Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha (LN) - Volume 13 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Cup and the Monster Tamer

“I see,” Lorraine said, as she stuffed bites of food from the dishes on the table into her mouth. “So Clope’s had quite a colorful life up until now.”

After hearing Clope out to the end of his tale and accepting his request, I went grocery shopping on my way back to Lorraine’s. As it turned out, she’d been busy studying the cup, and was still at it.

It was quite deep into the night now—well past an ordinary dinnertime—but when I’d asked Lorraine if she was still hungry after she reached a stopping point and came out of her room, she’d said yes, so I’d whipped up something quick for us.

Lorraine was actually quite the voracious eater: rare were the times she had no appetite at all, and she would eat just about anything. It amazed me how much she could fit into her stomach, especially given how slender her hips were. Where did it all go?

As for me, I’d never been that big of an eater, but these days it took more than a regular-sized meal to fill me up. I suspected that if I felt like it, I could eat as much food as I wanted. I could be satisfied with blood alone, but that was a pretty dull diet, so I put in the effort to enjoy regular meals too, when I could.

“Well, I don’t mean this in a bad way, but it’s not every day that you get such a talented blacksmith settling down in a place like Maalt,” I said. “I’d be more surprised to hear he didn’t have extenuating circumstances.”

“That’s true,” Lorraine agreed. “It’d be one thing if he’d been born around here, but this isn’t the sort of place a skilled blacksmith would choose to build a successful career. Though, perhaps I’m not one to speak in that regard.”

Come to think of it, Lorraine had done something similar. She was a capable enough researcher that she could have obtained a decent amount of fame and status working in the city, yet she’d chosen a frontier town out in the sticks like Maalt.

Perhaps this place just had some strange allure to it that attracted eccentrics. If it did, then Laura Latuule would surely be at the center of it—her sheer peculiarity made the idea seem likely, in fact.

I wondered why her vampire household had chosen to base themselves here. Likely they wanted to avoid notice, since that would be a vampire’s top priority, but...why Maalt specifically?

Ah, well. Puzzling over it probably wouldn’t get me anywhere.

“Maalt’s supposed to be the kind of town where country bumpkins like me come to make a name for themselves,” I mused aloud.

Lorraine gave me a look. “Actually, I think you fall pretty comfortably into the ‘eccentric’ category...”

Well, can’t argue with that.

“Oh, right—Lorraine.”

“Yes?”

“Since it seems like you’ve reached a stopping point in your research, did you figure out anything about the cup?”

“Oh, that. The short answer is...yes and no.”

“Meaning?”

“I’ll start with its basic functions. As I expected, it’s not just an ordinary cup. It has the ability to collect a specific type of static mana.”

“You mean...”

There were various kinds of static mana. Mana with different elemental attributes, temporary localized influxes of chaotic mana created by potent spells, and clashing whirlpools of warping mana created by large numbers of monsters gathering in one place.

However, since Lorraine had called it “specific,” she likely wasn’t talking about those generalized forms, but static mana with a particular property of some kind.

“It’s the type we’re the most familiar with,” Lorraine explained. “The static mana that manifests when you kill a monster. The cup has the ability to gather that mana into a single location—at least, I’m fairly sure it does.”

“Huh. Sounds interesting. But what’s the point of doing that?”

“That’s still unclear. Well, to be more accurate...I have a good idea, but I just can’t say for sure since I haven’t been able to experiment with it yet.”

“And that idea is?”

“I happen to know of something quite similar to this cup. That’s how I struck upon the idea that it might be a magical item capable of doing the same thing, albeit artificially and with a high degree of efficiency.”

“Come on, don’t hold out on me here.”

“You haven’t figured it out already?” Lorraine gave me a meaningful look. “The static mana that manifests when a monster is killed becomes unstable, unbound from any owner. Can you think of anyone who can gather that mana for themselves?”

Ah. “You mean me?”

“There you go—though the more precise answer is ‘monsters in general.’ As a matter of fact, even humans can absorb strength and mana from the monsters they slay, albeit at a drastically less efficient rate. In other words, that capability—which all living beings technically possess—has been applied to this cup.”

“Hmm...I get it. But what would you use something like this for? Does it improve your mana absorption rate if you carry it around while you kill monsters?”

“That would be fascinating, but I won’t know until I test it. Edel’s bringing me a number of small slimes from the sewers tomorrow, so I’m thinking of experimenting on them.”

“Wait, you’re not going to give those slimes the cup, are you?”

“I am. I’ll be making them fight, observing whether the victor absorbs the loser’s mana, and if so, measuring the absorption efficiency and various other factors.”

“Hey, just a thought...but if it really does increase the rate of mana absorption for monsters, doesn’t that mean it makes Existential Evolution easier?”

“Oh, well done for realizing that! Yes, if the cup can do that, then there’s a high chance it would help.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Of course it is. But experimentation and danger go hand in hand. Humanity can never make progress if it’s too busy cowering under the sheets.”

I’d almost forgotten—Lorraine truly was a mad alchemist at heart. There’d be no dissuading her. Besides, I trusted that she’d at least implement the bare minimum of safety measures—and if things got really bad, she probably wouldn’t hesitate to dispose of the whole experiment, cup and all.

So there was no problem...right?

I looked at Lorraine. Her eyes had taken on a faraway look, perhaps because she was thinking about tomorrow’s experiment.

I began to get very worried.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Good mor— Whoa. What’s this?”

As I left my room and stepped into the living room to greet Lorraine, I was suddenly confronted with the sight of a small puchi suri swarm. The little pickpockets had been divided into several groups, with one in each group carrying a small container on its back that emanated mana.

Edel, my familiar, stood before them as if he were a military captain. Lorraine was at his side, looking terribly pleased with herself.

“Oh, Rentt, you’re up,” she said, when she noticed me. “Good morning.”

“Mmm. So...what’s going on here? You caught me by surprise—I couldn’t detect their mana.”

Edel and his other puchi suri minions, being monsters, naturally discharged mana. However, the amount they were giving off was much less than usual. Were they doing it on purpose?

“Those containers they’re carrying hold my order from the yesterday. I didn’t want too much external contamination, since they gobble up whatever mana’s around them, so I requested Edel and his henchmen to suppress theirs. They’re a talented bunch—they managed to do exactly as I asked.”

“What you ordered yesterday...? Oh, the slimes from the sewers. Makes sense.”

Slimes were primitive monsters that grew by absorbing whatever they could latch on to in their environment. That included animal and monster corpses, of course, but their tendency to take in mana was stronger than other monsters’ too.

That said, it didn’t mean they were more efficient at it—just that they were exceedingly susceptible to outside influence. Slimes that inhabited mana-dense areas were lively and took the initiative in attacking other living things, but where mana was thin, they moved about sluggishly, only able to consume the remains of already dead animals.

Slimes could be affected in other ways as well, but given how much of an impact mana had on their disposition, Lorraine must have wanted to limit any experimental bias and use specimens that were as ordinary as possible. Of course, if you left them alone for a while, they’d eventually lose any changes they’d undergone due to environmental influences or the mana of other monsters, but I suspected that Lorraine wanted to begin the experiment as soon as she could.

She was like a child faced with a new toy. Maybe all researchers were like that, more or less.

“All right, Edel, take the slimes to my laboratory—and be careful.”

“Sqreak!” Edel replied. He gestured to his henchmen, and they all headed up the stairs in perfect marching order.

I was momentarily distracted by the strange sight—a swarm of puchi suri moving like well-trained soldiers—but soon regained my senses. “You’re starting the cup experiment soon, right?” I asked. “Mind if I watch?”

“Not at all,” Lorraine said. “You might find it boring, though—it could be that nothing will happen at all. If you’re okay with that, feel free. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Yeah, I know. Thanks.”

We followed after Edel, headed for the laboratory.

A small part of me wondered what it meant that Edel had no problem obeying Lorraine’s orders when he was my familiar. Was she superior to me, in his eyes? I supposed he wasn’t wrong about that. I was freeloading in her house. The landlady’s word was law around here.

I decided to ask Lorraine about it.

“I don’t have their absolute obedience or anything,” she said. “We just struck a deal. They listen to my requests, and I supply them with food, magical items, and things like that.”

“When did you set that up...?”

“A while ago. They’ve done a lot of work for me. You didn’t know that?”

