First Summon

"Good morning, Allen," Theresia said as she threw the wooden shutters wide open, flooding the room with light.

"Goo'monin, mama."

The sun had already climbed quite a distance by now.

'Looks like a day in this world is also around twenty-four hours. It's about 8 a.m. right now, I'd say?'

Just like Allen himself, both his parents had been serfs from birth.

Because they had no proper education, Allen had trouble learning standards or units of measurement from them. It was difficult for him to broach the subject without raising suspicion, being a one-year-old and all, but his parents never seemed to ever bring it up in conversation. He had finally learned about time recently, but was still completely in the dark regarding currency, weight, and distance.

'Clearly I'm not going to be able to enjoy the cliché of being reincarnated into a house with a study full of books to read so I can get a head start on education.'

A serf's morning started early. As for how early...Allen had yet to ever see his father when he awoke in the morning, leading him to infer that his father probably left the house around 6 am. There was now talk of Theresia returning to join Rodin in the fields while Allen was asleep as he had grown a bit older.

'With how small our house is, I can't really attempt Summoning when my mother's home. She comes in to check on me every once in a while when I'm awake too. Guess it'll have to wait till it's time for my afternoon nap.'

Allen had not told his parents about being reincarnated from another world, nor about being a Summoner. He was still speaking with a baby's lisp.

He did not have any particular intention of telling them going forward either, as he feared they would believe he was possessed by a spirit or demon.

He spun his grimoire, waiting for time to pass. When all the clattering around from housework settled down, Theresia came in to let Allen breastfeed. He had been rather embarrassed in the beginning, but had gotten largely used to it by now. It was as if he was a sage or a hermit with how completely devoid of sexual urge he was.

"Sleep tight, Allen."

"Goo'nai, mama."

'Here we go! Afternoon nap time!'

Theresia carried Allen to the child's room and tucked him into his wooden cot. She closed the wooden windows, leaving him alone in the now dimly lit room.

'All right, she's gone. Heh heh heh, let's continue where I left off yesterday.'

He brought out his grimoire and retrieved the Insect H Card from its holder.

'For starters, let's see if I can Summon without saying it out loud.

'Summon: Insect H!'

Allen spread both his arms wide and did his best to generate the feeling of Summoning something. In response, the card shone bright and crumbled away. In exchange, a grasshopper appeared.

"Ohhhh! Gwassoppaw!" Allen blurted inadvertently. His eyes were glued to the creature that had fallen to the ground outside the wooden slats surrounding his cot.

'Hmm, it's not all that big. Around fifteen centimeters long, I'd say? Well, it is a bit bigger than normal, but otherwise looks like a common grasshopper.'

The insect was just hopping around the room aimlessly. It showed no intention of meeting Allen's eyes.

'It's my Summon, so it should at least listen to me, right? Come here.

'Coooome on.'

For a split second, Allen's and the grasshopper's eyes finally met.

'Hoh, you finally noticed me? Be not reserved. You may approach.'

The baby flapped his hands in an effort to attract the creature's attention.

However, it promptly turned away and reverted to its aimless hopping.

'Okay, this isn't working. It's seriously just a grasshopper. It's got no intelligence and doesn't understand orders. And the grimoire isn't telling me anyth— Hold on, there's a new page.'

Just as Allen thought to check his book for any additions after having successfully performed his first-ever Summoning, he noticed a third page that had not been there before.

'I see, I get new information in the form of new pages in the grimoire. And this is the Status of this grasshopper.'

The following was written on the grimoire's brand-new page:

___

Type: Insect

Rank: H

Name: None (Please set a name)

HP: 3

MP: 0

Attack: 2

Endurance: 5

Agility: 5

Intelligence: 1

Luck: 2

Buffs: Endurance 1, Agility 1

Ability: Hop

___

'It's pretty weak but still generally about on par with me. Whoa, it has even higher Attack than I do. What is this "Buffs" field? Could it be that these are buffs for me? Wha—?! My own stats have gone up!'

"Amajing!"

Compared to yesterday, Allen's stats had now gone up by one in both Endurance and Agility. The pleasant surprise caused Allen to unthinkingly whoop out loud and clench his fists.

"Goodness, Allen. You gotta go beddy-bye properly, all right?" Theresia chided while coming back inside, having heard the shout from the garden right outside where she had been working.

'Shoot! If she comes in right now, she'll see the gra—'

"Sowwie, mama."

"Oh, it's all right, sweetie," Theresia cooed before she suddenly made eye contact with the Summon.

"NOOOOO, IT'S A BUUUUGGGG!" she screamed as she brought her foot down.

'OH-NO, MY SUMMON GOT STOMPED! It... It's gone...'

The grasshopper instantly disappeared in bubbles of light.

Theresia, who thought that she had let the insect escape, went off searching for it. Allen could not let his surprise show on his face, so he went to sleep instead, pretending like nothing had happened.

In this way, Allen took his very first step as a Summoner in this world.

***

Ten days had passed since Allen's first ever Summoning.

He had just woken up from his afternoon nap and was now staring closely at the front cover of his grimoire where his Status was displayed. He was trying to decide what direction to take his training going forward.

During the past ten days, Allen had used his Summoning skill repeatedly during the moments when he was out of Theresia's supervision. Due to this, he had learned quite a few things.

First, in regard to the grimoire:

___

- Whenever Allen mentally chants, "Grimoire," it appears.

- Whenever he mentally chants, "Status," his Status appears in silver letters on the black cover of the grimoire.

- Whenever he mentally chants, "Creation," silver letters asking what he wants to Create appear on the cover.

