I Became a Mythical-Tier Tamer Due To A System Error

Chapter 25

‘Otter… no, is that a sea otter?’

After thinking for a while, I realized it.

‘A sea otter?’

It looked like a mixture of a sea otter and a river otter.

It was one of the rare animals in the Yggdrasil world.

Not only was it hard to spot, but it was also cute.

There were even users who wandered around the riverside just to see one.

If I remember correctly, it was described as an endangered species in the setting.

‘Right, sea otters are rare to see.’

It was said that even if one lingered by the river for a whole month, they might not see one.

I must have been lucky, since I encountered it without any expectations.

‘But… it’s not running away and just keeps watching me?’

It peeked out with only half its face above the water, staring at me.

Was it curious about what I was doing?

I briefly met the sea otter’s gaze before picking up my shovel and standing up.

‘Let’s just leave it alone. It’ll go away on its own later.’

Other users wished to feed a sea otter even just once, but I didn’t have much interest in it.

‘I’ll just focus on my own work.’

I stopped paying attention to it and continued digging the ground.

Until the sky turned deep navy, the labor of creating the pond continued.

The second day of pond work.

Since it was the weekend, I got up early in the morning, ready to continue working.

‘…What the.’

I spotted it again.

On a rock in the distance, the same sea otter from yesterday was hiding.

Grrrk.

Though it was hiding behind the rock, half of its body was sticking out awkwardly.

‘Hey, is that what you call hiding?’

That didn’t count as hiding at all.

If it was going to be that obvious, it might as well just come out.

‘What’s it so curious about anyway?’

But there was no real reason to chase it away.

I focused on the ground again and kept digging with my shovel.

‘The more I dig, the harder it gets.’

Unfortunately, I seemed to have dug through all the soft soil.

Now the shovel was hitting soil as hard as stone.

The digging speed dropped sharply.

‘I should change my method.’

I raised the shovel at a 90-degree angle and struck the ground quickly.

Crunch!

When the sharp edge of the shovel slammed down, the hard soil started breaking apart easily.

The crumbly, loosened soil was gathered up in both hands and thrown outside.

Because of that, not only my arms but also my work clothes were dirtied with dust, but I didn’t care at all.

No one was going to see me anyway, and I wasn’t the type to take pride in being noble.

‘Thankfully, the work pace seems faster now.’

After repeating the process for a while, I dropped the shovel and gasped for breath.

I walked around the dug-out area to check again.

‘It finally looks like it’s starting to take shape.’

It was roughly a circular form about three meters in diameter.

There didn’t seem to be any need to expand it further.

‘All I need to do is dig out the lower part more evenly.’

I was about to resume work immediately.

But when I looked around, night had already fallen.

On top of that, fatigue had heavily accumulated in my body.

There was no need to overwork myself into the night.

‘Yeah, work when I work, rest when I rest.’

If I pushed myself too hard, I might get injured.

To prevent that, I decided to stop working here.

‘Looks like the sea otter went back.’

I glanced toward the rock for a moment, but nothing was there.

It must have been watching me from there for quite a while, but eventually lost interest and returned.

‘It’s not like it’ll come back again anyway.’

Carrying the shovel, I leisurely walked back to the livestock shed.

The third day of pond work.

Grrrk…

Was it fearless?

The sea otter was wandering just a meter away from me.

Now it had come right up to watch my work.

‘Is it not wary of humans?’

From what I remembered, that wasn’t the case either.

When there were many users around, the chance of a sea otter appearing decreased.

It was also more likely to run away after seeing people.

It must have feared that people might capture it.

‘But… why is this one coming to me?’

I felt puzzled.

Was it acting familiar just because it had seen me for three days?

Clasping its two hands together and swaying, it almost looked like it was dancing.

But I focused back on the work.

‘Looks like it’s finally taking proper shape.’

I dug out the bottom as much as I wanted.

Like a large bowl, the pond was starting to take form.

I could probably stop the digging work here.

‘Now, I should spread this out.’

I unfolded the plastic sheet I had prepared in advance and covered the entire pond floor.

It would serve as a waterproof lining to prevent leakage from the pond.

‘Since it’s fairly big, too.’

It was something from the storage room.

It seemed to have been meant as waterproof gear against rain, but it was good enough to block pond leakage.

‘Now what I need is…’

I logged into to check again.

A pond was no different from an ecosystem.

For a person to build one was extremely difficult.

But the system kindly explained all the necessary materials and methods for constructing a pond.

‘Now I need stones.’

I needed stones to stack the bottom and the edges.

‘I can decorate with natural stones from around here.’

The waterproof sheet must not get torn.

Large stones had to be placed carefully, and smaller pebbles should be chosen as much as possible.

‘Thankfully, there are plenty of stones by the river.’

I carried plenty of usable pebbles and placed them on top of the waterproof sheet.

‘Picking up stones by the river and hauling them to the pond is really tiring.’

What had only strained my arms before now made my legs ache as well.

In the end, I couldn’t even fill one-fifth of it by nightfall.

‘It’s late, so I’ll continue tomorrow.’

I ended up spending the last of the weekend fully on building the pond.

The fourth day of pond work.

After finishing class, I headed toward the pond.

As soon as I arrived at the worksite, I blinked in surprise.

‘What’s this.’

I noticed something strange about the pond area.

The entire bottom was covered with pebbles, and in a rather neat proportion too.

‘…How much work did I do yesterday again?’

I had laid the waterproof sheet at the bottom and started filling it with soil and pebbles.

But I had stopped without even filling one-fifth.

‘Then why is it all filled now?’

I wondered if there was something wrong with my memory, but that wasn’t the case.

‘Then who did this?’

