All My Summons Become Divine Girls

Hajin hit the floor of the room with both palms and pushed himself back up, his arms steady and his breathing even while the morning sun cut through the tall windows beside the bed.

’One-ninety-eight,’ he counted, dropping again, ’one-ninety-nine.’

He pushed up one more time and held it at the top, feeling the burn sit deep in his shoulders before he finally dropped flat and rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling while his chest rose and fell.

’Two hundred,’ he thought, wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. ’Not bad for someone who could barely finish fifty a week ago.’

The steak from last night was the best thing he had eaten in years, maybe ever. Three cuts of seasoned meat, a bowl of garlic soup, bread that was still warm from the oven, and something sweet at the end that Juna had stolen off his plate before he could even look at it properly.

He slept like a dead man after that, sinking into the softest bed he had ever touched, and woke up this morning feeling like a completely different person.

His body felt full, his head felt clear, and for the first time in a long time, his ribs weren’t hurting.

’Amazing what actual food and a real bed can do,’ he thought, sitting up and rolling both shoulders until they popped.

He grabbed the towel from the chair beside the bed and wiped his face, his mind already drifting back to the throne room and the look on the King’s face when he made his request.

’He probably thought I was insane,’ he thought, draping the towel over his neck. ’I save his daughter and the first thing out of my mouth is ranker status.’

Most people in his position would have asked for gold, land, maybe a minor title they could ride for the rest of their lives, but he asked for the one thing that came with the most strings attached.

The Ranker title was not just bigger pay and better missions. It meant your name went on a public register, your combat record became trackable, and the guild expected results. If you were in the top hundred, every single clear, every kill, and every failure was documented and judged.

’But that is exactly why most people misunderstand it,’ he thought, standing up and stretching his arms above his head. ’The pressure only hits the ones at the top.’

The ones sitting comfortably in the middle and lower brackets got all the access without any of the spotlight. Better gate permits, priority loot rights, guild funding, and most importantly, the legal authority to operate independently without needing a noble house or a senior adventurer to sponsor every single thing you did.

’Being a regular adventurer is fine if all you want to do is hunt low-level monsters and sell scraps to the guild for pocket change,’ he thought, walking toward the window and looking out at the palace courtyard below. ’But I was never planning to stay at that level.’

He watched a pair of servants carry a crate across the yard while guards patrolled the perimeter in pairs, the whole place running like a machine that never stopped moving.

’The real reason I want to be a ranker,’ he thought, pressing one hand against the glass while his eyes stayed fixed on the courtyard, ’is because it is the only path that lets me build a guild.’

That thought had been sitting in his chest for years now, refusing to go away no matter how bad things got.

During the exile, when he was sleeping under bridges and eating whatever he could find in trash heaps behind taverns, the idea kept coming back. When the guild recruiters laughed at his class and told him to come back when he actually had a usable skill, it came back again.

It was never about revenge or proving anyone wrong, because he honestly didn’t care enough about the Flints or the guild system to waste energy on spite.

It was simpler than that... he wanted a place that was his.

He wanted somewhere permanent, with walls he could lean against without wondering if tomorrow he would be told to leave.

’A guild is more than just a building with a crest on the door,’ he thought, turning away from the window and sitting on the edge of the bed. ’It is people.’

He thought about Juna sleeping in the room next door, curled up with her tail wrapped around herself like she always did. She was the first person in years who actually stayed near him by choice, and even though she still flinched sometimes, she was there every morning when he woke up.

’I want more of that,’ he thought, looking down at his hands. ’People I can rely on, people who rely on me, people I can actually call family.’

The Flints had the name and the blood, but they were never a family. They were a business arrangement held together by reputation and fear, the moment one piece stopped being useful, they cut it off without hesitating.

He didn’t want that.

He wanted a guild where the people in it actually gave a damn about each other, where someone getting hurt meant everyone stopped what they were doing, where sitting around a fire at night and talking about nothing was just as important as clearing a gate.

’And you can’t build that as a regular adventurer,’ he thought, cracking his knuckles once. ’You need the ranker title to even apply for a guild charter, and you need verified gate clears on your record before the Crown will approve the application.’

That was the real reason behind his request in the throne room.

Juna’s room was identical to his, but she wasn’t using the massive, soft bed.

She was on the rug in the center of the room, her body coiled tight while she balanced on the tips of her fingers and toes.

’Ninety-nine,’ she thought, her shoulders burning while her tail twitched behind her in a steady rhythm. ’One hundred.’

She pushed up one last time and held it, her ears flicking toward the wall sharing Hajin’s room. She could hear the faint, muffled sounds of his breathing and the steady thud each time he hit the floor for another set.

She dropped and sat back on her heels, letting out a slow breath while she wiped a bead of sweat from her nose with the back of her hand.

She looked at her palms, flexed her claws once until the sharp points caught the light from the window, and then let them retract into her fingers. She realized then that her hands weren’t shaking even a little bit.

’I’ve really let my guard down around him,’ she thought, her tail giving a lazy, relaxed flick against the rug.

She didn’t hate the feeling.

It was strange because humans were supposed to be the monsters in her world, the greedy things that hunted her kind for sport and coin, but Hajin was just different.

His scent kept getting stronger the more time they spent together, a sweet, heavy woodsmoke scent that calmed the parts of her brain that always wanted to run. It made her feel safe, and for a beastkin who had spent most of her life being hunted or caged, that safety was more valuable than any gold the King could offer.

’I’ll stay by his side no matter what,’ she decided, her eyes narrowing as she looked at the door. ’If he wants to build a home, then I’ll be the one to help him protect it.’

But as the silence settled around her, her mind drifted further back than she wanted it to.

She thought about the woods of her home and the smell of pine needles after a rainy afternoon.

’I wonder if anyone survived,’ she thought, a heavy sadness pulling at her chest. ’The village... the elders... did anyone make it out of the fire?’

She didn’t even know how much time had passed since then.

Time worked differently when you were dead, drifting as a flickering soul in the gray void of the Veil, and the memory of her home felt like it belonged to a completely different person in a different life.

A sharp knock suddenly vibrated through the door, making her ears snap upright and her claws slide out on instinct.

She didn’t say anything, staying perfectly still on the rug while her nose caught a familiar scent through the door.

The door pushed open slowly, revealing the Princess standing in the hallway without a single guard in sight.

Didi looked at her for a second, then stepped into the room and closed the door behind her with a quiet click.

"Juna," she said, her voice sounding serious and a bit tired. "We need to talk."