It was lunch time before Charlie Darville, Lord of Tidewarren, finally showed and when he did show up the monster menagerie and I were devouring lunch. I was eating sandwiches of hand cut slow roasted ham roast, mustard, fresh bread. On the side? The increasingly ever present vegetable part that was close to if someone had taken seaweed, and spinach but added a bit of the rubber like texture of thick grass. Sautéed as it had been with garlic and onion it was actually pretty good.

The cindnutum was chomping on a rotting presumably termite ridden stick of wood one of the guards had given it. Based on the way it ribbited happily I could practically get confirmation on the bugs he devoured while eating the wood.

The hyporvid and the ossicarn both ate large fish that were among the dozens brought in to be used for the guards dinner. While the cook had looked at me funny, he had acquiesced to my request for the fish and both of them seemed to like it. I could guarantee it infact, from the way they jealously guarded their fish from one another as they alternated between eating and eyeing each other’s fish enviously.

Meanwhile the Cerbearus had ate the first five slices of ham I had made myself and put on my plate, so now he ate a few dozen pieces for himself.

I didn’t look up as Charlie came over, but the sound of him moving a chair to the table I sat at with the monsters was clear.

“You realize that monsters don’t actually have to eat, right? People just think they do - and they like to. But monsters survive on experience and need that for sustenance. What you’re doing right now is basically bribing them with candy.”

He didn’t seem reprimanding in his tone, and infact he almost found it humorous based on his smirk as he reached over and put a hand on my shoulder reassuringly.

“I made the same mistaken assumption when I got here. You’ve got to feed your pets and other animals after all, right?”

I just looked at him dumbfounded and shoved another bite of greens into my mouth. As I finished eating that bite I responded. “Noted, I guess. Though it seems weird for animals to not need anything but something non-corporeal.”

“We’ll discuss more about it later. Are you ready to finish getting your first partner?”

I gave a nod, might as well get this done so I could start learning and figure out why I hadn’t leveled yet despite having lived here on Hekatondrona for almost three days now.

“Which one did you decide? Telling me now will make it easier.”

I took a last bite of the greens and stood up, shoving the sandwiches in my pockets.

“They all have their merits, and I’ll be honest I have never been one for picking favorites. Let’s just let them determine it themselves.”

I followed Charlie and the monsters followed me.

***

Soon, we were back in the courtyard of the guard barracks and I was standing beside the massive red bearded man that was the Lord of Tidewarren and according to this world’s customs my theoretical adoptive father.

“The four of you have all had a chance to spend time with Wade here, and all of you have fought in a battle alongside of him. He has said he finds merit in each of you, so the question becomes - which of you sees merit in him? Who wishes to be his first partner?”

Almost instantly, the arrow striped bird known as Hyporvid hopped on its feet twice and flew, but it flew to a post and tilted her head questioningly before letting out a “Kaaaw” and looking away from me. They were meant to come towards me if they wanted to be my partner, so that meant that it did not.

Following it, a guardsman cadet cutting wood in the yard caught Cindnutum’s attention and it stared. It looked between me and the piles of delicious wood being dropped by the axe splitting. Its hesitation cost any knowledge of it chose to or didn’t because almost instantly the result came.

Cerbearus and Ossicarn both charged, racing at each other and growling at one another as if they would intimidate the other off. In the end, neither gave in and I found myself shoulder tackled by the two creatures.

While they didn’t have weight when they slept on me most of the time, this I felt.

“Huh. That’s… pretty unprecedented. Well, I guess it’s a good thing I had you carve two reliquaries. You were supposed to pick one, consciously or otherwise - but you can have both as partners.”

That suited me just fine. “So what do I do now?”

He looked at me. “Based on your age I figured I wouldn’t have to explain that part.”

The one thing I didn’t assume, jeez. I took the reliquary discs out of the backpack that I had carrying the weird beehive like shield from the Jackanack attack, and I put them down in front of the bear cub and saber toothed jaguar kitten. They glared at one another but each raised up their paw and slammed it down on the disc, as if trying to race.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

No matter how jaded my situation and mental age should have made me, it would be a lie to deny my heart was beating rapidly with excitement. As the coin like reliquaries were touched, each swallowed up the beasts in bright white light and soon the coins were spinning, spinning, spinning. They landed with a wobble.

