“Are you lost, young miss?”

I casually asked to a figure of a periwinkle haired girl who was on the ground as she scoured for something.

Hearing my question, she quickly turned but realizing she nearly made an eye contact, she turned her eyes away.

“Oh, Ruigne!”

She sighed in relief.

“So what’s the problem?”

When I asked again, she had a hesitating expression mixed with embarrassment as she seemingly struggle to explain.

“… I lost my notes… again. I was at my usual place when suddenly I gained some inspiration and I made a victory pose. When I held my right hand which was holding the notes up, the wind suddenly blew hard and scattered the notes.”

I stifled my laughter. She turned aside and there was a hint of anger on her face. How cute.

“I happened to be free at this moment so would you like a helping hand? Actually, you can ask the steward of the fortress to send a few of the soldiers to assist you, you know?”

“I could?!!”

She was genuinely shocked. Apparently she didn’t realize the bonus benefits of being a summoned.

“Well, I already informed them to standby, ready to assist after I give the signal.”

“That would be a help, please do!”

After she urged, I turned towards a guard behind us and gave him the signal. He came to me and I explained the details. After being explained, he nodded and told the scores of guards to search for the notes. They filled the courtyard, searching for the papers.

After half an hour, they collected and found all the papers. I said thank and dismissed the guards.

Ghiscra stood there, smiling with a relieved expression.

“You should take a break for a while.”

“I guess so. I was too absorbed into researching, I forgot to eat breakfast!”

She laughed daintily.

“By the way, have you seen Ghrukka? For some reason, I haven’t seen them for two days.”

“Oh… she or he is currently in the “Demon’ personality stage.”

I awkwardly nodded. Back then, before we began our assignment, most of the summoned who were on good terms with Ghrukka had wondered why something he doesn’t leave their Fhagec for a day or two. It was only when Fryphov, their roommate had nonchalantly informed us that Ghrukka had tied themselves with steel-like chains on that certain day.

I thought that he shared the same hobby with August so I thought they could be playmates and introduce a new play of ‘the black guy and the tentacle’.

Joke aside; as soon as we were informed, we forcibly barged into their Fhagec. From that day, we learned that Ghrukka has a split personality’s issue.

They were two other personalities inside of them which we dubbed ‘Demon’ and ‘Quiet’.

The ‘Demon’ was an abrasive and violent one while the ‘Quiet’ never speak and was very timid.

After he reverted back into his original personality, he explained to us that, it seems that both personalities were born from the course of Ghrukka uses of their ability to erase memories. It seems when Ghrukka erase memories; they would have an empathic link to the memories making those memories as their own. During the erasure process, they would experience and personally relived the memory before it would be erase. That’s what they told me.

It was also why I use ‘them’ instead of ‘he’ or ‘her’ when it comes to Ghrukka.

“I see. Best not disturb then.”

“Also, I haven’t seen Shakil for a while.”

“Oh, him… I… sent him on an errant; he should be back by today or tomorrow, hopefully.”

~Whoosh~

It was a faint sound but I heard it all the same. It was the sound when a bird flaps its wings but for even a faint sound meant that this was quite a huge bird or so.

The sound was coming from my right and I looked there.

Up in the air, a pair of crimson bat-like wings was fluttering and in between the wings was a figure that I hadn’t seen for a week.

Speaking of the devil, he really did come back in a week. Well, a week and three days to be exact.

After a minute or so, he flew down and landed right next between me and Ghiscra.

Shakil was all-smile, although he looked worn out and the bloody wings behind him retracted and coalesce like liquid into the large gourd that he was carrying behind.

Shakil special ability was called [Offering] in which he can bind a certain amount of blood or rather anything that is similar to blood which contain what he called ‘Life Source’ and solidified them, making anything from arrows to wings. Although after a certain amount of distance, he would gradually lose control of the blood the further they are away from him.

“Salutation to both of you, are you two engaging in a secret affair, laughing with each other oh so intimately.”

As soon as he landed, he quipped with a smirk.

“Shakil, in open and public space, this hardly qualified for a secret affair don’t you think?”

“Yeah and if we were, who are you to bother us two lovebirds!?”

After I follow up with Ghiscra, she squeaked out an ‘eek’ sound and glared at me. Again, how cute.

“Anyway, I had hell of a week so you don’t mind if I take some time to recuperate, Ruigne?”

