Heroine Creation: All My Summons Are Custom Made

Chapter 223: I’ll Be Back, I Promise

The next day, Lancet woke before the sun and before any of his three roommates. Weekend or not, his body still carried the residue of training from the day before, and the first thing he felt when he opened his eyes was the hard, restless awareness that there were only four days left before he stood across from Renan Falconhart in the one-on-one combat tournament.

Four days.

Not enough to become a different person, but maybe enough to become a better swordsman.

That was the only version of the thought that mattered now.

He pushed himself up, dressed quickly, and left the Gold Dorms while the halls were still half-asleep. The academy looked different this early in the morning. Quieter. Less like a place designed to test people and more like a fortress holding its breath.

Lancet crossed the grounds in the pale early light with the Radiant Guillotine at his side and tension building in his chest. Not fear exactly, just the sharp pressure of time.

Kestrel had been very clear with him.

If he wanted her help, he was climbing a mountain.

That meant he needed to leave the academy, leave Brightspire, and probably leave the kingdom state of Aethelgard too, because whatever mountain she had in mind was not going to be conveniently visible on the horizon.

Aethelgard was the pinnacle of modernity and technology. Every mountain land had been reduced to flat earth and turned to hubs of civilization.

So, Lancet knew he was in for a mini-adventure.

He was going to need supplies, permits and money. And with no time to process an academy permit, he made one last stop at the only place where he could sneak out of school undetected.

The Bronze Dorms.

He did not go inside. There was no reason to. Instead, he moved around to the back of the building where the academy’s shield magic thinned just enough to leave a blind spot in the coverage.

Lancet remembered standing in this same place with Astensia, right before she had launched him out of the building and into the city where they spent the entire day talking and laughing.

Lancet paused, looked up once, and flexed his hand over the Phantom Ring. After killing some holographic beasts in the training, Astensia helped recharged the ring to five charges, which was enough to get him moving.

He activated [ Golden Leap ].

Lancet shot upward in a brilliant burst and sailed over the academy walls, over the streets beyond them, over the rooftops of the city of Brightspire until he came down hard in a narrow alley several blocks away.

He landed on one knee, steadied himself with one hand against the stone, and looked up just in time to see the gold haze of the leap disperse into morning air.

Brightspire was already awake. Merchants were setting up stalls. Early workers were moving through the streets. The city looked polished, expensive, and orderly like most bastion cities.

But Lancet’s business was not here in Brightspire.

Kestrel had been very blunt about what she wanted: a tall mountain that dared lightning to kiss its crown.

She was a lot to deal with.

The more he thought about it, the more she reminded him of Thor in the early days, all attitude and force and impossible standards. Lancet could only shake his head and keep moving.

If he was going on a mountain hunt, he needed money.

A lot of it.

So he walked into a bank.

The building was all clean stone and polished glass. Lancet stepped to the counter to submit his name for access to his World Account.

The cashier, a sharply dressed woman with a practiced smile, looked him over once and clearly decided he was the sort of student who probably needed pocket change and maybe a modest travel withdrawal, nothing serious.

"Your name?" She asked in a tone that suggested she had already moved on to the next customer in her mind.

"Lancet Leogardt," he replied, handing over his card which had his World Number on it.

She scanned the number, and the counter light flickered. The account opened.

The number that appeared on the screen made her smile freeze in place.

Three million and five hundred Notes.

For several seconds, she simply stared.

Then she looked at him.

Then back at the screen.

Then back at him again, as if checking whether the boy standing in front of her had accidentally wandered into the wrong account or was trying to commit some extremely strange form of fraud.

Lancet stood there calmly through all of it, resting one elbow lightly against the counter with a proud smile on his face.

"I know right," he winked.

The cashier’s professional composure cracked just enough to show the shape of shock underneath. She cleared her throat, blinked twice, and tried again to recover her face.

"Would you like to withdraw any amount today?" she asked, much more carefully than before.

"100,000 Notes," Lancet said.

She nearly missed the number.

He watched her expression change all over again as she processed the request and realized he was not just some student checking a balance for fun.

She moved with a tighter professionalism now, entered the request, and completed the withdrawal with visible effort to remain dignified. When she finally handed him the notes and the bank seal, she gave him a very flirtatious smile.

Lancet tucked the money away and smiled back, but he said nothing else to her.

Leaving a bastion state was not cheap. He was going to need that money.

By the time he reached the bastion gates, the sun had climbed high enough that the stone walls shone pale and clean under its light. The security there was exactly as strict as he expected.

Guards in layered uniform, rangers with measured posture, a control post built into the gatehouse, and enough scanning runes layered through the archway to make sneaking out look like not just a bad idea but a personal insult to the city’s entire design.

Lancet stepped into the line and waited his turn.

When it came, he handed over his student card from Awakener Supreme and explained, without much concern, that he would be away for only three days.

The guard at the desk took one glance at the card, then lifted his eyes. "You’ll need your permit," he said. "The one authorizing exit from academy jurisdiction."

Lancet looked at him for a moment, then gave a small smile.

"You might have heard of me," he said.

The guard raised a brow..

Lancet leaned one shoulder against the counter and said it with the exact amount of casual confidence required to make the moment either work beautifully or fail spectacularly. "Lancet Leogardt. The kid who killed the Demon Head in Hebthej."

The two security officers behind the desk exchanged a glance. They seemingly recognized the name.

Lancet let the silence sit for half a beat, then reached into his bag, pulled out a stack of Notes, and set fifty thousand of them neatly on the counter.

He gave them a quick wink.

"I’ll be back, I promise."

The guards stared.

Then one of them cleared his throat. The other looked away first, which was usually the sign that the situation had already tipped into practical compromise.

In the end, the money did the rest of the talking. They signed off on the exit, keyed the gate seals, and let the bastion doors begin to open.

Lancet stepped forward with the bag of money hanging over one shoulder, the student card still in his hand, and the light of the outside world waiting beyond the threshold.

For a moment he stopped just inside the open gates and looked out.

Beyond the bastion walls, Aethelgard stretched into civilized land for a while, roads and settlements and defended territory holding the world together in neat, expensive layers.

But farther out, he could already see the cracks. The Gloom-touched wasteland. The ruined stretches of old battlefields. The places where Demons and Gehenna still kept trying to crawl toward human ground only to be cut down by Awakeners, Kingdom Rangers, and whatever else stood between civilization and annihilation.

It was a world that still belonged to humanity, but only barely.

Lancet adjusted the hand of the bag on his shoulder and took one slow breath.

His first day outside the bastion walls had begun.