Chapter 11
Vwoom.
A sudden appearance of a foreign energy was felt. Like a powerful gust of wind traveling through the air, it flung the hooded figures away violently into the far wall.
The wall that they all went smashing against crumbled, while they coughed up blood.
Dust and debris filled the air, creating a hazy cloud that carried the smell of dust.
There was actually no force in actuality, but the Gloomy Guses could guess why such a thing had happened to them.
The presence of a stronger familiar just appeared, and their own familiar went crazy due to that.
Beasts or familiars are normally creatures that don't exhibit emotion, but within the Gloomy Guses, their familiars were showing FEAR! for the first time in their existence.
"What the hell?" One of the Gloomy Guses, particularly the one with a black cloak with a red outline who goes by the name Kyle, moved his gaze to Ryder lying shirtless on the alter.
"Impossible!!! Ryder is waking up."
Ryder's body levitated in the air, horizontal, with his hands and legs falling backward.
His body was pulsating with energy, and his shapeless black mark on his left shoulder slowly reshaped itself. It reshaped into the head of a fierce-looking rabbit.
Kyle's jaw dropped. 'A rabbit? The most feared reaction from the familiars in recorded history was because of... a rabbit?'
Had the situation not been so dire, he might have laughed. But there was nothing funny about the menacing aura emanating from that seemingly innocent shape.
The black mark seemed to radiate purple glowing energy, or more appropriately, gamma energy.
After a moment, the energy pulsating on Ryder disappeared, and he slowly returned to the ground, but still unconscious.
The cloaked figure, still managing to maintain their mental state as their familiars misbehaved internally staggered to their feet together in sync.
Rushing quickly towards a miniature runic stone tablet not far from him, Kyle placed his hands.
Blood from a cut on his palm dripped onto the surface, activating the gamma energy emergency broadcast protocol.
Under normal circumstances, such a communication required authorization by a higher authority, but these were far from normal circumstances.
A purple light flashed through the stone, and then it was done. Kyle sent the message to all the conjuring rooms on the entire planet, Terra.
The message was simple, but was a message that was about to send shockwaves through the entire summoning administration bodies.
*Demon Plain Contract Successful. First Confirmed Case for centuries. The subject name is Ryder Levi. His familiar is of the black mark Classification.*
The first demon plain contractor in the couple of centuries.
"Have you done it?" asked the other cloaked figure, who goes by the name Lucas, despite seeing everything.
He just wanted confirmation as he fixed his eyes on Ryder who was still unconscious on the ground.
"Yes! All the other conjuring rooms across the country will be aware shortly."
Ryder's eyes finally opened, then he got up from the ground slowly. He was finally awake.
The first thing he did was to quickly scan the room with his eyes, turning his head frantically.
As soon as he confirmed his situation, a smile spread across his face, that kind of smile of someone who somehow survived even though he knew he should be dead with certainty.
"I made it! I made it!!!!!"
"I'm back in the real world ha ha!" Ryder was on his feet now, screaming in joy.
Quickly averting hos gaze to the mark on his shoulder, he noticed the difference instantly.
What had once been a shapeless black mark had transformed into something recognizable.
"Lucy! Luxy! Are you there..."
The air was silent...
"Yes, I am!" a voice replied inside his head, causing him to smirk. He, finally after all these time again, felt peace—the exact emotion he had never felt even once in the Astral Shadow plain.
Looking left and then right in the room, Ryder realized all he was meant to do in the conjuring room here was completed, so he bent his knees.
Vwoom.
He didn't walk out of the platform; he blasted away with his raw strength towards the exit.
The stone floor beneath his feet cracked from the force of his departure, leaving footprint-shaped mini-craters on the platform.
"Wait!" Kyle called out and Ryder slowed down... but not for him, but for the person behind the door.
He remembered who it was behind the door for sure, it was Mara. She was standing right behind him before it got to his turn to step into the conjuring room.
Opening the door gently, his eyes and Mara's eyes locked momentarily before he blasted away again.
"Huh!" Mara tilted her head upon noticing the incredible power, but then she scoffed and stepping into the conjuring room.
Once outside, he allowed the cool evening wind to sweep through his hair. The familiar scent of pine and wild berries that grew in abundance around the village street.
"I need to tell mom and dad the news! I freaking survived."
Stars were already twinkling in the sky, and the sunset was already cascading down to the ground.
