Battlefield Summoning

Ritzy was pretty sure he heard a trumpet fanfare when the last goblin died. But before he could think about it any deeper, he was distracted by the dusty old leather book and shiny glass vial with a glossy red liquid sloshing inside that appeared in front of him.

He was curious about the book, but now wasn't the time to indulge in his curiosity. Ritzy grabbed both items tightly before darting over to Talia.

Ritzy began uncorking the health potion when he noticed an identical potion lying next to Talia. He grabbed that one without hesitation and uncorked it instead.

"I think I should save mine for emergencies. And since it's your injury, we'll use your potion, right, Talia?"

Ritzy didn't get an answer since Talia was out cold and on the verge of death. But he hadn't expected an answer anyway.

After getting rid of the stopper and sniffing the scentless potion, Ritzy began pouring it on Talia. He splashed less than half of it on the wound on her abdomen. He poured a similar amount into her mouth that somehow disappeared on its own. And he sprinkled the last drops on the various cuts and bruises on Talia's body.

It was his first time actually using a potion. But he and the other two had seen one of the rich merchant kids run into the street and collide with a carriage. Since the kid was too injured to move, he had been doused in healing potions in the middle of the street.

The squealing kid had attracted a lot of attention, but Ritzy and the others had still seen how the people with enough money to use healing potions used it. Some of it was directly applied to the wounds, and some of it was poured down the throat.

It had been interesting to see the wounds wriggle and close up in real-time.

Well, it was interesting until they were blamed for it and flogged in the square until the director came and stopped it. Unfortunately, the orphanage director didn't have any healing potions, only some salve to prevent excessive scarring.

Ritzy looked on impatiently as Talia's wounds began closing up beneath her soaked and blood-stained shirt. It also looked like her face was regaining some color. Ritzy sighed in relief. They had made it in time, and Talia would recover.

"She doing okay?"

Gerhart jogged over from the village, the two skeletons ambling along behind him.

"Yep. Good work out there!"

"Thanks."

"I wasn't talking to you."

Ritzy stood up and walked toward the two skeletons as Gerhart sat next to Talia to inspect her condition.

"...I knew that."

Gerhart muttered, even though he knew it was a meaningless attempt at making a comeback. Thankfully, Ritzy ignored it as he stood in front of the two skeletons while resting an elbow on the bone club.

"Are you guys going now, or do you have time to execute one last order?"

Hotes and Fotes exchanged a glance before looking at Ritzy as if waiting for him to talk.

Ritzy smiled.

"Then, can you help me gather all the corpses in one place?"

While Gerhart waited by Talia's side and kept her clothes from entering her wounds and joining the healing process, Ritzy and the two skeletons returned to the village.

Ritzy wasn't that strong, and since he stubbornly insisted on carrying the bone club – Talia would snag it as soon as she woke up after all – he couldn't do much. He still dragged the goblins over to the center of the village one by one, but most of the work was done by Hotes and Fotes.

However, Fotes didn't have any hands or opposable thumbs, so he would have been even less efficient than Ritzy if not for the two skeletons combining forces.

Hotes hopped up in Fotes' arms and carried goblins with each of his four hands. It looked strange to see one skeleton carrying another skeleton carrying at least four goblins run around the village to gather all the goblins that had been killed.

But not many goblins had been killed far from the center of the tiny village, so Ritzy couldn't enjoy the sight for long before all the goblins were piled on top of each other.

Hotes threw the largest goblin onto the peak of the mound of dead goblins before he and Fotes kneeled in front of Ritzy. Ritzy's face shone with a smile as he saluted the two skeletons before they burst into a rapidly dissipating mist.

Ritzy took a deep breath and looked at the pile of dead goblins with anticipation. Unfortunately, he couldn't begin just yet.

Although battlefield summoning sounded like it could be used in the middle of an active battlefield, it was more apt to call it battlefield cleaning summoning. But that didn't have quite the same ring to it.

Before Ritzy could initiate the cleaning, he first had to draw a summoning circle around the pile using the goblins' blood. And unlike when he used the Bone Chalk during his first summoning, he had to draw the inscriptions and reinforce them with his mana.

The pile was pretty big, but Ritzy felt like he should have enough mana, so he didn't bother waiting and accumulating more before beginning.

He knelt on the ground and drew a simple circle around the goblins that he then filled in with complicated symbols and patterns that he then sealed by adding another circle. The summoning circle was complete.

Ritzy sensed the droplets of mana he had left and smiled gleefully. It was enough.

He took a step back from the mound of dead goblins and put his hands forward with his palms facing the goblins.

"Oh, the One of the Beginning, and the One of the End, Accept this offering and bestow upon me Your grace. This humble servant expresses their gratitude to the Origin."

The last dregs of Ritzy's mana flew out of his mouth and hands as his words ignited the mana in the summoning circle.

"Come on, Storage! Don't fail me now!"

Ritzy pleaded to the Storage of Darkness as the green flames rose and danced along the circle before leaping to the corpses in a brilliant show of necromancy.