made it worse.
"I will. There are several parts, and none of them are going to sound reasonable."
Her golden eyes did not blink.
"Begin with the part that reached into this venerable one’s abode, crossed eight formations and a sealed threshold, and removed her without permission."
"That would be my class." I managed to push myself onto one elbow. My chest felt repaired, not comfortable. "But I didn’t choose you. I couldn’t have. Until you appeared, I didn’t know you existed."
The air near her sword sharpened.
"Careful."
"I am being careful. I’m also telling the truth."
I told her everything.
Not as a list. It came out badly at first, because I was injured, terrified, and trying to explain video games to a woman who looked as though she might consider mountains temporary.
I started with Eternal Ascension: a game in my world, then not a game after the Merge. I explained levels, classes, the interface, and how humanity had received the System when the world changed. When she asked what governed it, I admitted I did not know. It displayed rules and enforced them. It did not speak or bargain.
Then I explained the achievement I had stumbled into and the EX-ranked class it awarded me.
Blind Call rolled an eligible grade first, then selected a summon from that band. It did not ask consent. It did not let me choose. The summon arrived physically, retained her free will, and could decide what to do with me afterward—which, under her stare, felt like the most relevant detail.
"The others returned unharmed?" she asked.
It was the first question that did not sound like the beginning of an execution.
"They returned to the exact places and instants they were taken from. No time passes in their worlds, no matter how long they remain here. They remember everything."
"And this restriction?" Her gaze moved once over her own hand.
"Your manifested level matches mine. When you arrived, you were Level 9. The ogre pushed me to ten, so the restriction adjusted."
Her face remained still.
I hurried to clarify. "Your body didn’t overpower it. Whatever you did with the sword intent—that was technique you already knew. The class can’t take your knowledge away."
The smallest movement touched one pale eyebrow. Not approval. Perhaps surprise that I understood even that much.
I continued before it vanished.
Her kills shared experience with me while she was my active summon. Reaching Level 10 had raised her synchronized ceilings and added ten percent of SS grade’s Level 1 duration without healing her or refilling the energy she had spent. When the timer expired, she would return to the exact moment and place from which Blind Call had taken her.
"I didn’t target your abode," I finished. "I didn’t break your formations. I asked the class for help because I was dying, and it found you. If I knew how to send you back early, I would tell you that too."
Silence followed.
The severed field boss settled outside with a distant wet collapse.
"Show me this interface."
"I don’t know how."
The room changed.
She did not move. She did not raise her voice. A thin, killing pressure unfolded from the sheathed sword, and every survival instinct I possessed agreed that I had selected the wrong answer.
"I mean that literally," I said, too quickly. "Nobody gave me instructions. I have been learning by pressing things and hoping the result isn’t fatal."
Her gaze held mine.
The pressure vanished as abruptly as it had arrived.
"Your ignorance appears genuine."
"Thank you. I think."
"It was not praise."
"That makes more sense."
She stepped closer. "Windows may be shared through deliberate permission and willing physical contact. Give me your hand."
I obeyed.
Her fingers closed around mine with an ordinary amount of strength. The contact had to remain unbroken for the shared fields to stay visible. That was almost more unsettling than if she had crushed them. The same hand belonged to a woman who had divided a field boss without ever touching it.
"Focus on permitting this venerable one to see."
"All of it?"
"The fields relevant to your claim. You will choose them deliberately. If you conceal what matters, I will know."
That was probably not a bluff. I chose what to share: my name and status, the Dimensional Summoner class, Blind Call’s random grade-first selection, her remaining duration, the host-level restriction, and exact-instant return. I kept every woman’s private relationship profile closed. Then I focused on granting her access to those fields alone.
Something shifted behind my eyes. The woman looked toward empty air beside us, reading a window I could no longer see alone.
Her attention moved steadily until it reached my class.
Then it stopped.
The pause lasted less than a second, but it was the first crack in her composure.
"EX," she said.
"Yes."
"Such a grade should not exist."
"I had a similar reaction. Mine involved more screaming."
She ignored that and continued reading.
The Level 10 notification chose that moment to unfold in my vision.
[Class Feature Unlocked: Grade Accumulation]
[Each completed Blind Call permanently adds a minimal increase to the probability of rolling a higher eligible grade band.]
[The cumulative increase affects only the initial grade roll.]
[Summon selection remains unaffected.]
[No grade is guaranteed or directly selectable.]
Every completed Call makes the next roll very slightly better. Forever.
For one disappointed second, I thought that was all Level 10 had given me. Then I looked at the SS-grade woman holding my hand and reconsidered what very slightly better forever might eventually mean.
She released me.
[Manifestation Remaining: 06:31]
"You possess no strength worth naming," she said. "No foundation, no method, and almost no understanding of the authority placed in your hands."
"I have been working on the understanding."
"Poorly."
"There has been an apocalypse."
"An explanation is not a defence." Her gaze shifted over the ruins and returned to me. "Left alone, you will be dead before your potential becomes useful. To permit that would be an intolerable waste."
The words were cold calculation. Something beneath them was not.
For an instant, irritation crossed her face—not directed at me, but at some private impulse she had not expected to possess. My hundred points of Charisma had not charmed or controlled her. Desire 10 made that obvious. Yet some small part of her had looked at me broken on the floor and decided I should continue existing, and she appeared personally offended by the discovery.
Her eyes narrowed.
"The creature’s death advanced you by nearly a full level?"
"To Level 10, plus about eighty percent of the next one."
"And any life I end while bound to this manifestation contributes to your growth."
"Yes."
She looked toward the ruined district.
I understood the decision one heartbeat before she made it.
"Wait. My ribs are healed, but the rest of me is still—"
"Irrelevant."
"That word has never improved anything happening to me."
"Be silent and hold on to nothing."
She caught the back of my collar.
The ground disappeared.