Lorraine was referring to how I was connected with my familiar.

“Well, I can read his thoughts or see what he sees if I try, but it’s not as if I can keep that active constantly. Edel’s free to do whatever he wants most of the time. I knew he’d helped you out a time or two, but I didn’t realize he did it so often.”

“Really now? It wasn’t my initial intention, but he was good at what he did. These days, I basically see him as an assistant, or maybe a supplier who drops in on the regular. He does a lot for me.”

“I’m glad he’s helpful...but now I’m starting to wonder whether he’s still even my familiar.” From the sound of things, he was more Lorraine’s.

“I’d like to have my own familiar too, but unfortunately, I’m only human. A monster tamer could manage it, but they keep the majority of their methods close to the chest, so it’d be no easy feat to learn... Actually, do you think your foster father would teach me if I asked, Rentt? I’ve been thinking recently that it’d make my research a lot easier, including this experiment on the cup.”

Recently, we had found out that my foster father in Hathara had the extremely rare and potent ability of being a monster tamer. This ability had been passed down among the residents of Hathara from ages past, and he was even able to command a lindblum—a powerful monster that usually could not be tamed.

That would definitely be an extremely useful skill to have, particularly for a monster researcher like Lorraine. I had no doubt she was just itching to learn it.

“That’s a good point. Let’s drop by Hathara sometime soon; things have settled down a little, so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to give them an update on how we’re doing. It’d be nice to see Capitan and Granny Gharb, and we can ask him about training you while we’re there.”

It wasn’t just that I wanted to see them—it would be necessary preparation for the Silver-class Ascension Exam too. If I wanted to review my fundamentals, then there was no better way than to ask the advice of the very people who’d taught me those fundamentals. Capitan and Gharb had been my first teachers in the fields of swordsmanship and magic.

Oh, and I also wanted to visit Isaac and get his opinion on the skills my monster body gave me access to.

Lorraine nodded. “That sounds fun. Even if it’s not complete mastery, getting monsters to obey me to any degree would expand my options and advance my research!” Then, she laughed aloud.

◆◇◆◇◆

We entered the laboratory, where Edel and Lorraine directed Edel’s henchmen to place the containers they were carrying on the spacious workbench.

“The slimes are in those, right?” I asked.

“Mm-hmm. Those containers are magical equipment I provided them with, designed to hold slimes of the size you frequently see in the town’s sewers. Regular-sized ones would have been too big for Edel’s henchmen to catch.”

“You made the containers?”

“I did. The puchi suri couldn’t very well have carried the slimes back in their mouths, after all. I settled on this design after a little thinking.”

In short, they were containers customized for the puchi suri to use. Would she be creating more and more personalized equipment for them as time went on? The thought was a little scary—though, it would benefit me in the sense that Edel was my familiar. His henchmen getting stronger was kind of like me getting stronger too.

“Let’s see here...” Lorraine opened one of the containers on the workbench and examined the contents.

Slowly, a tiny slime oozed out. It was about as big as my pinky finger, a tenth—or even a hundredth—the size of a slime you’d see outside of town or in a dungeon. Naturally, its magic crystal was tiny too. Not so small that you’d need a microscope to see it, but you’d certainly have to strain your eyes.

The reason these tiny slimes inhabited the sewers was because anything larger or more powerful would be detected and exterminated as it approached the town. At this size, however, they could easily creep in without being noticed.

They might become a problem one day after going through Existential Evolution, but the bigger they got, the easier they were to find and eliminate. Your average Copper-classer was enough for an ordinary-sized slime.

Besides, Existential Evolution was a considerably rare occurrence in the town’s sewers. The monsters that resided there were just too weak.

“This slime’s mostly free from outside influence, just like I asked,” Lorraine noted. “I can begin experimenting on it right away.”

“About that...how are you going to give it the cup?” I asked. “It’s too small.”

“That’s a good point, but it’s not as if there aren’t any options. I’ll start with the most obvious.”

“Which is?”

“Well, you see...”

◆◇◆◇◆

“All right!” Lorraine cheered. “Come on! You can do it!”

“No, not like that!” I exclaimed. “Like that! Yes! Go!”

I was cheering too. What for, you ask? The answer was simple—Lorraine and I were watching the center of the workbench, where the cup was fixed in place. Inside it were two tiny slimes, entangled with each other as they fought. They were each trying to consume the other.

Unlike goblins and orcs, which had a degree of inherent sympathy for their brethren, slimes were emotionless monsters who wouldn’t hesitate to attack others of their kind. Thus, if you stuffed them into a confined space like the cup, they’d immediately begin fighting.

Regular-sized slimes fought by consuming their targets and dissolving them, or using other methods like Acid Blitz, an ability that launched highly acidic liquid at you. However, it appeared that slimes this small were too weak to use such tactics. All they had been doing this whole time was trying to swallow each other.

Lorraine and I had been bored watching them, so we’d started betting on who would win.

There were arenas where you could go to see monsters pitted against each other, and bet on the outcome, but I’d never been anywhere that had one. Now that I’d tried it, though, watching these tiny slimes duke it out was pretty fun.

Since monsters didn’t take commands from people (except monster tamers, of course), the results were always unpredictable when they fought. It was exciting how difficult their actions were to predict. Martial contests between people had a general flow to them that you could anticipate. That was engaging in its own way, but fights between monsters had an allure of a different kind.

Establishing a monster fighting ring in Maalt might be a pretty profitable venture. There were already puchi suri racetracks, but I was fairly certain there was nothing combat focused.

Then again, you’d need to secure monsters to do the fighting. I doubted anyone would be interested in watching a miniature fight between puchi suri, and capturing anything bigger seemed like a lot of effort...

I decided to just hope someone else would set one up someday, and content myself with slime combat for now.

“Looks like it’ll be over soon,” Lorraine observed, as she watched the battle taking place in the cup.

She was right; both of the tiny slimes looked pretty worn out. It felt like whichever one ran out of willpower first—did slimes even have willpower?—would lose.

Lorraine was cheering for the one with a faint red tinge, while I was backing the slightly blue one. Their coloring wasn’t because of any magical attribute; as far as I could sense, both of their mana signatures were neutral. It was probably just from something they’d eaten.

Finally, the battle was reaching its climax. For a brief second, the blue slime stopped moving, giving the red slime the opportunity to spread open wide and engulf it.

“Yes!” Lorraine cheered.

“Seriously...?” I groaned.

The red slime slowly digested the blue one, absorbing it until not a trace was left and its tiny core dissolved, releasing a burst of static mana.

Lorraine’s expression became serious. “This is the moment of truth, Rentt,” she said.

For a moment, it almost seemed as if the static mana was going to disperse into the surroundings—but before it could, a strange presence emanated from the cup. The mana immediately changed direction and began gathering into a single point: the red slime. More specifically, it was gathering in its core.

Lorraine and I watched it, careful not to miss anything.

◆◇◆◇◆

“And here’s the results...” Lorraine murmured. She didn’t seem surprised so much as deeply satisfied.

In contrast, I was still skeptical. “It doesn’t look like it’s changed much...”

The victorious slime was still in the cup. While it had been the size of my pinky before, it was now as big as my thumb, because it had absorbed the mana from the loser and increased the scale of its existence. That much I could recognize.

However, that was nothing out of the ordinary. Most monsters were capable of absorbing the strength of those they defeated. You couldn’t tell where that strength would go, but it generally improved their base ability in some way.

I had experienced that exact phenomenon myself. Defeating monsters had improved my reserves of mana and spirit, made my body more durable, and increased my physical capabilities. Of course, my exact experience might have been an outlier, given how unusual my circumstances were, but it did confirm that monsters were capable of undergoing a process like that.

Therefore, the fight between the slimes and the subsequent digestion of the loser hadn’t seemed like anything surprising, at least to my eyes.

“It’s difficult to tell at a glance, but the mana was absorbed very efficiently. I saw it with my magical eyes,” Lorraine explained. “I know how much power monsters take from each other after they’ve fought. Compared to that, the slime absorbed an unusual amount. Of course, eyeballing it isn’t as good as getting an exact measurement.”

She then showed me the indicator on the measuring instrument she’d set up on the workbench before the slime fight. This tool wasn’t one of her own making. I’d never seen anything like it in magical equipment stores before, but apparently she’d ordered it from the Empire, where it was a commonly used implement at their Tower and Academy.