"I can't wait to see the looks on Mom and Dad's faces when their child appears as the first and only human in this recent age to contract a beast from the demon plain."
A chuckle escaped his lips as he imagined his father's wide eyes and his mother's inevitable barrage of questions.
"They're going to lose their minds."
"They should be honored," Luxy's voice echoed in his mind, pridefully. "Do they understand what you've accomplished? You better explain it to them if they do not understand the full picture."
"So you're feeling cocky now huh," Ryder grinned softly. "You should have mentioned that in the presence of the Dracogon and Hollow."
Ryder walked away, using the thin pathway with bush on both side. The conjuring room was not built openly as a public place, but rather was built in the woods.
As he walked, he became aware of changes in his perception. The green of the leaves richer, the blue of the twilight sky deeper, in short, colors seemed more vivid.
And sounds too.
"Is this how you perceive things?" he muttered to Luxy.
"This is but a fraction," Luxy replied. "Your human senses can only adapt so much."
Walking through the busy pathway, he noticed the distant main street was very noisy. There were men and women here and there, pushing crude tools and locally made carts.
The air was thick with the smell of cooking food and woodsmoke. Children darted between adult legs in games of tag, laughing and all.
This is Ryder's village.
It didn't take him long before he got home.
Opening the door, he called out, "Mom, Dad, I'm home!"
The moment he called out, his parents could be seen hurriedly rushing towards him.
"Ryder!" His mom rushed to him and hugged him with tears in her eyes.
"Hey, Mom, chill, will ya!"
His dad joined in, also in tears.
"R-Ryder, you are back... A-And alive," his mum stuttered through tears.
"Yes I am." Ryder felt his heart melt as he accepted their embrace.
'They were worried about me, fearing for my life.' Ryder smiled.
There is no bond like family, indeed.
"Come inside, hurry," his father said as he shut the door behind them.
He took Ryder to the sofa in the sitting room which was actually a valued piece of furniture in the village, because most families do not own one.
Quickly boiling some water, Ryder's mother brought it in a big bowl to Ryder and softly massaged his head with a towel and the water.
Like a flash, she ran to the kitchen and, a few literal milliseconds later she returned with a trail of several bowls of food she had prepared practically within those milliseconds.
His father darted into his room and came out with a particular device called a radio, and searched through its stations until he found just the perfect entertainment.
"What the hell, why is everyone suddenly treating me like a king?"
He had never, at any point in time, been treated badly by his parents; he was an only child, after all. But the treatment he was receiving today was just too much.
"Mom dad you are pampering me! Am an adult! I dardfgh"
He was instantly cutod speech by a spoonful of food his mother shoved into his mouth, and then choked on it and coughed.
His father surprised him the most at that moment; despite his pot belly that looked like a donut, the old man still RAN to the kitchen to get some water.
The man didn't come back with just a jug; he returned with a jug filled with chilled water and a glass cup, all resting on a tray like a local waiter, in an aprons that seemed too small to accommodate hos belly.
Dropping it on the tabletop right before Ryder, his father then performed a parade halt and salute, unshaken, apart from his pot belly that jingled before going still.
"Dad, Mom, please stop all this and tell me what's up with you guys. I insist!"
With the seriousness in Ryder's voice, his parents finally signed and his mother started, speaking way to fast.
"There are many reasons for it. We are overjoyed that you are alive, we missedou, we don't want you to forget about our existence now that you are finally back. You contracted with a beast from the black mark plain, didn't you?"
"Woah woah, wait up." Ryder wave his arm but hos mother continued regardless still in a single breath.
"You are the only one who has done so in this current age. In a matter of time, Ryder, you will be the world's most sought-out and respected summoner. By then, you'll have a lot on your table, and most probably, you'll forget about our existence because we will be of no use to you by then. We don't want that to happen, that is why we are trying to be of use to you."
Ryder eyes wide instantly as he realized and his eyes began to well up in tears. He tried to hold it back but he just couldn't stop them from streaming down his face.
"Why would I ever forget you, Mom? Why would I ever forget you, Dad? You are the only ones I have ever had in this freaking universe. I have no best friend, no casual friend; I have nobody else except you guys! I'm your child, remember? You both taught me better than that."
Ryder wanted to hug them right then, but he didn't dare, for he still had not fully mastered his new body in the human world. He could crush them if he didn't muster just the right amount of force.
"You are my parents, and I will never forget that. I promise."