Being a Summoner on our Evolved Earth

Temporary Contract (23)

"How rude to point and yell at people." Lucia grumbled as she peeked her head out from behind Aegis. The man was just trembling in fear like he didn't notice Lucia was a human. At this time a creature made of shadows crept out of the forest without getting closer since it could feel the power from the group ahead of him.

"It seems my prey has startled you brother." The shadow spoke to Aegis in an apologetic tone.

"I'll quickly take him and leave you be." It suggested but waited for a response before approaching. From what Lucia could detect, this creature should be close to its third evolution already, which means it was the most powerful wild creature she had seen besides the flame ants. The man heard the growls from the shadow creature and looked towards Lucia.

"Please miss, save me! I can repay you once we get to my village across the river!" The man crawled towards her while pleading for help and avoiding Aegis.

"Stay six feet away from me." Lucia growled at him and used her staff to measure the distance. The man furrowed his brows in frustration from her response, but before he could say anything else Lucia continued to speak, "It's too bad for you, I'm done with humans. They are white eyed wolves who bite the hand that helps them, and I just can't seem to get along with them." Lucia used a cutesy voice to deliver this bad news with a cheerful smile. The man however felt a shiver go down his spine.

"Please! I'm not like them! Save me!" The man tried to continue pleading and inching closer. Lucia's smile dropped into a scowl and Vicki moved forward while hissing at the man.

"Please don't kill me! I need to get back to my wife and child!" He quickly froze in place and curled into a ball. Lucia glared at the persistent bug that didn't want to understand human language. The shadow creature really didn't want this group to get upset at it because of its prey so it thought about how to settle this. Then it raised a claw and pointed it at the man to cast a spell. Lucia's group noticed its actions and changed their attention, and the man who seemed to notice this jumped up from the ground and ran past Lucia. So when the shadow creature released his spell it followed the man and ended up hitting Lucia instead. Lucia felt a sting in her arm as she felt foreign mana start to spread throughout her body. Other than causing her to itch, the spell also started to transform patches of her skin to scales. Aegis and Vicki were furious as they noticed. Aegis ran down the shadow creature and Vicki swatted the man with her tail.

"Wait I didn't mean to! I can cancel the spell!" The shadow creature cried out.

"Aegis, it's fine. His curse is too weak to cause any real harm." Lucia said as she admired her new scales. She kind of wished this transformation curse was strong enough to fully transform her though. She really was hating the idea of still being human right now since they would always ask her for help when they ran into her. The man was groaning in pain on the ground after being hit by Vicki. Aegis glanced at Lucia, and seeing she really wasn't hurt or bothered he lowered his sword and instead picked up the shadow creature and carried it to bow before her.

"I'm sorry, I was trying to silence him so he would stop annoying you..." The shadow creature explained its actions.

"It's fine, rather I want to make a contract with you." Lucia grinned at the shadow.

"A contract?" It asked hesitantly.

"Yes, I want to temporarily hire you so I can provide you the mana to give me a stronger transformation curse. If it is to my satisfaction, I'll reward you with raw mana which should be much more appetizing than this man. Deal?" Lucia formed a contract in the air before the creature and it read over it thoroughly. It's eyes widened in surprise as it flicked its gaze back and forth from the contract to Lucia.

"Deal!" It said happily as it signed the contract. There was another grunt of pain from the man as Vicki pinned him down with a claw since he was trying to get up again.

"Are you crazy? Making a deal with a ghost to curse you?" The man yelled in a clearly flustered manner.

Lucia glanced at the man coldly over her shoulder, "My interactions with my fellow humans pushed me this far in the first place. Both before the world's reset and after." The man was frozen in fear from the pressure Lucia directed at him and from the clear enmity in her voice.

"So can you choose what you change me into?" Lucia redirected her attention to the shadow creature that was under a temporary contract.

"I haven't really tried before, usually what I curse gets turned into my favorite food before I got this power which is small lizards." It answered a bit hesitantly.

"Hmmm, let's experiment with your control over the curse then. That man will be your test subject. Try to make him a human sized lizard." Lucia suggested as she silently cast [Dispel] on herself which caused the scales on her to disperse into smoke. As she looked at the shadow creature under the fire light she realized it was a large snake like the first one she had summoned in the dungeon. Which means the claw it raised earlier was actually its tail, they just couldn't tell because of how it was using shadows to hide the rest of its body from sight when looking at it from the front.

And so over the next several hours the shadow snake practiced its curses, rested, and kept practicing until it could turn the man into a human sized lizardman under Lucia's guidance. At some point Vicki started competing by making a man out of fire and moving it around like a puppet. Lucia had made a neutral mana core and filled it with mana to give the creature when it was time to curse her. She also practiced moving the mana from all over her body to be centered around her heart and brain to keep it from interfering with the curse. By mid day the snake tried applying the curse to Lucia. All her limbs, back, and sides were covered in brown scales a shade darker than her hair. Her face and the front of her body were clear of scales, yet her eyes had become vertical pupils.

"How do I look?" She asked Aegis and Vicki.

"Not human, yet kind of human?" Aegis said a bit unsure.

"Such shiny scales, I like them." Vicki answered happily. Lucia looked at her reflection in the lake and thought it would do for now.

"Thanks for your hard work." Lucia patted the snake's head then gave it a recharged neutral mana core. "We'll protect you till you've restored your mana and send you on your way with this mana core."

"Thank you Miss, you're very generous." The snake let out a sigh of relief. 'It really wasn't bad working along side them.' It thought. Another hour passed before the snake took its leave a bit hesitantly. Lucia wasn't sure if it still didn't trust them or if it was unwilling to leave. The contract had completed when she gave it the mana core just now so it had nothing keeping it here anymore. Lucia waved farewell to it then she looked at the unconscious man they had experimented on till he looked like a true lizardman. She sighed and cast [Dispel] to remove the curse from him. He doesn't know the form she took, and her familiars will evolve soon enough and change appearance. This would be her final mercy to this man since they used him as a test subject. He paid for his life in this way. Lucia set up a flat rock next to him and left some of the cooked meat she had stored up on it for him when he woke up. Then without looking back she left, continuing towards the mountain.