The Unwanted Tamer

Gaia woke up to the sound of someone banging on her door. She quickly got dressed in her oversized robe and grabbed Malachite before opening the door. There was a short, stocky, bearded man with slightly pointed ears in front of her. The first thing to come to mind were the dwarves from movies she’d seen on earth. He looked her up and down before turning around and motioning for her to follow. For a person as small as he was, he was quick. She nearly had to jog to keep up with him. As they walked, he started talking.

“So, you’re the new recruit that can’t hurt anything are ya?” He asked gruffly.

“Yeah. That’s what I have Malachite for, though he can’t do it very quickly.” She responded.

“I’m Havi. I’ll be one of your teachers during this camp. We’ll cram all the knowledge you’ll need to know into the next six months. We’ll also supervise you while you hunt so we can get up to stone rank. That’s when we’ll give you a final test before determining whether you’re ready to be a proper Hunter.” He explained.

“Ah. Also, everything will be provided outside of armor, clothes, and weapons.” He finished.

Seeing as that answered any questions she could think of, she followed Havi silently. He took her through the main roads and out of the town to the east. There were gates at each cardinal direction from what he explained. They continued down the path for a few hours until a large pink wooden building came into view. Havi just pointed towards it and told her to go to the main entrance.

She did as she was told and walked in, to find it was just a basic wooden structure. There were a few groups of people at small tables just inside the door and a cafeteria style counter to the right of the entrance. To her left she saw a small desk and a weary-looking tiger person waving her over.

“Please show me your ID.” He said tiredly as she got to the counter. She showed him her ID. He then checked a crystal that showed a list of names that he scrolled through.

“Gaia. Ah, yes, You’re right here. Your room will be on the top floor. We will have a lecture in about an hour on basic monsters. Lunch is currently being served and will end in about a half hour, so I suggest putting whatever belongings you have in your room and getting food. Late attendance will not be allowed for any classes.” He stated as he handed her a crystal.

She walked to the top floor before realizing she was never given a room number. As she looked, she also noticed none of the doors had knobs, so she just started going door to door. Once she checked around seven doors someone came up and put their crystal on a door and it opened. She tried doing the same and it finally worked on the last door in the hall.

The room was small and had a desk, chair, chest, and bed. Otherwise, it was all made out of a pink wood which she assumed came from the shimmering forest. She closed the door and went down for some food. They were serving a basic meal that consisted of meat that looked like some kind of chicken and some veggies that looked like multicolored versions of their earthen counterparts. They tasted similar to how they looked but the meat was tougher than chicken would be.

She was thankful that most of the food tasted similar to how their earthen counterparts were but had slight differences. They were small things, the potato like vegetables were naturally spicy, the broccoli is purple and sweet, and the weirdest she’d had so far was a leafy vegetable used as dessert that tasted like chocolate.

After her meal, she was pointed towards the room for the lecture. It was a long lecture that lasted a few hours. It consisted of the lecturer explaining various aspects of basic monsters. They were called that due to their low levels and similarity to their mundane counterparts. They explained the weak points of the most common monsters near the facility. She thought it was really interesting.

After the lecture, she was told it was now free time. They could do what they wanted from extra hunting to practicing hobbies like crafting or relaxing. She decided to go and read some books on monsters and try to find anything about her class or title. There was no information about either and she asked the librarian who stated they’d never heard of either before.

So, to sum up her research there were hundreds of classes and her tamer, let alone unwanted tamer class was not one they had ever had before.

“Well, that’s just wonderfully convenient” she thought.

Nothing she could do about that, so she went back to her room after realizing she’d missed dinner while reading and slept. She awoke to the sound of someone yelling “Get up! You have thirty minutes to get ready for hunting.” She just grabbed Malachite, put on her robe, and opened her door to go downstairs. She saw a woman going down the stairs and just followed her. When they got to the first floor the woman turned around and jumped when she saw Gaia.

“Why aren’t you getting ready?” She exclaimed.

“I am. I don’t have anything else.” Gaia explained.

“Well. Great. I guess you’ll be with me today then. Its always first come, first served for supervisors. I’m Aira. I’ll be with you the entire day. Go grab your breakfast and they’ll give you a lunch to take with you.” She said.