Then a flood of prompts hit me.

“Congratulations on your first monster partner. You have gained enough experience for your first level! You have unlocked the character customization interface!”

Dozens more windows just like it followed.

***

Ten minutes later.

Two days since arrival.

Now that the avalanche of windows had finished falling into my field of view I began to read through them and dissect the fields of interest. The messages that I found were repetitive and did not feature new enough information I closed after glancing over them. The cull of unnecessary information left me with several windows to go through so I went through them in order of their stack on top of each other.

The first and most odd to me was one that I felt should have happened on the first day. It might have not occurred because of a cog in the system blocking it; probably related to the slow and steady way that I had been introduced to the monsters which were candidates to be my first partner.

“Congratulations on arriving in the world of Hekatondrona, a world of might, magic, and monsters! As an outworlder who has gained your first monster partner, you have unlocked the full abilities of the outworlder trait! Enjoy!”

The system, which seemed to act as a fundamental law of the physics of this world, had just told me to enjoy. I could almost hear the excited voice of a happy-go-lucky salesman when I read it. I went back to reading rather than letting myself dwell on the connotations of what that sensation and word meant.

The next window was simpler to understand but would also leave me thinking.

“You have successfully gained your first monster partner, after much hard work. Happy birthday! As a celebration of your rite of passage, the block on experience gains that was in place has been lifted.”

As soon as I exited it, another volley of messages popped up in my field of view. Things such as giving me experience points in exchange for the first map I had read, the first wood carvings I had done, the first puzzle I had solved, and even for successfully taking a hit from an alpha-grade monster and surviving. Numerous smaller tasks, as well. Most concerning was being awarded experience for causing mischief; apparently, my creation of a chicken chasing need had gained me experience.

It was a damn surprise that kids in this world weren’t more unruly and mischievous.

In total, I gained experience points totaling to the sum of 53 from the sources as follows:

[One experience point from taking my first steps.

One experience point from having my first conversation.

One experience point from feeding myself for the first time.

One experience point for feeding others for the first time.

Five experience points in total for reading the map.

Two experience points for visiting the town of Strongbridge for the first time.

Two experience points for visiting the seaside prairies of the Tidewarrens for the first time.

One experience point for gaining the analysis skill up to the rating of five.

One experience point for successful first engraving, drawing, or writing the runic digit of one (fire).

One experience point for successful first engraving, drawing, or writing the runic digit of two (earth).

Five experience points for the first successful creation of a reliquary.

Five experience points for solving my first puzzle.

Ten points for surviving my first hit from an alpha-grade monster.

Five points for creating new and interesting mischief.

One experience point for successfully gaining the throwing skill up to the rating of five.

Five experience points from successfully partnering with my first monster partner.

One experience point from successfully partnering with my second monster partner.

Five experience points from the bonus provided by the Inquisitive trait.]

As I dismissed it, it was followed by another prompt.

“You have unspent experience which could be metabolized and used to increase in level or gain one of your unlocked and not yet obtained classes.”

I dismissed it and went to the next prompts.

“Your analysis skill has reached the skill rank of level five and you have gained access to more information that can be gained with the use of the analysis skill. Look at a partnered monster to gain this information.”

That was good to know, but I closed it and after Charlie spoke up loudly I realized I had been zoning out.

“You were off in Looney Tune Land, kid. I called your name like six times.” He shook his head before continuing.

“I was trying to tell you that you can rest for the day but first thing tomorrow we start your schooling - both academically and on matters necessary to a monster tamer. You gained like fifty experience or something right? That’ll be useful but I wouldn’t jump into trying to pick a class just yet; sometimes it is better to wait and see if you can get anything better. On top of that, I still need to finish teaching you the basics, and you need to make another reliquary.”

“Okay on most of that, but carving another reliquary already? What do you mean? Why?”

“That thing in the mesh satchel isn’t a shield, kid. It’s a monster egg.”