Receiving the first command from their great master, the Grasshopper Men trembled with near-bursting ecstasy as they dashed through the dark, nocturnal forest of the battlefield. The order was merely to cause disruption, but for the fools standing in their great master’s path, only one fate awaited. No matter how powerful the foe might be, they would unfailingly send them to the underworld. For that alone would serve as proof of their loyalty to the supreme one.
Filled with profound joy and determination, the Grasshopper Men let out clicking growls from their maws, leaping between the ground and the treetops at blinding speeds to annihilate their prey.
—Great Silke Forest, Western Encirclement, Black Panther Unit
"Man, this is so dull. In the first place, why does our Summoner Unit—said to be the strongest in the Empire—have to be deployed just to bag some amateur girl?"
"Can't be helped. She might be an amateur, but she's the only woman in this world capable of performing that Hero summoning."
"A Hero, huh? Is that really such a big deal? Lord Enz is way stronger than that."
"I think so too, but they probably want a trump card against the Demon King, right? After all, they say Heroes show their greatest potential against the Demon King."
"And? Is there any benefit in it for us personally?"
"Who knows? But once they drag the details of the Hero summoning ritual out of her, they said we can do whatever we want with her—for research or anything else."
"Seriously?! If we can do whatever we want, that means we can have our way with her too, right?!"
"Yeah, probably. Well, I'm using her for research, though. She's the only woman in the world who succeeded in summoning a Hero, after all. There's plenty I want to examine."
"Nice! That's what I'm talking about! We came all the way out to a backwater kingdom like this. She'd better pull her weight as your lab rat by day and our plaything by night."
"Agreed."
A man with a blond bowl cut chimed in, his face twisting into an ugly smirk.
"I've always wanted to have a princess just once!"
Just as the man with short-cropped black hair passionately declared this, his face flushed with lust, a green blur flashed past them.
"Huh? Isn't your face looking weird?"
The blond bowl-cut man pointed at the short-haired man, whose face was already sliding apart along a diagonal seam.
"No, you're the one who—"
Those were their last words. Slits opened across both of their bodies, and they were neatly sliced into cross sections, collapsing in pieces onto the ground.
—Great Silke Forest, Central Encirclement, Summoner Unit Main Camp
"Wh-What is this?! What's happening?!"
The overall commander of the Summoner Unit shrieked hysterically at the bizarre atrocities unfolding one after another.
Every time a green shadow flickered, the summoned black panthers guarding the unit were cleanly sliced apart, scattering their entrails across the earth. Even the ogres, the core of their combat line, had their heads violently shattered to bits.
"I'm summoning a salamander! Cover me!"
He yelled to the subordinate beside him, but received no answer. Shifting only his gaze, he saw the man standing there with the entire upper half of his face missing.
"Aaaaggghhh?!"
Driven by sheer panic, he let out a frantic scream and tried to flee the nightmare, only for cracks to fracture across his own field of vision.
"Huh?"
With a dazed, pathetic croak, the commander fell apart into scattered chunks of minced meat.
—Great Silke Forest, Eastern Encirclement, Summoner Unit, Ogre Unit
"Contact with the main camp has been completely severed!"
"Those Kingdom bastards betrayed us! Dammit! That worthless idiot went and screwed up! That's why I should've been overall commander!"
The unit commander, Saim—a man with a shaved head and stubble—kicked the dirt, a thick blue vein throbbing at his temple.
Within the Summoner Unit, Saim commanded a summoned beast second in power only to Lord Enz's. By all rights, Saim was the one who should have been made overall commander. Yet, due to his poor conduct—a reason entirely unrelated to sheer strength—he had been left as a mere unit commander.
"Whatever. After a disaster like this, he's ruined anyway. Naturally, I'll be the next commander."
Just as a smug smirk crept onto his lips,
"What should we do, Captain? At this rate..."
His subordinate, a blond vice-commander, asked with a pale, tense face, stating the obvious.
"Hah! Like I'm gonna let them walk all over me! Hey, Troll!"
Saim glanced back over his shoulder, and a balding giant glided into view.
His crimson physique was built of dense, bulging muscle, and his right hand gripped a colossal iron club.
"I-I-Is it j-job time?"
As the surrounding soldiers winced at the slurred, gravelly voice echoing around them,
"Yeah. You can devour about three helpings of mana from these guys, whoever you want. So slaughter every last one of those insolent bastards attacking us!"
Saim laid out the terms of their contract. There were two distinct methods of summoning magic practiced by summoners.
One was standard summoning magic: calling forth an entity and temporarily commanding it with the same spell. Because the magic handled both the summoning and the control simultaneously, it had clear limits and could not call forth truly powerful beings.