In short, this was a tool meant for researchers and educational institutions, not something an ordinary citizen like me could get their hands on—both from a connections standpoint and a financial one. It was indispensable when it came to measuring experimental results, though, so naturally Lorraine owned a variety of such tools.

Usually, a layman like myself wouldn’t be able to read the result on such an instrument even if I had it in front of me. However, I’d known Lorraine for a long time and had assisted with her experiments more than once or twice. I’d helped her set up equipment or measure results often enough that I made for a fairly decent assistant at this point. She’d taught me how to read them, so I had no issue understanding what I was seeing.

“You’re right—the efficiency looks pretty good,” I agreed. “Compared to the usual rate, it’s...”

Lorraine had given me the results of a trial test without the cup, and the mana transfer rate was less than a third of what it was inside the cup. That meant that simply having the cup allowed a monster to increase its strength at more than three times the normal rate. What a terrifying thought. If I’d had this back when I’d been a skeleton, I would’ve only needed to go through a third of the hardship I’d suffered.

“Of course, while we can’t rely on the result of a single trial, it’s clear that the cup is a potent object,” Lorraine said. “Let’s keep experimenting.”

Using the slimes that Edel and his henchmen had gathered, we repeated the process of making the slimes fight (and betting on them), recording the results each time. The conclusion we reached was that the cup did indeed increase the amount of mana absorbed roughly threefold.

We had set it up so that as the slimes grew bigger, they would continue to fight others of a similar size...but eventually that became a problem.

“I don’t think they’ll fit anymore,” Lorraine observed. “The cup just looks like a tiny slime bath now.”

A single slime now fit snugly into the cup, jiggling. While it had been the size of my pinky at first, it was now as big as an egg after all the fights it had gone through.

Edel and his henchmen had brought around twenty or so slimes, but now there were only two: the one in the cup, and another one of similar size on the workbench. They’d both ended up like that after absorbing the mana from their compatriots.

“Now that we’ve come this far, it feels right to pit them against each other so we can end up with a single one,” I said. That will make it easier to contain too.

“Well, they won’t be able to fight in the cup,” Lorraine replied. “We’ll have to figure out a way to hold it somehow while they go at it instead. But how do we get them to obey?”

“If that’s the problem, then...”

Tossing the slimes into the cup and making them fight was one thing, but getting them to hold it was another. It was possible, since slimes were capable of hardening specific parts of their gelatinous bodies, but it wasn’t like they were capable of listening.

An idea suddenly occurred to me. “Should I make one my familiar?” I muttered.

Lorraine shook her head. “That would contaminate it with your mana. It might force Existential Evolution and even possibly change its species, so...”

She was right—that was how blood bonding with a creature worked. It could turn people into ghouls or thralls, or make creatures like Edel observably more powerful. There was a good chance the same would happen to the slime if it absorbed some of my mana, biasing the experiment. That made my idea a no-go.

“So...what do we do?” I asked.

Lorraine thought over it for a moment. “As I suspected,” she said eventually. “Our best option for getting monsters to obey is to ask a specialist.”

In other words, my foster father.

◆◇◆◇◆

My foster father, Ingo Faina, was both the mayor of Hathara and a monster tamer capable of commanding powerful monsters like lindblums. He’d even brought us from Hathara on the back of one when the vampire Shumini had attacked Maalt.

He’d returned home after that, of course, so if we wanted to see him, we would have to make the trip. The problem was that Hathara was a long way away. It would take a decent horse-drawn carriage about a week, and that was just one way. Not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but I was preparing for the Silver-class Ascension Exam and time was precious. It was under a month out—I couldn’t afford to spend two weeks just traveling.

“But we’ve got a solution to that problem, haven’t we?” Lorraine said. In her hand, she held an innocuous blue stone. It looked like something she could’ve picked up off the ground, but it was actually a magical item that Gharb the herbalist and Capitan the hunter had given to us the last time we’d visited Hathara. The stone could create a permanent teleportation circle at a designated location.

In the modern age, nobody could create magical items of such power, so we’d had to keep it secret. If this stone were put up for auction, it would fetch an astronomical price.

Neither Lorraine nor I were particularly greedy for money, though. The stone’s teleportation ability was a much bigger draw for us, and something we had little hesitation in using. We just hadn’t decided on where to place the circle yet.

Also, having little hesitation didn’t mean we had none. Whenever you used an item that could gain you vast riches if you sold it, it was inevitable that doubts would pop into your mind. Still, given the circumstances, we didn’t really have a choice.

Besides, the exit was already fixed, set by Capitan to the underground city of Good King Felt in the Lelmudan Empire. There were a number of other teleportation circles there too, which led to places like Hathara or the royal capital of Yaaran. Some hadn’t been investigated yet, but so far there were none that led to Maalt. If we made one here, though, it would mean we’d have easy access to any number of cities right on our doorstep. Given how convenient that would be, there was no particular need to hem and haw over the decision.

I still felt a little hesitation, but that just showed I was stingy down to my core...

Lorraine, however, was the type to make a decision and commit to it completely.

“Here goes,” she said, tossing the blue stone onto the floor.

Incidentally, we were doing this in the basement of a different house that Lorraine owned, which was located on the outskirts of Maalt. From the outside, the house looked as ordinary as can be, but it had a surprising amount of room underground. That wasn’t too strange by itself, since Lorraine had purchased this house and land in order to carry out dangerous experiments, but when I’d marveled at how she’d been able to find something so convenient, she’d informed me that she’d personally ordered the basement to be expanded.

That only made sense. It had been a little silly of me to think that this had just been lying around waiting for her—nobody living in this area would’ve needed a basement that spacious and sturdy.

It was a good thing Lorraine owned a place like this, though. It had been difficult to decide where the teleportation circle should go—our first thought had been to use her home in town, since it also had a basement that could keep it hidden from prying eyes, but one little thing going wrong could result in monsters suddenly appearing in the middle of Maalt.

That wasn’t likely, since usage of the teleportation circles required the blood of someone from Hathara, but it wasn’t completely outside the realm of possibility. A monster that had attacked someone from Hathara, for example, might happen to step on a circle while still covered in blood.

We also couldn’t rule out the possibility that the teleportation circle itself would malfunction and cause a huge explosion. Descriptions of failed magic circles that made the surrounding mana go berserk and cause accidents were so common that they even showed up in picture books. Though it hadn’t happened to us personally, we couldn’t say it never would.

Given all that, we were reluctant to set up the circle in Lorraine’s house in the middle of town. We figured that establishing it on the outskirts instead would limit the collateral damage in the event of any accidents. There was a lot of open land around here with not much around, and we could put several barriers and magical tools in place for protection. It was great from a secrecy standpoint too—nobody really came out here, so if anybody did show up, we’d immediately be able to designate them as suspicious.

All together, those were the reasons we’d decided to place the teleportation circle here.

The blue stone struck the stone floor with a crack, shattering into pieces. Lorraine hadn’t put much strength into the toss, but the fact that the pieces vanished was proof that it hadn’t been an ordinary stone.

All of a sudden, a magic circle began to draw itself out from the center point of where the stone had broken.

“No matter how many times I see that, it’s incredible...” Lorraine murmured. Then, her words took on a self-mocking tone. “But even after getting such a close look at teleportation magic, I still can’t puzzle it out.”

Apparently, being able to fully analyze the magic circle and exactly how it was drawn would mean the revival of teleportation magic in the modern age. However, just figuring out the pattern wasn’t enough—you needed to understand any number of unknown techniques, starting with the stroke order and mana input method. It wasn’t something you could just look at and figure out.

The fact that even Lorraine hadn’t managed to fully analyze it meant that the revival of teleportation magic was still far into the future.

“All right, it’s done,” Lorraine said. “Let’s drop by Hathara and say hello, Rentt.”

I nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

◆◇◆◇◆

We stepped onto the magic circle and found ourselves teleported to the underground city of Good King Felt. After a short wait, a massive tiger approached us, having caught our scent.

This was a powerful monster called a shakhor melekhnamer. Aside from its imposing physical size, it possessed dense mana reserves that radiated from its body and a glint in its eye that revealed its intelligence, albeit one different from that of humans. Just standing in front of it was enough to make me shiver.

