“Kiri! Kiri~” The bird calls as it flies around joyfully

“Well, there goes about the first two lessons in under 10 minutes,” Kera says as she glares at me

“Then we are ahead of schedule. In that case, how about we start on lessons about the humans?” I ask sitting on a nearby bench

…At least I think it’s a bench, it’s quite hard to tell considering the odd shape.

“I’ve taken an interest in the humans. We can save the full history for later, but for now, I want to hear more about them.” I say

Spending all this time with the goblins has brought up a serious question. Why do the humans treat monsters, sub-humans, and the Maou as the embodiment of evil? …More to the point, would it be more apt to actually try to destroy the humans? Don’t get me wrong, mass genocide certainly isn’t on my list of fun evening activities, but I still know nothing about the humans. Blindly deciding that they are good or that their intentions are pure and attempting to save them is just as bad as blindly deciding they are evil and letting them die.

“…Something about the Maou saying she has ‘taken an interest in the humans’ makes me uncomfortable” Kera jokingly says covering her chest and giving me an exaggerated glare

“…In all honesty it’s hard to describe em’. If I told you they were hard working, pure, innocent, or smart It would be pretty easy to prove me wrong… same could be said if I told you they were horrible, ignorant, selfish, and lazy though. All I can say is… you never quite figure em’ out.” Kera says getting a little serious

“Then don’t tell me about all of them,” I say bluntly

“Huh?” She spouts in surprise

“Humans assume I’m evil, and that I want to destroy them. The goblins assume the humans are evil, and that the humans want to destroy them. I want to know why. Tell me about the world the humans grow up in.” I continue

…

“Pffft! Hahahaha! I was right princess, it is fun to be around you!” Kera says buckling in laughter

What now?

“Kiri!” The flocking bird I tamed cries as it dives onto Kera’s head

“What the- Ouch! AW!”

In a flurry it pecks at Kera’s temple, skillfully evading Kera’s attempts to swat it away.

Suddenly thoughts begin to flood into my head but they are somewhat jumbled. Something along the lines of

“She wronged you! I’ll get her!”

Or maybe more like

“She annoyed you! How dare she!”

It’s really hard to put into proper words, but the general feeling is conveyed quite well.

So taming a creature gives me the ability to hear its thoughts? Or maybe it’s just the thoughts directed at me. I would ask Kera… but she seems a little busy. After a while, the bird ceases its onslaught and lands on my shoulder. It isn’t clear but something along the lines of

“Hmph!”

Seems to enter my mind.

“That’s two strikes bird!” Kera says angrily glaring it down

No thoughts come through, but the bird turns its head away from Kera and sighs. Kera looks as if she is about to lunge at the bird any moment when-

“Ahem! You were saying?” I interrupt

Kera’s gaze matches mine again, before turning back to the bird again. Her face seems to say “this isn’t over”.

“…Fine. Where were we then?” She says finally looking away from the bird

After that Kera spent about an hour describing the general living conditions of the people of this world, as well as the nobility. When I told her that I didn’t know anything about the governing bodies or nobility, she seems stunned. Most of the time was spent talking about how the multiple nations handle leadership, and status. She seemed to have a lot of difficulty explaining how their government works in detail. It seemed like the main reason for the difficulty was a lack of understanding of what I already knew. From the ground up would be far too much information, so she tried to establish what I understood before continuing.

In summary, this country's government works like this: The nobility is chosen from those born from previous Yuusha’s bloodlines. The one who shows the greatest magical capabilities is chosen as the Heir. They are awarded an attendant of sorts from the Yuusha bloodline as well. The person chosen is the one who shows the greatest intelligence, as they are often a confidant to the king. The king has the ability to then choose who governs and what they govern. It seems this ability scopes from anything as big as the entire country or as small as a single pebble. Those who govern have the same ability under the scope of what they govern. However, at the end of the day, the king has the highest authority.

This, of course, is just how this countries government works. Every government seems to have only a slight deviation from this system, however. Living conditions of those in and out of nobility all seem to be conditional based on the area, economy, and the current nobility. Oh, and apparently a few countries similar to this existed in the past that chose from the survivors of the Maou bloodline for nobility instead. It seems the general concept was to get on the good side of the Maou before the bloodshed started to save their own hides.

I had intended to ask Kera about yet more of this world's history before we were suddenly interrupted.

“Big dog! Dog, dog dog!” A goblin riding a wild Ina as if it were a bucking bull yells approaching us quickly

“Oh good the next part of our lesson is here!” Kera says excitedly, eager I suppose to stop talking about history

The Ina snarls and snaps at the goblin on its back, but has no success. The goblin seems to have managed to get a long leather strap in the Ina’s mouth and pulled it back behind the teeth. When the goblin pulls the straps in any direction the Ina is forced to face in that direction and runs when kicked.

“Oi! Get off of it!” I yell, running up to the dangerous scene

“Demon lady want to play with doggy. So be it.” The goblin says letting go of the reigns and distancing himself from the Ina at an incredible speed

He seems to be laughing furiously as his ugly green form disappears over a nearby wall.

Snarl

The Ina turns its attention to me and begins to show its discontent with me and the situation it is in.

Looking at the situation in front of me, and thinking about that goblin's actions… I’ve been set up, haven’t I? I guess that goblin was one of the few who still opposed my presence here. Looks like he intended to make it look like an accident by having this Ina attack me while I was off guard. Lucky for me I just learned how to capture such a creature.

“Entwine!” I yell, throwing my hand forward toward the Ina

Along with my hand, a bright chain shoots from my chest and flies into the Ina

“Mano stop!” Kera yells running at me

“Huh?” I mutter before-

Chreatcha

The chain shatters

Capture failed:

Creature enraged

-75 MP

WAOuuuuuu!