“Ok.” Gaia responded and walked towards the cafeteria counter. They gave her breakfast and a bag with lunch. She checked the lunch, and it even had some stuff for Malachite, so she thanked the server profusely.

“So, have you actually hunted anything yet?” Aira asked as they left the building.

“Not really. Also, just so you won’t be surprised. I can’t actually hurt anything myself, so I’ll need this guy to actually deal damage.” She said.

Aira just went silent for a minute. “Well, today will be interesting then won’t it.” She responded.

Aira guided Gaia to a part of the forest and motioned for her to take the lead from that point on. Gaia attempted to do so and after about a half hour found a monster. It was something akin to a squirrel but was twice as large and had plates on its body. She tried to sneak up and grab but failed and was instead smacked by the creature's tail. It hurt a bit but not as much as she expected.

She ran up and grabbed the creature before pinning it to the ground and again waiting the almost ten minutes for Malachite to kill it. They absorbed the soul and started looking for another monster when another quest appeared.

Tamer quest: Raise Bond ‘Malachite’ to level two. (30%)

She just stared for a moment before dismissing the screen. She was already planning to try and level him up today anyway. They continued and found a few more of the squirrel creatures which she remembered were called “Plated Squirrels.” Name’s bit on the nose but fair enough, she thought. The fights went a bit quicker as she started to be able to dodge their tails, which was their strongest attack. It was about midday when they stopped for lunch, and she checked the state of the quest.

Tamer Quest: Raise Bond ‘Malachite’ to level two. (60%)

They only had about four more to go. As they ate Aira gave them advice on how she and Malachite could deal with the enemies a bit easier. She agreed to try and follow the advice. They quickly finished three more fights with different monsters. One was a slime like monster that Malachite just ate, another was a grasshopper that was a few feet in length, and the last was a Walking Gorger. They weren’t difficult but the Walking Gorger tore Gaia’s robe to ribbons. Aira looked on in shock as Gaia walked away with minor cuts.

Their final monster was found just before it got dark. It was a small forest cat known as an Insatiable Fang. They grew with the number of monsters or prey they ate. This one seemed to have either spawned recently or not found any prey. Gaia sprinted to grab it, but it dodged and bit her arm. It was able to pierce her skin and tore a chunk from her arm. As it swallowed it grew a couple inches. She continued to try and pin it until it was about half her size, and she had quite a few bites. At that point she was able to grab it around the neck to keep it from being able to bite her or Malachite.

It took quite a bit of her strength to keep a hold on the monster and keep its head on the ground. Sadly, this monster also gained more health as it grew so it took Malachite longer to kill it. Around a half hour later the monster was dead, Gaia crawled to her feet and picked Malachite up. She was still bleeding from multiple wounds and Aira swiftly patched her up with first aid. Her robe was in tatters, and she had multiple bandages on when she returned to the camp building. People looked at her like she was crazy for doing something that caused her robe to be that torn. Others looked on with pity as if thinking “She’s in way over her head” or “What did she run into, that could do that.” No one voiced these thoughts, at least not loud enough for her to hear them. She was quickly ushered into an infirmary within minutes of arriving.

There was a healer on standby for this very reason and she was quickly healed. Healing boosted a person’s normal healing speed but was tiring for the body. After she was healed, Gaia was exhausted and hungry. She was brought a cafeteria tray, and she swiftly devoured the food. Then was told to go to her room and rest for the night. She did so and checked the quest when she was in the room.

Tamer Quest: Raise Bond ‘Malachite’ to level two. (100%)

Reward: Increased understanding between bonds.

She didn’t understand what that meant, so she just held Malachite close and drifted off to sleep. The next morning, she awoke around dawn. She showered and threw on the rags that were now her robe and grabbed Malachite before heading down for food. As she did, she noticed Aira standing to the side of the cafeteria where she called her over.

“So, we’re not supposed to provide things like armor or clothes, but we have crafting classes. If you take the tailoring class, they will give you some cloth which you can make your own clothes. I was allowed to give you something to wear as long you take that class today.” She explained as she handed over a new robe.

“Thank you. I’ll go to the class as it seems I might need it. Are there other crafting classes?” Gaia asked.

“Yeah, there are a few we have a schedule in the first-floor hall if you want to look.”

