Ritzy felt a sticky, slimy something envelop his hand as the white clump of hair relaxed after entirely absorbing the impact of his strike.

The tuft of white hair stopped resisting so much that Ritzy thought he had accidentally killed it. And he quickly realized that it was a possible outcome. The thing seemed incredibly weak, even if it was tricky to deal with. It was also very small, so Ritzy smacking it with his entire hand had probably dealt a lot of damage to it.

Ritzy also couldn’t feel any life from it, which was obvious, considering he had summoned it by using a necromantic summoning circle. But, it was like the pile of bones that had lost their eye lights. There wasn’t any spirituality left.

Ritzy felt the half-established contract begin to fade. And that was enough confirmation.

“No, you don’t!”

Ritzy refused to accept it. He couldn’t believe he had killed his first successful – not technically successful – summon. Fortunately, he was a necromancer!

Things such as death were nothing more than a mindset. He couldn’t even be considered a Novice. He was barely even a trainee, but Ritzy was still a necromancer. He could summon creatures, and he could use his mana.

That meant it should be possible for him to revive his summons as well.

Ritzy clenched his teeth and forcefully finished the subordination contract between himself and the tuft of hair. Since the thing was dead, there wasn’t any resistance, and the contract was sealed with a snap as if someone had closed a wooden lid.

If he couldn’t successfully revive the thing, Ritzy would probably suffer some kind of backlash due to the forceful completion. But he had to do it if he wanted to inject his mana into the thing in an attempt to reanimate it.

Ritzy pumped his mana into the thing like there was no tomorrow or end to his mana. Unfortunately, there was both a tomorrow and an end to his mana.

After five repeated summoning rituals, Ritzy had already used a lot of mana, and he could feel it rapidly draining as he tried to flood the thing into waking up again.

But it was useless. All of Ritzy’s mana leaked out of the thing without doing anything. And the thing that had turned into a sticky, stringy mess that coated his head and hair spread like melting ice cream.

Ritzy didn’t know what to do.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

He had focused his studies on summoning and the Dark One. He had prepared to summon strong things that didn’t need to be revived. Besides, reanimating dead summons was a pretty advanced spell, so it was only natural that Ritzy couldn’t do it just by pumping all of his mana into his summoned creature.

The only thing that seemed to happen after Ritzy emptied out most of his mana was that the hair stopped melting and spreading after completely covering his hair.

Ritzy wasn’t sure what had happened, but the thing stopped degrading, the contract was still in place, he had white hair now, and no mana.

Ritzy wasn’t sure if he had failed or not since the contract was still there, but the tuft of white hair hadn’t shown any signs of getting reanimated by his mana. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything he could do since he was out of mana.

He was about to sit down and rest as a way of setting his sixth failure aside before continuing with the next circle when he had recovered enough mana when he felt a stinging pain assault his scalp and hair roots.

At first, Ritzy just combed his hair and ruffled it with his fingers to try and shake off the white tuft of hair that was obviously the source of the pain. But no matter how much he patted, smacked, grabbed, or twisted his hair, nothing came off. It was as if the white hair he had summoned and killed had fused with his hair.

But the pain only worsened, and Ritzy’s already fragile sanity buckled. He began digging into his scalp with his fingernails to try and get rid of the problem with the roots. Literally.

The relief brought by the warm blood spilling over his scalp was sweet but tauntingly short. Like a drop of water in the desert.

Eventually, even the pain of scratching open his scalp was soothing compared to the fiery pain of his hair turning into acid connected straight to his brain.

The pain was so overwhelming Ritzy couldn’t even think. He moved on instinct as he clawed at his head.

Yet, despite how much he dug and tore at his head and hair, not a single strand fell out. If anything, it felt like the opposite happened. The more he scratched open his skin, the deeper the hair drilled into his head.

As he sought release from the pain, Ritzy, in his pain-addled state, remembered what he had done just a short while ago to escape the maddening rage of failure.

But he couldn’t muster the strength to move his hands from his head to his neck.

The only thing that could help him bear the pain at the moment was his hands and the way they scratched open his scalp until skin filled his nails and blood dripped down his pale face, contorted in pain.

But the pain grew worse with each passing moment. Before Ritzy lost his sanity entirely, he had to put an end to it.

By now, he wasn’t even sure that losing consciousness would help since the pain would just snap him out of it.

Out of desperation, Ritzy tried to control the hair using the subordination contract he had with it. Since he had subordinated the hair, it should listen to him even if he didn’t use any mana.

But he couldn’t feel a connection with the hair, and the contract had dissolved and vanished.

Ritzy wasn’t clearheaded enough to think about why or what had happened. He only knew that something was wrong, awfully wrong.

It felt like he was about to die.