Self-Summon [Demon Summoning/Evolution LitRPG]

Angelica started at the usual spot when checking her book on Demon Summoning: the Soulbound Circle page. And yes! She could now read all of it. Sadly, there wasn’t a lot of new information of note. There was mention of being absolutely certain that the Demon’s name was spelled correctly because, “Since the price is your soul, once it is paid, the summoning cannot be stopped.” Well, that explained it a bit. She had offered her soul, which meant she’d paid the price, so a summoning had to occur. And since she hadn’t specified anything, it filled in the gap itself.

That still didn’t explain why she was summoned. It would make sense for it to summon any Demon who would answer then, like a regular nameless summoning call. Well, she hadn’t called upon only Demons. She had also called for Angels in her ramblings. Maybe because her name was Angelica? No, that sounded wrong. The circle was for summoning Demons with no mention anywhere about divine entities.

Plus, she’d been named Angelica by her mother. Which, now knowing that the woman was a Summoner, had likely been on purpose—a carefully selected name that would be censored to Demons. Something she should probably be thankful for now, assuming it actually was helpful somehow. Hrm, maybe that was in the book somewhere; the importance of keeping Summoner names secret.

Ah, yes, here we go. It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for, but definitely not under the section she was expecting: Demon Curses.

“When a Summoner fails to live up to their end of a Contract, they may be subjected to retribution from the Demon in the form of Curses. These can vary from using dark magic to force the Summoner to pay their agreed cost or impose punishments for not meeting the agreed terms, including but not limited to: afflictions, disfigurement, destitution, forced habits, and death.

“Much of the potency for these Curses comes from the Demon invoking the Summoner’s True Name. If the True Name is unknown, the Curse will be heavily weakened. This is why when all Summoners join a sect, they take on an Alias. After performing the preliminary rites, they will find themselves much safer from Demons going forward. Even Rogue Summoners follow this practice to keep their names obscured. Normal humans are at no risk of having their names exposed. Since they cannot interact with Demons nor form Contracts, a Curse cannot be afflicted.”

Hmm… that last sentence felt inaccurate. At least in Gelic’s experience, specifically, that time she was summoned to a crossroads by Grahj. While he was no Summoner, and seemed to have no Magic Proficiency, he had still been able to see her while they were under Contract, but only then. Afterward, she’d vanished from his perception. And, she’d learned his True Name. Not only that, by the sounds of it, she had actually inflicted a Demon Curse on him. “DGS, is Soul Suck considered a Curse?”

[A sanitized one]

“Uhh, okay. Anything else you can tell me about it?”

[There is nothing else you need to know about it]

“Great… Thanks.” Maybe it meant that it was a purposefully weak one that’d work regardless if the name was known or not. By the sounds of it, that should work on any Summoner, siphoning Essence from them. Since Summoners now hid their True Names, making Curses functionally obsolete, perhaps it had been developed to get around that.

But back to her own name, since both parts were censored, it meant she had little to fear from these Curses. So if a Demon figured it out, that wasn’t the end of the world. Really, Summoners were far more dangerous in this regard since they didn’t share the same obfuscation. And it did beg the question again why her mother had given it to her. Maybe she was overthinking it, that Corticia just liked the name, or wanted to lean into her religion.

Yet… what if it was for protection from Demons. Maybe… Maybe she’d always planned for her daughter to become a Summoner, too. So why hadn’t that happened? Why hadn’t Angelica been included in this crazy world? Had the woman changed her mind at some point, or maybe Angelica had just been too much of a disappointment… Ugh, forget it. She didn’t need another thought to dwell on and spike her depression. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the sort of thing she could just up and ask her mother without revealing specifics she shouldn’t know.

To move on from this whole name nonsense, Angelica continued to flip through the book. Sadly, there wasn’t a ton of great new detail. Most of it was on the intricacies of each circle and Contract types. Some good info for if she ever started properly Summoning others, but not super relevant for her current situation. She still skimmed it regardless, mostly the contract types, but nothing too unexpected.

Also somewhat disappointing was the list of Summoner Spells. It was just the basic ones she already knew, that she’d gotten as an Initiate, not even mentioning the two from becoming a Novice. Perhaps that was on purpose, so that newbies didn’t try things that they weren’t capable of at the start, and get harmed as a result. Mostly, Angelica just wanted to know when she’d be able to heal Demons using MP, and more importantly, whether it’d work on herself. She was doing pretty well with her poison healing. However, more options were always welcome. Since she didn’t have it now, it likely meant she’d get it when reaching Disciple, or maybe a later Novice milestone.

The Cause. Toward the back of that book, she found that section, an unfortunately short one.

“Demons will occasionally mention ‘The Cause’ while in your service. Little is known about it other than one fact: all Demons are in a perpetual state of striving for greater strength. They crave Essence because it is what allows them to gain new forms and power. It is never enough, and their desire is insatiable. If they are slacking in their progress, they will mention feeling a lack of worth, which can cause them to take drastic actions to get back on track, and makes them more likely to attempt to break their Bound status. This is why if you wish to keep a Demon in your service, it is imperative that you still allow them to grow.

“While we do not know their endgame, or the truth behind their motivations, we can use their greed to our advantage to achieve our goals and build our own strength to prepare for whatever they may be plotting.”

Hmm, interesting. So if a Demon stops improving, maybe stagnating entirely on Worth, Skills, Attunements, Ranks, etc, they start to go stir-crazy? Maybe the DGS will nag them until they get back to making progress like a demanding superior. She could definitely see that. But there were plenty of Demons who stayed in Hell and likely made very slow progress. So perhaps as long as they were contributing to their society in some way, it was considered fine.

