by Sakon Kaidou
Apparently, she was also really high on the kingdom’s kill rankings. I knew how effective Charm was in large-scale battles better than most, so I could fully understand why she was up there. Still, it was pretty obvious that her battle style had more to it than just that skill.
Also, Catherine’s avatar was a man made to look like a woman, making the popular term “transvestite” to be the most apt description for her. However, I couldn’t tell what her gender was in real life. That was something I could normally guess after a while of talking, but the way Catherine mixed masculinity and femininity made it really difficult for me.
Due to her being like that, however, you could safely say that she had both male reliability and female attentiveness, making her fully deserving of respect.
“Did you meet the PK terrorists on your way to Gideon?” I asked Catherine while we had a chat over some tea.
“I flew over here on one of my girls,” she answered. “Seems like the meanies couldn’t do anything about those in the air.”
The words “my girls” made me glance behind her, where I saw the four maids that accompanied her.
“You’ve already met Rubiella, haven’t you?” Catherine asked upon noticing where I was looking.
Indeed. One of the four, the maid with red hair, had been with Catherine back when she’d helped me out in the capital.
“Yes,” I nodded. “She was with you when we met.”
“Well, then let me introduce you to the other girls,” she said. “The blue-haired one is Sappheanne, the green-haired one is Emerada, while the one with the eyepatch is Crystella.”
The maids bowed to us respectfully.
“A pleasure meeting you,” I responded. “I am Rook, Catherine’s junior in this trade.”
“Could you be a dear and show me your girls, too?” Catherine asked.
“Certainly. Oh, but they might break the floor here,” I said. Marilyn was a heavyweight Demi-Dragon, so she could easily break through the wooden boarding beneath us.
“Let’s go somewhere else, then,” she said. “Guildmaster! We’re borrowing the back of the building!”
“Go ahead,” said the man behind the counter. “Also, there’s a job specifically for you, so do come back and take it when you’re done.”
I had a hunch that the bartender was high level, and now I know why — he’s the guildmaster here, I thought.
Behind the guild, I summoned my monsters from my Jewel. “Call — Marilyn, Audrey.”
“My, what a lovely pair,” commented Catherine. “They’d be a match for your usual high-rank Tamer’s monsters.” She then made a friendly smile.
...Why do Marilyn and Audrey look so afraid?
“A Demi-Dragon and a Roc Bird surely take lots of space, but your Jewel looks pretty fancy, so I assume it still has room for more?” she asked.
“It does,” I said. “I’d like to get one that could travel on water. Would I find any in the marketplace?”
“An aquatic monster? Finding one here might be difficult.” According to her, most of the city’s water came from the underground, and there weren’t any lakes or rivers nearby. Due to that, not many traders here dealt in aquatic monsters. The Pimps’ Guild actually didn’t sell a single one of those.
“Oh, but you might get lucky and find one in the market,” she added.
“I see! I’ll go there right now!” I said.
“But the roads there are complicated, and the place isn’t safe, even for us Masters. I’d come along, but I have a job to do... I know, let’s do this.”
Catherine turned to face the maids behind her and beckoned the red-haired one, Rubiella.
“Rubiella, be a dear and guide Rookie through the market.”
“As you wish, milady.” The maid bowed.
“Is that really okay?” I asked.
“Yes. Don’t you worry,” said Catherine. “Just tell her to come back to me once your business is done.”
“Thank you very much, Catherine!”
Catherine gave me gentle smile and patted me on the head. That action reminded me of my dad — or mom, maybe — and made me feel somewhat happy.
Though, I still don’t get why Marilyn and Audrey become so scared whenever Catherine smiles, I thought.
After parting ways with Catherine, Rubiella guided us to and around the market in the fourth district.
“In this market, there’s a street-based bazaar and shops set up in buildings,” she explained. “You might find bargains in the bazaar, but if you don’t have a high enough Identification skill, you could end up purchasing counterfeit or inferior goods, so I cannot recommend it. The wares in shops are far more trustworthy when it comes to quality and authenticity, but that makes their price a bit higher.”