“Thank you” Gaia told her as she went to eat. As she ate, she started to notice a feeling of happiness. She didn’t know what it was, but she just thought it was from watching Malachite eat. When she finished her food, she took her tray back and noticed the feeling of worry and started to be concerned until she noticed Malachite waddling around on her table looking for her. She went back over and when he saw her the feeling was replaced with relief.

She tried to explore what this new connection was and soon noticed it could go both ways. She could send him feelings through this connection just as he did to her. She wasn’t able to send words or pictures, just emotions but thought it might increase as they leveled up. As she looked at him a bit closer, she noticed that he had grown a bit instead of fitting in her one hand he now had to be held in both hands. She checked his status.

Name - Malachite

Race - Turtle (???)

Rank - Normal

Level - 2

Title - Unchosen bond

Skills:

Bite

Hide

Size change – Creature can change size to any size they have been before. (Does not affect holders' natural growth)

Abilities:

Defensive Nature

Tamer Quest: Raise Bond Malachite to Stone rank 0/1

She didn’t know whether she would ever see any numbers for his stats, but he had gained a new skill which she assumed came from killing the Insatiable Fang since it was the only monster that could change its size that they’d fought. She then checked her own status.

Name – Gaia

Race – Earthbound Lost

Titles:

Unwanted

Class – Unwanted Tamer

Rank – Normal (20%)

Level – 2

Bonds – 1/1

Skills:

Basic Analysis

Ability copy – Holder gains the ability to copy bonded monsters' abilities. Copied abilities (0/1)

Abilities:

Tamer’s Guide

Available bond abilities – Defensive Nature

Copy ability? Yes/No

She selected yes.

Ability shared - Defensive Nature. Enacting stat adjustments.

As this happened, she felt some strength leave her and light shimmered around her for a brief moment before she felt like there was a small barrier around her skin. She poked her arms, but they felt like the cold stone they were. She assumed it required some kind of force but wasn’t entirely sure. It didn’t look any different from before, but she could feel the barrier of something around her. She was brought from her musings by people getting up and leaving so she went to check out the times for crafting classes.

The tailoring class was slotted for the next couple hours but there were a few other classes from blacksmithing and alchemy to cooking and gardening. She went to the tailoring class and found out she was hopeless at it as her inability to hurt anything also extended to objects apparently. She couldn’t even pierce the fabric with a needle. The next class she took was blacksmithing and quickly left when she had the same problem. The class she enjoyed the most and decided to go to when she could, was gardening.

The teacher was terrifying at first. His name was Gregor. He was a large and scary man from the Ursia race. They were a race that had the characteristics of bears. He had large claws and was an imposing person but adored gardening and plants in general. He made the class enjoyable and relaxing. He taught magic on how to increase the growth rate of plants and how to tend to them. She loved the class as it allowed her to learn magic which she didn’t know she could use. She also thought she might be able to grow food for herself and Malachite. She was just worried if it would consider harvesting hurting the plants.

Malachite also seemed to enjoy the class, but she thought it was because of the attention he got. He liked to sit under the plants while they were watered. It was enjoyable to watch him though.

The weeks at the camp continued along those lines for the first few months. She noticed that the days were the same twenty-four hours as earth, but the weeks were nine days long. She was also told that years were ten months long. She got into a routine as she got used to this world and the camp. During this time, she even managed to raise both their levels to six. As their levels increased, it became harder for their levels to rise. She also started to enjoy the hunts more as the monsters weren’t able to hurt her anymore, including the insatiable fang they had fought the first time. She really appreciated the ability she got from Malachite. His size had increased as they leveled up, he was now about three feet long and about two feet tall. Thankfully, his size change ability made it easy for her to carry him. Their bond also increased as they completed quests from her Tamer’s Guide ability. They were now able to send impressions, and basic words but they still couldn’t talk through their bond it seemed more like Malachite’s intelligence was improving as he leveled up.

She hoped this meant they would be able to speak to each other at some point through the bond. She looked forward to the day they could truly speak to each other. He mainly said or asked one-word statements or questions through the bond. Like when he was happy, he could say happy, or when he was hungry, he’d say salad. It was quite cute, and his voice was similar to a little boy when he spoke through the bond.

