A Girl Corrupted by the Internet Is the Summoned Hero?!

by Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Oh dear. That anomalous one-hundred-percent probability now seems more ominous. “You changed the Spell's operation?”

  “That's also impossible.”

  I shift in my seat. I'm relieved, but…

  The Wicked Vizier continues. “First, realize that since the Summoning Spell selects the Hero most likely to reach a final outcome, anything leading to that outcome becomes more likely. If a Hero with blue hair is more likely to overthrow the Wicked Emperor, then the Hero is likely to have blue hair—unless a Hero with green hair is still more likely to overthrow the Emperor. The mages who cast the Great Summoning expected that the most likely path to the Hero's victory would be an exceptionally skilled person who could command armies and wield great Angelic power. But if some other path is more likely to overthrow the Emperor, an entirely different kind of Hero might be brought forth instead. Do you follow me so far, Summoned Hero Yugano Yuuki?”

  I nod. “That's logical.”

  “It follows that if anyone has the power to bring about the fulfillment of the Summoning Spell's condition, they can make the Summoning Spell work to their own demands. My faction has obtained the power to effect that the Hero overturns the Wicked Emperor; we have a surprising means to achieve this, allowing you to succeed with ease verging on certainty. We committed to carry out that act if the Summoned Hero met certain other conditions. Thus, fulfilling those conditions became the most probable path by which a Hero could overturn the Emperor. This plan seems to have worked; from meeting you, it's clear that the Summoning Spell brought forth the Hero we sought.”

  My jaw drops.

  This…

  This is…

  Well, maybe it's not quite as clever as the plots in Death Note.

  It takes me some time to reorder my thoughts as the imagined world realigns around me. “Then, for what purpose did you bring me here, Wicked Vizier-san?”

  “There are several conditions, but they should be straightforward for someone with the right origin. If we made the conditions too difficult, it might be easier for the Summoning Spell to fulfill its conditions by bringing forth a traditional Hero instead. Of course, we did surround the Rebellion's camp and crush them after the Summoning completed, to make it as hard as possible for any Hero to win except the one we specified. Indeed, the only reason we permitted that Rebellion to exist in the first place is so that Angelic mages would perform the Summoning Spell.”

  “I… see.”

  “Then, we delayed our attack for an extra hour to allow you to contract with an Angel. The Angels won't deal with people who already intend to abuse them, so everyone involved had to believe it was for holy purposes.”

  A nervous feeling is beginning to creep along my spine, and not just because my Angel's muffled shrieking has increased in pitch. “That was very proactive of you. I can honestly say that I'm impressed with your attention to detail.”

  “Oh, we've had many years in which to plan for this day.”

  “It shows, Wicked Vizier-san. This is easily in the top twenty percent of wicked plots I've ever heard of - no, it might even make the top ten percent.”

  “Why, thank you.” The Vizier leans back in his seat. “I've ordered kindly treatment for your heroic companion Taragon. The Rebellion's leaders were imprisoned rather than executed, just in case you had already formed an affection for one of them. We've gone to some lengths to ensure you won't bear us a deadly grudge. And it goes without saying that, unlike Angelic mages, we don't expect the Summoned Hero to work without reward.”

  “R-really?”

  The Vizier taps his fingers together. “One of the necessities our faction considered was making it certain that the terms of the Summoning Spell would be fulfilled. We don't know precisely how the Spell interprets requests like 'the Hero will overturn the Wicked Emperor'. If we just remove the Emperor ourselves, can we properly say that it's the Hero herself who overturned the Emperor? This ambiguity can't be tolerated if it has any chance of upsetting our plan.” The Vizier now wears a satisfied smile, his narrow eyes peer at me closely. “Thus, we have planned to fulfill the Spell's required outcome of 'the Hero overturns the Wicked Emperor' by your directly replacing him. Should you meet the other conditions, you will become the next Wicked Empress and be able to fulfill all your dark desires from atop the Wicked Throne. Do you like the sound of that, Perverted Hero Yugano Yuuki?”