“So, first-time shoppers like myself are better off using the shops, right?” I asked.
“Indeed,” she confirmed. “Also, you can set up your own stall in the bazaar. The places you can use are managed by the fourth district’s manager. For a daily payment, you can sell your products here even if you’re not a merchant.”
As she told me such things, we entered a small, secretive alleyway.
“Since you wish to purchase an aquatic monster, I will introduce you to a shop that Milady is well-acquainted with. If you don’t find what you need there, we will look around the bazaar.”
“That sounds good,” I said.
As she guided us, Rubiella repeatedly did a strange hand-waving motion. I found it curious, but before I could ask what it meant, we arrived at a shop at the very end of the alleyway.
The secretive establishment had a sign saying “Monster King’s Shop, Central Continent Branch.”
That name was strange. After all, Infinite Dendrogram had only one continent, so “Central Continent Branch” didn’t really make sense, since it implied that their main shop was somewhere else. The only places that came to mind were the far-east island nation of Tenchi or the maritime country, Granvaloa.
Or perhaps... No, I still don’t have enough knowledge to theorize about this, I thought.
“Welcome!” the person behind the counter greeted us as we entered. “Oh? Well, if it isn’t Rubiella.”
The person was small in stature — about one head shorter than me. He was notable for the pitch-black robe and the hood hiding his face.
“It’s been a while,” said Rubiella. “Are you the one tending to the shop today, manager?”
“Yeah, I do it every once in a blue moon,” answered the person. “Where’s Catherine?”
“Milady is not here this time. She told me to help out young master Rook.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” I said. “I am Rook, Catherine’s junior in the trade.”
“Well, now that’s rare,” said the shopkeeper. “I assume you’re here to buy monsters, then? What do you have in mind?”
“An aquatic monster, please.”
“Aquatic, eh? There’s little demand for those here, so we don’t have anything particularly rare. We do have a corner for them, though.” He left the counter and began leading us to it.
This shop seemed to deal exclusively in pre-tamed monsters. The shelves had countless Jewels on them, and I could see the monsters they held by simply looking inside.
Oh, there are even Jewels with Tri-Horn Demi-Dragons like Marilyn inside. It’s kinda hard to tell whether this is more of a pet shop or a jewelry shop, I thought as we approached a booth lit by a bluish light.
“This is the aquatic monster corner,” said the shopkeeper. “Do look around.”
“...Wow,” I muttered. Though the keeper had said that they didn’t have anything particularly rare, I could see several jewels with aquatic Demi-Dragons. It was clear that the selection was good.
“Our varied selection of land-dragons and sky-dragons extends to Pure-Dragons, too,” he said. “Not sea-dragons, though.”
Still, the wares here in the Monster King’s Shop were far above the ones sold at the market we’d passed. They even
had tamed Pure-Dragons, which were considered to be a rarity. Despite that, the prices here weren’t particularly greater than the ones in the bazaar. One would expect them to have completely sold out by now.
That reminded me that Rubiella had made some strange action before entering the shop, so this might’ve been one of those establishments that only allowed a select few individuals to browse. I wasn’t completely certain about that.
In any case, it was quite obvious that, in this shop, I’d have no trouble finding a new teammate that matched Marilyn and Audrey.
“Since you’re a friend of Catherine’s, I’ll allow you to pay by installments,” said the shopkeeper.
“How nostalgic,” commented Rubiella. “When Milady and I met here, she also paid by installments.”
“Oh, that was a bit over four years ago, wasn’t it?” he said. “Time sure flies...”
While the two were conversing, I examined the aquatic monsters on display, but...
“I just don’t know,” I muttered.
“What’s wrong, Rook?” asked Babi.
“Demi-Dragons not good enough?” inquired the keeper.