I could never beat one in a straight fight, and Lorraine’s chances weren’t that much better. If she were allowed plenty of time to lay traps everywhere and was able to fight from a hidden position, she could possibly win—but even that exaggerated hypothetical had one-in-a-hundred odds. This monster was just that powerful.

Lorraine and I had nothing to fear from it, though. We knew it held no animosity toward us—on the contrary, it began to rub its huge head against me, a low purr rumbling from its throat.

As it was, it was hard to see it as anything other than an oversized cat. Who could be scared of that?

“No matter how many times I see it, that never gets any less strange...” Lorraine murmured, watching the tiger nuzzle against me.

“It’s usually not the kind of monster that’s friendly with humans,” I agreed. “I wonder how they tamed it, back in ancient times.”

According to Gharb, this particular shakhor melekhnamer felt a bond with my blood. In other words, a long time ago, people had found a way to train monsters to have affection for certain families.

I didn’t know exactly how long ago that had been, but did that mean a shakhor melekhnamer could live for over a millennium or two? Or had it been arranged somehow that this lineage of monsters would react to my—that is, the people of Hathara’s—blood, no matter the generation? I doubted I’d be able to reach a conclusion.

Lorraine seemed to be thinking along similar lines. “You could write an entire thesis on the answer to that,” she said. “Though while you’re at it, you could write one on the existence of this shakhor melekhnamer alone too. Revealing the method of taming one sounds like a bad idea...”

“That treatise would fly off the shelves,” I agreed. I knew exactly what she meant about it being a bad idea. “You’d have a lot of dangerous people doing whatever it takes to lure it to their side.”

“Still, would you want to pick a fight with someone who could order a shakhor melekhnamer around?”

That was an exceedingly good point. “You’re right—but you would get some people who’d think they could manage if it was just the monster by itself. Maybe they’d even bring a Mithril-class adventurer along in case it turned into a fight.”

“Just thinking about that is exhausting... Let’s keep quiet about the shakhor melekhnamer. If we didn’t have it around, we’d really be in trouble.”

“You’re right about that.”

We hadn’t waited for the shakhor melekhnamer just because we’d wanted to feed it a treat like a pet. We did toss it some orc meat we’d brought, which it skillfully caught out of the air, but that was just to be nice.

The reason we’d waited was because we’d wanted to ride it out of the underground city. We knew the teleportation circle to Hathara was here too, and I could locate it with my Map of Akasha, but the sheer size of this place would make for a long trek. Not only that, but Good King Felt’s underground city was actually located on the sixtieth floor of the Old Insect Dungeon in the Lelmudan Empire. As you might expect, the monsters around here were no joke. If Lorraine and I wandered a place like this on our own, we’d be in for a bad time.

However, if we rode on the back of the shakhor melekhnamer, the other monsters wouldn’t attack us. Sixtieth-floor monsters were terrifying, but the shakhor melekhnamer outmatched them all. I couldn’t be more glad that it was on our side.

“All right, let’s go,” Lorraine said, climbing onto the tiger’s back.

I took up a position in front, while she wrapped her arms around my waist. Obviously, the shakhor melekhnamer wasn’t fitted with a saddle, so it was difficult to maintain our balance without arranging ourselves like this. Sitting in front put a number of handholds within my reach, and the strength afforded to me by my monster body meant we’d be fine.

“Right,” I said, patting the shakhor melekhnamer’s head. “Thank you. You can go now.”

With a rumbling growl, it set off, running through the underground city. I guided it using the directions Gharb had given me, and it obeyed without complaint.

A thought occurred to me. “Does this count as taming a monster?” I asked.

“Of course,” Lorraine replied. “What monster tamers usually do is form a one-to-one master-servant bond, though. This shakhor melekhnamer would obey anyone from Hathara, right? That suggests the methodology used to tame it is fundamentally different...though I couldn’t tell you how.”

“So do you think my old man used a special method for the lindblum too?”

“It looked like what a regular monster tamer does to me, but they do say higher order monsters like lindblums aren’t tameable at all. It seems natural to assume he’s doing something differently.”

“I wonder what it is. Well, to begin with, how do regular monster tamers do it?”

“They keep that a trade secret, so the exact details aren’t clear. But my understanding is that it depends on the tamer. They don’t all practice the same methods.”

“What do you mean?”

“For example—and we’re talking the most basic of the basics here—some tamers say that monsters are just like regular animals, so training them is like teaching a pet to do tricks. Others see it completely differently. I don’t know the specifics, but I’ve heard they use mana to construct a bond between themselves and the monster, or something like that. Anyway, my point is that the rumors support the idea that a monster tamer’s methods are different depending on the individual.”

◆◇◆◇◆

This was the shortest interval between my visits to Hathara in the past decade. In all that time, it hadn’t changed a bit: a tranquil little village where the people lived in peace.

Usually, I only visited once a year—and sometimes not even that frequently—so it must have seemed strange to everyone that I was back before a few months had even passed. And yet, they didn’t comment on it at all, welcoming me back with smiles. That was home for you.

“This is my second time here, but it’s just as lovely as the last,” Lorraine said warmly. After stepping through Hathara’s teleportation circle, we hadn’t taken any breaks in our walk from the ancient fortress in the forest—which took about half a day, if you went slowly—but her breathing was still steady. That was a testament to the unusually high stamina that adventurers possessed, regardless of gender. Lorraine had also enhanced her physical abilities with magic to lessen the burden even further, but she would’ve been fine without it too. You couldn’t cut it as an adventurer if you couldn’t manage a half day’s walk.

“You can say that again,” I said. “I’d like to set up a teleportation circle closer to the village, though. It would make the trip easier.”

I was actually half serious, but I still knew it was wishful thinking. There were two good reasons that would never happen—which Lorraine promptly brought up.

“Well, we only have the equipment to make one more pair of circles. I won’t go so far as to say it’d be a waste, but this is a weeklong journey that we’ve already cut down to half a day. There are better places to put another teleportation circle. Besides, I’m rather hesitant to set one up so close to the village anyway. Anyone from Hathara can use one, so...”

“Yeah. One wrong step and they’d find themselves in Good King Felt’s Dungeon City. Any ordinary person would be at their wits’ end, especially since only Gharb, Capitan, and my old man know about it.”

“Essentially. Still, if it’s just a faster travel method you’re after, it might be worthwhile to put some thought into other ideas.”

“Other ideas?”

“Mmm. Using your father’s lindblum, for example.”

“That would make the trip quicker. Though...we don’t have to get too crazy. An ordinary wyvern would do.”

If we used the teleportation circle from Maalt to the fortress, then a wyvern for the trek to Hathara, we could reduce the travel time to an hour. It was worth looking into.

Riding the shakhor melekhnamer had also made me realize how convenient it was to have a mount. Monster tamers practiced their trade so they could have monsters fight in their place or alongside them, but I was more interested in learning it to secure a new mode of transportation.

Ingo was my foster father, sure, but he was still my father. Part of me wondered if maybe he’d teach me if I was nice about it.

“Oh, we’re here,” Lorraine noted, interrupting our conversation and coming to a stop.

Up ahead was my family home. It was nostal—okay, not really nostalgic, given how recently we’d been here. My foster mother, Gilda Faina, was out in front, pushing the door open with her shoulder because of the stack of firewood in her arms. I ran over and held the door for her.

“Oh, how kind of— Rentt?! And Lorraine too!”

Apparently she’d thought I was someone else at first. She looked surprised to see me, and the emotion renewed itself when she spotted Lorraine a little ways away. I didn’t blame her—Hathara was remote enough that you couldn’t just drop by whenever you wanted. I doubt she expected us to come back again so soon.

Nevertheless, Gilda didn’t look bothered at all—instead, she gave us a welcoming smile. “I’m glad to see you back. I was worried, since you left in such a hurry last time. Every time I asked, he would only insist that you were ‘okay,’ so...”

She had to be talking about my foster father, Ingo. After he’d taken us to Maalt, we hadn’t had any contact. I’d intended to come back and let everyone know I was okay once things settled down, but with how busy I’d been recently I just hadn’t found the chance. On account of that, it sounded like Ingo had had a hard time giving Gilda an explanation.

I felt pretty guilty about that. Ingo wasn’t the type who was any good with explanations or excuses. You’d think he would be, since he was the mayor and all, but there just wasn’t much occasion to get up on a podium in a rural place like Hathara—and even when he did, he had Gharb and Capitan around to help.

