I Only Summon Villainesses

I wasn’t sure what I was listening to.

She and I had a common enemy?

’I think that’s what she’s trying to say...’

”How do you know about that name?”

”Harter has been the bane of my existence for a long time, in fact, the entire Hammerfeld family has been. If I could wipe them off the surface of the North, by the Lord of Endings I would.”

She looked down.

”But I am alone.”

She paused and then smiled subtly.

”Until now, I believe.”

There was something she had said, that right from the moment she spoke it, my face had been frozen.

’Harter? Harter? It surely wouldn’t be?’

With my voice trembling, I carefully asked.

”This Harter Hammerfeld, that you speak of? What does he have to do with Fairywind?”

Lady Ilse gave me a puzzled look. Then in that fraction of a second she realized it all on her own.

”Oh, it seems you didn’t know.”

She paused and spoke in a heavy tone.

”The person you call Fairywind is the first son of the Hammerfeld family. White Feather, she was deceived and used.”

A dark, offended, grievous and unbelieving frown appeared on my face.

”What? Th—that can’t be?”

My shoulders shuddered where I sat.

”This is the case. Farrow had bowed to White Feather, for his own reasons, but I suspected that one of those reasons was to wield an unimaginable amount of wealth. Because since he became a part of their clan, the Hammerfeld family, in just a hundred years grew to having the largest preservation vault in the history of this world, discovering amber mining and becoming the center of agriculture in the North.”

She spoke with subtlety.

”All of that, the man had achieved in a hundred years, by taking advantage of White Feather. But that wasn’t just it, Farrow was also planning something. Something that his son is now fulfilling on his behalf.”

She paused and a worried look climbed her face.

”It’s just that... something seems off. That boy, Harter, even though he had all the resources, he couldn’t be so strong. The Hammerfeld family are not summoners and they have a very weak bloodline ability, although no one knows it.”

I rubbed my face and painfully suggested.

”Could it be shapeshifting?”

Lady Ilse carefully considered my words.

”I wouldn’t rule that out, but I’m more curious about why you think it could be?”

I said nothing, instead, just kept thinking back to the whole encounter. The boy that I had encountered with Sulin, the fact that they needed my money and them running away with all of my money.

When I considered it all completely, in all of its absurdity, a broken laugh fell.

’Ah, damnit, how could I have been easily played.’

There was no doubt about it, Harter Hammerfeld was Fairywind, and he had been with White Feather’s daughter and I knew nothing about it.

White Feather had lost the connection to her daughter and so there was no way to know where she was, but still, I never suspected anything. How could I have known?

My eyes suddenly went wide.

’Wait... Sulin?’

I thought about it. But there was no way Sulin was White Feather’s daughter. This meant that she knew about Fairywind. Did she? Or was she also being used?

’Aishh, damnit! I have no answer!’

I stayed down, leaning on my knees and cursing at myself for a couple of seconds. The thought that I had the bastard right with me and never realized it, was fucking annoying. It was so annoying I wanted to hit myself.

I locked my fingers together and kept hitting my left foot. Then finally, I heaved a proper sigh.

’Fuck you, Fairywind, no, Harter Hammerfeld, this just became fucking personal. Boy, pray, I don’t find you.’

Letting out a breath of air, I raised my head and asked Lady Ilse, with a dead calm tone.

”So what is it about Harter, what did he do to you? Is he the person that Altharion is after, the one trying to unify the North?”

Although, I wanted to say that the faggot had to be too dumb to be able to pull something like that. But I didn’t know him. At the very least, he had stolen White Feather’s daughter from right under her nose.

”That’s the thing, Harter is competent, but not competent enough to move the North the way it’s been moving the past few months. Convincing the Giantkins and the Dragonborns into an alliance, to the point where they’re ready to train the northern soldiers. Someone for a while has been doing something, and none of us have any idea who.”

She still looked confused as much as she sounded deeply baffled.

”And this Altharion?”

Lady Ilse let out a tired sigh.

”A boy that started out as an ambitious student. Altharion is the prince of Aetheris that was sent to the Empire’s Summoner’s Academy, I served there as the Headmaster until that turncoat. He schemed until he made sure I was out of that seat, giving him leeway to make the academy, even the prince, revolve around him. He comes off as a genuinely harmless person, but I’ve never seen anyone as smart as that boy.”

She bit the inside of her mouth angrily.

”And now, he has an entire Order from the church, he was already a headache singlehandedly.”

She looked at me finally, and immediately, she frowned repulsively.

”Hey, you look like you might slit someone’s throat with that look of yours. Did he wrong you too?”

I did not answer immediately.

It was strangely amusing the way, all of them, started to line up before me, just when I thought it was time to make a comeback.

There was no doubt about it.

Fate must be on my side.

A small laugh crackled from my throat, then I said:

”This is amusing, Lady Ilse, it seems we share a lot more in common than just summons.”

She raised her brows.

And the laugh shook a few more times, chilling in its bristling tone.

”We share enemies in common too.”

Altharion was the son of the woman who had something to do with Lira’s death. Oh, this certainly became way too personal with him also.