I Only Summon Villainesses

We continued down the forest path, aimlessly in my own words, while I ruminated on what had happened with pretty boy the last time.

’First it was a damn rope, now the gate itself wants to have a piece of me…’

I brushed my fingers against my chin for a moment, thinking about something truly profound.

’It wouldn’t be… that these guys…’

My mouth fell open as this splendid idea entered my mind. Even Nisha had to stop for a moment, frowning to discern why I was suddenly being so dramatic.

I gave her a shocked expression, prompting her frown to relax somewhat, and then she asked:

“What’s wrong?”

“I think I just made a fascinating discovery.” I retorted with a smug smile on my face.

Nisha looked more interested now. “You did? What’s it about?” She smiled. “Of course, I should’ve expected that an otherworlder like you would easily crack a mystery like this one.” She gave me that interested and relieved look. “Lay it on me.”

I froze for a moment, because… if I wasn’t wrong, I was very sure Nisha had just showered me with a lot of praise. And the way things had been progressing, I thought there was some sort of bad blood between the two of us. Actually, I was pretty sure there was, at the very least on my part.

’Yea, plus attacking me too.’

I threw the thought away and refocused on the main point. After all, it was an important and shocking discovery.

I pointed to myself. “I… think I’m hot.”

There was silence for a moment. Not absolute silence. There was still the soft rustling of the leaves and the gentle humming of something that seemed to be carried by the wind.

But the silence between the two of us somehow seemed louder than all of it.

“I mean think about it… This is not the first time that people have been trying to get with me. Fairly speaking, the only thing between me and the forces of the world getting with me are my villainesses. Now if you take those two out of the way, don’t you too think life would be much easier and I would be easier to have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?”

I wasn’t mistaken. Despite her averse expression while I reasonably made my case, she seemed to actually think about it. Confident now, I added:

“This would therefore mean I am hot and everyone wants to get a piece of me. The church, the desert, the sea, the beasts, the gates! But I think the highest on the ranking so far would be the pretty boy and the gates. Oh goodness, you should have seen the pretty boy, he was so desperate, tying me up and shii… now that I think about it, could there have been a chance he was always into that kind of stuff?”

Nisha glared at me.

“Have you finally lost your mind?”

“Quite the contrary actually, I think I just gained it.” I frowned. “And why the tone? Are you angry? Why are you angry? I don’t understand. Are you jealous?”

Nisha’s eyes stayed on me, frozen in a sphere of unbelief. She exhaled and said:

“Look around you, Cade… we are trapped in a forest that possibly wants us to stay trapped. I am amazed by the voice that told you it was okay to tell a joke like that one.”

I frowned in confusion.

“Joke? I wasn’t joking though. I was very serious… I mean, who would joke about being hot?”

I turned to the trees flanking us left and right.

“But you’re right, the atmosphere is a little too gloomy for my discovery to get the weight and reaction it deserves. Which makes this discovery even more astonishing. At least I know now that the forest too is trying to tap that.”

I chuckled, and for a moment the chuckle hollowed out, swallowed by the canopy above like the trees had flinched at the sound and crushed it between their branches.

“Uhm… I actually don’t mean it in that way. I prefer to do the tapping… not like I have ever envisioned having sex with a forest.”

’God, who says that.’

Nisha, who was already visibly irritated by me, expressed a revolting look, staring at me with apparent disgust.

’Yea, I understand, how does one even think of such vile things… which hole…’ I paused as I caught my mind wanting to continue that thought. ’God, I think I may be more fucked up than I’m giving credit for.’

Nisha closed her eyes and sighed.

“Why am I even having a discussion like this with you? I should find a way to get out of this myself. Looking at your disposition, you seem to be enjoying this situation so much.”

I continued to stare at her for a couple of seconds. Just staring and saying nothing.

Her irritation sat perfectly on that face. The furrowed brows, the tension in the jaw, the way her nostrils flared just slightly with every exhale. It was all very Nisha. Everything placed right where it should be, like someone had studied the original and recreated it from memory.

But that was the thing about recreations. They got the big things right. It was the small things they missed.

This caused her brows to furrow and a deep frown to settle on her face.

“What is it?”

I showed off my body, making my mangled arm and bruised body more obvious if it wasn’t before.

“Look at me… I was the one that fought the beast that enslaved you. I am the one in constant pain, I am the one that needs emergency medical attention, I’m the one who seems to be suffering disastrously from this plan. More so, it was all my idea to do this. All of this, I started it all. Do you think I’m not burdened by it? That I live a carefree life and concern myself with all these obvious disasters?”

She was still looking at me. A deep scowl still on her face.

I chuckled and said:

“I have learnt something in the past few months, from Derry, Po, and even Levi. How they give less weight to the apparent danger before them. Being able to be so chill and indifferent towards danger. For a while I wondered, was it because they had enough power to deal with anything, or was it simply the fact that they had trained their mind to understand that it would always be okay?”

I remembered Po once sitting at the edge of a cliff that could’ve crumbled at any second, picking dirt from under his nails like the void below him was just an inconvenience to his afternoon. That image had stayed with me longer than it probably should have.

I held her gaze with a straight face. “I’m sure you know them far more than I do, but then I would simply be overestimating you if I expected that somehow you’ve learnt how these people are less reactionary… unlike you.”

Her frown pierced into me. “All this is because I called out your stupid joke?”

I smiled softly. “No. It wasn’t a joke, as I said earlier. But I was just trying to teach you a thing or two by voicing out my thoughts.” The smile thinned. “Also, maybe test you…”

Nisha scowled even deeper.

“Test me?”

For a moment there was silence, and I just stood there doing nothing.

Then I looked at the sword in my hand.

I raised it towards her.

My mangled arm screamed at the motion, something inside the forearm grinding against something else in a way that sent a sick pulse of heat all the way up to my shoulder. My grip barely held. The blade trembled in the air between us.

Nonetheless, I raised it.

Then I exhaled.

Something shifted behind her eyes. Just for a fraction of a second, the scowl loosened and curiosity surfaced. The kind that didn’t belong on the face of someone who’d just had a sword pointed at them by a friend.

“How satisfying.” My gaze settled on the proclaimed but fake ass Nisha. “What did you do with Nisha, you cocksucker? You really wanted a piece of me so badly that you had to disguise as my friend, huh? You vile forest.”

She stared at me. And then, slowly, she smiled.

The smile itself was wrong. There had been times where Nisha had smiled and her smile had never been real. Nisha smiled with reluctance, like the expression had to fight its way onto her face. This smile came easy, too easy, like something wearing a mask had forgotten which muscles to use.

“Cade,” she said softly. “You’re confused. You’re hurt and you’re not thinking clearly. Put the sword down and let’s keep moving.”

Her voice was like she was talking to a wounded animal and trying to coax it into a cage.

I swung.