the invoked

In a small house made of an assembly of small solid wooden elements arranged very close together at the level of the walls, there was a man who was lying on a bed, his cinnamon brown eyes reflecting the weak rays projected from the sun which caressed his face.

Cliff was staring at the ceiling with a thoughtful look, he was trying to satiate his memories, he didn't remember having the chance one day to go to the countryside, the fact of being able to smell this sweet smell of wood carried by a morning breeze brought him made you feel a little...nostalgic?

"I have so many things planned today"

A meeting had been planned, this meeting would take place early in the day, which left no time to continue hanging out, he had projects to carry out and he needed the support of these people and he had lots of questions to ask too, and that was what most encouraged him to take part.

There was a noise behind his bedroom door, someone had just knocked.

- "You can come in Dahlia, I'm already up" said Cliff heading towards the door to check if it was closed.

- "Hello my lord, uh... how did you know it was me who was behind the door!!?" she asked, still in shock.

"Uhm? You could say that's one of my abilities," Cliff replied nonchalantly.

Cliff had received the "echolocation" ability after slaying the flock of bats, it was an ability that allowed him to see shapes from ultrasound, which was really useful in a forest where he might be attacked everywhere.

- "It's a really scary ability!" Dahlia whispered, looking at him with eyes sparkling with admiration.

"Um...they're already ready for the meeting I guess, isn't that why you're here right?" he asked, quickly trying to change the subject.

"Yes my lord, please follow me, I will lead you to the meeting place."  She said, curtseying to him.

"Good" Cliff said as he headed towards the door.

They walked for a few seconds until she stopped to open a sort of door that led to the basement, they went down into a sort of room where in the middle of it there was a round table.

Three people were already seated there; including Rakahn and the two others that Cliff had seen at the entrance to the village, there were five of them in the room.

When they saw that Cliff was entering the room, they stood up to greet him, embarrassed, Cliff gestured with one hand for them to sit down again, this environment where he was an important character was not completely unusual for him, because In his old world, he was respected at the dojo by his cadets and especially by his elders for his abilities and his prowess considered above average.

-"Rakahn can you debrief on what I talked to you about please?" Cliff asked as he sat down across from Rakahn.

"Yes my lord" he replied, getting up to speak.

Rakahn had explained to him that they were on the large continent called Merlea which is populated by several creatures, and in this they were in the southern part which was the least populated, in "the corrupted forest", it is so called because it is infested with monsters and apparently all the other kingdoms gave up on conquering it because of them and so it was unclaimed territory, those who lived in this forest were the demi-humans they are races that emerged after the Thousand Year War.

-"A war? What do you mean?" Cliff asked perplexed.

"this is the greatest breach of the "underworld" that was opened, bringing a great invasion of various varieties of monsters, which had caused millions of deaths and violence, later they would finally be pushed back into this forest with us descendants of monsters and humans and there are always small gaps in the forest which still makes it inaccessible" replied Dahlia who was sitting right next to him.

- "What differentiates you from humans apart from your horns?" Cliff questioned, supporting his head with one hand.

"Like monsters, we demi-humans possess an essence stone, so the 'Awakened' humans hunted us down to become stronger, pretending we weren't really human." Pursued Rakahn

"Awakened Ones!!?"  Cliff asked with a raised eyebrow "who are they?"

There was silence in the room, until one of the two soldiers broke it;

- "Um... my lord the "awakened" are those who have managed to demonstrate great will and awaken their skills"

"They must be wondering why I'm asking them all this, maybe it's information that even children know" thought Cliff 

"So I too am an Awakened One." Cliff declared, pretending to know what they thought by their reactions, maybe he would kick him out?, but unfortunately they just nodded as if he already knew.

- "I have a question, no I have lots of other questions but this one is more important" said Cliff with a hesitant look.

Cliff was reluctant to ask this question, because honestly he didn't know the treatment that would be reserved for him by revealing this information about him, after thinking about the question for a long time, he had finally decided.

He thought for a while and asked:

-"Have you ever heard of people summoned from other worlds?"

"Are you talking about the summoned, my lord?" Dahlia asked in turn.

"Uhm… Maybe that's what you called them," Cliff said, his voice still hesitant.

Rakahn scratched the back of his head and said "we know very little about them, all we know of them are people summoned from various worlds who once summoned find themselves bound by a spell to their masters that they they move away from it, the spell will trigger and their souls would consume... and I have also heard that they are invoked in the northern nations for their strength because as they cross the worlds they undergo awakening "

Cliff was in shock and at the same time curious, lots of questions were bubbling in his head, who was his master?, was he lucky if the summoning had failed?, and even if the summoning had failed , why was he brought here?

-"There is something that bothers me, you say that he finds himself linked to a master?, have there ever been cases where someone was not hindered by "coming out"? Asked t- he raised an eyebrow

"Not exactly, in the forest there are 9 clans, there was a time when 9 invoked led a respective clan and they came from different worlds or eras, each of them had killed their respective masters to run away and hide in the forest, as they were strong our ancestors welcomed them, for example in our clan a summoned one came from a country called kemet, and it was with him that the clan war began. Rakahn explained.

"It's true that I told myself that his weapon was not unknown to me, as blacksmiths I tried to forge several varieties of weapons including ancient weapons, his ancestor must have been an Egyptian or came from a parallel world of this one."

-"The clan war? Ah! It's true that you spoke to me about it in the cave.

Cliff had had a brief overview of this territorial war, basically it was just a war for the "hunting zones", because the forest was dangerous, the hunting zones were where dangerous monsters were least frequent, but these areas were too small, they could not feed 9 clans at a time, disputes over the prizes broke out and before you knew it war was declared.

-"Why not gather a group of soldiers, and subjugate a powerful monster and absorb its essence, you will not become stronger that way?" Cliff asked stunned.

- "Forgive me my lord but it is not that easy, to absorb the essence of monsters, you absolutely have to be the one who killed them" retorted the brown-skinned soldier.

"Oh really? Well that's a shame, I wanted to go hunt as many monsters as possible with you, maybe you wouldn't be able to keep up" Cliff grumbled, irritated by this harsh reality.

He really wanted to use his skill to its full potential in this forest, and in the latter what was not lacking were monsters.

"Lots of skills to sink your teeth into" he thought "but I lack experience and information on monsters I couldn't fight them alone"

- "Is there a way to get around this rule?, I would really like to help you guys." he said with eyes searching for answers.

There was silence in the room, and Rakahn seemed to be thinking.

- "Um…Rakahn do you know anything about that?" Cliff asked feverishly.

"Well in the elf clan, they found a method to get around it, but they only used it on monsters, since we are half-monsters I wondered if it could work" replied Rakahn

Cliff reassured himself:

"Well, that's it already."

A smile appeared on his face