After some time, Craydon and Meryda found two men that were in the group that went to search for her, and they guided them to the main cave and, after that, to the outside.
Moments later, the rest of the group joined them, and they were looking at the two creatures that never left Meryda’s side.
One man, an older Ooman, signalled everyone to be quiet and asked, “Meryda, why do you have with you a young Slime and a Salamander? Slimes are dangerous enough, even ones so little as that one, but Salamanders are deadly when they grow up. In a few months, he can burn our City to the ground and kill everyone that lives there.”
While hugging the squishy Slime and rubbing the rough head of the weird lizard, she said, “But they are not dangerous, see? They are young and so cute! I can take good care of them! They will grow, and they will behave!”
“And if they attack someone?”
With a gulp, the little cat girl said, “I… I will take them to this cave before they do any harm and set them free.”
“For what? For them to attack people that could be travelling nearby? You know better than that, Meryda. They can’t go back with us, and they can’t stay here. Alive, that is.”
The little cat girl felt her heart break, and she asked, already fearing the answer, “You mean, you will kill them? But they are my friends!”
The old man signalled the group around them, and as they drew their weapons, he said, “If you want to be an Explorer, you have to start making tough decisions. Monsters can’t be left alive. They are-”
A loud growl came from the forest nearby, and a few trees fell to the side as a massive shadow came running towards them.
When the men and women got ready to face the creature that was running towards them, Meryda was looking at the nightmare that was coming. She dropped the Slime, and without even thinking, she pointed her open palm to the creature that was coming, and while slightly glowing with Magic, she shouted, “Stop! Calm down! No one is going to hurt you!”
Before anyone could understand what was happening, the massive nightmare slid his four hoes onto the floor and stopped, looking at the little girl and glowing as well, as if he were reacting to her light.
Meryda pushed the men aside and walked to the front while saying, “That’s it! Now sit and don’t move, or they will hurt you!”
Before them, the massive boar sat on his back legs and waited. Meryda walked towards him, and her father tried to stop her, only for her to shake his hand away and continue forward.
Both the Slime and the Salamander stayed in front of the surprised group, preventing them from coming near her.
The boar lowered his head and looked down, while the young cat girl was getting near him and always telling him to calm down and relax.
She stopped at his side, caressed his plated head, and said, “That’s it. You are a pretty boy, yes, you are! You look strong! What is this all over your body? An armour made of bones? I bet you could stop a sword with this!”
She then faced her father and the others and said, with a smile on her face and still glowing, “See? He is friendly! I think we scared him with all the noise we were making!”
The older man gulped and asked, “Meryda… Can you tell him to go away? Bone Boars are not friendly. Send him away before he gets mad and kills us all.” He begged with a pale face.
“But, but…”
“Now, Meryda.”
With a sad face, the young girl told the boar to return to the forest, and after hugging him, she waved him goodbye.
She returned to her father while dragging her feet, already counting on a massive scolding.
Instead of shouting at her, Craydon kneeled and asked, while hugging her, “What were you thinking? He could have killed you!”
“I… I knew he wouldn’t harm me… I… I could tell!” She said in a nervous voice.
The older man approached and stuttered, “N-no way… Meryda… Since when are you a Monster Tamer?”
“A what? What are you talking about?”
“A Monster Tamer! The rarest of the Mages! No wonder the Slime and the Salamander like you! They knew you would never harm them, and you used your Magic to calm down and control that massive Bone Boar! Since when you can do that?”
While glancing at her father, she said, “I don’t know… I did what I always do when an animal is angry… I show them I am friendly and that they can relax. It usually works…”
“Not with Bone Boars! They are vicious, mean, and deadly! They have no fear, and their armor made of bones can deflect swords and spears! Their massive fangs can tear a man apart with a single blow! And you just told him to stop and sit, and he did it! That thing was as huge as a Fur Cow!”
The young girl went silent, looking at the ground, and asked, “Is that weird?”
“Weird? No, it is amazing! You normally use a bit of Earth Magic, and I was expecting you would become better as you trained and grew up, but a Monster Tamer so powerful at your age? Not even an older Monster Tamer can make a Bone Boar sit on his back feet so easily like you did!”
He then looked at the group around him and said, “This can’t leak. Not even among yourselves, you can’t speak anything about this. If the wrong people find out what Meryda can do, they will take her away from us. The Slime and the Salamander can go with her so that she can learn how to control them better. They will be good training partners for her. We can say she is trying to control her Magic better, and these are young Monsters we got for her to practice. People will find it remarkable, and they will be curious about her, but no one can ever suspect how powerful she is. Understood?”
They all nodded, visibly impressed by finding that the little girl they saw growing up could have become such a powerful Mage. Little by little, they realized how awesome it was — not only how she controlled a very dangerous Monster, but how calm she looked while doing it.
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They all congratulated her, with her father receiving a few taps on the back while making a forced smile.
The men brought the horses that were tied to a tree on the right side of the cave, and it was then that Craydon noticed how strange they looked.
They had long fur on their manes and tails that reached the floor and two intricate horns on their foreheads, like deer. They were also taller than the normal horses on Earth and had strange wooden saddles coated with something soft that looked like foam.