The other was the "Soul Servant Contract." This was a pact to summon or command existing entities by offering a personal price. Though it demanded a specific sacrifice as compensation, it allowed the user to focus purely on summoning, enabling them to call forth vastly stronger creatures. Furthermore, only those blessed with a special Gift could forge a "Soul Servant Contract."
Saim, of course, belonged to the latter, and his order to the Troll was the execution of a contract requiring compensation.
"W-Wait a minute, Captain! That's—"
Just as the young vice-commander went white and tried to object,
"Then you'll be first."
Saim pointed a finger at him with a grin. Instantly, the young vice-commander went limp, collapsing like a puppet with its strings severed.
"Tasty."
The Troll chewed with an expression of blissful ecstasy for a moment, then lumbered over to the fallen vice-commander, hoisted the body without a second thought,
"Meat tasty too."
And began loudly crunching into the flesh.
"Ugh..."
"Eek!"
To the men instinctively recoiling in horror,
"You, and you."
Saim pointed his left and right index fingers, and those two soldiers rolled their eyes back and crumpled just the same.
Glaring at the trembling members of the Summoner Unit, Saim barked,
"You bastards, hurry up and bring out your ogres!"
Galvanized by his fury, the men frantically began summoning their ogres.
"Hey, how long are you gonna keep eating?! Finish the damn job before you stuff your face!"
When Saim yelled,
"Understood. Me work."
The Troll tossed aside the mangled scrap of meat that had once been the vice-commander and prepared to stomp forward. Right then—
"C-Captain!"
One of the soldiers screamed through pale blue lips, his finger trembling as he pointed toward the depths of the woods.
"Hm? The hell is that?"
Saim let out a baffled squawk. And with good reason. Illuminated by the faint moonlight filtering through the canopy stood a man with the head of a grasshopper.
"S-Surround it!"
Spurred by fear, one of the soldiers barked an order, and the summoners directed their ogres to encircle the Grasshopper Man.
"So this is the Kingdom summoners' trump card? Doesn't look like much. Tch, what a waste of the Troll's price. I could've at least used that kid as a meat shield."
Losing interest, Saim plunked himself down onto a tree stump.
"Just hurry up and kill it," he muttered dismissively.
The Grasshopper Man lowered his stance, drew his right elbow back, and extended his left hand slightly forward. Taking in this martial arts posture—performed just like a trained human warrior—
"Pfft! Look at that! A grasshopper putting on airs with a martial arts stance!"
Saim clutched his belly and roared with laughter.
Seeing Saim so relaxed, the tension eased slightly, and dry chuckles broke out among the soldiers.
"Get him, Ogre!"
At one soldier's command, an ogre brought its log-like right fist crashing down toward the Grasshopper Man.
The Grasshopper Man deflected the fist—which tore through the air wrapped in a shockwave—with a casual swat of his left palm, stepped smoothly forward, and drove his right fist up into the ogre's gut.
With the sickening crunch of bursting flesh and splintering bone, the ogre's entire upper torso was blasted into oblivion.
"Huh?"
"What?"
Ignoring the dumbfounded cries of the soldiers, the Grasshopper Man blurred. In an instant—
Countless crimson lines streaked across the bodies of the surrounding ogres and the summoners who commanded them. An instant later, they collapsed into scattered, pulverized chunks of meat.
"What the...?!"
Leaping up from the stump, Saim shrieked in a voice that cracked with panic:
"Troll! Kill that thing!"
"Understood."
The Troll lumbered through the pooling blood toward the Grasshopper Man, hoisted his massive iron club, and swung it down with crushing force.
"Huh?"
The Troll tilted his head in utter bewilderment as the Grasshopper Man stood there calmly holding the severed right arm that was supposed to have struck him. Then the Grasshopper Man vanished once more, and the Troll's entire frame burst, showering minced gore in all directions.
"You've gotta be kidding me..."
Unable to process the reality before his eyes, Saim scrambled backward, only to slam into what felt like a solid wall and tumble forward onto the dirt.
"What the—eek?!"
When he lifted his head, what met his eyes was—a swarm of Grasshopper Men encircling him on every side.
"Ah..."
A whimper thick with unadulterated terror slipped from Saim's throat. His screams grew louder and louder, dissolving into the freezing night air.
Trample them—to fulfill the wish of our master!
Trample them—to demonstrate our loyalty to our master!
Trample them—to eradicate every last fool who dared bare their fangs against our supreme master from this world!
For the sake of their master, the Grasshopper Men tore through the nocturnal woods, carrying out the absolute slaughter of the enemy.