Yugioh Card Summoner

CH.593 Unika’s Investigation

Unika POV, naturally

“I’ll take care of the investigation.” I promised Brian after reading the report he was writing over his shoulder.

“Are you sure? You could come to deal with the fissure with me.” He said, as he turned around to face me.

“... Sure. But fissures happen like … kind of often? And if Lua is to be believed, they will happen multiple times a week soon. So I’ll do the investigation since fissures are more common and less exciting.”

“... okay. Well, you can prep for the investigation. I’ll send this out and inform the GM of the area that you’ll take care of it. They should be reassured. I don’t think the town has any A-rank parties.”

“Speaking of. S-rank? When?” I asked.

“That isn’t up to me.” Brian responded. “I think you are S-rank. But I can’t just make you be S-rank. I don’t have that kind of pull with the guild. It isn’t the Sage’s tower. Besides, everyone except myself is still A-rank. That includes Agunan, despite the fact that he would beat my ass if I didn’t use my cards.”

“... Fine. I’ll just talk to Wendy myself.” I decided. “She visits the Factory often enough. Think you can give me a note when she enters so I can go ask her?”

“Yeah. I’ll ask Laura and Fantasia to keep an eye on that. And to send you a text when Wendy comes in. But maybe don’t call her Wendy when you beg her to help you. … or do. I’m not sure if calling her ‘Lady Hero’ is much better.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I jokingly thanked him. “When do we take over the adventurers’ guild so we can change the rules?”

“When I find someone to do the paperwork for me?” Brian suggested.

“So never. Shame.”

“We can always change the rules without taking it over.” Brian said. “We just … you know what, let’s think about that some other time. For now, let’s just keep going as we have been. Not like the S-rank will give us more power in the short term.”

“... I suppose so.” I admitted. “It just doesn’t feel fair. They know we are S-rank in power, but because of stupid rules and restrictions they don’t acknowledge us.”

I know I was complaining like a little kid, but it is the truth. Card Summoner isn’t that well known clan. We are kind of a semi-myth. Those who’ve seen us believe in our power, and tell of us to others. But those who haven’t seen us often think we aren’t all that we are told up to be. They think the stories are exaggerated. 

I wonder if the Hero’s party had the same problem? They are the most well known legend nowadays, but were they like that back when they were going around defeating the Demon Lord’s forces? 

Maybe I can ask Brian to use some Time Magic to look to the past so I get to know the truth? Or maybe I can just ask that Time God monster in the Factory?

I’ll think about it after the investigation.

Naturally I took my team of Einar and Eline with me on the investigations. We also brought all of our tamed monsters. 

They have all been ‘ranked-up’ by Brian. Ferrum evolved from an orthrus fox into an iron orthrus fox. Both are B-rank monsters, just one lives up to Ferrum’s past better. I’ll let Brian rank them up again soon.

Nitrum, my hippogriff, ranked up into a Flame-wing hippogriff. Brian said something about the name not fitting because nitrogen doesn’t burn, but I didn’t really get it.

Nio is still Nio. I didn’t want him to be leveled … ranked up. He is already so strong and fast that I can’t keep up with him. I will grow stronger before I let Brian rank him up.

Silon, my one summoning contract monster, was also ranked up. She turned into an S-rank Nine-Tailed Fox.

Einar’s two tamed monsters were also ranked up. Lumi, the blizzard tiger, ranked up into a White-Gale Tiger.

And Tuuli, the wind griffin, evolved into a Freezing-Wind Griffin. Probably because of Lumi’s influence.

For Eline, her summoned monsters were also ranked up.

Mufasa, the mountain lion, ranked up into a Volcano Lion. Again, I blame Lumi for that. Eline needed something to counter the cold, and what better than a volcano?

Sparky, the lightning tiger, evolved into a Lightning-Storm Tiger. So Sparky can now use both Water and Lightning Magic.

Tiggy, the baby tiger, and Stripy, the forest tiger, have also ranked up.

Stripy is now a Nature Tiger. A B-rank monster that brings life to plants around itself with its Nature Magic. 

Tiggy meanwhile is still C-rank, but he evolved into the rare variant of the tiger monsters called a Saber-Tiger.

We soon arrived at the guild that had the miasma dosimeter sending out the strange readings. It was a smaller guild, as the town it was in was quite small, so the guild master came personally to talk to us. 

He asked us to check the miasma dosimeter first, in case it malfunctioned. Sadly none of us had Storage Access, so we could just place it into Storage. 

Instead, I placed the device into an exchange box we had and then I called HomeBase with my phone. I told them that I’d sent the device in and that it needed to be checked.

One of Brian’s monsters took the device from the exchange box and took it into the Storage chest, a magic device that can be used to take items out of Brian’s Storage, as well as place them into his Storage. 

I soon got a call from Tahlia, the Factory personality of Brian’s Storage skill. She doesn’t like to talk face to face, but calling on the phone doesn’t seem that bad to her.

She told me that she checked the device and that there was nothing wrong with it. But she would still be sending us a new one to replace this one, so that Brian could check the one we removed personally after he is done dealing with the fissure.

Soon enough we had the new device and I put it in its place. I also told the guild master that there was nothing wrong with the old one, so the readings were true.