“No, I wouldn’t say so. It’s just that...”
I had nothing against Demi-Dragon class monsters. In fact, when taking cooperation with Marilyn and Audrey into consideration, they were actually better than Pure-Dragons. However...
“They just... don’t click,” I said. “When I met Marilyn and Audrey, the monsters with me right now, I had some strange feeling drawing me to them. Here, however, I’m not getting it at all.”
When I’d chosen Marilyn as my reward from Grantzian and when I’d faced Audrey in that battle, I’d had a sensation drawing me to them. I didn’t get it when looking at any of the monsters here in the shop, and that included the Pure-Dragons, which were supposedly stronger than both Marilyn and Audrey. It was a really vague feeling that I found hard to describe.
“Oh, I see.” The shopkeeper nodded as if he could understand me completely, and Rubiella seemed to share his sentiment, as well.
“‘Rook,’ was it?” he said. “I can see that Pimp is your vocation, but you seem to have the makings of a Tamer, as well. Not many people are equipped with intuition like yours.”
“Really?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Yes. And because of that, I don’t think you should limit yourself to aquatic monsters. Take a look at every Jewel in my shop and search for the one that clicks.”
“All right. I’ll see if I find anything,” I said before walking away from the aquatic monster corner and looking at other Jewels in the shop.
“A natural, non-sense skill Beast Judgment, eh?” said the shop owner as I walked away. “With Catherine and that other person, that’s a total of three now.” Those words stuck with me, for some reason.
After that, I spent about two hours looking at the Jewels here, but the results weren’t great. No matter how many thousands of them I examined, I didn’t find a single monster that “clicked.”
“Well, that’s a shame,” said the shopkeeper.
“Sorry for wasting your time,” I apologized.
“No need for that. A business wouldn’t function if we didn’t allow our customers to examine our wares as long as they liked. Though, now you’ll have to look around the bazaar...”
“Indeed,” agreed Rubiella. “However, using Beast Judgment in the bazaar is quite...”
“Oh, right. Even a Master would be in trouble if they found out.”
They were talking about something, but I didn’t know what “Beast Judgment” entailed, so I couldn’t really follow the conversation.
“...Huh?” I asked.
Suddenly, I noticed something.
On one end of the shop, there was a metallic pot, large enough to fit a child. The lid was off and lying at the base of the pot. For some reason, it was surrounded by a chain bearing a warning coloration, as if to say that the pot was off-limits.
It stands out so much, so how didn’t I notice it before? I asked myself before curiosity took over. I approached the pot and pointed my left hand at it.
“Shopkeeper, this pot is...”
“Pot? Ah...?! GET AWAY FROM IT!”
His shout startled me into quickly backing away. A moment later, something silver passed the space where my index finger was. I looked and noticed that the warning chain was severed. The cut was so clean and flat that it almost felt as though it could be fixed if you simply put the pieces back together. My finger was slightly damaged, as well, but a bit of rubbing was enough for the cut to close and leave only a small mark. It seemed like I was cut by an extremely sharp blade moving at an immense speed.
However, that was quite far from the truth.
What had cut me wasn’t a blade, but a liquid. I saw some of it hang on the edge of the pot before returning inside. The liquid was silver and had a mysterious glossiness. The sight was bizarre, and I simply couldn’t look away from this monster.
“Sorry about that,” said the shopkeeper. “This one’s dangerous, so I had an isolation barrier around it. Seems like it got broken.”
“I’m quite fine,” I replied. “What is this, though?”
“It’s a Mithril Arms Slime,” answered the shop owner as he cast some spell and fixed the chain. “A rarity among the already-rare metal slimes. They have bodies made of liquid mithril and attack by quickly turning themselves into weapons.”
Mithril Arms Slime, I repeated the monster name in my head.
“I got it in an auction, but it wasn’t tamed, you see,” he continued. “I was planning to ask a Tamer I was acquainted with to tame it, but before I could do that, I accidentally unsealed it, and now it’s in this state.”