Could someone have been watching me?

‘But there’s no one who would help me.’

Was it some kind of mysterious helper?

The only one I could suspect was Lapin.

‘But she would never do it, saying it’s too hard.’

From the start, she just played or slept with the animals near the livestock shed.

She hadn’t even followed me.

She wouldn’t know I was building a pond.

‘Did the caretaker do it?’

Thinking again, that wasn’t possible either.

Since this land was abandoned by the school, there wouldn’t be a caretaker.

‘Then who did it?’

I was still pondering when it happened.

Grrrk, beep!

The sea otter came scurrying over and stood on two legs, looking up at me.

And it was right in front of me.

‘…No way.’

A hollow laugh escaped my lips.

“Did you… make this?”

Beep.

As if affirming my words, the sea otter answered that way.

“Heh…”

I let out a short sigh while looking back at the pond.

If I remembered correctly, sea otters had a habit of helping when their companions built homes.

“You thought I was building a house, so you helped?”

Beep!

That was why the sea otter had been watching my work so intently for days. It must have thought I was building a home, and wanted to help.

It was something that should have taken three more days, but the sea otter kindly did it instead.

‘Could it… be registered?’

Although I hadn’t decorated the surroundings yet, nor added aquatic plants or filled it with water.

I first clicked “Farm Registration” toward the pond.

Ta-da! Tada-tada!

Congratulations! You’ve completed the farm registration!

‘It worked?’

I was dumbfounded.

If I had worked alone, I thought it would take at least a week to finish.

And yet, it was done this easily?

Of course, even if the pond was registered in the system, it was still only a shell of a pond.

I still had to decorate the edges, add aquatic plants, and fill it with water to complete a proper pond.

There were still a few more days of work left, but I felt grateful to the sea otter who had laid the pebbles for me.

“…Thanks.”

I said, looking at the sea otter.

Wondering if I had anything to repay it with, I pulled out a few boiled eggs.

Beep! Beep!

The sea otter sniffed the eggs with interest, then moved them toward its mouth.

It held the egg with both hands and munched away happily.

Beep!

Had its wariness completely disappeared?

As if thanking me for the eggs, the sea otter rubbed its face against my leg.

‘I don’t know why animals in this world like eggs so much.’

I was watching with that thought in mind.

An unexpected phrase appeared.

You became friends with an animal! This is your chance to bring it to the farm!

It was a sudden notification.

The animal friend I became close to must have been the sea otter.

‘……I can bring this one to the farm too?’

I was puzzled.

Hwayo and Boogie were characters from Animal Farm.

That was why they could be registered into the Animal Farm system.

But the sea otter was a rare animal of the Royal Academy Yggdrasil.

‘And yet I can still bring it?’

The systems of completely different games were being linked.

I realized that after seeing this case.

‘So if I tame a wild animal…… I can register it into the farm.’

When I stretched out my hand, the sea otter placed its paw on mine as if it understood my intent.

“Animal registration.”

As I said that, a soft glow appeared around the sea otter.

You registered the sea otter friend in the Pond Farm!

Along with that phrase, a card fell before my eyes.

I could tell it was the sea otter’s card.

‘So the sea otter also gets taken into the Animal Farm system.’

I thought so as I looked at it, but this time it was in a slightly different form.

I waited for a while, but nothing unusual happened to the sea otter.

‘It doesn’t actually go into the system?’

I wondered if it might have been applied in the form of a ‘summon.’

But the sea otter’s card didn’t even have a summon function.

On top of that, since it didn’t enter Animal Farm, even the level system didn’t appear.

‘So Yggdrasil animals can also be tamed, but they can only be raised in the real farm.’

That was the exception.

And even the card’s abilities were different.

There was only a single skill, and even its type was something I had never seen before.

Passive

‘A passive skill?’

Active skills were ones you used directly.

Passive skills were always in effect.

I calmly organized my thoughts.

‘Animals like Hwayo or Boogie from Animal Farm are in the active type.’

They could participate in battles and lived inside the farm system.

In contrast, when registering wild animals of the Royal Academy Yggdrasil, they didn’t participate in battle and lived only in the physical farm.

The card’s skill seemed to be given in the passive form.

‘So that’s how it is.’

After understanding the system properly, I turned to check the sea otter’s ability.

‘What kind of skill will it have?’

As I stared at the card, information flowed into my mind.

You can detect hidden allies or enemies.

***

This was the princess’s private dormitory and villa, prepared within Yggdrasil.

Princess Arlhardt opened the window and walked out to the edge of the terrace.

From the terrace railing, she saw the barley fields stretch endlessly.

A refreshing breeze blew in.

She tucked her golden hair, swaying in the tailwind, behind her ear as she looked at the scenery.

Swaaah.

When the wind blew across the green barley field, it looked like gentle waves of the sea.

Just watching while listening to the sound of the wind gave her a fleeting sense of peace.

The princess turned her gaze to the side of the terrace.

A large willow tree rising up from the first floor caught her eyes.

It was perhaps about fifteen meters tall.

The princess softly spoke toward it.

“Curio.”

From the shadow of the willow, a shape deepened, and soon it transformed into a ‘student’ wearing a school uniform.

“You called for me.”

Short hair trimmed for ease of movement.

Predator’s eyes waiting for its master’s command.

Curio of the Shade.

An assassin using ‘shadow’ powers among the darkness attributes.

One of her closest aides, disguised as a student to guard the princess from nearby.

“Keep a diligent watch over the second son of the Dedenkman family, starting today.”

“As Your Highness commands.”

Curio knelt on one knee and bowed, offering respect to his liege.

Then, in that posture, he vanished into the shadows without a trace.