The day for them to harvest the plants they had grown in gardening class had finally come. She was both excited and scared at what would happen. She quickly made her way to the garden where the gardening instructor Gregor was waiting. He had a large smile on his face as he saw Gaia running towards the garden. She had told him about her inability to damage anything and he had suggested that it may allow her to harvest something if she grew it herself.

She went to her plant which was a variety of melon similar to honeydew but had the consistency of watermelon. She had tried it when the cafeteria had served some. It was fully grown, and she hesitated before trying to pluck it from the stem. It came off and she almost cried when it did. She had been worried for months from when she had first planted it. She could actually harvest plants she had grown herself. She asked Gregor to cut it and he happily did so. She gave a piece to Malachite who had grown to his current three-foot size, and they all enjoyed the literal fruit of her labor.

After her first success with growing plants, she started to research growth magic and also had the idea to try healing magic as it didn’t deal damage but instead removed it. Her research took most of her time outside of classes, and hunting. She had some success with healing magic, but it seemed to only work on her and Malachite. She was able to heal small wounds but unable to heal anything major, the magic was quick to cast and take effect though.

Before she knew it there was only a month left until her final exam to leave the camp. The time had flown by much quicker than she had expected. She had also grown much stronger. She now had a knowledge base about monsters she’d likely encounter, rank differences, how the countries interacted, and how hunters truly operated.

Hunters finished requests. Whether subjugation or collection. They could pick a request from the hunter board in a town or village and as long as they placed their Hunter League badge on it, the request would be assigned to them. Once they finished the request it would burn any copies of that request from any boards and the hunter just needed to return to a branch location to receive their rewards. Requests could be taken depending on the persons rank, and their level within that rank for safety reasons. When someone completed a number of requests quickly and successfully, they would receive an arrow. This would allow for hunters to take on requests with higher difficulty but often required parties to complete. Therefore, the more arrows a hunter had the more responsibilities they had on missions. The hunters with the highest rank or number of arrows on their cards were often given command of multi-party requests.

The highest number of arrows a hunter’s badge could have was five. This maximum was decided on as it made it easier to check a hunter's performance at a glance, without needing to check their records every time a multi-party group was needed. This made it easier to distinguish between hunters that had the Leagues trust, and those that didn’t. Every time they ranked up it would drop by two. This was because when they ranked up, they were considered the weakest of the new rank.

She was also taught how the countries of the world interact. There were four major countries in the world which held most of the power. The Kingdom which she was currently in, took up the entire western half of the continent. The Shattered Islands, which was made up of city-states in a massive island chain in the Southern Ocean that had a central council with each city-state having a representative. The Tribes were a large number of nomadic groups that traveled the desert and plains that encompass the southern quarter of the continent. The last major power was the Grail Empire which controlled the eastern continent. There were also many small countries, but they all had no power.

She was also told that all countries used the same currency, however. The currency was known as crystallized cores. There were multiple varieties which coincided with the rank of them. The lowest was a stone core, and the highest an orichalcum core. Most normal rank people used stone cores. One hundred stone cores equaled one bronze core and increased similarly by rank.

There were five ranks. Stone, Bronze, Iron, Adamantine, and finally Orichalcum rank. Whenever someone ranked up a rank, they were stronger than the previous and the weakest of the new one.. Fighting down a rank was easy, as the person had already passed that rank and therefore much stronger than anything within it. Fighting up a rank was not suggested until at the level cap of the previous rank. For example a stone rank fighting a bronze rank. This was due to the rank difference. The rank difference caused any attacks from a being in a rank lower than its own to deal significantly less damage.

She learned how magic, and mana worked. Mana was the natural state of magical energy that was widespread throughout the world. Magic was the phenomena when people used the mana, they naturally had to create a desired effect. This was based on what spell they used and normally had to deal with a person's class and spirit. She was told that some attributes could be bound but didn’t understand what that meant and was just told she’d understand as she ranked up. As her class was tamer, she couldn’t use any magic that caused damage but could use magic like healing and growth. These were normally types of magic that were only accessible by healers or farmers.

When mana was concentrated into an area it could lead to portal creation. They caused monsters that were not native to this world to spew forth in great numbers and often distorted the landscapes around them. This was caused by the portal leaking high concentrations of magic from the dimension they connected to. Monsters could also form due to the rise of ambient mana in areas where they spawned naturally. Mundane creatures could also become monsters from absorbing more mana than they could control.