My foster father’s job was mostly just keeping the village unified and running well. I couldn’t blame him for clamming up in the face of his wife’s interrogation.

“Well, he wasn’t wrong about us being okay,” I said. “We actually came to speak with him today, now that things have settled down. I’m also going to be taking the Silver-class Ascension Exam soon, so I wanted to ask Gharb and Capitan to drill me on the fundamentals. I’m a little worried that I’m not ready yet.”

“Silver-class?!” Gilda’s eyes widened. “That’s incredible, Rentt! You were stuck in Bronze-class for so long!”

She sounded so happy for me that it was hard to tell her that it was only going up in rank because I’d become a monster. I decided to evade the topic. “It’s...not that rare for adventurers to suddenly break out of their shells.”

“Really?” Suddenly, Gilda leaned in close and whispered in my ear, throwing glances at Lorraine. “You wouldn’t have Lorraine to thank for that, by any chance?”

“What’s that supposed to mean...?”

“Come on—you know. Oh! Don’t tell me you came to tell us about your engagement?”

“No! What?! Look, let’s just go inside.” I pushed her indoors with a sigh. If I’d let her continue, she’d have gotten carried away and said something really out of line.

At that point, Lorraine headed over. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Just...thinking about how mothers are the same wherever you go.”

“Hmm? What do you mean?”

“Don’t worry about it. Let’s just go inside.”

“Right...”

◆◇◆◇◆

“Rentt...and Miss Lorraine too? What brings you here?”

Upon entering the house, we saw my foster father, Ingo, locked in battle with a stack of documents. A closer inspection revealed that these were the account statements for the village’s incomes, expenditures, and taxes. Ingo took his job as a mayor seriously, even if he was hopeless against his wife.

“Well, we never really got in touch after what happened, and it’s been a while. We came to talk.”

There was also the matter of asking him to teach us how to be monster tamers, but Lorraine and I would make that request later.

“I see. I am glad to have you here...but aren’t you busy? You didn’t have to come all this way to the middle of nowhere.”

Despite Ingo’s words, he knew exactly how we’d gotten here—he was just keeping the act up for Gilda. Maybe he was also warning us in a roundabout way that we shouldn’t be too quick to use the teleportation circles.

As far as Hathara was concerned, though, I knew nobody would let the secret slip. The solidarity of country folk was much stronger than city people realized it was, especially in places as remote as Hathara. You couldn’t survive out here if you didn’t work together. That was also why it was rare for anybody to be ostracized from the community. Maalt was rural too, but it was a sizable town with a lot of people and goods moving in and out. It was worlds apart from Hathara.

“I probably wouldn’t have if it was just to check in, but there’s more,” I explained. “I’m going to take the Silver-class Ascension Exam soon, so I’m here to retrain myself from the ground up.”

“Oh? Congratulations! Not that you know your result yet, I guess...”

“Stop, you’ll jinx me. Anyway, there’s a third reason too. Lorraine?”

“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Mayor Ingo,” Lorraine said. “I’m Lorraine Vivie.”

“How polite of you—ah, but don’t feel the need to stand on ceremony on my account. You’re Rentt’s... How should I put it? You’re very important to him.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that. Likewise, this might be a little late, but...please treat me the same as you would Rentt.”

“Oh? Certainly, if you don’t mind. May I call you Lorraine?”

“Of course.”

I was expecting Gilda to shoot Ingo a look, since they were such a close couple—or rather, since she was rather mad for him. One that said, “How dare you be so casual with another woman!” But when I looked over, I saw that she was smiling, clearly in a good mood. She wasn’t the slightest bit angry.

That was rare. Back when I’d lived in Hathara, she’d snapped whenever he’d said anything more than the bare minimum to female traveling merchants or dancers.

What was more, Gilda wasn’t looking at Lorraine, but at me. Why?

No amount of thinking got me any closer to an answer. Well, so long as she wasn’t angry, I supposed everything was fine...

“So, Lorraine,” Ingo said. “Rentt said you two had business with me?”

“About that...” Lorraine glanced at Gilda.

The Gilda I knew would’ve snapped seeing that too, but instead, she said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll step out for a moment. I forgot I promised Reggie some of the jam I made the other day!”

After that unnecessarily detailed explanation for her own actions, she placed some jam into a basket in the kitchen and hurried out of the house.

I couldn’t shake my suspicions. She’d been weirdly considerate this whole time. Just what, exactly, did she think my relationship with Lorraine really was? I’d expressly told her earlier that this wasn’t about marriage, actually. Had she been listening?

Ah, well. I doubted I’d get through to her if I tried...

Once the door had closed behind Gilda and the sound of her footsteps had faded away, Lorraine resumed.

“You have my sincerest apologies for driving your wife away...”

“No, it’s fine. She’s just happy to gain a new daughter.”

“No, I couldn’t possibly be... I doubt she would be happy with a daughter as old as I am.”

Lorraine was only twenty-four, but given how rural Hathara was, it wasn’t a strange thing for her to say. In areas like these, most people married before they turned twenty. After all, since the city was so far away and danger was always just around the corner, life expectancies were shorter. Child deaths were more common than in the cities too. It was only natural that people out here put more of an emphasis on marrying younger and having more children.

These days, the average age of marriage in the cities was trending upward, especially in Lorraine’s homeland, the Empire. Theirs was a country on the cutting edge of technology, where the men and women both had elite mindsets. Rumor had it that most people over there prioritized their career over marriage.

That wasn’t a bad way to live, but if it were me, I’d want the best of both worlds. Easier said than done, though.

“I wouldn’t call you ‘old,’” Ingo said. “Hathara tends to marry later than other villages anyway.”

“Is that so?”

“Indeed. We’ve followed that trend for a while, according to Gharb. My guess is that it’s because we’ve always had brilliant mages and herbalists like her around. Children rarely pass away prematurely here, so we believe more strongly than other villages in waiting for the right partner.”

“I see. No wonder Rentt’s not at all in a hurry. I’d thought that was just a problem stemming from his personal views on marriage, but now I know where he gets it from.”

I was twenty-five. If Lorraine was past her prime, then I was right there with her.

“I think Rentt’s got a few more problems than that, honestly. Still, it gives me peace of mind that he has someone like you with him. Now, I don’t mean to repeat myself, but what business was it that you had with me, Lorraine?”

I was sorely tempted to answer Ingo’s insinuations, but they were already moving on as though he’d never said anything.

“Yes, regarding that,” Lorraine said. “I was wondering if you would be willing to teach me your art.”

◆◇◆◇◆

“My art?” Ingo cocked his head.

Lorraine retrieved containers like the ones the puchi suri had been carrying out of her magic bag, though they were slightly larger. They weren’t empty, but you didn’t need me to tell you that. She opened them and a pair of gelatinous somethings oozed out onto my family home’s table.

“Slimes...? They look a lot smaller than average.”

Surprise briefly crossed Ingo’s face, but otherwise his reaction was muted. Of course a monster tamer wouldn’t be bothered by the targets of their art, though. Besides, the slimes were small enough that he could probably tell they wouldn’t pose much of a threat to a person.

Now, if it had been one of the villagers or an ordinary citizen from Maalt, they would have definitely still been surprised and frightened.

“Yes. They’re from the sewers underneath Maalt,” Lorraine confirmed.

There was a dungeon underneath Maalt, but it was quite deep and constructed from antiquated materials no longer in use today. Fortunately, it hadn’t caused much damage to Maalt’s water system. There had been a few problems—the massive changes underground meant issues were inevitable—but repairs had been carried out and everything was already back to running in good condition.

Part of that was because Maalt’s tradesmen were excellent, but I suspected that the Latuule household was pulling strings behind the scenes too. I hadn’t heard anything from them firsthand, but you could tell they were doing a diligent job of maintaining the town.

But getting back on topic...

Ingo nodded, accepting Lorraine’s explanation. “Ah, so it’s a small variety that slipped through the town’s defenses—though it’s hard to say for certain if it’s actually a small variety, since slimes scale in size quite differently from other monsters. Supposedly they can get as big as mountains, if left to their own devices for long enough. I’ve never seen it myself, of course. The ones around here can get as big as Gran Slimes, but the smaller varieties are rare.”

“You’re quite the expert on monsters. I would expect no less.”

