The sun had dipped below the impossibly high walls of the city, painting the sky in shades of bruised purple and orange. My muscles ached with a deep, satisfying burn from a day spent hauling and mending stone. It was a physical exhaustion utterly different from the draining depletion of mana after a fight. This felt… productive.
Just as I finished washing the day's grime from my hands and face, Lyra appeared at my doorway, as silent and sudden as a ghost.
"The evening meal is prepared, Kael-sama," she said with a polite bow.
I had tried to get her to drop the "-sama" honorific, but it was like asking a rock to stop being a rock. It was simply part of her programming. "Thanks, Lyra. I'm coming."
I followed her not to a grand dining hall, but to a smaller, cozier room I hadn't seen before. A single long, sturdy wooden table stood in the center, laden with simple but hearty food: roasted meat, thick bread, steamed vegetables, and pitchers of water. The air was warm and smelled of rosemary and baked goods.
What surprised me was that everyone was already there.
Fen, the wolf-eared beastman, sat near one end, his posture straight and his plate already half-full. Across from him was Valerius, the mountain of a man I'd faced in my trial. He was without his helm, revealing a surprisingly young face with stern features and short-cropped black hair. He nodded curtly as I entered. The hooded woman with the violet eyes was there too, her hood down for once. Her name, I had learned, was Elara. Her features were delicate, and she was watching the steam rise from a cup of tea with an unnerving focus. The fifth summon, a lean man with sharp eyes and a restless energy I hadn't properly met yet, sat near the head of the table, idly sharpening a small knife.
It was the first time I'd seen all five of them together in one place, relaxed. The sight was both intimidating and strangely domestic.
I took the empty seat between Fen and Elara. The initial silence was thick enough to cut with Valerius's non-existent sword. It was the awkward quiet of a family dinner where everyone is waiting for the father to arrive.
"So… uh, is the Builder not joining us?" I finally asked, breaking the tension.
Lyra, who was gracefully pouring water into my cup, answered without missing a beat. "The Master's work is rarely predictable. He often takes his meals in his workshop, if he takes them at all."
"You mean… you don't know where he is?" I pressed, a little shocked. She was his personal attendant.
It was Elara who answered, her voice as soft as rustling parchment. "The Master is an integral part of this city's operating system. He goes where the foundation is weakest or the data-flow is unstable. Think of him less as a person in a room, and more as a presence that reinforces the world around us. We are his hands, but he is the city's heart. Not even we are always aware of its every beat."
Her explanation was so bizarre and technical that it left me speechless. These summons didn't just see him as a master; they saw him as a fundamental force of nature.
The lean man chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. "Means he's probably stuck patching a leaky sewer ward on the east side and is too stubborn to ask for help." He looked at me, his eyes sharp and assessing. "I'm Silas. I handle scouting. Good to finally put a face to the walking disaster beacon."
"Uh, thanks," I said, not sure if I should be offended. "I'm Kael."
"We know," he replied, going back to his knife.
The meal began in earnest. For a group of magically summoned beings, they ate with a very human appreciation for good food. Fen passed me the platter of roasted meat without a word, nudging it insistently until I took a second, larger slice. It was his version of a compliment for a hard day's work.
I decided to risk it and turned to Valerius. "Hey, about the trial… no hard feelings about the floor, right?"
He chewed his food deliberately before swallowing. "The floor is replaceable. A flaw in one's defense is not." He met my gaze, his eyes clear and devoid of any anger. "You did not attack me. You attacked my stance. My foundation. It was an unorthodox but valid strategy. I have already adjusted my defensive protocols to account for environmental instability."
He spoke like a machine analyzing its own performance. There was no ego, no emotion, just pure, logical assessment. It was terrifyingly effective. "So… we're cool?"
"Your continued presence here is sufficient evidence that we are 'cool'," he stated flatly, then returned to his meal.
I couldn't help but smile. That was probably the closest I'd get to a friendly chat with him.
"You find his logic amusing," Elara observed quietly from my other side. She hadn't seemed to be paying attention, but her violet eyes missed nothing.
"It's just… different," I admitted. "Everyone here is. The Adventurers would have been bragging or making excuses. He just… analyzed and adapted."
"Each of us was summoned with a core purpose," she explained, tracing an invisible rune on the table. "Valerius is the shield. His purpose is to endure and protect. Fen is the hand. His purpose is to build and maintain. Silas is the eye, to see what is hidden. Lyra is the voice, to bring order to the Master's house. And I," she paused, her glowing eyes flickering, "I am the mind. I read the city's language—the flow of its data, the strength of its wards. Our personalities are extensions of our functions."
"So you're all just… programs?" The word felt wrong as soon as I said it.
"Is a person just a collection of cells and electrical impulses?" she countered smoothly. "The Master did not create tools. He summoned companions. The purpose is our skeleton; our experiences are the flesh we build upon it."
Her words hung in the air, deep and strangely comforting. I looked around the table again. At Fen, silently eating but aware of everyone. At Valerius, disciplined and absolute. At Silas, restlessly observant. At Lyra, moving with a quiet grace that held the entire room together. And at Elara, the thoughtful philosopher of this strange family.
They weren't just summons. They were a team. A complete, self-sufficient unit that could run a city.
And for some reason, they had let me, a glitched player with a cursed orb, sit at their table.
As the meal wound down, a sense of peace settled over me. These past few days, I had felt lost, a tool to be used or a problem to be managed. But here, in this quiet room, surrounded by these powerful, inhuman beings, I didn't feel like an outsider. I felt… accepted.
They didn't care that I was weak or confused. They only cared that I was willing to learn. Willing to help mend the wall. Willing to be a part of their purpose.
My trial hadn't ended when I broke the floor. That was just the entrance exam. The real test was happening now—every day I worked with them, every conversation we had. It was a test to see if I could become more than just a fighter. A test to see if I could learn how to be a builder.
And looking at the faces around the table, I knew, with a certainty that settled deep in my bones, that I desperately wanted to pass.