I then asked why he hadn’t made a report about it, to which he said that he believed that was normal. He was only told to report if the level stayed low for multiple days, or stayed high for more than half a day. Or if there were any sudden spikes. But as all the ups and downs had been gradual over the course of a day, he assumed it was normal.

I’ll need to tell that to Brian so he can send out new instructions on the devices. Or maybe he can alter the program that remotely monitors the miasma dosimeters.

We then asked the guild master if the local adventurers had seen anything abnormal in the last few days, but he told us that there had been no reports from them.

So we are searching blind. Not ideal, but we can manage it. But times like this really makes me wish Brian was here with us. He could just bring surveillance drones out of Storage and that would help with finding what is wrong.

But we will do it the traditional way, looking.

We headed out of town and I told everyone to get their earpieces out, while I started a call between our phones so we could keep in contact while separated.

Einar and I then let out monsters out of Tamer’s Paradise, while Eline summoned Stripy. She was a little surprised, as it seemingly took less mana than usually, so I summoned Silon as a test, but she took the same amount of mana as she always had, so maybe Eline was wrong. Or maybe Stripy just doesn’t need as much mana as Eline is assuming. The evolutions do increase the mana cost of summoning a monster. But maybe Stripy was able to adjust the cost down. 

I asked Stripy about it, but the Nature Tiger didn’t know anything. It just said it felt less resistance than usual when answering Eline’s call. Silon then cut in and said that she agreed. Usually it is more difficult to come through and it was easier this time.

… oh. So maybe I’m the one who didn’t account for the higher rank of the monster I’m summoning. It took the same amount of mana to summon the S-rank Silon as it previously took to summon Silon when she was still A-rank.

“... okay. Well, something is wrong with Summoning Magic. It is easier than normal to summon monsters.” I deduced.

“Can that have something to do with the miasma levels?” Einar asked.

“... I don’t know.” I admitted. “Let me see if Laura can answer us.” I said as I took out my phone and added Laura to our call. 

She answered soon enough, but sadly she was busy helping Brian, so she turned us over to Mia, Lua’s System Support. 

She promised she would look into lower summoning costs and would call us back soon.

The three of us then headed in different directions to look for something that might stand out. Einar was riding Tuuli with Lumi running on the ground below them. Eline was riding Stripy, but she didn’t summon more monsters because of the strange mana costs. And I was riding Nitrum, with Nio flying around us and Ferrum was on the ground below us.

After a bit of investigation, Mia called us back. She found out that Summoning Magic sometimes takes less mana, but there was no documented reason for it. The theories said that it happens when you are close to the place where you formed the summoning contract with the monster, as the monster likes that area, so it can come there easier, but we are nowhere near where our contracts were made, so it can’t be true in our case.

I thanked Mia and asked her to inform Laura and Brian when Brian was done with the fissure.

Eventually, Eline found something strange. She had encountered a monster she had to kill. It was just a D-rank forest deer, nothing strange about that. But what was strange was what happened to the monster after Eline defeated it. It didn’t just die like a regular monster, but instead it broke apart into flecks of light, like a summoned monster does after they die.

I asked Eline to look around the area, maybe there was a summoned nearby who attempted to use their summoned monster to steal from Eline or something, but she didn’t find anyone.

I then heard that Eline summoned one of her new card monsters, Ritual Beast Tamer Elder. Eline can’t talk to her beasts, but Tamer Elder can speak beast, so he can translate between Eline and Stripy.

From that, we learned that Stripy didn’t smell any humanoid smell on the forest deer. Which doesn’t prove that it wasn’t a summoned monster, but does make me think that my first idea wasn’t true. If a summoner was trying to steal something using a summoned beast, they would have to be close-by. 

And while Eline’s tiger summons don’t have as good of a sense of smell as my foxes, they do have quite good noses. So they should be able to pick up on a human nearby.

After some more time searching, Eline ran into two more monsters that broke into flecks of light when it died. And since Einar and I hadn’t found anything strange, it seems like Eline was in the right area.

Thus the two of us regrouped with Eline and we intensively searched the area she had been searching.

Eventually, it was Einar who found what we were probably looking for. Inside a hollowed out dead tree, he found a … Well, it looks like the portals Brian uses in the Factory. A gateway that leads to a completely different place. A somewhat luscious grassland with a river running through them was on the other side.

“... so.” Einar spoke up. “What is that?”

“... no idea.” I admitted. “It looks like Brian’s portals. The ones in the Factory.” I answered. “I think you can make them with Space Magic, but I’m not sure.”

“Do we close it? Or go through?” Eline asked.

“... I guess we could send something through..” I said. “We could also use a card to break the portal. And while that will likely solve the issue, it won’t answer where this leads and why it is here.”

“So we go in?” Einar asked, already heading for the portal.

“Absolutely not!” I quickly said, and grabbed Einar by the scruff. “I said we could send something through, not someone. First we are calling Brian and we’ll see what he has to say. We aren’t going to pull a Cailie and get lost.”

“... You know it wasn’t her fault, right? And it turned out for the best in the end.” Einar reasons, as he fake struggled under my hold.

“I know but we are still calling Brian.” I told him.

“Already on it.” Eline said.

Brian answered our call basically as soon as Eline called him.

{I heard something strange was going on. Tell me about it.}