Low-Fantasy Occultist Isekai

Nothing happened again.

Soldiers hurried about, double-checking supplies and quietly bickering over shift changes. Someone was always on the lookout—while another rushed by with a worried frown.

Nick exhaled slowly, allowing the swirl of anxious energy to wash over him. Despite the two days that had passed since the temple was attacked, no stampede had come.

He felt relieved to finally be heading home. After his father announced a double watch and asked everyone who could to lend their support, Nick had effectively been conscripted as a scout.

Floria had looked grim before, but now the tension in the air was palpable at every corner. The sun hung low in the sky as Nick trudged away from the wall.

"Kid," a tired woman acknowledged, tipping her helmet at him as he passed. She was one of many new recruits apparently impressed with his "scout spells." They all had the same haunted look these days, jumpy and exhausted from the constant state of high alert.

He nodded back. "Shift's done. Good luck up there."

Truth be told, Nick found the time spent here tedious. He tried to focus on what might be lurking beyond the town's perimeter and used [Wind God's Third Eye] to scan the treelines, half-expecting another Vine Wraith or perhaps an entire horde of them. But the forest remained silent. That felt worse than any visible threat.

Floria was like a coiled spring ready to snap. Everyone expected an attack, and yet it never came.

The buildings housing the temple's deposit and greenhouse had been damaged, but they had been repaired quickly, and only a few priests sustained minor injuries. The four adventurers he and Eugene rescued had also recovered, albeit battered and shaken.

Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to lift morale. Whispers in the marketplace spoke of illusions seen at night or eerie calls in the wind. The gloom was all-encompassing. People flinched at every scrape of cartwheels or breeze that rattled the shutters. Nick could visibly see the exhaustion weighing on everyone.

I wonder if that's part of their strategy. They have the advantage of knowing our location, and while Arthur has gone back into the forest to find theirs, I doubt that even a Prestige warrior can pierce through a fey court's illusions. If they can keep us this tense for a while, we'll simply drop dead without the need to attack.

He made a beeline for his house, avoiding the market altogether, working out a kink in his shoulder from holding [Force Shield] for too long during the day's drills. With his father and mother busy at the wall and Akari gone to guard the caravan—which had paid double her salary to ensure her mere presence as a guarantee for their safety—Nick had the house for himself. As for Devon… well, he was probably with his girlfriends or brooding about leaving Floria.

"How about that," he murmured under his breath, pushing the front door open. The house was quiet and dim, with the late afternoon sun slanting through the cracks in the shutters. He felt a small thrill of relief. Finally, some solitude to do something he'd been planning since the fae's demise.

He hurried upstairs, quickly latching the door to his room before moving to the window to ensure the yard was clear.

No one. Perfect.

He got to work. With great care, Nick drew a small chalk circle on the floor, incorporating symbols from Earth's thalamic traditions that he adapted to the System's runic syntax. To the untrained eye, it resembled a child's scribbles, especially with his flourish of Egyptian hieroglyphs at the edges. However, it was based on months of experimentation and hours of study. If anyone barged in, he could say it was just a simple warding circle to keep illusions at bay. Nothing a promising young mage couldn't create with some effort.

Nick knelt, brushing chalk dust off his palms. He paused, rifling through the hidden pocket of his bag to retrieve the two vials that would make the ritual possible.

"What am I to do with you?" he muttered, glancing at the chunk of flesh. A summoning offering, perhaps, to coerce an intelligent astral entity into aiding him? The piece would almost certainly empower a binding ritual, especially if he used thalamic practices to anchor it. But the blood… the blood might be the perfect reagent for binding a spirit to the house.

He sighed, eyeing the circle he'd only half-finished. He could glean secrets from an entity if he used the flesh for the summoning. That would be doubly valuable now, with Floria about to be attacked by that type of enemy. However, a genius loci to protect his family from future illusions or mental attacks was just as tempting. He'd survived the fae's attempt to enter his mind thanks to [Blasphemy]. His family had no such trait to guard them.

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He shifted, uncertain, and that was when a sudden rattling noise came from under his bed. Nick froze, heart thumping. He inched closer, hooking a finger under the chest's handle and pulling it into the light.

Undoing the latch, Nick carefully lifted the lid. Inside, his prized Grimoire of Semreh vibrated as though possessed by life. The pages rustled, flipping of their own accord until they settled on thick parchment splotched with a half-faded diagram. Strange characters danced along the margins like flickers of a half-lit flame.

Curiosity overcame caution. Nick brushed aside the chest cover for a better look. The title scrawled across the top in archaic script: "To Summon a Familiar & Bind it to the Household."

He breathed out. A familiar… that was one of the oldest practices from Earth's witchcraft, which he had never explored because spirits rarely answered a call there. He hadn't thought about doing it here because he would have a hard time justifying it to his parents. However, with the right reagents and a strong urge to learn more about incorporeal beings, Nick was ready to give it a try.

