Dia looked at him confused, then looked around herself ready to go, but seemingly mellowed out as Sam didn’t seem to react to anything around him.

Looking at nothing, he stared at the System message that, on his mental command about finding out what this was, closed the Conditions met message and opened another.

[ Player has earned the trust of the Beastfolk [ Dia ], Bonding is possible. ]

“What?” He turned to Dia. “You trust me? You don’t even know me?” He sounded oddly insulted like the message had told him that she hated his guts or something.

Her ears lowered, her tail stopped swinging and her entire body language displayed uncertainty, a hint of fear and a submissive nature. “Vrana Sa zarka? Var Frana?”

The only part that Sam understood, was that it was a question, he got the gist of her body language but he had no idea what she asked.

“No... I mean... Fuck...” Taking a moment to calm down, he changed his mood. There was nothing bad about what the message stated, he was just so surprised at everything. He had known her for... almost some of today. Sure, she might have registered and seen him during the healing process and during that thought he realised what was going on.

He had spent, in her mind, probably several days nurturing and caring for her. Though not wrong she might not have the same concept of time and it might have felt longer or shorter. In short, she knew he had been caring, nurturing, cleaning and feeding her during her healing. She might also have noticed him killing the Goblins and taking her out. He had no idea how much of this she remembered or even noticed, but it wasn’t entirely uncommon for people in dire situations to latch onto the ones helping or saving them. Sam had read about firemen on Earth getting similar effects.

Calming his voice, he turned towards her with a much better tone, just his anger disappearing seemed to help her body language. “Don’t worry. I’m not angry with you, I’m just... surprised. You don’t know me and now you trust me?”

He knew she didn’t understand any of it, but he was glad to see that his calmer talk did wonders for her.

Her ears perked up, though her tails were still almost between her hind legs as she held herself low to the ground, only lifting her head quizzingly. “Sa 'yap' zarka?” The Yap sound she exclaimed when she touched the Psyhand was in between the two other words, making it seem like it acted as a word as well. Her language was confusing.

Sam still didn’t have any idea of what she asked, nor how to reply to it. If he hinted at either the positive or negative, he might be agreeing or denying something he shouldn’t. The language barrier was an issue.

Instead, he focused on the System window, wondering what the Bonding thing was.

[ Bonding

The Bonding is like a contract between two entities. Similar to, but not as powerful as the companion bond, the Bonding allows agreement of control between entities. Discussion of terms between entities is necessary.

- The System will translate the contract and edits between entities. ]

He thought he understood it, it was like a servant’s or work contract of sorts, like she works for him in return for something. They needed to decide the limits of the job, so to speak. It made a lot of sense but he wasn’t aware that the System had this kind of power over everyone. Though it made sense... Dia was created by the System much like Elara, it made sense that it could force whatever it wanted. Like the contract Janik set up earlier, it could probably fuck with the side not holding their side of the contract if necessary.

However, this made him unsure. He already had a companion and he didn’t know if he could care for two of them. The System information explained that this was not as powerful, so she would probably not be as happy to serve his tiniest whim as Elara was, she seemed to almost get happiness from just doing anything Sam told her to do... If nothing else having some contract going, if worded properly, would take care of the paranoia of getting attacked later.

[ Display standard Bonding contract? ]

The system was helpful, which put Sam a bit more at ease. Agreeing to it displayed a very wordy contract, he took a moment to read through it and it was simple. The basic rules listed one person as the boss over the other, the servant would do what they were told except for certain things which were listed. Anything could be edited, anything could be added or removed from both sides until they agreed.

Sam looked at Dia, who also seemed to be looking into nothing like she was reading the same thing he was. Could she even read? Or perhaps it was displaying it differently to her.

No, this was wrong, he couldn’t bind someone to him just like that. Elara was a bit different as she was a Companion, she was created to serve, but Dia was a sapient creature, she could think, communicate and had her own thoughts and wishes... Or at last he assumed she did.

“Since you’re healthy, you should return to your people.” Sam smiled in a dismissive tone, making a kind of shooing motion. He kind of liked having her around, she was amusing, cute and entertaining but he couldn’t bring her into the world he was going into. He was going to find someone to ask some questions later, most likely ending in some level of murder. She might be used to hunting but since she was in a cage already she’d probably die if she fought a Player.

This snapped her out of whatever she was doing, her expression looked like she was about to burst into tears as her stance changed to be even lower. “Lin kru var rin?” Her voice broke a little as she asked.

“I...don’t know what that means. But you should be with your people, I think that’s probably better. You’re healthy enough to go back... I think, at least you’re awake and moving. That’s enough, right?” He wasn’t sure of what he was even saying. But he felt it might be a smarter move than bringing her if nothing else. Having gotten to know her a tiny bit after caring for her for two days, he didn’t want to see her get even more hurt. Going with him was probably going to have that happen.

