[1.08] Book Learning (Part 2)

Angelica settled back down with the book after moving her mountain of clothes. She wasn’t making many more strides after the name revelation, so she decided to flip forward to the illustrated pages. One thing she had noticed, however, was that the words she could read seemed to be those she’d heard in her head from the various messages. Not all the words, though. Many common phrases were missing, or so she had to assume.

Imp? When did I hear Imp? she pondered after getting to the first set of depicted demons. Not that she complained while studying the little guys. They were definitely the lowest class and ranged from not-intimidating at all to creepiness incarnate. She couldn’t read the other names as she scanned up the assumed hierarchy, at least not until the last one.

“Demon Lord.” That only had one sketch, and they were one of the more human-looking of the bunch. Frankly, they didn’t look that grand, almost like a person dressing up as a demon. However, the artist, or whoever had printed the book, had shaded their entire picture and the area around it with what looked like charcoal. Was it supposed to represent their power, or maybe some radiating evil? Perhaps they were trying to redact the drawing but failed.

And was it supposed to be Ferrul? That was the only Demon Lord Angelica knew of, assuming that hadn’t been a figment of her imagination. If so, it was nice to put a face to the name.

She continued onward to the various circles, now confirmed as Demon Summoning Circles. Was there a reason there were so many? Perhaps they served different functions. She saw Imp listed again several times, often one of the few words in an array’s descriptor. Could certain circles only summon specific classes of Demons? That sounded right, since she only saw Demon Lord mentioned toward the highest-leveled ones.

There were also the words Contracts and Orders several times. Would the circles also dictate what sort of orders could be given or contracts formed? That didn’t sound right, since so far, she had found absolutely no limitations on ordering herself around. Maybe it was the number of Orders that could be given. Well, there wasn’t much point speculating until she learned more words, so she decided to move on to the circle she’d painted.

As before, there were several common words, including Demon Lord. Perhaps this circle was capable of summoning one as well. But there was one word in particular that really stood out, and it was the only time she’d been able to read the full name of the array. “Soulbound Demon Summoning Circle.” The word soul was repeated a few times in the description, so it was definitely an important caveat that she hadn’t seen anywhere else.

That was when Angelica remembered the last thing she’d said before everything went crazy that night. “I’ll give you my soul.” Had that been the trigger that had activated the circle? Was it the price to be paid? Things were starting to make a lot more sense, but it still didn’t answer one question. Why had she summoned herself instead of anything she’d called on? Angelica was pretty sure she had mentioned Demons in that same act of whimsy. Wouldn’t that have called upon one, assuming they were actually real? It felt like they had to be real after everything she’d gone through.

She scoured the description of the Soulbound Circle a few times, which was significantly longer than most. The word “name” also stood out amongst the rest. So a name would be important? That made sense, she guessed. If the Summoner was offering their soul, they better get exactly what they were asking for. And she hadn’t named anyone specific in her chant, so that could have caused the problem, but her instincts told her it was something more specific.

So she studied the circle itself for a while, focusing on the intricacies. Yet her eyes kept wandering over to the suspicious blank spot in the circle that was surrounded by what sort of looked like brackets. It really felt like something was supposed to go there. She flipped back to other arrays. Not all of them had that blank spot, but those that did all mentioned the word name. A few also had “Rank” right beside it, so maybe that could be a substitute if they didn’t want a specifically named Demon but any of a certain rank.

To confirm her suspicions, Angelica pulled up her picture of her blackened circle. And yep, she hadn’t put anything at all in that spot. Since she hadn’t put a name, nothing specific had been summoned. That sounded right. And then… it summoned her as the closest living being? Was that some sort of fail-safe? Or did the book’s author not expect anyone to mess up the most important part of the summoning? At the very least, they likely assumed the person capable of reading the entire thing.

If Angelica was both the Summoner and the Demon, did that mean she was Bound to herself? She went back and studied the Soulbound section again, doing her best to try to piece together the sparse words. And thank… she wanted to say Vissiem, but maybe Ferrul was more accurate in this case—she got a new message.

[Tongues Lv.2]

[Lucidity increased]

Suddenly, there were a lot more translated words. Actually, they were the majority now. Several were common particles that helped a bunch, and a few more complex words she wasn’t sure she’d heard yet in a message. While there was still much left untranslated, the assistance was abundant.

First, she practically confirmed her suspicion about writing the name, that was a lot more evident. Then she got a bit deeper into Soulbound itself. “Permanent binding,” really stuck out, as did “near…to break.” She could speculate that the missing word was “impossible.” And it continued on to something else important. “Demon…Summoner perish, so…the other.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

She could speculate the rest. If one died, so would the other. That was probably the ultimate condition of Soulbound that differentiated it from the rest. Not that it mattered to her, since she was both, she’d be dead regardless of however she was classified. There was another crucial piece of info. “Soulbound Circle…used once.”