He ran his gaze over the subheadings:

1.Selection of Reagent (Essence of a Higher Spirit or Fey)

2.Circle Preparation for Symbiotic Binding

3.Ancestral House as Anchor

4.Warnings & Consequences

This could be the ideal solution. By summoning a familiar tied to the house, he'd effectively create a living ward—a spirit capable of protecting the property from spiritual and corporeal intruders. While it may not be as straightforward as standard runic protection, a genius loci would surpass anything else in versatility and efficiency.

Yet he knew it was risky. Binding a spirit wasn't child's play. One misstep, and it might revolt—or twist the clauses of its contract to harm the household. The chunk of fae flesh or even just the blood would certainly bolster the ritual's potency, but was that wise?

He re-read the instructions. The first step was "Attaining the correct synergy with the anchor"—meaning ensuring the home itself was recognized by the spirit as ancestral land and had an occupant with enough mana to solidify the bond. Nick let out a chuckle. He was that occupant.

He settled back on his heels, filled with excitement. The Grimoire's words sparked half a dozen ideas: perhaps he should call a wind-aligned spirit since his strongest affinity was air. A being that would guard the property's borders and be everywhere at once. However, the question of what exactly to sacrifice and how to structure the ritual lingered. He lacked element-specific ingredients, and waiting much longer wasn't wise.

Currently, the stakes were high. With a properly bound familiar, he would not only gain a secret trump card—he'd also ensure his family's safety for when he was no longer around. The thought that the system would likely recognize this as an Occultist-specific activity and award him a significant amount of Exp wasn't far from his mind.

Then, a small sting of guilt pricked at him. Did he really have any right to do this without telling Dad or Mom? They would surely disapprove of him dabbling in such experiments. Yet they were the ones who would benefit most from a hidden guardian.

Nick's gaze dropped to the vials again.

He inhaled. Maybe in another day or two, he could have done further research and made sure he understood everything the book was telling him to do. But time was short—Floria was in a precarious place, and the forest was too calm. I also don't know if I'll have another chance like this.

A half-smile crept onto his face. "Alright, Semreh," he whispered, brushing a fingertip across the page, "let's see what your idea of a 'familiar' truly is."

Nick carefully began rearranging the circle, copying each symbol from the Grimoire's instructions onto the chalk lines. He worked slowly, mindful that any error in the design might twist the ritual or unleash something monstrous.
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Once he was done, Nick lit the final candle with a snap of his fingers. The ring of salt gleamed dully where it bordered the ritual circle, and he muttered a silent prayer of thanks that he had managed to gather just enough from the kitchen. Semreh's instructions hadn't mentioned salt at all, but he refused to gamble with such a critical element of Earth's protective rites. He had seen enough near-disasters to know better.

He double-checked the lines for any smudges. A single break in the circle could allow an unwanted force to slither in. Satisfied, he collected the half-filled vial of fae blood and measured out only seven drops. The fluid hissed faintly as it touched the chalk lines, suffusing them with a phosphorescent glow.

Next came his own blood. The ritual text didn't specify how many drops, only that it required some "measure of mortal life." Nick decided on three. Three was stable; three was powerful. His grandfather had cautioned against undefined amounts, warning that they left spells dangerously ambiguous. By selecting a precise number, he could be sure he could maintain control. With care, he pricked his finger and let three crimson beads fall in the center of the circle.

A warm pulse coursed through the air. Candles flickered, and for a moment, the entire room felt fuller—like someone else had entered. Nick cleared his throat and began to chant. He used a blend of the Thelemaic language from Earth's grimoires and the runes Semreh provided. The words felt clumsy on his tongue at first, but as he repeated them, weaving a thin layer of power around him.

"Now Silence ceaseth

And the moon waxeth sweet;

It is the hour of Initiation, Initiation, Initiation.

The kiss of Isis is honeyed;

My own Will is ended,

For Will hath attained."

He sensed the moment the barrier between worlds parted. A handful of shapes lurked at the edges, prowling just beyond the chalk line. Their presence gave off a hungry, grasping aura, and Nick bared his teeth instinctively. Hostile, if weak spirits, drawn by the enticing mixture of mortal blood and fae essence. But the salt boundary and the runic wards on the circle shimmered protectively, denying them an easy foothold in the mortal plane.

A hiss rattled against the ceiling, but Nick refused to flinch. He kept chanting, focusing his concentration on locating a purer note within the swirling mass of entities. He pictured an unsoiled force, something harmonious with his house and the protective boundary he was forming. It took a while, and being so exposed to the Astral Plane wasn't pleasant, but he felt a gentler aura slip through the wards, gliding past those hungry beasts. Relief filled him as a faint glow brightened at the heart of the circle.

Slowly, the light shaped itself into a small, sleek figure. Nick stared in awe as the luminous form solidified into the recognizable silhouette of a cat, tail flicking with lazy confidence. Its fur gleamed silvery-blue, an impossible color in the mundane world. Large eyes, far too wide for an ordinary feline, observed him calmly.

The hungry phantoms at the circle's perimeter threw themselves at the barrier again, but with a ripple of mana, the catlike spirit's presence sealed the circle. Nick allowed himself a short, relieved exhale. The malevolent shapes fizzled and vanished, scattering as if a strong breeze had driven them off.

The ritual was successful.