I don’t know why everyone wants to be special. Fame, talent, good looks. Brings nothing but trouble that multiplies for each one you have.

Me? By some unfortunate turn of events, I was born with two of the three. The worst two in my opinion; fame and talent. Jeez. I mean, if I had at least been born beautiful, people would be a little nicer when they tried to use me.

If I had my way, I would have been born in a small village bordering one of the dozens of dungeons littering the continent. Live a leisurely life collecting alchemy materials during the day and drinking ale to the sound of bards at night. Ah. What I would give.

Instead, I was born to a semi-famous summoner, more famous for his family name than his ability, with an ax to grind with the magic community and a daughter with enough talent to carry out his grudge.

That’s the fame half. The talent? I’m good with numbers. Doesn’t sound like much. But that’s just it. Magic. It’s just numbers. Everything in the world and beyond can be expressed numerically. You just need to know how. You input all the factors into an equation and you get a result. That result is the spell. You pour mana into it and blam. Fireball. Ice sword. Earthquake.

Everyone and I do mean everyone has at least a single affinity for magic. Doesn’t mean squat if it takes half a day for you to solve a spell. Not very combat-worthy. Only people with a head for calculations make decent casters.

I’m better than normal. Numbers just get me and I get them. I’m not super smart. As a noble, I’ve been invited to parties thrown by other, usually more famous, houses so they can showcase their casters. There are some real geniuses out there. I can’t compare to them. No, I can just add and subtract fast. Really, really fast.

There’s the fame and the talent. Too bad they don’t come with fortune. Definitely not. If they did, my father would have understood that I didn’t want to be a caster and let me live my carefree life. Nope. Instead, I get shoved into a carriage opposite him and off to the Grand Hall we went.

The Grand Hall is the center of magic studies for the entire kingdom. It goes beyond a mere school. There are a handful of those sprinkled about. What they don’t do is research. Students at the Grand Hall aren’t just taught how to cast. It is the preeminent institution for researching spells. The best and the brightest are brought together to further humanity’s understanding of magic.

That is the exact opposite of my easy-going dream life. I protested this decision strongly but really, how much can you say when the other person involved in the conversation has control over your family inheritance?

I blame his decision for everything. This is not being spiteful. If I hadn't been in that carriage, I wouldn’t have been on the road when a madman was hunting for victims. If I weren’t on the road, said madman wouldn’t have decided to attack. If he doesn’t attack, our carriage isn’t knocked over and I don’t fall unconscious.

Which leads to the current situation.

Me, gagged and chained to a wall along with several other girls. The madman in the middle of the room, kneeling in what is clearly a summoning circle. The very ominous knife in his hand spotted with blood.

This is the worst. Seriously the worst. I don’t hate magic. I just don’t want to spend my life enslaved to it. Casters spend decades honing their spells, reducing their equations to the very limit or studying accurate equations to define something new. Tedious doesn’t begin to describe the process and that’s the best they can hope for. Because when magic isn’t tedious, it’s dangerous.

I don’t want to be stuck in that kind of life. But here I am, poised to have my life stolen by magic anyway. This guy is the worst kind of caster too, the kind who takes to the system too much and begins to think of everything by its value. People are just mana coefficients and attribute variables. Emotion cannot be quantified. Does not compute.

Time has taken its toll on my kidnapper. I can’t see much in the dim light but he looks haggard; stooped over, deep lines in his face from the side angle I can see, and only a few strands of gray hair. His lips move silently as he scribbles within the chalk circle on the ground.

Another pitfall of magic. With small spells, the equations are simple enough that you can memorize them, substituting a value here or there when needed. For the big stuff though, the whole thing is scrawled out on some surface so the caster can see exactly what they’re doing. After all, if even a single digit is wrong in what can amount to hundreds of numbers, the spell could blow up in their face. Bye-bye caster.

So, the madman is not so mad that he forgets to be cautious. There goes my best chance at escape. Someone might wonder why I, the self-proclaimed talented caster, does not simply throw around some magic to free myself.

The answer to that is simple. I was lazy. Lazy and rebellious, a terrible combination. As soon as I learned what my father had planned for me, the only way I could resist was by slacking off. Pretending to pay attention to the lessons and then promptly forgetting the information. Skipping my tutoring sessions.

As a result, the only thing I can cast with any confidence is a small bit of flame. The very basics of basics. Won’t do me much good. I mean, what’s that going to do against iron shackles? Right.

That’s not to say I didn’t pick up anything. I picked up summoning. Mainly because it’s the only thing my father is passionate about, the only thing in his life that isn’t clouded by his bitterness at his peers. When we talked about summoning, I felt like we were family rather than a farmer and his prized pig.

So, I know my summoning. And that’s a summoning circle my kidnapper is scribbling in right now.

Summoning is a very simple art. There are several planes besides our own. The circle is an invitation to these other planes. If it is answered, an elemental steps through. If the summoner plays their cards right, said elemental forms a pact with them and becomes a very valuable companion.

If the summoner plays their cards wrong, they get eaten. The definition of high risk-high reward.

The key to summoning is getting the kind of creature you want in your circle. That’s decided by the affinity variable and the mana coefficient. One determines what plane the elemental is pulled from, the other how strong it is.

This guy has the cosmic attribute scribbled there and a coefficient next to it that says greater than five thousand. That’s beyond strong. That’s so strong, I can’t even properly grasp how strong it is.

It’s a god, isn’t it? An elemental so powerful it can reshape the world. There’s no way a man can control something like that. This guy is insane. He’s going to get himself killed. Pitifully.

To get a contract with an elemental, you have to offer them something for their service. Something, if not equal, at least interesting.

What does he possibly have to offer a cosmic affinity being who, at its level, could probably bend time and space?

Seriously. I need to know. This is interesting. Never mind the fact that I’m going to die soon to power this spell. No point in worrying about it.

I hope it's not instantaneous because I want to see how this is going to play out. I bet his death is going to be spectacular. Will this elemental crush him like a bug? Throw him clear into the null dimension? Oooo, maybe he’ll just explode into glittering dust. That would be very nice.

I bet this idiot thinks he’s safe. People misunderstand summoning and summoning circles a lot. They think that as long as a circle is up, the elemental is trapped on this plane. That’s wrong. As long as a circle is powered the elemental cannot move on this plane. Nothing is stopping them from going home.

And powering the circle. People think that you just have to charge some mana into it and wham. Inescapable prison. Ah, no. That’s not how it works. Yes, the summoner doesn’t have to be stronger, or even equal, to the elemental they’re summoning.

The key number is 0.1. That’s the ratio of caster to elemental mana that needs to be charged into the circle for it to hold the creature.

Now, no offense to this guy, but I don’t think he has a coefficient of 500. That’s a master level caster right there and those aren’t just allowed to wander off. The kingdom keeps track of them. They have to report in. They certainly wouldn’t be able to kidnap girls off the road.

He’s probably an untrained idiot who read about summoning somewhere and thought it might be a good way to get a whole bunch of power really quickly.

Yeah, this is going to be good.

Oh, great. He’s finished drawing his circle. Let the show begin.