___

This was about it for the functions of the grimoire. Allen had not received any other communication from the deities of this world since.

Next, with regard to the cards that he could Create:

___

- Allen can stock up a maximum of ten cards.

- He can Summon a maximum of ten Summons at the same time.

- He receives buffs corresponding to the cards in stock.

- He can Summon and Unsummon the cards in stock as many times as he wants.

- Due to the limit of cards being ten, a line asking him to "Please Delete one card" would appear on the grimoire's cover whenever Allen attempted to Create an eleventh one.

- Whether the cards had been Summoned or not had no bearing on the maximum limit.

___

During the past ten days, Allen had also tested out the abilities of Beast H.

___

Type: Beast

Rank: H

Name: Mousey

HP: 5

MP: 0

Attack: 5

Endurance: 2

Agility: 3

Intelligence: 1

Luck: 2

Buffs: HP 1, Attack 1

Ability: Scurry

___

After all his observations, he determined that:

Beast H looked like a rather large mouse.

'Just like the grasshopper, it almost never listens to instructions.'

Whenever Allen verbally or mentally commands, "Scurry," it uses its Ability.

As was seen in the Status window, Allen had set Beast H's name as "Mousey." This name could also be used for both Summoning and Creation, and the process—just like all other functions—could be performed without actually saying anything out loud.

It was true that referring to Summons by type and rank was more appropriate for carrying out tests and analysis, but it just felt wrong to not have actual names for them. So while he was at it, Allen assigned Insect H the name "Denka" as well.

At this point in time, the Summons had remained unresponsive to all instructions that Allen attempted to give them. He originally thought it a matter of training, but they showed no signs of improvement even after he worked with them for a while. He eventually settled on the theory that this was due to their low Intelligence.

There was, however, one thing that he could command them to do. All Summons had an Ability, with Beast H's being "Scurry." Whenever Allen chanted the name of the Ability or simply the word "Ability" at a Summon, it would immediately begin performing that action. Allen could give this command again and again for any number of times, indicating that there was no MP cost for doing so.

Allen was still working on giving commands to the Summons in hopes of finding something that they would respond to other than their Abilities, but had yet to see any signs of progress.

It had been a full ten days of experimentation while fighting off insistent drowsiness and hunger, as well as keeping attentive to Theresia's movements at all times.

Over the course of this period, she had reduced three grasshoppers to particles of light. Their house was little better than a hovel, so naturally it had no insulation or soundproofing and there were plenty of cracks all over that insects often entered through. Denka, however, was larger than most and therefore quite reviled by Theresia.

'Come on Mousey, I know you can do it if you put your mind to it. Come to me!'

Allen stretched both his hands toward the Beast H in the corner of his room. The creature suddenly turned his way, as if a connection had indeed been established.

"Oh?"

Just as the thought that he had finally succeeded in taming a Summon flashed across Allen's mind, the Beast H looked away again and reverted to its erratic scurrying.

'Gah, didn't work after all. Seriously, how is this a class with more stars than a Demon Lord?'

However, while it seemed impossible to control the Summons, it was not as if their existence was entirely meaningless.

'They may not be able to help me fight, but if I stock up ten Mousey cards in the grimoire, it raises my Attack by ten. I almost crapped my pants that time I managed to pick up a whole log despite only being one year old.'

Thanks to awakening to his powers as a Summoner, Allen was now far stronger than any ordinary baby his age. And through his repeated usage of the Creation and Summoning skills, he was starting to understand how his class was meant to be developed.

'But the requirements for leveling up sure are ridiculous. I guess that's Hell Mode for you.'

Leveling up in Hell Mode was supposedly a hundred times harder than in Normal Mode. It was said that at the end of this path lay "the key to a Principle of the World," but reaching that far would require extraordinary and unceasing effort.

'I've finally gathered 24 Skill XP. Looks like the amount of MP I expend converts to XP in a one-to-one ratio. At least, that's how it seems at the moment. Unfortunately, I don't possess a skill that costs more than 2 MP to prove or disprove my theory.'

Allen had also learned the following facts regarding MP and Skill XP through his experiments:

___

- It costs 2 MP to Create a Rank H card.

-The expended MP counts toward Skill XP.

- Materializing a Summon from its card does not cost any MP.

- Reverting a Summon to its card does not cost any MP.

- Allen's MP recovers to full after sleeping for half the day (i.e., six hours).

___

In short, the way to improve a skill was to keep using it. If Allen wanted to level up Creation, then he had to Create cards again and again.

'However, it costs 2 MP to use Creation, and my max MP is also 2. If I only make one card each day, it's going to take me 500 days to reach Level 2.

'Considering how my MP tops back up after six hours, I should probably aim to use Creation twice each day. It'd still take 250 days, but I'll take what I can get.'

Leveling up under Hell Mode was clearly not going to be easy. As Allen was still a baby, he needed between twelve to fifteen hours of sleep each day.

The fact that his MP would recover in six hours meant that he could theoretically expend it four times each day; however, there was no clock in the house, making it difficult for him to wake up at regular hours.

During the past ten days, he had been able to Create three cards on some days, while there were others where he could only manage one. This was why he decided to aim for an average of two casts per day.

'I'd really appreciate a function for writing down the observations I make. With how thick this grimoire is, can't it spare at least a few pages?'

What Allen really wanted was a place to record his discoveries from the past ten days. As a gamer, he was naturally familiar with using spreadsheet software to analyze things like level-ups and stat growth.

Although he knew better than to ask for something so sophisticated, he hoped for at least a few blank pages to write whatever he wanted.