“He was the one who taught me about slimes,” I said. “Other monsters too, of course. Although, I didn’t study anything beyond the stuff passed down through the family, so there’s probably a lot of discrepancies when you compare what I know to a city scholar’s research.”

“It does differ from what is usually held as common knowledge about slimes,” Lorraine said. “For example, I’ve never heard about a slime as large as a mountain.”

I hadn’t heard of one either—the largest I’d seen was a Gran Slime. There were several other types I knew about, but most seemed beyond my ability to fight, and I wasn’t reckless enough to seek them out to test that.

“You don’t see them anymore,” Ingo said. “Or rather, they don’t get that big unless you have a very special set of circumstances. My father told me that they were artificially created in ancient times. It’s likely impossible for them to naturally occur.”

“But...how?”

“I’m sure you’ve already guessed, Lorraine. Existential Evolution, carried out by human hands. Slimes as a species scale in size, yes, but at certain thresholds they still undergo Existential Evolution as well. Even the smaller varieties can grow bigger and bigger until eventually, they become one of the more unique variants of their species. That’s how Existential Evolution works for them.”

“You...used Existential Evolution?”

“Not me personally, no. People from ages past. All I have are scraps of knowledge passed down from back then. I couldn’t tell you how to make a slime grow that big. What I can tell you, though, is the lindblum you two rode used to be a small species of wyvern. I tamed it, bonded with it, and induced Existential Evolution to train it into what it is today.”

“But that’s impossible!” Lorraine exclaimed. “It’s common knowledge that monsters who’ve been tamed lose the ability to undergo Existential Evolution!”

“It actually depends on the method,” Ingo said calmly. “You’ve seen the lindblum with your own eyes. I’m sure you can tell. And there’s no reason I’d lie to you, after everything.”

He might not have been lying, but he’d certainly never mentioned anything like this before. Why was he giving us such a thorough explanation now?

“The reason you’re only telling us this now...” I began. “Is it because this is something that shouldn’t get out?”

“Yes, that’s a factor. After all, it’s a secret passed down only to the bloodline of the village’s mayor—ah, sorry, I mean the ancient king. But when I saw the slimes Lorraine had brought, I figured it would be better for me to explain. And the art she wants me to teach her is monster taming, isn’t it? It all works out, then.”

My father’s tone was lighthearted, but he wasn’t being frivolous. He must have already seen right through us.

“That’s true, but are you sure it’s a good idea?” Lorraine asked. “It might be strange to hear that from me, since I’m the one asking you to do this, but...”

That was quite considerate of her, but she was right; we’d come expecting to be refused. She must have been surprised that Ingo had taken the initiative and started explaining even before she could.

“It’s not exactly a good idea, no,” Ingo said. “But we’ve entrusted you with the teleportation circles already. You already know one of the village’s secrets, so why not another or three? You can even make it publicly available, Lorraine—I know you must want to, being a scholar—as long as you don’t mention that it came from Hathara. What’s more, the slimes you brought... They didn’t get this big naturally, did they?”

◆◇◆◇◆

“You can tell?” Lorraine sounded surprised. Only a little, though—part of her must have expected it.

From what Ingo had been telling us, we could plainly see his depth of knowledge on monsters, as well as how that knowledge differed from what was commonly accepted. It was no wonder he’d immediately spotted the peculiarities of the slimes we’d brought.

“Of course I can...is what I want to say, but sight alone isn’t always enough to tell if a monster’s growth has been induced by special means.”

“Then how did you know these slimes were?” Lorraine asked.

“I got the sense they’d been forced to grow—similarly to how you’d artificially force crop growth. Not that a fast rate of growth is a bad thing for monsters, but you should let these slimes rest for a while if you’re planning on evolving them any further.”

“I’m surprised you can discern that much! What makes these slimes’ growth bad, though? If growing fast isn’t bad for monsters, then...”

“It doesn’t just apply to monsters. You know how ordinary animals develop faster than humans, don’t you? After we’re born, we can’t do anything for ourselves. It takes a year before we’re even able to move properly under our own power. But animals gain their legs mere hours or even minutes after birth, because their world is harsh. Movement is the minimum they need to be capable of, if they’re to escape death. And when it comes to monsters... Well, I’m sure you’ve figured out the rest already.”

“They need to be able to fight for themselves, or they’ll die...” Lorraine mused aloud. “You’re right. They have the ability to absorb the strength of other monsters they kill. That, in turn, makes them juicier targets for other monsters too.”

It was actually more common for monsters to hunt other monsters than it was for them to go after humans or animals. They banded together to attack humans when we encountered them, but the rest of the time, they were usually tearing into each other, fang and nail. And by killing other monsters, they absorbed their mana.

There were exceptions to this, of course, with plenty of examples of monsters coexisting. It could also differ based on special circumstances, like within dungeons, so it wasn’t a hard rule. But in general, it was a trend.

That all meant monsters had good reason for needing the strength to be independent, and as quickly as possible. It certainly made sense to me.

Ingo nodded at Lorraine. “Exactly. That’s why it’s not a bad thing for monsters to experience rapid growth. However—and this even goes for humans too—growing too quickly overburdens them. I’m sure you know already, given the size of your mana reserves, Lorraine, but a sudden increase in mana comes with quite a few problems, doesn’t it?”

“You’re well-versed in magic too, it seems. Yes. In my case, my mana reserves were no greater than your average mage’s at first, but they suddenly multiplied in the span of a single year when I turned three, causing me a lot of physical pain. All I can remember of that year is writhing around in various states of agony.”

“My condolences. But you know what I’m talking about, then. Even monsters are living beings. Their growth has a natural progression to it. Departing from that can result in abnormalities or impairments. These slimes are quite overburdened right now.”

I found myself suddenly curious—it definitely wasn’t because I was worried about the slimes, though. “What would happen if they were made to keep growing?”

Ingo considered it for a moment. “There are a few possibilities,” he said. “The most likely is that their growth hits its limit. We call a monster’s inherent potential for growth a ‘capacity.’ It’s said that if that capacity is broken, a monster won’t ever be able to grow again. This is why monsters lose the ability to undergo Existential Evolution when tamed by your common monster tamer.”

“A capacity...”

“Yes. I was able to evolve a wyvern into a lindblum because I know a method of taming monsters that doesn’t damage their capacity.”

“And that’s the method you’re willing to teach me?” Lorraine asked.

Ingo nodded. “That’s my intention, anyway. It’s not something that can be learned overnight...but you’re a talented mage. As long as I teach you the theory, I’m sure you’ll be able to put it into practice eventually.”

“I take that to mean it requires the use of mana?”

“The method I know does, yes. It requires some rather complex mana manipulation, so progress would usually be measured in years. If you’re already capable of that, though, then you only need to know how to do it.”

Lorraine looked extremely relieved to hear that, and quite frankly I was too. We had been worried that he’d tell us it required ten years of training, or something equally as arduous. We always could have given up and looked for other methods, of course, but it was nice that our first option had worked out.

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that,” Lorraine said. “Then, please. I’d love to learn it.”

Ingo nodded in reply. “Likewise, it’ll be my pleasure to teach you. Ah, but first, could you tell me about how you induced the growth of these slimes? I know a few methods myself, but this looks different. I find myself rather curious...”

“From my point of view, I’m shocked that you know multiple methods...but I’ll save that for another time. I made these slimes grow...with this.” Lorraine produced the cup from her magic bag and showed it to Ingo.

“What’s this...?”

“It’s a cup.”

“I can see that much.”

“R-Right. Well, it’s a long story...”

◆◇◆◇◆

“I see,” Ingo murmured to himself. He’d picked up the cup and was examining it. “Skeletons... Crask Village... Hmm...”

I’d told him about the skeleton-hunting job I’d accepted and what that had turned into, as well as the strange magical object I’d found there.

“Can you discern anything about it?” Lorraine asked.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but, no,” Ingo said. “Though, I have heard that there used to be magical items which could promote monster growth, a long time ago...”

Lorraine leaned forward in excitement. “Truly?!”

“All I’m saying is I’ve heard about them. There aren’t any around here, nor do I know how to make them.”

Lorraine’s shoulders slumped. “Oh... I’m glad you’ve even mentioned it, though. The fact that they once existed means there’s a chance the technology to create them still exists somewhere. And as for the items themselves, we might find more out there than this, if we go looking.”