  “Sure!”

  7. The true key to power is—?!

  To clarify my previous response, I should emphasize that I have a number of practical and moral qualms about becoming a Wicked Empress. This didn't stop me from immediately voicing my assent as a matter of ingenuity.

  Even after I said yes, the Wicked Vizier was coy about what goals I am required to accomplish. Apparently they'll be revealed to me one at a time in a certain order?

  Well, it doesn't matter! Whatever mysterious conditions I must fulfill to become Empress, my success is something that's assured! I am still the Summoned Hero with a one hundred percent probability of victory, so I will take the Wicked Vizier's conditions and crush them one after another!

  The elaborate shenanigans played with the Great Summoning Spell don't change this essential truth! At least, I don't see yet why they would! So I have every reason to hope that my success is certain!

  …I'm a little more nervous than I was before, though.

  The first stage of the plan is for me to assume a new identity: I am to pose as the Wicked Vizier's daughter. Before, this daughter has always been secluded on a remote estate due to being a bit touched, but now she has mostly recovered.

  This is to excuse any mistakes I might make as being caused by lingering brain damage. Clever, isn't it?

  My new alias is Kiri, Heiress of Rolan. (My supposed father's name is Irir of Rolan, but everyone just calls him the Wicked Vizier.)

  As for that Summoned Hero Yugano Yuuki—so far as the world knows, she was violated and then sacrificed to a Demon.

  Now, you might worry that people would be suspicious of the way in which the Summoned Hero is brought to the palace for execution, and then there's announced an exotic-looking daughter of the Wicked Vizier that nobody has ever heard about before.

  But apparently the Wicked Vizier has been telling everyone the story of poor little Kiri for years. He exhibited child actresses wearing veils, so they could stammer and whisper bizarre things. He spoke months earlier about his daughter's ongoing recovery and her impending arrival. Thus, everyone here already has a concept of 'the Wicked Vizier's secluded daughter recovering from mental disorder, expected to appear soon', existing as a distinct person from that Summoned Hero they just now heard about. If I'd been male, they would have finalized a different plan involving a dead duke's long-lost son, and so on.

  A catgirl maid helps me dye my hair a fashionable green, and do it up in the exotic hairstyle that everyone associates to 'Heiress Kiri'.

  I'm to wear a veil over my face, which also serves to conceal the Demonic prayer-strip that seals my Angel. The Vizier says that after everyone knows this veil-wearing person as Kiri, I can show my face beneath. Then, if one of the soldiers who saw the Summoned Hero perceives a similarity in Kiri, it's just a strange coincidence.

  The courtiers already know that shy little Kiri-chan habitually wears a veil. It will be wonderful if Kiri shows her face for the first time!

  People who have time to plan are scary.

  It's another bright morning in the Wicked Empire, and Daddy—

  “Please don't call me that.”

  “Yes, Wicked Vizier-san.”

  —and some armored guards are taking me across the city, to a school for people who want to become Demonic sorcerers. This is the place where I am to accomplish my first goal and meet one of the key 'conditions'. What am I to do here? The Wicked Vizier says this will soon become obvious.

  There's a bit of a fuss as the Wicked Vizier presents Kiri-chan for entry as a beginning student of diabolism. I just nod along and say “Tee-hee!”, since
I'm still observing the people around me. I'm trying to learn the local customs quickly, but I'm far from confident in my ability to pass. For now, I'm not ready to drop Kiri-chan's protective reputation of simplicity.

  The Headmistress of the school seems disturbed, and she asks the Vizier to step aside into another room. Of course I press my ear up against the door and listen in.

  “—can't believe you! That you'd risk your poor sick daughter like this! That you'd endanger her very soul!”

  The Vizier's low voice. “Kiri-chan's oddities seem to have given her some strange desires, so she may as well profit herself from all she's had to endure.”

  “Does she even know what a Demon is?!”

  “That's what you're here to educate her about, isn't it? I believe she'll do well here. Consider that an order.”