She looked like she was about to panic, looking back and forth almost like she was looking for something to help her situation. Stammering before she replied. “‘Yap’. Var vraka lin. Miv lak shiv. Var lek!” Her tone was pleading, making this feel worse for Sam.

“Miv lak shiv!” She repeated the middle part of the sentence with almost teary eyes.

This didn’t feel good, it was clear she wanted to stay, but Sam was convinced this was just the Rescuers Syndrome playing tricks on her mind. After all, she could only have seen glimpses of him the last few days, and today it was just some parlour tricks and walking. “I’m sorry, but I think it’s best that you go.” He tried to smile at her but it didn’t feel right. “Go!” He waved his arms in her direction to both signal her to leave but also perhaps startle her to start moving.

“Sa!” Dia again panicked a bit but ended up darting into the jungle. Sam was a bit sad to see her go, especially at that speed given her wounds were still healing, but he was glad that she’d go back to her people. She would be safer and better there, he was also a bit surprised that she understood his meaning.

Turning around he headed back to his little cave, to put his mind on other things he started planning what to do later. It was easier to find someone to talk to and interrogate during the night, especially if they walked around with torches. He actively focused on the upcoming task to make forgetting her easier. It shouldn’t take that long, at least he hoped.

It didn’t take that long for him to come back to his little cave, after all, he supported a wounded person away from it, so there was a limit to how far they walked. Halfway expecting her to be waiting for him inside he was glad to see that she wasn’t there. Letting out a relieved sigh he was glad that she had returned to her people. Changing his focus back to the coming night he checked the scabbards and his items, he wanted everything to be ready. Though he had done similar things naked with just weapons, he should be good now that he had all his gear back. He felt good about it, and thinking back to how he managed to take out the boss, he felt good about finding new uses for things. Though it was a highly specific and unique situation, it just proved that with some inventiveness, he could get further than just pure damage. He might have to invest more thought into that kind of thinking, the simple tests with poisoned needles earlier were a good starting point, but perhaps he should look into getting some acid from Earth if he ever got out of this place. It could prove very useful.

The System still hadn’t explained why he was here, or what he was supposed to do. The island had monsters, some ruins that Sam hadn’t investigated yet but mostly it had other Players, most of which seemed fine with killing other Players. The System tended to give.... somewhat clear instructions on what was required to do this and that, so perhaps the island didn’t have a quest or mission to complete and you were supposed to find an exit portal. Janik explained that some Dungeons didn’t let you leave it until you either completed it or found the portal, so perhaps that was the deal here as well? Maybe they could leave whenever but only if they found the exit? Or perhaps it was like the Dungeons, they needed to go somewhere specific to trigger the quest. Stoking the fire to get it going, he had started heating some food but mid-heating his thoughts were pulled elsewhere. “Sa!” He heard Dia’s voice shouting for him outside.

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Sighing he got up from the fire, he didn’t want to get angry or yell at her, he wanted her to leave and understand it, which he knew was hard for several reasons. Exiting through the cave he saw her sitting on all fours with a dead bird on the ground in front of her, her fur had gotten dirty and he could see some of her wounds having opened again. As she saw him she nudged the bird forwards with her snout as she lay herself completely flat on the ground.

“Var kirn. Miv lak shiv. Var lek!” She nudged it again before she also nudged what looked like some random metallic trinket on the ground next to it. It appeared like she had gone to get something, showing that she was useful.

Sam sighed, this just made it harder. She didn’t return to her people but went to hunt and find the metallic thing. He wondered how he could force her to leave, somehow. As he was considering these things Dia picked up the dead bird and trinket with her hands and got up on her hind legs, trying to hand them off to the invisible hands in the air.

“Sa shirin!” Thrusting them in different directions, hoping to hit something. “Ryth!”

He still had no idea what she was saying, but he again got his name in the start.

[ Beastfolk [ Dia ] wishes to form a Bonding contract. ]

Being surprised at the window popping up in his field of view, it seemed like she had triggered it on her own. As he was thinking about it in a curious manner it opened up. Asking if he wanted to read Dia’s amendments to the contract.

Not managing to stop himself from wondering about it, it opened up to his surprised wide eyes.

She had amended the contract down to ‘Beastfolk [ Dia ] will obey Player [ Sam Carter ]’. Everything else was removed, she was, quite literally, throwing herself at him without a single clause. If this worked like he thought before, he could ask her to run into a burning building and she would probably be compelled to do so. Of course, he wouldn’t, but the over-dramatic thoughts came to mind during moments like these.

“A... are you sure?” Sam asked her, without expecting an answer. He mentally amended the contract to give her more self-autonomy and gave her the right to refuse orders and return to her people if she wanted to. He wanted her to be able to go back, let her refuse to fight and at least do whatever she wanted.

