Unruly Summon: Volume 1 (eBook)
250 Seiten
J-Novel Club (Verlag)
978-1-7183-9443-8 (ISBN)
The summoning of otherworldly heroes is a dangerous gambit for King Edward Ricousian-heroes show up with ridiculous cheat powers and wild ideas about 'human rights' and 'justice for commoners.' But with demons on the verge of overrunning his starving kingdom, he chooses to roll the dice, and ends up saddled with Thomas Smith. The king and his advisors hope to control Thomas by setting him up with a 'harem' of beautiful, deadly young women and carefully manipulating his perception of the war, hiding his country's wrongdoings and painting their foes as evil monsters. But Thomas isn't the kind of person who lets anyone control him. Can a normal guy from Earth cut through the lies to find out what's really going on-and when he does, will anything be left standing?
A First Prize winner in the first-ever J-Novel Club Original LN Contest!
The summoning of otherworldly heroes is a dangerous gambit for King Edward Ricousian-heroes show up with ridiculous cheat powers and wild ideas about "e;human rights"e; and "e;justice for commoners."e; But with demons on the verge of overrunning his starving kingdom, he chooses to roll the dice, and ends up saddled with Thomas Smith. The king and his advisors hope to control Thomas by setting him up with a "e;harem"e; of beautiful, deadly young women and carefully manipulating his perception of the war, hiding his country's wrongdoings and painting their foes as evil monsters. But Thomas isn't the kind of person who lets anyone control him. Can a normal guy from Earth cut through the lies to find out what's really going on-and when he does, will anything be left standing?A First Prize winner in the first-ever J-Novel Club Original LN Contest!
Prologue
“Screw the dwarves!” spat a well-dressed nobleman from his richly decorated wooden chair. “The damn traitors.”
“I wouldn’t go quite that far,” responded another, sitting across the ornate table. Colorful tapestries adorned the walls, and a plush carpet covered the floor at his feet; even the enchanted orbs that filled the room with light were held in a jeweled chandelier. Nevertheless, despite the opulence surrounding him, the man looked as displeased as everyone else at the table as he continued, “They’ve taken a neutral stance, no different from the elves.”
“They outright accused us of being at fault!”
“Pah. What difference does phrasing make? In the end, whether it’s ‘We elves are a peaceful race, and have no great warriors who can aid you,’ or ‘You blasted idiots brought this on yourselves, and we will not interfere in your just and lawful punishment,’ they both mean the same thing in the end. It’s not as if the elves couldn’t have helped in other ways; it was just an excuse.”
“Enough.” A third voice cut through the others, this one coming from the man in the most embellished seat in the room. Not that the seat was needed for an outside observer to perceive his position over the others; the crown he wore was sufficient for that. “We’ve been abandoned by those we considered our allies. The pain of their betrayal burns me as strongly as it does any of you, yet for now, there’s nothing we can do about it. We must focus on our immediate problems. Without allies coming to our aid, what other options remain?”
The others in the room looked at each other, each hoping another would come out with some ingenious plan. None did.
“Anyone?” persisted the king.
“As far as I can see, we have two options,” said Dennis, one of the king’s advisors. “First, surrender.”
The room immediately erupted, every occupant other than the speaker and the king clamoring at once. However, an outside listener would have noted that although they reacted with horror and disgust at the mere suggestion, their reactions contained nothing of substance; they were just guttural, offended noises without words. Merely empty outrage at the suggestion.
“Enough,” demanded the king. “If any of you have a better suggestion, speak up now; otherwise, hold your tongues.”
The room fell into an uncomfortable silence.
“It seems that you do not. Very well. Dennis, you mentioned a second option? Continue.”
“The second option is...” The elderly white-haired man coughed awkwardly. “Conducting a hero summoning ritual.”
This time, there was no burst of outrage; instead, an expression of deep discomfort spread from face to face like some sort of contagion.
“That would be, er, risky,” carefully stated Serge—another, somewhat younger, advisor. “There’s a reason that ritual is, well, discouraged.”
“As risky as doing nothing?” countered Dennis. “Fort Graystone has fallen. Fort Mertti will fall within days. We’re already cut off from the northern reaches and all the farms of the Chiral Plains. Food prices have tripled in the past month.”
“None of us need you to restate our current position in the war,” sighed the king. “But Serge is correct: There is a reason that ritual has gone unused. People are rarely cooperative after being kidnapped from their life and their home, and when such people are bestowed with boundless magic and strength, things have historically not ended well for the kidnappers. Even if we’re lucky and the summoned hero is initially cooperative, would they remain so when we ask them to fight a war that has nothing to do with them? To protect a civilization that is not their own?”
“It’s true that simply summoning someone and pointing them at the demons is more likely to backfire than to help,” admitted Denis, “but I’ve been reading up on the historical accounts of the ritual, and I believe that, with sufficient care, there is a good chance a hero could be steered to our ends.”