“Indeed,” Ingo agreed, mumbling to himself. “Although, that reminds me of...” His eyes flew open, as if in realization, but then he quickly shook his head.

His reaction piqued my interest—I wasn’t used to seeing him like that. “What’s wrong, old man?” I asked.

“It’s... No, it’s nothing.”

“Come on, you’re creeping me out. If you’ve thought of something, you might as well say it.”

“I...suppose you’re right. This is just a stray thought, mind you, but...this cup can spur monster growth, and when you had slimes fight inside it, the victor absorbed the loser’s mana, correct? At a high rate of efficiency you don’t normally see.”

“That about sums it up, yes—though we still have to check if they need to be in the cup or if merely holding it will do, as well as its range of effect and whether it has any other uses.”

“No, those aren’t relevant for now. It just occurred to me that it reminded me of something.”

“Yeah? Of what?”

“A dungeon.”

◆◇◆◇◆

Though Lorraine and I were a little surprised, it made sense. At first, you might think what Ingo had said was absurd, but given the things we’d seen... Well, we could confidently say that he was right. There was a resemblance.

It was easier for monsters to experience Existential Evolution in dungeons—far easier than in the outside world. This wasn’t exactly a proven fact, but the experience and studies of leading adventurers and researchers suggested it was as close as you could get to one.

But why was that the case, you ask? What made dungeons different from the outside world?

There were many different theories, such as the mana within the space itself being denser or the enclosed area preventing mana from escaping outside. One particular theory seemed to match up with what Ingo was saying, though.

“Some people claim...that a dungeon is just a massive magical object,” I said.

“Yes,” Lorraine agreed. “And if that’s true, then I suppose it wouldn’t be surprising that they have the same effect as this cup. I still remember the explanation about dungeons that Laura gave us while we were searching the one below Maalt with her—she mentioned that there were different kinds. According to her, Maalt’s underground dungeon was an example of one created using magic crystals or magical objects. So...I suppose it wouldn’t be inaccurate to call the product of that process a magical item in itself.”

“So dungeons artificially created by magic have the ability to encourage monster growth?”

“We can’t say for certain that natural ones, if they even exist—we won’t know unless we ask Laura—don’t have the same ability. What we do know is that this cup resembles a dungeon. Perhaps it’s...a miniature one, or something like that.”

“That sounds crazy—for one thing, it doesn’t have a maze of pathways in it.”

“Well, we’re merely talking about a resemblance in function...but that does suggest the possibility that they were created with the same technology. The knowledge that created this cup might be the foundation of what could eventually become the knowledge of how to create dungeons. Isn’t that exciting?”

“I don’t know... I get the feeling things aren’t that simple.”

First of all, there was the difference in scale. Just because you could play with building blocks didn’t mean you could erect a castle. At most, this was the mere suggestion of a possibility of a connection.

“It sounds like my random musings have been rather helpful,” Ingo said, smiling.

“Yes, they are a wonderful source of inspiration,” Lorraine replied. “I think I’ll take my future experiments on this cup in that direction. Not that I’ll go in with preconceived biases, of course—with things like this, it’s fairly common to find out there is no connection whatsoever.”

Sometimes, you threw all your effort into advancing, only to find out you were going in the opposite direction. That didn’t just happen with scientific research, but with everything in life.

You had to keep your mind open to new possibilities and advance with great care—and if you did that, sometimes you’d have the good fortune of discovering a new perspective that you’d previously missed.

The cup closely resembling a dungeon in ability was obvious in hindsight, but because of the difference in scale, we’d completely overlooked it. Maybe that was why it hadn’t been Lorraine and I who’d spotted the connection, despite all our experiments, but Ingo and his fresh perspective.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Now, going back to why you’re here: learning to become a monster tamer.”

Lorraine and I nodded.

“I mentioned this earlier, but Lorraine is excellent at mana manipulation,” Ingo continued. “So it would be better for her to move straight into practical implementation after mastering the basics—unless you have any objections, of course.”

“No, not at all,” Lorraine replied. “If that’s what you think is best, then I’ll gladly listen. I’m a complete amateur in this particular field.”

“Great. And what about you, Rentt? Gharb tells me you’re rather skilled at mana manipulation yourself. You could probably pick up monster taming if you put in the effort.”

“Huh? Me? Well...”

I’d returned to Hathara to be retrained by Gharb and Capitan, but what if I learned how to tame monsters too? Would that help me in the future?

It was less than a month before the Silver-class Ascension Exam, so I knew that if I got greedy and stuck my fingers in too many pies, I’d run out of time. Still, for as long as I could remember, I’d had to learn all kinds of new skills to eke out a living. That was a core part of who I was, and that same part was now nagging at me about not letting this new opportunity pass me by.

I decided to be honest. “Like I said earlier, I came back to have Gharb and Capitan assess my combat skills for the upcoming Silver-class Ascension Exam,” I said. “I’m not sure how much time I’d be able to dedicate to learning monster taming, so...”

“Fair enough,” Ingo said. “You’ll have to discuss the matter with them. I’d only be teaching you the fundamentals, so it shouldn’t take long—but I suppose that will vary depending on whether you’ve got a talent for it. You should make your decision after you talk to Gharb and Capitan.”

◆◇◆◇◆

“So then you came to me.”

Gharb was an old woman who was both Hathara’s herbalist and a formidable mage. I had come to her home—which was also her apothecary—without any advance warning, but she hadn’t been surprised. She did know about the magic teleportation circles, after all. She had asked me why I’d come, though, so I’d given her the broad strokes.

Incidentally, I was alone today; Lorraine was starting her monster taming lessons with my father. I was fine waiting until I’d made a clear decision, but I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist the chance to learn something new, so I’d told her to get going on it without me. Besides, if she got a head start, she could help me out later by teaching me any tricks she’d picked up. From what I remembered of my childhood, teaching wasn’t my father’s forte, so maybe it’d actually be faster if I got Lorraine’s organized version of his lessons.

“Yeah,” I said. “You and Capitan were my first teachers. Lorraine can teach me about magic, sure, but I wanted to be retrained from the ground up. Herbalism from you, and swordsmanship and combat from Capitan.”

You might think that I didn’t need the herbalist training, but you’d be wrong. While Gharb had drilled a lot into me in the past, I hadn’t had much cause to use the full extent of my education during my time as an adventurer in Maalt. As a result, I was hazy on some of the parts I hadn’t brushed up on in a while.

A Bronze-class adventurer eking out a living by slaying monsters every day didn’t get many chances to show off his knowledge of herbalism, but identifying and using beneficial plants was a valuable skill—and one I wanted to maintain.

As for swordsmanship, that was self-explanatory, and Capitan was also an expert in the usage of spirit. I could use it myself to a degree, but I wasn’t anywhere near his level. There was no getting around it: I needed to be retrained.

Gharb’s gaze sharpened slightly upon hearing my explanation. “You’ve forgotten the recipes and mixing methods I taught you, haven’t you?”

Crap. She was definitely going to give me an earful. Still, there was no use in trying to lie here. “A little...” I admitted.

Gharb sighed, and the look she was giving me softened. “Honestly... I suppose it’s no surprise, though, given it’s been over a decade since I taught you, and it’s not as if you’re a professional herbalist. You might use some of that knowledge for adventuring work, but it’s only natural the rest would grow dusty.”

“Thanks for understanding.”

“Still, we don’t have much time. That means we should focus on anything you’ve forgotten that will also be useful for your exam.”

“Of course. I’d like to relearn the rest too, though, so could I ask you to teach me more at a later time?”

“Certainly, I don’t mind... Ah! I almost forgot. Your mana reserves have increased considerably, haven’t they? I can teach you about magic potions now.”

Her suggestion took me by surprise. When Gharb sold medicine to the villagers, she never went out of her way to say whether it was an ordinary elixir or magical one, even though she dealt in both and it was common practice to give much more thorough explanations, since prices differed depending on the product and different people could react differently to the same medicines.

However, that had never been a problem for Gharb because her mixtures were only purchased by other residents of Hathara, and she knew all of them. She was also familiar enough with their constitutions that all she needed was a description of their symptoms to whip up a prescription. Although she was an herbalist, she essentially did the job of a doctor or healer.

