Most of the summer was spent cleaning my own mess. I hadn’t properly considered the trickle-down effects of my actions, evolving and releasing beasts into the jungle, nevermind the direct effects like the ratman raids on the roads which had only dried up as they retreated north for the summer. Most of the beasts I had evolved were fairly weak themselves and not a danger, but if they survived long enough to develop magic crystals, they made easy and tempting prey.
Honestly, I felt pretty bad about the whole thing. Even with the tamer connection broken, I was the one responsible for giving the beasts their newfound power and status, and taking their lives because of it felt wrong somehow. My desire to collect all the information I could about beasts and beast evolution required a steely heart, for the moment, but I could imagine a future where I could purchase a ranch and maintain more of the beasts long-term. My taming skill was also a hard limit that I couldn’t work around, but I earned experience from taming as well, and I could spend skill points to advance it when needed by leveling up.
Still, my taming habit was put on pause while I slowed down and reconsidered my actions. I would stop taming beasts out of curiosity’s sake and only tame those that I committed to keeping and raising. Buda would stick with me for a number of years still; he could continue to be a functional mount until I grew large enough in adulthood that I needed a bigger beast.
I recruited Treepo and Gregory for the task of jungle clean-up. Ever since the dungeon, I had largely sidelined the two familiars, as I was mostly going after stronger marks. The E and F ranked beasts could, at best, distract the D rank targets, and risked serious injury in doing so. While I could heal the injuries with magic, the two beasts were already max level, so it wasn’t worth the overall risk.
As such, it was the first time in a while that I had watched the two engage in a proper battle. The first thing I noticed was Gregory, and an unusual amount of airborne engagement from him.
Being a flying nodmouse, Gregory could glide between trees and other tall objects, but the mouse had a voracious appetite and was probably in need of a diet. Due to his size, his glides were usually short-lived and ended with heavy landings. While I watched him chase down an evolved singbird, I noticed him staying curiously aloft.
I looked closer, and noticed a series of minor upwards air drafts acting as lift. Once he had finished chasing down and finishing off his target, I stalked over to him.
“I knew you had magic!” I said, excitedly. “How long has this been going on? Show me what you got.”
When I had initially faced off against the dungeon-evolved griffator, I had almost been torn apart by its fast-moving strike. A wind pulse pushed me out of the way, which I had suspected had come from Gregory, but afterward, he failed to replicate it so I had started questioning myself.
Gregory squeaked and jumped, and a reasonably strong blast of air lifted him ten feet off the ground.
“Impressive. Hit me with it,” I commanded.
Gregory squeaked and complied, pushing me back a bit with the air magic. I was stronger and heavier now, so it didn’t knock me down, but it might have been enough to push me out of the way a year ago, especially if he expended all the magic he had built up at the time. That could also explain why he was unable to cast for me in the days that followed.
“Can you believe this Treepo? Are you holding out on me too?” I asked, turning to the reddish beast.
Treepo walked towards a tree, and swatted at it with a clawed paw, but he was too far from the tree to hit it. Still, a series of gouges appeared in the bark.
“Do that again,” I asked, looking closer.
I watched closely and saw the air shimmer beyond his paw, some kind of energy or force-based extension to his claws that gave him extra range and more power. It was the stronger of the two skills, but he was a rank stronger than Gregory, so that made sense.
“Well I’ll be damned,” I muttered.
I knew that evolved beasts would eventually cultivate enough magic to form magic crystals, and I knew that all beasts had at least some amount of MP, even if it was as low as 1 in some cases. I also knew that beasts with magic crystals had been known to cast magic, and seen it in the rocky shieldbacks.
Now I had some semblance of the timing of these things. It was about a year and a half since I had evolved them and it had taken a few months after that before I leveled them up again to attempt attacking the dungeon again.
I glanced at Buda. “You hiding any surprises from me?” I asked the relaxed ramhog who was laying in a pile of leaves. He grunted a non-response that I took to mean no. I hadn’t aggressively leveled him up, so that could be a factor, but it had also only been a little more than half a year since his evolution. Perhaps by next year he would be able to employ some kind of magical attack.
“Well, this has been… enlightening.” I clapped my hands. “But now, back to work.”
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
We traipsed onward through the jungle trees in search of other beasts to slay.
* * *
The hardest part of the whole thing for me had been taking out the other high treehoppers I had evolved in order to test variable evolution, but Treepo and Gregory took care of it without complaint. In some cases, I couldn’t even watch, but once I started collecting the corpses and facing down the reality of the situation, I started adapting to it and dealing with it. No matter how distasteful something was, things got normalized startlingly quickly.
Only a few of the evolved beasts had developed magic crystals, but they were out there. Particularly, the rank F beasts seemed to have the most, which I presume was because they were overall weaker, leveled up faster and easier, and had smaller bodies which suffered from magic build-up sooner.