Sadly, overall, it wasn’t much more than Angelica already speculated. But there was a part worth noting. The Demons were trying to get stronger. Well, that much was always obvious, especially since it seemed to be a big part of their culture. But now it sounded like they were getting stronger for something, whatever Ferrul was plotting, how they planned to use their Demon army in the future. That was what she needed to figure out. Unfortunately, it sounded like Summoners weren’t the avenue to get that information. Annoying.

She did another skim—having actually planned to read from cover to cover until the rain stopped, but her mind kept wandering from distractions. It was something she’d have to force herself to do in the future with an Order, when the actual summoning part was more pertinent, but that would wait, because by the sounds of it, the weather had greatly improved. Looking out her window, she could see the sun, so it was time to head out before her motivation waned.

After stepping out her front door, Angelica was met with the sight of the Deterring Field Rune hiding under the alcove. She’d gotten used to it now, and normally wouldn’t even register the floating crystal that was emitting a weird energy, but she then remembered something about the Skill. Wait, it was Oppression, right? And as much as she didn’t care for it, that was now an Attunement that she possessed.

She went over and booped the Rune, changing its color to match, apparently a very vibrant yellow. Not what she would have guessed for Oppression. The color of the field it was spewing didn’t change, but it did expand, quite a lot actually. In seconds, the whole complex was shrouded. Previously, it had just been three of the four apartments and a good chunk of the parking lot, but now every inch was covered, and it even extended over the road a bit to the other side, which apparently was just a bit too much range for something lurking.

[A Demon has been deterred]

Across the way, she saw a bush rustle and blurry shadow rush away from the Deterring Field until there was no trace of it at all. Wait, what, huh?! There was a Demon that close to her apartment and she had no idea?! Should she chase after it? Now that was a scary thought, especially because she had no idea of its Rank or allegiance. Can you tell me anything more than that?! Who was it? What do they want?! She bugged the DGS but got no response, so she posed the same inquiry to Diving Ear.

[They had no intentions of harming you]

Well, that was kind of reassuring. But also, what did the Skill mean by that?! If it knew their intentions, then couldn’t it just say them outright? Further probing got her nowhere, just the usual response about not being wise enough to divine the information. But could she really just write them off as not a threat? Had they just been a random Demon chilling in a bush?

That felt unlikely. They had to be there for some reason, and she was undoubtedly that reason. But why? Maybe because she had a Deterring Field at all made her worth monitoring, or perhaps others had caught onto the Demon living alone like Diamen and Fioso had. Ugh, the idea was aggravating. She’d gotten someone’s attention and didn’t know what to do about it. Did she need to do anything about it? Was it fine to leave alone? Should she get rid of her Deterring Field if it was just going to be a beacon or try to make an even stronger one because it had clearly worked?

Or perhaps… a spy sent by her mother? Especially since Angelica had been avoiding the woman’s texts? It felt like something she’d do, but also, if that was the case, she’d likely have already found out. If Corticia knew her secret, there was nothing that would keep the woman away, and she wouldn’t send some Demon lackey. Besides, she already had a human lackey in the form of Angelica’s landlord, Lurren Gate, who was undoubtedly peddling information back to her. So annoying. This incident made her not want to leave, but she also didn’t want to stick around. She just… felt violated. It was probably hypocritical with all the sneaking and spying she’d done as a Demon herself, but that didn’t shut off the accompanying emotions.

There was probably no right answer to the situation, so the best thing she could do was keep going as usual. If she acted irrationally, that could just bring even more notice to her. What made sense was to continue with her lifeplan. Keep getting stronger until everyone would leave her alone. Yes, that was the solution, not an immediate one to ease the discomfort, but the light at the end of the tunnel made it easier to push past.

Alright, some bouncing will clear my head! She shifted back to her Puck form and went out to the parking lot. Really, she wanted to feel the bounciness of the puffball, especially now that it was allegedly even better now thanks to Regressor, but she needed more practice in her new form. So she gave it her best shot until she jumped onto a nearby roof and slipped when her foot hit the slightly angled tile since everything was still wet.

And then she careened down into the nearest alley, landing ungracefully into a dumpster. This was not her day. Thank goodness everything was bagged, and her light weight caused none of it to explode from the force. One of her foot claws did puncture one, releasing a lovely stench of rotting banana peels, but she managed to avoid getting any of it on her. Somehow, she’d come full circle and was dumpster diving once again.

But since karma was forcing her to regress anyways, she might as well embrace it. Bouncing felt off as a Puck, especially when trying to travel long distances. So screw it, back to an Imp. She could work more with her new legs when conditions were better. And damn, after that first bounce as a ball once more, it just felt right. Not only that, her mood drastically improved, because it was hard to feel sad when careening through the city at insanely high velocities, knowing she’d be safe and sound because of her squishy body.

Of course, the world had one more annoyance in store for her. She should have checked the radar again before she left. Because while her section of the city was now bright and beaming, the Zenmoon Sect was apparently still under a cloud that was just dumping buckets of rain. As she went plummeting toward the front gate, not wanting to hit their barrier again, she quickly switched back to a Puck, mostly because she didn’t want to get all of her hair wet again. She could deal with the little bit she had behind her mask, and her carapace served to keep her dry from most of the rest, but her issues still weren’t over.

While she’d certainly made friends at this Sect, she apparently wasn’t a household name yet. A guard in a poncho came running over, waving a wand threateningly in her direction, demanding for her to “Declare yourself, Demon!”