Why Did You Summon Me?
chapter-115

Chapter 115: You’re Overthinking

Despite his successful infiltration, finding Undine among hundreds of tipis was still a daunting task. In fact, even the preparation for his search was difficult— Baiyi had to infiltrate instead of covertly bringing her out was because at least the former offered him leeway if he was caught. Plus, if he didn’t manage to sneak Undine out right then, he could still save her through the more… tiresome method of championing the gala.

Rescue mission is always harder than routing the enemy! Baiyi sighed, scanning every tipi he could find. If Undine wasn’t Tisdale’s best friend or the descendant of the Merchant, she would not have someone like him saving her... One could imagine just what exactly her end would be like.

It would become a hardcore sadomasochistic erotica, probably.

And his search was a predestined failure. Baiyi had searched through all of the common tipis that he could find, his eyes were unexpectedly treated to so much live-action porn that it was almost as if it was to replace his lost time in the Void. It seemed that the barbarians lived up to their title and explored many different kinds of kinks— even taboo kinks that could erase a clergyman’s faith in humanity…

He did find someone important in the stable, however. It was the black Soul Armature who accompanied Undine— Leo.

And he was still alive.

… Not in the way one would imagine. His entire body was dismembered, the parts were scattered all over the stable. Baiyi hypnotized the horses to prevent them from making any noise, then he used a cleansing spell to clean the area of horse feces.

He collected the pieces and was pleased to find Leo’s awareness still intact within his limbs. That meant that his Soul Armature Practitioner was around, enough to still harness his consciousness, and she was truly with the royals.

Baiyi knocked on his helmet.

A voice devoid of strength whispered from it, "Who… Who are you?"

"I came to help you," Baiyi replied simply.

"Reinforcement from the family…? Uhh…" Any wariness was completely absent from Leo’s demeanor as he heaved a sigh of relief. "D-don’t waste your time with me. Save… Undine. I… I’d slayed many of them but it was not enough at all… Heh... I’m an embarrassing uncle, aren’t I…"

"Where is she?"

"At the side… of the barbaric king, I think. You… You must be careful of her— of the dark-skinned young girl with one of the most powerful swords I have ever seen. My limbs were removed by it…"

Baiyi looked at the cuts. Frighteningly, the cuts were smooth, without even a single jagged line, as if the two separate parts were never joined in the first place.

Can the War God’s Sword truly be so sharp that even a black gold armor had no resistance?

"The effects seem to be similar to the cuts made by an eighth-grade magic, although due to the magical resistance of black gold, magic would not be able to damage him this cleanly," the Archmage explained. "I think the sword may utilize some techniques regarding the bending of space. If that is true, then it will be of paramount importance for our goal. You must get your hands on it."

Got it. Baiyi turned back to Leo. "Anything else you need to say?"

Leo was startled for a while, then with an incredibly morose voice he said as he grabbed Baiyi’s collar, "I don’t know who you are, but to be able to come here safely… You must be a man with incredible powers. Please, use that power to save Undine for me. I am no longer able to do it, so take my armor for yourself and do it in my stead! I may not look it, but this black gold armor is not as cheap as its wearer looks…"

I wasn’t asking for your last words! Baiyi cried out in his head. In spite of that, Leo did prove himself to be a better uncle than he had given himself credit. Even when he was this severely humiliated, all that he remembered was Undine’s welfare.

That touched Baiyi a little, so he patiently replied, "It's true that you may never fully recover your strength after this… In fact, you’re considered broken beyond repair by now; But you’re not dead and gone."

"Oh, really?" Leo’s voice was suddenly filled with a joyful surprise. "Hmm, not bad, not bad! Not being dead is a reward I enjoy any day! Although my offer still stands. After this ordeal, it will be a waste to use black gold armor on someone as useless as me. So take it, make your way back to Celestial Fortress Academy in Arfin once this trial is over, and let a man called Hope repair it…"

Baiyi hesitated for a while before nodding in agreement. A material as useful as black gold offered Baiyi a lot of benefits, and judging by the current situation, Baiyi would put it to better use than a broken toy like Leo. "Alright, I’ll take it. I’ll protect her in your place. Now, tell me anything else you managed to find out that might help with our problem."

"Their numbers are many, but only the king amounts to actual quality. The best they could offer is just Legendary Level fighters. You see, they’d only won through sheer numbers. They also had good horses and an army of stellar cavalries and bow knights. Some even have wolves as their companions, with fierce wolf-riders who paralyzed our horses with fear—"

"Right, right, thank you very much." Baiyi stopped his speech by holding onto his helmet, then locked his awareness with his psychic energy. How the mercenaries fell was not the slightest bit important to his mission, so there was no need to waste time listening.

