Second Summon

The dome cavern had quieted since Lone Star's grand confrontation against Golem. Four distant Mages were huddled around each other, laughing while drinking celebratory drinks to rejoice in their victory. Even Hiro who was usually stoic was enjoying himself with a bottle of booze in hand.

Sanae finished chatting with everyone, then ran back towards the other end of the cave. There was a pep in her step and a cute smile on her face as she approached Daichi. He'd been sitting against a wall by the cavern's exit while he observed everyone's festivities. But now a cheery Sanae with her hands behind her back hummed around him, as if trying to get his attention.

"Oh, are you done healing everyone?" Daichi asked. What's gotten into her?

"Didn’t need to heal them, hehe." A jubilant, playful expression increased her cuteness tenfold. "I took an elixir for myself but that's it. No one was badly hurt so everyone just healed themselves with potions."

"Hmm? Isn't that kind of a waste if you can use healing magic?"

"It's the other way around. Inventory items can't be used during battle, so most guilds prefer keeping their Cleric’s MP up instead."

Daichi hadn't tried a plethora of RPG games in real life, but needing to learn new methods of play was both exhilarating and intimidating. Every bit of trivia could be vital at some point in the future.

“Huh, that’s pretty smart," he replied to her. "Got bunches of learning still I guess."

“Yeah but never mind that—here! Something for you!” She presented Daichi a small, red box. It was decorated with golden stars and copious amounts of glitter. “This is one of the drops from the Golem. Makoto said you could have it—mostly because his luck is terrible with these."

"Thanks?" Daichi accepted the little box from her. It was light and didn’t make a sound when he shook it to his ear. Dud?

“Opening it just gives a random item." Sanae pointed below towards his hand. "Red boxes like that one give equipment, yellow gives gold, and blue gives crafting materials. There’s other colors too but those are rare.”

“I’ll happily take anything at this point, haha.” Daichi lifted up the lid and the box dissipated with a drrring sound. A new notification stated that an item had been added to his Gear.

“What did you get?” Sanae said, sitting down next to him. "Anything good?"

Daichi checked through his Menu. “Something called a ‘Moody Scroll’?” He equipped it from Gear, and an intricately designed, red scroll materialized in his hand.

“Moody Scroll? Rats, that’s pretty unlucky! I know how bad those are and I don't even use scrolls.”

“Bad? But they sounded pretty strong.” Daichi reopened his Menu and read their description again:

[Moody Scroll: A mysterious item that invokes a random summon from E to S-grade. One-time use only.]

He pondered with his fingers to his chin. Part of him thought there was some sort of strategy involved with this new item. "What if I get a really good summon out of it? Even a middle-tier would be incredible for me—imagine an S-grade!"

While he was babbling and theory crafting, Sanae scooted closer to him. “Be honest. Have you ever played a gacha game?”

“Gacha game?” He'd never expected someone to bring them up here. “I’ve only tried a couple my friend recommended me. She's the otaku, not me.”

She giggled, cutely trying to hide her smile with a thumb. “Same friend you mentioned earlier, right? Makes sense.”

“Huh?”

Blue hues from above reflected in Sanae's bluer eyes as she shook her head. “It’s nothing! Point is: gacha games also give ‘random’ rolls, but in both cases you’re way more likely to get a bad roll than a good one. So just temper your expectations.”

So that's how it works? Daichi looked at the lavish scroll in his hand again. It seemed far more high-end than his default scrolls, and those could currently only invoke weak summons. In fact . . .

“Hold on!" A lightbulb lit up in his head. “I still haven’t used my new skill points! Maybe you could help me out with that?” Daichi pulled up his Menu's skill tree. A singular line of skills up the tree’s center displayed several new skills he’d unlocked by just leveling up. Other new branching paths were also made available to unlock via skill points.

“I can't see your Menu, but I'm happy to help with anything!” she cheered.

“Ok, so the only summon I unlocked from all those levels is a Hopper, which probably won’t help us much. So I can either save my skill points for future skills, or unlock a ‘Goblin’ summon and start opening up that skill path. What's better?"

Sanae paused to think. “Goblins hit hard, though I don’t think they’ll do much here. But if your only summons right now are Hopper and base Furbolt, I’d say go for Goblin just in case an emergency pops up.”

Daichi agreed with her logic. He tapped to unlock “Goblin” and its icon lit up in his skill tree. Several other branches—presumably containing stronger Goblin variants—were also made available but required myriad skill points to unlock. However, the excitement of a second summon revitalized Daichi's spirits.

"Done!" While still sitting down, he materialized his tome and decided to test out his new friend. “Goblin: Activate!”

