Chapter 27 Beast Tamer

As he neared the camp, Arvell saw Zen waiting nervously with his sword drawn.

It seemed as if he was on edge after hearing Arvell's footsteps.

Arvell smiled.

"No need to be so tense Zen, it's me."

Zen exhaled audibly.

"Thank goodness you're okay. I was worried something had happened to you. You do realize you were gone for a couple of hours right?"

"Sorry. I got mixed up in the tunnels, and ended up getting lost."

Zen looked at Arvell with slight confusion.

"How bad was it for you to get lost?"

"Why don't you come with me? I found an underground river which we can use to refill our water flasks. We should stock up now, so we won't be in trouble later."

"Alright."

Arvell led Zen back to the underground river they found earlier.

Sniffing the air, Zen's face lightly scrunched up.

"I smell blood..."

(Sniff)

"...A lot of it"

Arvell nodded his head.

"I found a beast earlier and killed it. Its flesh wasn't ideal for consumption so I threw it into the river. However, the beast had an egg it was guarding. I'm considering raising the hatched monster as my pet."

"I see."

Zen nodded his head in understanding.

It wasn't rare for people to raise beasts as pets if they were able to find their eggs.

Unfortunately, the rarity of acquiring a monster egg makes the whole process a little complicated.

Beasts tended to be extremely protective of their young, so much so that if someone were to even approach an egg, they would fight that person to the death.

Furthermore, the eggs typically were quite fragile, so they were quite easy to break.

Bringing a monster egg out from under its guardian's watchful eyes while also making sure it didn't get damaged was a tall task, to say the least.

Fortunately, the payoff was worth it.

Having a full-grown beast fight for you was quite convenient, to say the least.

The people who managed to get a beast egg and raise the beast were referred to as 'beast tamers', and were viewed in higher regard than the average mage.

After all, most beast tamers were talented mages who also had tamed beasts aiding them.

The power of a skilled mage and a strong beast was a force to be reckoned with.

"That's good, how damaged was the egg?"

"It's practically unharmed."

Zen opened his eyes wide in shock.

"How did you manage that? Was the beast guarding it that weak?"

Arvell had a sad smile which betrayed his calm persona.

"He was quite strong. One of the strongest I have ever seen."

"How did you kill it?"

Zen paled for a moment as a scary thought passed through his head.

"Is it still alive?"

Deciding to quell Zen's 'worries' Arvell decided to enlighten him.

"He's dead, however, the reason for that was he had several life-threatening injuries. Those are what killed him."

Zen calmed down after hearing Arvell's words.

"That's good, fighting such a strong being would be life-threatening, to say the least."

Arvell decided the best way to tell Zen was to mix some truths in with his lies.

After all, all the best lies have a small portion of truth in them. Only then are they do they truly work.

He couldn't simply reveal that he met a dragon either, especially one of the nine Heavenly Dragon Kings.

That would cause an uproar in all the human nations.

Furthermore, if the people coming after Kujak knew that he had the egg, they would come after him before Arvell was capable of protecting himself.

That was a risk he wasn't willing to take.

The fewer people who knew about this, the better.

The two of them quickly finished filling their water flasks and spend an hour gathering fresh fish for their supper.

Since it was quite dark inside the cave, their only source of light was a torch that Zen brought.

After refining his Nether Body, Arvell gained the ability to see in the dark, albeit at close distances.

Since he didn't need the torch, he just gave it to Zen.

He just wasn't able to see far away beings in the dark, such as not being able to identify Kujak who was flying over a hundred metres high in the air.

Since he could see everything in a 20-metre radius as clear as day, he could gather the fish in his net as he was hidden within the darkness, while Zen was forced to use the torch.

Naturally, the torch allowed the fish to see Zen, who stuck out like a sore thumb in the otherwise pitch-black cave.

While Zen was frantically scrambling to gather any fish that was remotely near him, Arvell was calmly scooping them up until he singlehandedly gathered enough for both of them to eat.

Zen looked at Arvell's haul with a twinge of envy.

It seemed as if Arvell was better than him in almost anything.

Arvell cleanly cut their heads off to give them a quick and painless death after he gathered them all together.

After securing their dinner the two of them proceeded to head back to their campsite at the entrance of the cave.

Admiring the intricacies of the cave tunnels, Zen sympathized with Arvell.

"This place is incredibly confusing! No wonder you got lost here."

Arvell chuckled nervously.

It seemed that Zen properly bought his other lie as well.

The two of them sat down and started a fire.

While grilling the fish they caught Lykos suddenly materialized next to Arvell with a slight smile.

'Hey'

Arvell raised an eyebrow at him.

'Do you need something?'

'I've been thinking about this for a while, but why don't you get to know Zen a little? The two of you tend to keep to yourselves most of the time!" Lykos put his hand to his forehead while lamenting, "The two of you barely even talk to each other if it's not necessary! Do you really need to travel in complete silence?"

Arvell felt a desire to plug his ears to not hear Lykos's shouting, but since this was coming straight into his mind via their telepathic link, his prayers were left unanswered.

If only he could find a way to mute Lykos.

As he was thinking this, veins bulged on Lykos's ethereal forehead.

Since all of Arvell's thoughts were heard by him, he naturally heard this as well.

However, Lykos didn't let that ruin his calm smile, although it did periodically twitch indicating his irritation.

Deciding to humour him, Arvell responded.

'I have nothing to talk about him with. I have my secrets, and he was kidnapped by bandits. Both of us just aren't in the mood to talk.'

'Think about it like this… He's the only one who knows that you're from Vispia. It's better to maintain friendly contact with him.'

'That doesn't matter. I plan to cut ties with him after we can get him to his village. Neither he nor I will hopefully ever see each other again.'

Lykos sighed audibly.

'It seems the five months of living with just me to talk to deep in the forest ruined all of your social interaction skills. You've turned into an antisocial.'

Arvell looked at Lykos with a cold gaze.

'I couldn't care less about anyone else. They would just betray me if the chance ever arose. There are only a select few people in the world I would care enough to open up to.'

'That's where you are mistaken. You need to get them to open up to you. Think about this… If you can get people to open up to you, you'll be able to get the information you want from them, even manipulate them to an extent.'

'I understand that but why him?'

Lykos looked at Arvell as if he was looking at an idiot before realizing something.

'No wonder you didn't find anything off about him!'

'Off? About Zen? What's wrong with him?'

Arvell's curiosity was piqued.

'His mannerism. It's nothing like that of a normal commoner. It's almost like…'

Knowing that Lykos was building suspense just to make a 'dramatic reveal', Arvell just rolled his eyes.

However he was still interested nonetheless, so he decided to humour Lykos.

'Like what?'

'Like he's from a noble house!'