He tossed the helmet into his storage pouch, then rendered himself invisible to continue his mission. He was finally heading to the centermost tipi.

That tipi was the grandest within the compound, even including the other royal tipis. Not only that, the security was also the tightest.

What worried Baiyi was not the security, but the unsettling feeling of dread permeating the area. Without a doubt, that was the presence of the War God’s Sword. He had no idea to what extent the power that the sword possessed, so he didn’t really dare to search the tent in the beginning. Besides, who would keep their prisoner together with themselves?

That bizzare king, that’s who. The only person who would ever keep a captive right in her own place.

Baiyi decided that he trusted the impeccability of the sneaking techniques the Shadow Assassin had taught him. So he went ahead, masking his presence and even his own psychic energy to make himself as invisible and undetectable as air.

He crept into the smaller tipi beside the royal abode.

Nothing happened to him. Perhaps the sword could not detect the invisibility effect? At the thought of that, Baiyi sighed in relief. And that was when his eyes saw the woman they had been looking for, suspended halfway in air.

She seemed to have been subjected to a lot of abuse. Her eyes were shut but her long eyelashes were fluttering at times, hinting at the poor girl’s state of unrest. Her lean body was now completely and tightly bound by ropes while her slender legs were left dangling in mid air.

She looked so pitiful. Clad in that beautiful evening gown, the Butterfly Saint of Sword was caught in a web.

"Um… Might I say, whoever tied her up has zero aesthetic sense, I tell you. Zero. This tie ruins her. They should have gone for diamond binding."

"The tools are also just so unimaginative! Really? Just a jute rope and a piece of linen? Boring!"

"Didn’t even hurt her that much, too. Gosh, can I say I’m just disappointed?"

Without a doubt, those three kinky sadists were immediately, and officially, muted for 24 hours.

Baiyi quietly approached the girl, patting her cheeks gently. No response. He pried her eyelids open and saw that her pupils was dilated— Undine was deeply unconscious.

"Your observation corroborates with the classic symptoms of Firefly Grass poisoning. Such venomous herbs are native to the Northern Wasteland, and with acute combination with other contagions, a person’s mana and combat chi may be sealed for a period of time," The Scholar quickly came to offer her aid. "Increasing the dosage provides the additional effect of severing the victim’s grasp over their mental faculties."

Is it curable? Baiyi replied hurriedly.

"The chemical compound of the Poisonous Firefly Grass is quite uncommon, and therefore the method of its poison is unique. However, it is not irreversible in the human body. An unremitting usage of the antidote should suffice," she answered. "Care has to be taken that if she had been forced with the poison over a long period of time, the damage will become irreversible. She may never arise from her comatose state and all the reaction that one could get from her would just be knee-jerk reflexes."

In other words, she would become nothing more than a toy that moves and moans… Baiyi thought darkly. He quickly removed the linen gag stuffed in her mouth. Forcing her mouth open, he poured the antidote into her mouth.

That was when he noticed the scars around her lips and the edges of her lips, no doubt left by whoever who had been forcing-feeding her drugs. Once his eyes adjusted to the light, he was horrified by the finer details. Undine’s body was marred by many long stretches of bloodied wounds, obviously injuries made from the jute rope; even the linen gag and the rope itself had her blood stained on it.

The girl seemed to look paler by the seconds.

Baiyi watched her with an even stronger sense of pity. She was not a bad person— just a little clueless. She did not deserved to be tortured like that!

It was truly the right choice to come rescue her.

Time passed. It soon revealed that fortunately, Undine was only drugged for a few days, and was hardly to the extent the Scholar had warned Baiyi of. Very slowly, she regained her consciousness as her eyes opened—

She saw a man in jetblack cape standing right before her. Instinctively, her mouth immediately opened…

Baiyi quickly covered her mouth with his hand, but the girl stubbornly bit it. Of course, to a Soul Armature, that amounted to nothing, and the only one who felt pain was Undine, whose teeth were almost ringing at the bite.

Baiyi falsely thought that the girl had calmed down when she released her bite.

Yet, the girl glared at him, her voice hoarse with malice, "If you bastards dare lay your filthy fingers on me, I will bite off my tongue! Your king will not react kindly to that, I guarantee!"

… Is this girl too drugged up?