A bright, green light enveloped his tome then spewed out a viridian ball. It slowly took shape in front of him as a little green man was born. The Goblin looked stock-standard: it wore tattered rags and had a long, crooked nose with wide nostrils. Yellow eyes gazed around the cavern while its pointed ears twitched like a dog's, perhaps checking for danger.

"Ummm, hi?" Daichi said. He noticed the wooden bludgeon in Goblin's hand. I'm not gonna get bonked or something, right?

The green man sniffed the area, pointing its long nose around, then settled its gaze on an uncomfortable Sanae. Strings of drool slithered out of Goblin's mouth and splattered to the ground.

"Marfmarffufu!" it garbled nonsense while making a deviant face. Poor Sanae sought protection by scooting into Daichi as much as she could.

But walking towards them from the distance, a cowboy approached donning a crooked smirk.

“Ho, Ho! No way! A Goblin!” Makoto said as he neared the scene. He popped in a new Wombat then inspected their fresh, green ally. “Freakin’ love Goblins! I’ve fought the big baddie variants and they’re a ride! Plus, they’re always men of culture!”

Goblin angled its head below to peek at a split in Sanae's robe. Her face flushed red and she tucked her legs in, trying to hide all traces of skin. "C-C-Can you not, please?"

“OoOoOo! I’d watch out if I were you, darlin’! He's green and mean!"

Great, now we got two weirdos in our guild, haha . . . But in an odd way, it felt like a rather wholesome scene between the four compatriots. It was a rare moment for everyone to just catch their breaths.

Makoto blinked a quick wink towards Daichi and Sanae. “Any who, when did you two get so close? Since y'all sitting that near each other."

“Near?” Daichi looked to his right. Sanae’s shoulder was practically touching his; he hadn’t noticed until now. With blushing faces they both scooted further apart from each other.

Wild cowboy laughs sprang out. “Aaa! Hahaha! Buzzkill! Sorry about that, kid! I’m just surprised our cutie is finally breaking out of her shell! Ahaha!"

Daichi could fathom Sanae’s cheeks warming up from embarrassment, but his were no different. Why am I fidgeting like some middle-school girl? I'm lame as heck!

“Any who, we’re heading out soon," Makoto said. "Finish up training 'cuzz we still got a ways to go."

Oh man. "So far so good though?"

"Heh. Since you’re not level 10 yet, plan ain't different: Don’t attack unless you absolutely gotta—got it, kid?” Makoto gave an intimidating glare down towards nervous Daichi.

"R-Right!" He nodded twice then watched as the cowboy waltzed away. Goblin standing nearby was occupied picking its nose, like it was awaiting orders.

How long do summons even last? My MP stat got bigger but Goblin as a D-rank still costs more than Furbolt to summon. Would be a shame to just let him time out. Daichi had more questions but didn’t want to annoy his cute but often stern teacher. Guess Goblin is coming along on foot.

“Erm, do you know how to recall your summons?” Sanae tapped his right shoulder.

“Hmm? Recall?”

“Yeah. Invokers have a skill that recalls whatever they summon and gets some of the MP back. Otherwise, I think summons only last an hour.”

Daichi checked through all the new skills he'd earned. Huh, don't see anything like that. Maybe it's still behind one of those question mark icons on my skill tree.

"Actually, you probably wouldn't have it unlocked yet . . ." She visibly cringed as realization probably set in. "Goblin will just linger for now, I guess . . . Urrggh."

“Well as long as the little guy behaves, backup is more than welcome!"

"Maybe, yeah, whatever." Sanae shivered then crossed her arms. "Help is nice since Invokers are pretty underpowered until they’re high-leveled—so I’ve heard.”

Goblin gave her one last thirsty look before Daichi made a threatening karate chop motion. The trio settled down to pass their remaining break time.

Soon, Lone Star's other members began approaching from across the cavern. It was time to depart.

“Let’s get going,” Sanae said as she stood up, careful to keep her robe held together. “Y-You ready?”

Daichi wasn't even sure himself but didn’t want to ruin her positivity. “Mm! Born ready!”

There was too much on his mind to process. He wanted to reach level 10 fast—no—he needed to go even higher than 10. But how far should he push it? How much stronger would enemies further in be? Did Lone Star even have a chance of beating Domination, or was Makoto stringing them all to their deaths? If so, why would Sanae just roll along with it?

In a way, Daichi was working to find his own answers, just like he did in the real world. Even the methods weren’t that different:

Pretend to be someone you’re not. Slap on a mask to show people what they want to see. Play along until you forget you’re even wearing a mask. Repeat.

All of Lone Star's members marched through the cavern's unveiled exit, readying to face not only the Dungeon’s demons, but their own.