“‘This state,’ as in...?” I asked.
“Constantly on alert and prepared for battle. Thing’s now completely volatile, cutting any living creature that comes close. It’s also more difficult to tame it now, and moving it from there is really tricky, so I couldn’t really do much besides creating a barrier around it. Slimes don’t even get tired, so waiting it out isn’t an option, either. Sure, killing it would take care of this mess, but I don’t want to see the money I’ve spent go down the drain.”
“How much did you spend on it?” I asked.
“10,250,000 lir. These slimes aren’t the strongest things, but their rarity makes them cost a pretty penny.”
Hearing the price made me freeze for a moment. However...
“Shopkeeper,” I said.
“Yes?”
I gathered my resolve and told him what I wanted. “I’ll tame the slime, so could you sell it to me?”
My words made the shopkeeper, Rubiella, and the monsters inside my Jewel turn silent with surprise. Only Babi had her usual smile on her face.
“Though I’d like to pay by installments, if you don’t mind,” I added.
“I’ve already said that I would allow that,” he said. “Are you sure, though?”
“Yes. I mean... the slime clicked with me,” I responded with a smile, caused by an unwavering belief in my own intuition. “I will tame her.”
Simply because I wanted her, I chose to tame the Mithril Arms Slime — a creature yet to be tamed by anyone.
◇
Mithril Arms Slime.
According to the shop’s owner, they were a rarity even among the already-rare metal slimes.
Not carnivorous, herbivorous, or omnivorous, their diet consisted of water and metal ores, especially mithril.
All slimes had liquid bodies, and these were no exception. However, Mithril Arms Slimes had the special ability to instantly harden and turn parts of themselves into weapons. When attacked, they either turned their bodies into mithril shields or used their slime-like liquid state to maneuver out of harm’s way.
The number of these slimes that humanity had found was still in the double digits, while the amount that had been killed didn’t even break twenty. And so far, not a single one of them had ever been tamed.
Ag
ain — the Mithril Arms Slime, as a species, had yet to be tamed.
I was told that some Tamers had gotten them into a tamable state, but had gotten their right hands cut off when they’d tried to form a contract.
Normally, when monsters are in a tamable state, all the person has to do is touch them and form a contract to complete the taming. I’d already gone through that with Audrey, and she hadn’t resisted at all.
However, Mithril Arms Slimes were different in that regard. As long as they were in an alert state, they didn’t hesitate to attack the Tamers even after they became tamable.
Due to that, they were considered to be even more difficult to tame than Pure-Dragons.
“We’ve had some customers who wanted to try and tame it, but they’ve all failed,” said the shopkeeper. “There were people with maxed out high-rank tamer grouping jobs, but even they weren’t successful.”
Basically, it was impossible even to the best of Tamers.
Some would probably laugh at the idea of a newbie such as myself having a go at such a challenging task, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t try.
I knew people who wouldn’t give up no matter how great was the challenge before them, so I wanted to follow their example.
And follow it I had been... for over four hours now.
Facing the pot with the Mithril Arms Slime inside, I silently extended the thing in my right hand towards it. It was a thin rod less than a meter in length — a mithril wire. Mithril was their staple food, and I figured that trying to feed it wouldn’t hurt.
I’d gotten the wire by asking Rubiella to go to the bazaar and buy it.
Now, she was at the counter, talking about something with the shop’s owner.
“I’ve heard that the grandchild of the Luor Company’s president got kidnapped by the Gouz-Maise Gang,” I heard her say.
“Those scumbags still at it?” responded the shopkeeper. “How many times has this happened now? It’s above one hundred, isn’t it?”
I’d heard the name “Gouz-Maise Gang” several times while in this city. From what I could tell, they were a vile group that troubled Gideon and its surroundings by kidnapping children.
What kind of person steals children, of all things? I thought, pure disgust welling up within me.