“Bah,” spat Serge. “If you’ve read anything, you know a summoned hero cannot be controlled. That’s the whole point of them. The same divine blessing that gives them their strength renders them immune to any magic that corrupts the mind. Being complete outsiders, they have no family or loved ones to take hostage, or to leverage for coercion. Just what exactly are you planning? Do you want to break them with torture? There’s no time! Threaten them? With what? And how would you stop them from betraying us the first chance they get?”
“I didn’t say I thought they could be ‘controlled.’ I said ‘steered.’ My suggestion is that we do not force them to do anything. Instead, we can carefully curate what they see and hear, so that they do what we want of their own accord.”
The king peered at each of his advisors in turn, noting their expressions. None looked happy—not even the one who had suggested the plan—yet it remained true that no one was suggesting any other options. It was obvious that conventional military strength wasn’t going to win the fight. Truthfully, the king wasn’t even certain the fight could be won with the aid of the dwarves and elves. The demons’ declaration of war had come as a surprise, but not as much of one as the competency with which they’d waged it. There was a widespread assumption that they’d been preparing for a long time and had simply jumped at the first available excuse—a convenient assumption indeed, since it absolved the Ricousian Kingdom of blame.
“Then exactly how do you propose we ‘steer’ this hero?” he asked.
Dennis took a deep breath. “Firstly, we need to create a sense of desperation.”
“That’s easy,” came an immediate interruption. “We are desperate, or we wouldn’t even be considering this!”
“But the summoned hero won’t know that,” Dennis smoothly continued. “They will see strong castle walls and ornate decorations. An active city. There aren’t yet demons in our street, slaughtering the populace. We can’t tell them we’re desperate. We need them to come to the conclusion themself. We need to show them. Remove the decorations from the western wing of the castle. Make sure everyone in that area of the castle is dressed in dirty clothes. Perform the summoning in an upper-floor room with a good view of the southwestern horizon.”
“Why southwest? That’s the opposite direction from the demon armies, and it’s not like you can see them from here, anyway.”
“Exactly. If we could see them from here, we wouldn’t need to fake it.”
“Fake it? What do you mean?”
“I mean set a few fields on fire! Make some smoke! No one mention it to the hero, just make sure they see it.”
“That’s...” started Serge, looking for the words but failing to find them.
“Devious,” filled in the king. “But what do you do later on, when the hero realizes there couldn’t possibly have been fighting in that direction? No, of course—why does there need to be fighting at all? We can just blame the fire on demon infiltrators and saboteurs. Please continue.”
“You’re getting the idea. So, second, we need to pander to their ego. Give them the impression that we idolize their every word. Heroes have historically always made the assumption that their home culture is ‘better’ than ours. Their food is tastier than ours. Their games are more fun. Their morality is somehow objectively ‘correct,’ while we’re uncultured backwater barbarians. That sort of thing. If the hero tries to ‘invent’ a new board game, shower them with praise. Tell them you’re sure it would take the country by storm, if only there wasn’t a damn war on and all our craftsmen were too busy with arms manufacture to think about pleasure. Same with food: If they randomly come out with ‘new’ recipes, marvel at how no one has ever thought of them before. The best example is soy sauce, a perennial favorite of heroes. Let them ‘accidentally’ discover some soybeans and boastfully tell us that it’s possible to make a tasty sauce from them.”
“Is it? Wait, how do you already know that?”
“Like I said, it’s perennial. Six previous summoned heroes have all insisted on making the goddamn stuff. By all accounts, it tastes utterly gross to anyone from this world, dwarves included, which is why it’s never caught on. That suits us fine; there’s no risk of the hero discovering that it’s already been introduced.”
“Unfortunate for whoever has to taste it, though,” snorted another advisor.
“The recipe involves grains. We can simply claim that they’re too important to spare on experimentation, given that we’ve been cut off from the farmland up north, but that we’re looking forward to trying it after the war. But that does bring us on to the third point: companions for the hero. I, um, have some names in mind.”
“Why do I get the feeling I’m going to like this even less than the rest of the idea,” sighed the king, cradling his forehead. “Keep going. Get it over with.”
“Christine Standler. Wendy Windchild. Stephanie Ricousian. Mary.”
The first name was enough to raise eyebrows. The second caused some amount of consternation. The third very nearly caused another explosive vocal outburst...
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 25.8.2025 |
|---|---|
| Reihe/Serie | An Unruly Summon |
| Illustrationen | Cathfach |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Themenwelt | Literatur |
| Schlagworte | genre-aware • Harem • Isekai • Magic • Politics • Satire • smart protagonist |
| ISBN-10 | 1-7183-9443-8 / 1718394438 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-7183-9443-8 / 9781718394438 |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
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