SSS-Ranked Summoner: Only I Summon All Heroes And Heroines Of Legend-Chapter 21: Class 2: Entering The Summoning Gate

"Where are you?"

Ryka’s text lit up Altair’s phone.

"I’m close now, don’t worry," he typed back.

The location for their next class wasn’t the usual spot. Every freshman had received the notification along with coordinates on the Gran-Lusia Academy map. Altair however, had stared at the thing for a solid five minutes before giving up and just following the general direction.

He wasn’t always great with maps.

The building finally came into view on the eastern side of campus. Single-story, or at least it looked that way from the outside. The structure stretched wide rather than tall, a boxed horizontal mass of fine stone.

He got close, and pushed through the doors.

Inside was complete chaos, and rightly so. The instructor hadn’t arrived. All around, freshmen clustered in tight groups of three.

The noise level was high, voices overlapping as students threw around theories about what they’d likely face in the alternate plane. Some were confident, others looked like they were reconsidering their life choices.

Altair pulled his phone from his pocket again.

"I’m here, where are you?"

"At the back, a bit to the left."

"Any sign of Svenja?"

"No."

Great. He thought, pocketing the phone as he started to weave through the crowd.

"Sorry."

"Excuse me."

"Coming through."

The social circles parted reluctantly as he moved past. Groups already deep in strategy talks, some comparing summons, a few others looking genuinely terrified.

After getting to the back, he spotted movement. A hand waving,

Ryka.

She’d seen him first and was signaling from her spot near the back. He angled toward her, it was a bit more spacious at the back, the students shifted naturally to let him through.

"Still no sign of Svenja huh?" he asked when he reached her.

"Nope." Ryka crossed her arms. "So what do we do?"

"Let’s just wait, Instructor Scathach isn’t here yet."

Ryka nodded, then tilted her head. "Got a plan?"

"Just the general idea," Altair said. "Avoid what we can, survive what we can’t, watch each other’s backs. Try to last the full hour, or emergency zap back if things go sideways."

"We can’t come back too early though." Ryka’s tone sharpened. "I can’t."

"I don’t plan on it either."

And he didn’t. He had three contracts. Heracles alone was S-rank. Whatever was waiting for them in that alternate plane, Altair was confident he could handle it. The system had given him an arsenal. Now he just needed to use it.

He glanced around the hall, scanning the crowd out of habit.

Then he caught it.

A familiar figure standing with her back to the stage. Blonde pigtails, arms beside her, completely still. The description belonged only to one person.

Svenja.

She was staring at them.

In the exact creepy way people usually described her staring, like she’d been stalking. Her gaze was fixed, unblinking, she’d locked onto them the moment they’d arrived and hadn’t moved since.

Altair raised a hand and gestured for her to come over.

She stepped,

And the students around her parted immediately.

She walked in a perfectly straight line toward them, taking slow and uninterrupted steps. Her eyes still wide open, like she never needed to blink. She just moved through the crowd like it wasn’t there, and the crowd obeyed her every step.

She stopped to Altair’s left.

"So," Altair said casually. "How’re you?"

"....." Her reply remained sillence.

"Okay." He exhaled through his nose. "But at some point you’re gonna have to communicate. We’re your teammates on this one." He gestured between himself and Ryka. "That means working together."

Svenja’s eyes shifted.

Again, her head didn’t move, just her eyes. They angled toward Altair for the second time since they’d met, and something changed in her expression. It was subtle, barely visible, but Altair caught a glimpse of it.

Itwas Surprise.

Maybe because he was talking to her like she was normal. Without fear or hesitation. Just casual conversation like she was anyone else.

And honestly? Altair wasn’t bothered.

He could feel her aura, and tell she moved weird. But somewhere between Satoshi’s death and Altair’s resurrection, he’d stopped caring about surface-level intimidation. To him, Svenja was just another freshman with lots of potential and a cute hairstyle.

That was it.

Step. Step. Step. Step.

The noise in the hall dropped instantly.

Instructor Scathach entered from the main doors, her heels clicking against the stone floor with the same rhythm. She wore a similar formal robe as before, dark brown trimmed with gold, her hair pulled into that severe bun, looking like an NPC in a game.

The respect she received was main character worthy, the hall was completely silent and every student turned to face her.

She didn’t say anything at first. She just walked to the center of the room and stopped, surveying the crowd with that same cold eyes she’d shown in the intro of their first lecture.

Then she spoke.

"If you’ve formed your groups, stand close. You will be entering shortly, I hope you are all ready for this."

She placed both palms together forming a strange seal.

"When I give the signal, you will hold hands with your teammates."

A ripple of confusion moved through the freshmen.

"Hold hands?" someone muttered nearby.

Scathach ignored it. "This is not a request. It is a requirement. Physical contact ensures the summoning seal transports all members of a group simultaneously. If you are not in contact when the seal activates, you will be left behind."

That immediately shut everyone up.

"The plane you are entering is not an illusion. It is a controlled environment, but it is every bit as real as it gets" she continued. "The task is simple, survive for an hour, use your summon if you have to, and scale as much of the summoning plane as you can, while gathering information."

She raised one hand.

"If you find yourself in immediate life-threatening danger, crush the emergency talisman you are issued." A talisman immediately appeared like a necklace round their necks. "It will extract you from the plane and return you here. However." Her eyes swept across the room. "Using it before the time elapses counts as a forfeit. Your grade for this exercise will reflect that."

A few students shifted uncomfortably.

"Prepare yourselves."

Scathach’s hand moved in a slow arc.

Above them, the ceiling began to glow.

A summoning seal materialized overhead, massive and with intricate patterns, covering the entire roof of the hall. It was the largest seal Altair had ever seen. Stylized patterns layered over each other in rotating circles, glowing with a soft light that grew brighter with each second.

"Now," Scathach said.

Altair reached out immediately.

He grabbed Ryka’s hand on his right, it was warm. Her fingers tightened around his instinctively.

Then he grabbed Svenja’s hand on his left.

Cold.

Not just cool, cold. Like she’d been standing in snow for an hour. Her grip didn’t tighten. It just... stayed.

The seal above them flared.

Light poured down in columns, each one targeting a group of three. The air pressure shifted. Altair felt the tug in his entire body, like something had wrapped him and was pulling him upward.

And in a flash of light, they were taken thought the summoning gate.