The world had many areas with high mana, and these tended to have higher ranked monsters and portals. Portals could be beneficial as long as they were contained and monitored as they could cause water to spew from them in a desert creating oases or allow certain materials to be mined regularly when the world couldn’t naturally produce them in a sustainable way. They were always full of monsters and were ranked based on the most common monsters they had.

One area that had an extremely high saturation of mana was the continent to the north. It was known as the Deserted North since there had been a large country there that was destroyed due to a multitude of high ranked portals appearing. It was teeming with portals and Orichalcum ranked monsters. No country had tried to go there since as it was so dangerous and the countries couldn’t justify losing even one of the few Orichalcum Hunters for such a dangerous land.

She enjoyed learning everything about the world. The one part that was very interesting to her was that some people had the ability to loot things from monsters. These came from lucky or divinely given abilities. She was also loathed to hear that lost always had this ability. The loot items appeared when the monsters dissolved into the mush and left behind items. These could be cores, items, or materials. This caused her to panic for a bit as she didn’t have that ability but was told she would get paid for the requests no matter what as long it was reported as completed.

As the final week approached, she was out hunting with Malachite and Aira. Aira had become her regular supervisor, and they had started to chat more and more as Gaia and Malachite’s abilities improved. They had become friends over the almost six months they had been hunting together. She was joining them for their last hunt before the final exam. They only needed a few more monster kills before she became stone rank.

Aira was giving advice on how to kill stronger monsters as Malachite could now kill Plate Squirrels, and similarly low-level monsters within a couple minutes now. They had been looking for stronger monsters to challenge but couldn’t find anything at their level while still being normal rank. They had been told that most hunters were expected to be able to fight and kill monsters at their rank and level easily. They were confident they could but if they tried to fight a monster above their rank, they would only deal about half their normal damage, and anything more than one rank higher they likely wouldn’t be able hurt.

They would gain the same abilities to resist damage from enemies of a lower rank than them as well. They would also gain more abilities tied to their class as they ranked up. This was nice as that meant basic monsters would be more manageable as a group at stone rank. Aira also explained that most hunters formed parties. These parties allowed hunters to fight monsters that were a higher level in their rank and were even expected to be able to fight monsters one rank above their own.

When Aira was done explaining about the ranks and their advantages they started to hunt some more. By the time they returned to the camp building Gaia and Malachite were only about one monster kill away from reaching stone rank. They researched more about the ranks and discovered that as they ranked up not only would they gain more abilities, but the existing abilities could be enhanced. Skills would also gain more benefits as they were used and ranked up. It did seem that a lot of information was missing for anything above stone rank in the camps library though.

They enjoyed their last few days of classes as the final exam crept closer. Before they knew it, it was the day of the exam. Gaia woke up early and did her morning routine that she had developed since being there. This consisted of a basic workout and a run. She always enjoyed her morning runs but today it just seemed especially peaceful. Malachite “joined” her run which was mainly him slowly walking in a few circles which he seemed to enjoy.

She was excited for the exam but also worried as no one knew what the exam consisted of until the day they took it. She grabbed Malachite and made her way to the exam hall. As she got closer to the door, she became more and more nervous until Malachite sent her some happy emotions which calmed her down a bit.

She waited until the camp leaders called her name. She entered and found an arena similar to the one from her hunter’s test but was many times larger. It was a pit about fifteen feet deep and thirty feet wide. She walked towards the examiner.

“Ah, Gaia. Glad you made it all the way through. Are you ready for your exam?” Aira asked.

“I-I think so.” She stuttered.

“Alright. Your exam is to fight and kill a stone rank monster. This has been the standard exam for the last hundred years. We have healers to heal you if you get injured and I’ll save you from any deadly blows. Do you understand?” She asked.

“Yes.” Gaia responded with determination.

“Well, get in there! Show us you’re ready to be a hunter.” She stated excitedly.

Gaia made her way to the pits edge and climbed down to the floor. On the other side of the pit was a large gate. She could hear something chittering behind the door. She held her breath until the gate started opening and the monster crawled out. What she saw terrified her, as the creatures were already freaks of nature in her mind. This one was that much worse as it was her size on its legs and appeared to be at least six feet long. It was a gargantuan tarantula that had a massive bone like carapace over its body. She screamed at the top of her lungs before a screen appeared.