Craydon grabbed the reins of one horse, and after thinking about how he could get on his back, the strange horse lowered itself for him to mount. He then pulled Meryda and sat her in front of him, with her carrying the Slime in her arms while the Salamander was on the soil, waiting.
The older man carefully picked him up and sat him between Meryda and her father, and he gasped when the strange lizard brushed his rough tongue on the back of his right hand as if he were thanking him or tasting him to check if he was edible.
After mounting his horse, the old man signalled everyone to follow him back to the City.
As they were travelling with the group of men and women, Craydon said in a low voice, “Next time you see a weird creature, check first how everyone reacts before you try anything. You heard him. The wrong people might be interested in you if they find out what you can do. But how did you do that? You were glowing with white light!”
“Do you think that was Magic? Because I felt warmth all over my body, and I knew for sure that Bone Boar was not going to harm me!”
“I never could use Magic, so I have no idea, but most probably it was. I think that man is our boss. Or Guild Master, if I recall, in the City of Amberstar.”
“I remember that City’s name and the man is Dralro Jic, the Guild Master.” she confirmed in a whisper.
As they were trotting along the dirt road, Meryda was caressing the Slime on her lap, and Craydon Crawler was looking around, amazed by the scenery.
In the sky there was a small yellow sun and a larger white sun. The dry grass at the edges of the road had a strange light red colour, and the trees had a dark green colour with the largest leaves he had ever seen. The tree trunks were round, with the shape of a barrel, and were more than twenty meters tall and ten meters in diameter in the largest part, right at middle height.
He heard a hammering on wood, and on his right, there was a strange bird with four wings as big as an eagle that was hovering strangely. While one set of wings was going up, the other set was going down, and he was hitting a tree trunk with his long, pointy beak. After a few hits, he made a hole, and a liquid started to gush out in a current that the bird eagerly drank.
More birds arrived, and they also drank the strange yellow liquid, and Craydon remembered a word. Sapnectar. A liquid that could be fermented to create an alcoholic beverage with a sweet taste.
The liquid that fell on the floor attracted some strange animals that looked like rabbits but had small, round ears and tall, thin legs, with intricate deer antlers on their heads.
They looked like rabbits because of their eyes, noses, and long front teeth, but everything else was strange. They were Grolagians, appreciated by several people because of their tasty, tender meat. Most Demi people liked to eat them raw, but Oomans preferred to cook them a little. Not too much, or the meat would lose most of its flavour, so that was why it was served in a thin fillet in several places.
Despite looking like big rabbits with long legs, they were absurdly fast and very hard to hunt. Their pelts were in high demand because of the warm clothing that could be made from them.
The Grolagians were drinking the nectar on the floor while staring attentively at the group riding on the road nearby, ready to start running the moment they felt danger.
Meryda looked to where her father was facing, and she said in a low voice, “So beautiful… Those birds are so colourful! And are those deer or rabbits? They look so cute!”
“I know the animals are Grolagians, and the birds have a strange name. Peekers? Beekers? Something like that.”
“Beekers! Yes, that’s it! Because they use their beaks to search for food and defend themselves! The feathers are used for mattresses and pillows, and the meat is usually roasted. They taste like turkey. They are as big as turkeys, anyway.”
After glancing around, making sure no one was near, Craydon whispered, “Did you notice we are speaking in another language? I am sure I never heard this, but these sounds are way too different to be used on Earth by people from any country!”
“Yeah, it is as if we are inside another body, but we remember our lives on Earth, and we also remember some things of this World. Because with those suns in the sky, this is not Earth!” Meryda said while disguisedly pointing up.
“I have that same feeling. I don’t know how this happened or if we will ever go back!”
While caressing her gelatinous friend, Meryda retorted, “I am not feeling homesick. I am worried about my pets, but I have two cute new pets now that I need to take care of.”
“What about your friends in school? You don’t miss them?”
“Not a single bit. I am happy I don’t have to see them again. I didn’t have time to make many new friends anyway, after our last move.”
With a pain in his heart, Craydon said, “I am sorry we had to move, but it was becoming too difficult for me to pay the mortgage on our house with the increasing expenses ever since you changed schools.”
“I know, dad. Do you think someone is going to check on us back on Earth? I don’t want my pets to die of hunger.”
“I wish I could tell you they will be alright, but I have no idea. Maybe someone from my work comes to search for me when I don’t get to work in the morning. Or someone from your school calls the police, and they go check on us. No one will probably find out what happened to us, but at least your pets will probably get a new home.”
With a sigh, Meryda said, “That is nice. If they are safe, and they get a new home with an owner that loves them, I won’t be sad.”
While kissing her head, Craydon said, “Good girl. Now we just need to get used to living here if we don’t magically go home tomorrow.”
“I kind of don’t want to go home, you know? So far, I like it here.”
“It is pretty, but it seems extremely dangerous. There are Monsters and strange animals, and who knows what else! And the fact that these people are riding horses with old types of clothing and carrying swords and knives is too strange for my taste. It is like they live in ancient times, like four or five centuries ago. And if I recall my history classes, it was a bad time to live. The lack of technology, remedies, absurd medical practices… Let’s be careful, stay quiet, and not attract too much attention until we find out more about this World.”
With a slight smile, she said, “You and me against the World, right, dad?”
“Yes, my dear. You take care of me, and I take care of you. Like we always did.”