When Shakil had requested me, looking closely, he was indeed ragged, battered and dishevelled as though he had his hands and feet’s tied and was left rolling on the slope.

“You looked worse to wear, go ahead.”

“Thanks, I tell you in details later on.”

Shakil nodded and went inside.

Ghiscra curiously peered at Shakil with a baffled expression.

“Where did you sent him exactly?”

“Just a tourism trip to the north of Symokiva.”

--

“Oh by the gods, you better coughed up some Quilens. I literally risked life and limbs in the past few days.”

Inside my room, both Shakil and I were seated while Shakil tiredly exclaimed with a fed-up expression.

“Quilens, huh? I guess I could make a request. Anyway, tell me everything.”

“Okay, on initial part of the journey, everything was fine until I reached at the border of the north on the third day. It seems that the further away you are from Tchekaz, the more the native would disrespect you but they don’t stop you or anything. The boat I was in actually got stopped by some human tribesmen and we almost got ‘arrested’. Not what I have in mind so I got myself into a physical altercation. After nearly beating the rest of them near death, they told me that they thought this boat was from another tribe. Apparently there’s a supposable sanctioned skirmish between two tribes at that place and at that time. I had to show my medallion to show my status as a Summoned.”

Wait the minute? That’s new. Solving conflict with violence is pretty normal in Symokiva. You gotten let these sorts of people blow off their steam but every conflict must be approve and sanction by the highest representative from Athryshiayl, which is me as of now. I never approved any of these nor would Sarralus because he had already showed me the list of already approved conflicts by Ubermensch during his assignment.

These sanction conflict approval of at least four months.

I gestured him to continue.

“After they found out that I was a Summoned, they let me through without delay. Already beating them near to death was enough to scare them then again, since those dung eaters tried to kill me, I should have at least skinned two or three of them.”

“Shakil, this only happened in the northern part right? What about along the way?”

Hopefully it’s only the northerners.

“Yeah, as far as I know, all the way from here to there, the boat ride was relaxing until we reached the north. It would have been that way with only that troubling incident and the following few conflicts wasn’t as troubling as the first one until I had been ambushed while within the territories of the six tribes several times.”

“Ambushed?”

“Yeah, these happen when I was alone on the road and it always during midnight. The first one was a close call as I had suffered a grievous wound… if it wasn’t for my special ability, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You really did send me to a suicidal mission.”

He complained grumpily.

“Sorry… Anyway, can you describe your assailants?”

“Them huh? They always come in three or four and dressed in heavy garb, concealing their appearance. In terms of fighting skill, they were adequately sufficient and the teamwork that they displayed would shame us summoned, well only us Fazgox. When they fought though, they move in a rigid manner and I actually swore I mortally wounded one of them but that person just shrugged it off like nothing had happened. The last ambush had liked, six people cornering me, so I escaped to the sky and fled to the nearest outpost. Been flying intermittently ever since, so here I am.”

Hearing about these assailants, I can’t help but to think about the kidnapped victims for some reason.

“Okay, aside from that, how was the situation with the six tribes?”

“I only managed to spy four of them before I was forced to flee. Generally speaking, they have a very bad perception against us. In my personal opinion, they seem to equate respect and fear in the same vein and they probably assume that we wouldn’t venture there and personally made some show of strength. Since it was nearly few decades since the last summoned, the impact and fear of the summoned waned and so they viewed us in contempt. By how things are going, these ‘sanctioned’ conflicts, is an open disrespect to what your authority representing. You can say that the signs of revolt are near.”

Just as I’d suspected, through reading reports throughout the years in this past week, with the influence of the Summoned dwindling and other various factors like certain tribes gaining more prominence, certain tribes joining in secret alliance, the grievances over the monthly tribute from every tribe and the dissatisfaction of being subjected to and lowering themselves to Athryshiayl, the tribes in Symokiva are becoming more bold and more restless. Even though Tchekaz had kept these tribes in checked, they always had been too autonomous and too prideful to fully submit.

The lack of Summoned for the past decades as authoritative figures had only served as a catalyst for them to strive for full independence as they probably had wanted to do this ever since the last summoned stationed here was gone and the only thing that was stopping them to secede back then was because they were consolidating and banking up their power and what stopping them now was the current Grand Incursion. Most probably when that ends, they would officially proclaim their intention.

It’s quite a complex political intrigue if I have to say.

“Oh, I saw someone, rather a woman of a sort; you know when we were brought into this world.”