At any rate, I was grateful for her offer. Lorraine was an expert in magic potions too, but she’d been educated in the Empire, which meant her methods were significantly different from what Gharb had taught me, and since her work required knowledge of alchemy too, my progress would have been measured in years if I’d been learning from her.

That all meant that whenever Lorraine brewed magic potions, I couldn’t contribute much more than menial assistance. Of course, if I’d had as much mana ten years ago as I did now, I could’ve spent some of the time learning from her, but my mana increase was a pretty recent thing. I had prioritized learning magic, leaving the potions to her.

But if Gharb was saying that she would teach me... Well, then it wouldn’t require alchemy knowledge, as Lorraine’s methods did; it would just be an extension of my skill as a herbalist.

There was still one factor that worried me, though.

“Do I have enough knowledge and mana reserves to learn it right now?” I asked.

“More or less,” Gharb said. “But don’t get the wrong idea. I won’t be teaching you everything I know about brewing magic potions—just the fundamentals. Even still, knowing how to brew a recovery potion or two makes a big difference in a pinch, no?”

Recovery potions came in both mundane and magical forms, but as you might expect, the latter was more effective. There were other benefits to the magical ones too—they were faster to produce, for one thing. They weren’t strictly better in all respects, though. Mundane potions could have greater efficacy if truly made with care, so having access to both options was the clear best choice.

“You’re right,” I agreed. “Thank you. Though, if I’d been good enough all those years ago, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

“Better late than never. People who can brew magical potions are rare, just like mages, but you’ve gotten good enough to start learning. You should be grateful for that.”

“Yeah...you’re right.”

The downside to my advancement in power was that I’d become a monster, but there was no use crying over spilled milk. I was going to return to being human one day anyway, if I could manage it. That aside, there was one more thing I had to ask of Gharb, besides the herbalist training.

“Oh, right. Do you know where Capitan is? I went to his hunting hut, but he wasn’t around.”

I had actually gone to see Capitan first before I went to Gharb, since I’d figured I should prioritize my swordsmanship and spirit training. However, he’d been out, which was why I’d come here. Capitan was usually at his own house or the hunting hut, where all the hunters gathered, but I hadn’t seen him at either. The other hunters hadn’t known where he’d gone either, so I’d thought I’d try Gharb.

“Now that you mention it, Capitan went to the seaside. I asked him to get some medicinal ingredients for me.”

The way she said it was so matter-of-fact that you might think it was an everyday occurrence, but I was sure any resident of Hathara would have done a double take.

“The seaside?” I repeated. “How many kilometers away is that?”

You guessed it: there were no oceans anywhere near Hathara—not even within a week’s worth of travel.

Gharb smiled. “You’re really fussing over distance, knowing what you know? Didn’t you just skip over a whole week of travel time yourself?”

Ah, right. So that was how Capitan had done it.

“Oh. He used a teleportation circle...”

◆◇◆◇◆

“You got it,” Gharb confirmed. “If you want to see him, you’ll have to go yourself, Rentt.”

“Why?” I asked. “He’ll be back soon enough, won’t he?”

“Sure, but you’re pressed for time, aren’t you? He might be back in a month, but he also might not be. Hard to say.”

“Huh...?”

“Your timing is terrible. The ingredient I asked for is a bit of a bother to acquire, and sometimes it’s not even available at all. If I’d known you were coming, I would’ve held off on asking him to get it.”

“What is it?”

“A marine plant called sea spirit herb. You hardly ever see it for sale in Yaaran. It’s an effective treatment for manarust disease, though, so...”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a disease that causes mana to coagulate externally, forming a rust-like film on the body. I suppose you don’t really see it in Yaaran; it’s somewhat of an endemic disease, mostly limited to the areas in the Empire close to mines.”

“But you need the medicine for it, which means...someone in the village caught it?”

“Oh, no. One of my friends in the Empire did. A rather severe case too, so they asked if I could help.”

“Why go to you? Couldn’t an herbalist in the Empire have made the cure?”

“Actually, manarust disease is primarily treated with divinity. But what you can and can’t heal with divinity depends on the ability of the wielder, as I’m sure you’re well aware. My friend’s case was beyond their local saint’s capability to heal.”

“If that’s the case, I guess I can’t just go and drag Capitan back.”

“Fortunately, it’s not an immediately lethal disease or anything. Makes daily life a pain, though, since it inhibits your movements. It’s definitely something you’d want to treat quickly.”

“I get the picture,” I mumbled, slightly disappointed. “I’ll give up on Capitan.”

Gharb pondered for a short while, then looked up at me. “Actually...”

“Yeah?”

“Just a sudden thought—do you think you could go to Capitan and help search for the sea spirit herbs?”

“Well...are you sure I won’t just get in the way? I don’t even know what they look like, much less how to harvest them.”

“Yes, but you’re an herb harvesting veteran, aren’t you? You’ll find them faster together than just Capitan alone. As for what they look like, I can give you an illustration for reference, and you can get him to double-check. Besides, you came back to train, didn’t you? The monsters out there are decently strong, so I think they’d make good opponents for you. Just have Capitan teach you how to handle spirit while you search for those herbs. Two birds, one stone.”

“I’m not sure that idiom strictly applies here...”

“Sure it does. Look, just go and scope things out, and if Capitan thinks you’re getting in the way, just come back. In the meantime, I’ll come up with some lessons that will be useful for your exam preparations. I’m afraid I can’t teach you anything about spirit, so you’ll have to make do with something else...”

“That’s fine—you can just give me the intensive course on magic potions. If I try to cover too many different things, I might not end up properly learning any of them.”

“Is that so? Let’s do that, then. You have yourself a safe trip, Rentt.”

“Will do.”

◆◇◆◇◆

“So, you’ll be going to where Capitan is tomorrow?” Lorraine confirmed. “Alone?”

We were seated around the dinner table in my family’s home, eating a meal together. Gilda was out delivering extra portions to the other villagers, so it was just me, Lorraine, and Ingo. That meant we could talk freely about the teleportation circles—though when Gilda returned, we’d switch to something safer.

“Yeah,” I said. “So I won’t be able to take any monster-taming lessons. I’ve got enough on my plate as it is, so chasing after anything more would just be plain greedy.”

“True enough,” Loraine said. “You can learn from me later anyway, once I’ve gotten a handle on it. Mastering spirit is a higher priority for you right now, I imagine.”

The art of monster taming involved training other creatures to obey your commands, so it didn’t directly increase your combat ability. Considering that my goal was passing the Silver-class Ascension Exam, improving my use of spirit was obviously the better choice.

“Where is Capitan right now, though?” Lorraine asked. “‘The seaside’ could mean a lot of different places.”

“Since he used a teleportation circle, he’s probably in the Ariana Maritime Republic to the south,” Ingo said. “One of the circles takes you quite close.”

“Ariana... Merchants have a lot of influence there. I’ve been seeing more of their merchants in Maalt recently too. There never used to be that many.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “You played peacemaker when one of them was arguing with Rina’s friend, didn’t you, Lorraine?”

“I wouldn’t describe it like that...”

“I don’t know—I think it would’ve turned into a whole incident if you hadn’t stepped in. That aside, that merchant was not a typical example, if I’m remembering right. They were carrying cursed items, for one.”

“I wonder about that. Ariana sees a lot of people coming in and out, and I’ve heard they’re rather loose about checking for that sort of thing. I doubt it’s that difficult to take cursed goods in and out of the country—that is to say, they’re likely not that hard to get your hands on with a little effort.”

“Sounds like a scary place...” I muttered.

“Whether or not you think it’s scary, it is true that Ariana is pretty lax when it comes to inspections,” Ingo said. “I’ve been there myself, and they don’t even ask for proof of identity when entering a town.”

“Doesn’t that negatively affect public safety?” Lorraine asked.

“It didn’t feel particularly unsafe,” Ingo said. “Any disturbances were quickly pacified by some influential merchant’s private guards. For better or worse, it really hammered home the fact that the country’s run by merchants, and it would be a good idea to avoid getting on their bad side. You should be careful, Rentt—you’re the type who always gets into trouble.”

“Come on. I’ll be fine.” At the very least, I could guarantee that I’d never intentionally tried to stir up trouble. Probably.

“You don’t sound convincing at all,” Lorraine remarked. “Still, I suppose if anything happens you can escape using the teleportation circle. Just keep your eyes peeled, all right?”