  “Won't you reconsider? Have you no qualms regarding this?”

  “Are you confused about whom you're addressing? Our government is called the Wicked Empire, not the Righteous Empire. I take pride in having personally contributed to that.”

  …this is possibly concerning? I might be quite nervous right now if I didn't know I had a one hundred percent chance of victory.

  The 'classroom' I'm shown to isn't like anything from an ordinary school; it feels like sitting in a cathedral or a museum, a huge half-circular room in which a few seating cushions narrowly surround a high dais, where a man waits to lecture us. Nearly all of the other students seem to be young boys or older men; there's only one other girl my age and she seems to be shrinking from the others.

  Oh, and all the other students here are wearing masks. But my hairstyle is clearly visible anyway, so I've just kept the veil.

  One person starts as they see my hairstyle, and then they lean over and whisper to one of their neighbors. Soon murmured exchanges are flying around the room. The unmasked lecturer, who isn't part of this whispered conspiracy, just watches me with some puzzlement.

  Finally the lecturer claps his hands, which quiets the room.

  “I'll begin with the very basics,” says the lecturer. “The magic of the world is divided into Good magic aligned with Angels and Evil magic aligned with Demons. A good mage derives power from contracting with an Angelic being, who lends power in exchange for a commitment to purity. With diabolical sorcerers like you'll try to become, the case is more complex. In the old days, the method for becoming a sorcerer was simple but inconvenient. You compacted with a mid-rank demon to serve you for twenty-four years, and at the end of those years they'd take your soul. It's surprising in retrospect how many people went along with this, since it's trading temporary power for eternal damnation.”

  Personally, I can't say I'm surprised. There's always someone.

  The lecturer continues. “Naturally, sorcerers resented the price they had to pay. There were many attempts to dissolve compacts, and the same number of tragic failures. Yet, no matter how many ideas fail, it only takes one successful idea to change the world. As we all know now, the legendary genius Fausticus found a clever method to obtain Demonic power without losing one's soul. I have reviewed this history in order to emphasize that if the current way of obtaining Demonic power seems risky or even horrifying, it is at least better than the alternative.”

  Um. I'm going to have to eat a kitten, aren't I? Oh god, I'm going to have to eat a kitten.

  The lecturer paces energetically upon the dais. “Consider the puzzle Fausticus faced! There were many rituals to invoke Demons; the ritual to gain twenty-four years of power was just the most commonly used. Other innovators had focused on performing the standard bargain for twenty-four years, and then trying to avert the price afterwards. Fausticus's first great insight was to look at other rituals besides the standard one. Today we all know where Fausticus found his solution, in the details of a little-used ritual to invoke a Succubus visitation. But consider how much searching Fausticus must have done through obscure grimoires, how many strange notions he must have considered and rejected, before happening on his tremendous idea! And remember that Fausticus knew he could try only once.”

  My ears perk up at the word 'succubus'. I don't know yet where this is going, but it sounds promising.

  “On the surface, Demonic bargains seem to have a certain symmetry. Once the ritual is invoked, the Demon must absolutely obey the conditions, on pain of their own soul being lost. A Succubus, once summoned, must satisfy any lust of the invoker for a period of three days. As with any other bargain, for the Demon to fail at this would mean the Demon losing their own soul to the ritualist. In theory, if you asked for something the Demon strongly preferred not to do, the current compact could be annulled, and a new compact forged, by the consent of both parties. Yet it proved impossible to force a Demon to invoke this clause. Fausticus's critical insight was to realize that any named Demon could be summoned into the succubus ritual, not just Demons under the Sin of Lust. And we all know the clever use that Fausticus made of that.”

  I don't know, but I keep quiet. Maybe it'll become clear soon.

  “The systematization of Fausticus's method is the basis of modern sorcery. Unfortunately, there are two key limitations on our power, which is the reason why Angelic mages can still face us as equals. The first limitation is that to summon an exceptional Demon through the succubus ritual, the invoker must be an exceptional person. Some of you are virgins, so Demons will be very interested in you; it's purity that they are most driven to ruin.”