I had evolved and released magic beasts from the sea as well, but that didn’t worry me as much. Beasts in the sea that could dive deep had access to blueclams and their magic pearls, and there was a whole ecosystem that already dealt with itself. My concern was overwhelming the local jungle around Mirut and causing issues for the town guard, not the existence of evolved or magical beasts full stop.
Of course, maybe I was just justifying to myself that there was no need for me to spend ages trying to hunt down particular fish in the sea, which was a revoltingly difficult task, especially without Vlad.
With the jungle-town power balance restored, I no longer had the distraction from dealing with my actual problem, which was leaving the town. If I wasn’t going to leave, then I might as well have left the jungle to propagate stronger beasts for my own hunting. The whole reason I felt a responsibility for cleaning up the mess I made was because I was planning on leaving Mirut behind.
I followed up on a number of weaker leads in town in an attempt to find a valid exit, but nothing was panning out for me. My parents were starting to ask more prodding questions about my plans, both wanting me to follow in their respective footsteps. I was having a lot of thoughts, and then second thoughts, about whether or not I should leave town on my own. I didn’t feel strong enough to have the confidence to truly take off as a ten year old.
I took Buda further south, hunting stronger beasts in order to push my limits. I had intended on reaching level 20 by the time I turned ten in the rapidly-approaching autumn, but it was looking like I would only barely be able to reach level 18. Most of my main sources of experience were drying up, and in lieu of switching to a new type of weapon or combat style or leaning into crafting-based experience, one of which would weaken me in the short term and one of which was too slow, I wouldn’t encounter another glut of experience from anything short of a true danger, like a group of new rank D beasts, a single rank C beast, or a new dungeon.
The scariest encounter in the second half of the summer was a beast called a venorgon. It was a fast-moving and high-endurance, sleek-furred and heavily muscled quadruped that was, fur aside, quite similar to a large komodo dragon.
We were deep into the jungle when it snaked out of the bushes and bit down on Buda’s leg, who squealed and kicked at the thing before retreating. It was on me an instant after I hit the ground, and I was only spared a bite thanks to my rapid-deployed barrier.
It circled me menacingly as its tongue darted in and out of its mouth, scenting the air. I used fire magic on its face to burn up the tongue, if possible, and ruin its senses, but when I moved in to slice at it with my sword, the beast hit me with a strong paw in the side and sent me skidding away.
Despite all that, the danger wasn’t actually that high. I easily kept my health topped up and continued doing small amounts of damage overtime as the venorgon’s HP dropped bit by bit.
It was another case of a beast that would have absolutely been a nightmare monster to me a year ago or earlier, and would have been a challenge before I fought the draconewt, but was well within my means now. A group of them would have been a problem, but a single enemy was easily handled. Though it did shrug off my attempt to pin it with a stone arch, it didn’t have any special magical resistances and I had more than enough health and magic to whittle away at it until it fell entirely.
The bigger problem from the encounter was when I discovered Buda nearly dead from the extremely venomous bite. I was able to clear the status condition and heal him up, but another few minutes might have been his end. Had he not run away from the battle in the first place, I like to think I would have noticed it before it became such a serious issue, but I could see how most beasts would flee from the intense, powerful creature.
An almost-ten year old boy should normally have wanted to flee as well. I had the power of many adults already. It was, frankly, unnecessary given the peaceful childhood I could have led here in Mirut. I wasn’t sure what that was doing to my mental state, or what it meant for my future in this world. I tried not to think about it and instead just focused on sticking to the plan. Power, then freedom, and only then could I worry about deeper meaning.
* * *
The summer ended, and I was at a loss. It seemed like I had no more options and I had missed my chance to figure something clever out. I was getting used to the idea that my only choice would be to work the piers until I could gain an apprenticeship with a trade vessel.
I was spending more time at the port side of town, often just sitting and watching other pier workers with dread about the next couple of years. It was only because I was staying in town instead of out in the jungle that I encountered the convoy, which had returned to Mirut on the way south for winter.
At first, I saw it as a shopping opportunity, now that I had a pocket full of gold. Perhaps I could pick up some books, and study the world that way until I could make my way off on an adventure. It was only after a period of shopping that I realized the convoy itself could be my way forward.
I started pestering some of the people managing the stalls, asking about apprenticeships, and even found some of the convoy’s guard detail and inquired with them, but it seemed like it was not common for merchants or guards to take an apprentice while in a convoy. The rigors of the road were too severe, and the costs of a fairly-useless extra mouth would eat into the profits. With no horses, convoys in this world did a lot of foot travel. I discovered the convoy did have some tamers, former farmers who drove oxalire to pull the heavy carts, but the speed was comparable to an adult’s walking pace and so most of the convoy members would walk, alternating for the few passenger seats that were available during the journey.
This was my last chance, and I was determined to make it work. I hunted down the convoy leader, and introduced myself by slapping several gold coins down in front of him.
“How would you like to make some extra coin on your way south?”