The color of the Ina’s fur suddenly fades into shades of dark red and grey, and it howls loudly.

It looks at me with fury in its eyes and lunges at me with its jaws. I quickly attempt to jump into a stance to react… but unfortunately, I’m a bit too late. The Ina’s jaws lunge into my arm, each tooth penetrating nearly a full inch.

“EIHYAAA!” I yell out, more out of surprise than pain at first

The pain becomes absolutely unbearable, making thinking straight extremely difficult.

“Mano! Hold on!” Kera yells as she pulls something out of her bag.

She puts the item up to her mouth and blows with all of her might. When she does the Ina releases my arms and begins to writhe in pain.

Between the anger, the pain, and the fear of being bit again I quickly move without thinking. With all of my strength, I use my other arm to punch the writhing Ina between the eyes, sending it flying backward. A wall still in the process of being deconstructed by the goblins catches the flying beast and shatters under the impact. The Ina becomes buried in the rubble and the goblins that had paused to watch the commotion from atop the wall jumped away in all directions.

“Mano are you okay?!” Kera yells as she runs towards me taking bandages out of her bag.

“Yeah… I’m fine, I think… Give me a second.” I say clutching my bleeding arm

It’s far more painful than I ever would have imagined it would be. My head floods with theories of magic, poisons, and natural mechanisms the Ina could have used to make it more painful… However, a large pang of pain concentrates my thoughts.

“Fal-La-Tu Restora” I say holding my good hand over the injured one.

Light floods over my arm, and the pain quickly recedes. In a matter of seconds my wounds are gone, and the only evidence of my having been injured is some blood still on my shirt.

Sigh

“Are you joking?! Do you not remember the whole conversation about ’learning more about the creature’ and ‘becoming sympathetic’?! You can’t just randomly try to capture a creature without going through the proper steps! To tame a creature you have to establish a link between both the magic and mind of creature and tamer. If you fail to capture it, then it will become enraged and use your own magic to rampage!” Kera yells angrily, scolding me mercilessly

… Guess I was a bit overzealous on this one. I figured since the Maou has an inherent connection with monsters, that I would be able to skip a few of the rules… I’ve learned yet again how high the stakes can be if I’m careless, however. I’m in a hurry, but I suppose even then I have to take things slowly or I will get burned.

“Before that, I experienced some incredible pain when he bit me. Do Ina have any kind of poison I should be worried about?” I ask checking over my wound again

Sigh

“You're hopeless you know? No, Ina don’t have any kind of poison you need to worry yourself over. Gotta say though, normally an Ina bite would take an arm clean off especially one that was enraged.”

kurt cha cha cha

The sound of wood shifting sends a chill down my spine as my attention turns back to the Ina, who has begun shambling out of the rubble injured and broken. His fur has returned to its normal state, albeit red with blood in a few locations. He carries more “pride” than “anger” now, as he makes his way to attack again slowly.

Looking at the Ina I can’t help but feel sorry. Ever part of this was my fault. Its capture, mistreatment, enraging, and now injury were all caused by me one way or another. As his eyes stare into my own I understand why I failed to capture him. I neither knew pain nor did I attempt to even understand the anger he showed. The beast before me stands with pride unlike any I’ve ever seen, and yet I thought that knowing “being mistreated isn’t great” was enough to understand him.

“Seems I’ve only caused you more and more pain,” I say walking towards the Ina again

“Mano?!” Kera yells at me in surprise

As I get close enough to the Ina, it once more lunges itself at me. I place my arm between me and its lunge. Its teeth bury into my arm again, though this time not as deep. However it was still incredibly painful. It gives a low growl as it attempt to put more strength into its bite.

“Its fine, I caused you far more pain than this didn’t I? Here maybe this will help. Fal-La-Tu Restora” I say calmly, attempting to stomach the pain

I carefully cast the spell to return him to before he enraged. His mind will stay the same, as did Gero’s and my own, but his injuries should heal. I’m somewhat afraid to restore him to the enraged state, simply because I’m not sure what the result would be.

“Au?” It utters as its wounds start quickly healing.

Its grip on my arm weakens for a moment in its surprise, but in the end becomes even stronger after it is fully healed. I wince at this but continue to restore it, to make sure I heal it fully. It continues to growl after recovering from the surprise, but doesn’t put much more strength into his jaws.

“There. I can’t take away how you were treated, but at least I could heal your wounds. I apologize for all of this… you may take my arm if it would make you feel better.” I say towards the Ina hoping my Natures Knowledge ability could properly translate

To be perfectly honest I’m not scared that I’ll lose my arm at all, due to the restora ability… However I am quite scared of the amount of pain that it will cause. I'm also a bit afraid that one arm won't satisfy his anger.

“Ahh au?” Its growl seems to question slightly as it looks up at me

I attempt to make a calm face as I stare back at him. Suppressing the shaking and sweating my body have naturally started in response to the pain.

It stares me in the eyes for what feels like several minutes before its growling intensifies. I flinch expecting the pain to intensify… but I was surprised instead. The Ina releases my arm, and turns away from me. It sits staring away from me and growls softly.

“W-Whats wrong… I can take it!” I say at the bitter looking Ina

GRAWR!

It quickly flairs in its growling intensity before returning to its low tone.

“Hey Kera what's it doing?” I turn and ask

“Why are you worried about him?! Your arm is half bitten off!” She yelled in response

“WAouuuuuuuu!” The Ina suddenly howls

As I turn to the Ina once more I see that it turned to face me while I was looking away. It is staring resolutely into my eyes. I was expecting any number of actions or event to happen after that… but what happened next surprised me completely. A glowing chain flew from the Ina’s chest into my own, and our thoughts began to meld.

New pet: Ina

New skill: Long run

New skill: Leaders Howl