  A-ha.

  I almost raise my hand before remembering to softly clap my hands instead.

  “Yes, you in the veil?”

  “Then would it be even better to make an Angelic compact first? Tee-hee!”

  The lecturer laughs. “Oh, if somebody under an Angelic compact was willing to make a diabolical bargain, there isn't a Demon in Hell who wouldn't respond! Ruining a holy virgin of the Angels would be an overriding goal for them. But that's not a tactic we can use to our own advantage, since the Angels won't compact with someone who intends to abuse them.”

  It's a good thing people can't see how widely I'm smiling. The logic of the master plan is becoming clear to me. There, there, you poor little Angel screaming on my shoulder, you won't have to put up with me much longer.

  The lecturer's smile vanishes. “But remember, to become a modern sorcerer, you must first summon a Pride Demon instead of a Lust Demon in the succubus ritual, then demand a sex act so shameful that a Demon under Pride would rather forge a new compact than go along with it. And, the succubus ritual can only demand that the Demon serve your sincere lusts. During the three-day period of the succubus ritual, you can't order the Demon to attack an enemy soldier—unless that act specifically arouses your desires in that way. Then, anybody who forces a Pride Demon to agree to a new compact rather than carry out some perversion, must truly lust for that perversion.”

  A-ha-HA. Truly, the right Hero has been Summoned to this world. Even if I hadn't been told the probability, I would estimate my chance of failing this stage as zero.

  The lecturer speaks quietly, seeming abashed. “So that is the embarrassing truth at the core of the modern system, and the reason why you are all wearing masks in shame of showing your faces. Anyone who enslaves a Demon must be somebody who desired an act so degenerate that even Demons wouldn't perform it. You're here because you believe you have a desire like that, but if you're wrong, the price will be your very souls. Your only gain will be three days of pleasure, and then you'll be sucked into Hell at the end of your life… yes, veiled girl?”

  “I'm sorry if I'm naive,” I say, keeping my voice soft. “I don't want to be a bother, but I don't know a lot of things other people know. What's an example of an act so perverted that a Demon won't do it? Tee-hee.”

  The lecturer's cheeks flush red. “That's, ah… I mean… well, not in my own personal case of course, but… I mean, obviously sorcerers don't talk about what they did to succeed… but, there's a rumor that one perverted desire is to have somebody put their m-mouth on
your you-know and lick until, until it happens.”

  There are gasps from around the room.

  …hey. You people. Are you messing with me? I mean, really?

  It's true that I've read about countries and eras when asking for oral-genital contact was grounds for a divorce, or times when it was called a criminal act. But is this really how some cultures are before they invent online pornography? That's hard for me to accept even after seeing it. History books are one thing, but this is reality!

  “But, you don't need to desire anything so extreme,” the lecturer says. “There's many Demons that can be subdued more easily than that, so you don't have to go so far.”

  What perversion could go less far than oral sex? I can't even imagine!

  The lecturer clears his throat. “That is the second great limitation of modern sorcery. Higher-ranked demons, more steeped in wickedness, are more perverse themselves. Even if you have purity enough to attract greater Demons in the ritual, you mustn't overreach the rank of Demon you request. Be conservative! Consider the risk if your unspeakable desire turns out to be speakable! As much as we might dream of the power we could gain by enslaving a Duke of Hell, the attempt would inevitably end with your own soul being lost. No mortal could desire anything awful enough to shock a Demon so deeply steeped in wickedness… is something wrong, veiled girl?”

  AHA HA HA HA HAHAHAH AHA—

  “I'm fine,” I say. “Tee-hee.”

  8. Do even I dare?!

  I dive into the subject matter of Demonic Sorcery with an enthusiasm that I've never shown to any Earthly scholarship. I'm sorry, my old teachers. Even if I'd tried hard to learn your material, I would not have acquired superpowers.