Rank up quest: Kill Skull Shelled Tarantula (Stone Rank). 0/1

She looked between the screen and the six-foot tarantula and just shivered while begging for a different monster. She was, unfortunately, ignored. As she was in this dilemma, the spider was shuffling towards her. It shot a web that she barely dodged and used some kind of magic to summon a blob of green liquid. She went face first into the liquid and started to feel weaker almost immediately. The blob hit the ground and dissipated after she ran through it.

She tried to keep herself from falling and faceplanted. She got up to realize the pit now looked a sickly shade of green. She could barely see what was happening and tried to clear her eyes but couldn’t clear them. She tried healing herself, but nothing happened. She watched as a massive black blob was trying to bite a green blob which she realized was Malachite trying to bite the eight-legged horror.

She did what she could, blindly trying to grab the spider which was just a dark blob. Surprisingly, she managed to grab one of the spiders legs. Malachite was there as well and was able to bite one of the legs which broke from what he sent to her. Having found a chance to deal with the monstrosity, she swiftly reached out and grabbed another leg. She used what little leverage she had to bring it towards her bond. They continued to use this method until all four legs on that side of its body were broken.

The last leg she had grabbed was one of its front legs from the fact she felt something pierce her side as Malachite told her it was broken. She tried to rip one of its fangs from her side but was unsuccessful. Malachite bit its fang and was able to hold it while Gaia got free. As she backed away, she could see that the right half of the spiders body was limp and splayed out to the side unmoving. She took a moment to heal herself and once again dove into the monsters reach. After another four minutes the spiders left legs were broken and Malachite was biting into the spiders body.

The fight ended with the spider summoning one last blob of what she had discovered was poison right above Malachite. This one seemed slightly different as it was a blob of black liquid instead. Gaia ran and grabbed him before it could hit him, while taking another hit to the face from the liquid. At this point her entire field of view was just a sickening bright green. She couldn’t see anything and started panicking. She thought she wouldn’t be able to see any screens, but for some reason she was still able to see them as one appeared. She guessed it was because it was one of her abilities but didn’t question why they appeared even though her vision was gone. She was just thankful she could.

Rank up Quest: Kill Skull Shelled Tarantula (Stone Rank). 1/1

Quest Reward: Monster Egg. Bonded monsters have increased resistance to attacks of higher ranks. Bonded monsters attacks ignore some of the rank difference. Rank up item.

Title detected. Modifying Reward.

New Reward: Egg of the Unchosen. Bonded Monsters have higher resistance to attacks of higher ranks. Bonded monsters deal low spiritual damage. Rank up item.

Egg of the Unchosen. Bound to Gaia. Will hatch within twenty-four hours.

After a moment of reading through the screens she heard Aira yell from the top of the pit. “Congrats. You killed a stone rank monster alone and one rank below. Come on up here.”

“I-I-I’ll need help getting up there. I can’t see anything.” She said in a slightly panicked voice.

“Teresia. Get down there and see if you can heal it. Quickly!” Aira yelled.

Gaia heard someone land and they walked over to her. She felt the same kind of healing magic but quite a bit stronger than what she could cast. Nothing happened though. Her vision was still completely green.

Abnormality detected. Monster Skull Shelled Tarantula has dealt spiritual damage through poison. Damage is unable to be healed.

As this last screen appeared the healer named Teresia yelled “I healed her, but it didn’t seem to take.”

“Did anything happen” She asked Gaia.

“No. but a message popped up saying spiritual damage and unable to be healed. Does that mean I’m stuck like this?” Gaia asked as she started to cry. When she did, pain started flowing down her face where she felt her tears go. She pulled her hand up to wipe them and felt a stinging on her hand.

“What’s happening? My tears hurt!” She cried.

“Oh... Let’s get you to the infirmary now. Can you get Malachite?” Aira asked as she got to Gaia.

She nodded and Malachite shrunk to be able to snuggle her. As they carried her to the infirmary, she was trying to calm Malachite down as he was sending her thoughts.

“Hurt? Bad? I help?” He sent.

“Yes. You’re helping big guy.” She responded, trying to calm him down.

They reached the infirmary quickly and they laid her down before telling her to rest for the day. They’d talk in the morning. She fell asleep not long after that as she was exhausted.