Trying to be cheeky and add a message in there for her, failed. Trying to ask how she was feeling in the hopes of abusing the auto-translation was automatically removed before he finalised it.

She looked startled for a moment as she suddenly stopped to put things in the air, staring at nothing for a few seconds before shouting “Sa shuk, Sa marr, var lek!” with a strange urgency and demanding tone.

The contract returned, boiled down to the same: Dia will obey.

He couldn’t, not, worry about all of this. One thing was the danger, almost illogically he wanted her to be safe even though she was a Monster in the Tower. But there were also other things like the total submission in the contract, it felt... too much. Spending some time thinking about this, the possibilities and dangers, seemed to have taken too long as Dia looked at him with worry in her eyes. Though he was still somewhat new at this Player business, the only Beastfolk he had interacted with were the ones he killed en mass in the Dungeon, the few he met at TAC or the village as they entered the 1st Floor, as well as the ones in the Brothel. And out of those his memory lingered on the Brothel first, but also to the scores he had cut down in the Dungeons.

In the end, she seemed insistent and forceful enough to want to come with him and he accepted. Though the total submission didn’t feel right, it wasn’t like he had to abuse that power. He could just request or ask things rather than command or order, which should amend all of it. Also being able to give her specific permissions to break the contract should fix the issues, the main thing he was uncertain about was why she had so much trust in him.

[ Contract formed with Beastfolk [ Dia ]. ]

As soon as he accepted the contract the message popped up confirming their bond. Within a second her profile of data popped up.

[ Dia - B-rank Beasfolk: Fox.

STR 4

DEX 14

VIT 12

SPT 0

Level: 8

HP: 54/140

XP: 3/171

Attacks

[ Kick 50 ]

[ Punch 42 ]

[ Claw 50 ]

[ Bite 63 ]

Skills

[ Beastfolk traits ]

[ HP boost ]

[ Martial Arts ]

[ Damage boost: DEX ]

[ XP cap ]

Contracted to Player [ Sam Carter ] ]

The first thing that stood out to him was how little XP she needed to level up, a total of 171XP needed to hit level 9. Another thing was that she apparently knew Martial Arts, but that was probably just a way for the System to list her beastfolk fighting style with claws and biting. Her health felt abnormally high for just level 8, but she did have a Health Boost skill as well as being B-rank, which seemed to help a lot. However, he did feel a bit inadequate considering she had four times the health he did... Also didn’t help that without his armour, she could one-shot him...

Checking out the XP cap details it ended up making a lot of sense.

[ XP cap

Due to being contracted to a Player, shared XP can only bring [ Dia ] up to 5 levels below the Player. ]

Since he was Level 13 at the moment, she could be boosted to Level 8 at most. However, according to the scaling math for needed XP per level, she needed dramatically less XP than Sam did. Perhaps it was something related to her being a monster? It shouldn’t be a problem keeping her levelled up as far as she could as he continued. Hell, one Player kill here would cap that instantly and still have some to spare... With that in mind, he brought up the XP share information and set it to 50% for now, once it hit the cap he could manage it later. He also did the same thing he did with Elara, having a small information window attached to his own Health Bar in his HUD, so he could see the important things about her right away.

Once he was done with all of this, he finally took a proper look at Dia. She had sat back down on the ground on all fours, and both her tails were wagging fast and powerful enough to create a small wind for a few plants and leaves behind her.

Holding back a chuckle, Sam couldn’t help but think of her almost binary level of emotion. Only a few seconds ago she was on the verge of crying, sad and pleading. Now she looked nothing else besides happy. However, this did bring the awkward moment of; what to do now. Or rather, his plan for today didn’t change but how should he explain that to her? How would she even react to fighting another player? She seemed relatively powerful, considering the lack of proper Player defences on this island, she could probably kill some of them easily, how was she even captured?

Again his moment of thinking without reacting seemed to affect Dia, her tails had stopped wagging and her expression had changed to a mix of confusion and light worry. But as soon as he looked at her properly, this seemed to fade back to a satisfied smile. She almost looked like a pet waiting for a command or to be told what to do, she just looked content, seemingly having already forgotten her worry from 2 seconds ago.

This was going to be strange for Sam. Elara was a bit different as she hatched for him, just wanting to be with him. But Dia had a language, most likely her own culture and experiences, family and friends. He knew none besides the language part but he still wondered what was going to happen from now on.

Sam realised he had again gone into a spiral of thought, not paying attention to what was happening around him, he realised that as Dia had sat down leaning against his leg with a strange purr.

Perhaps this wasn’t going to be too bad.

Heading back into the cave with her in tow, his food should be warm by now, he had to figure out how to explain things to her.