Chapter 109 – Chimera

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As for the Adventurers, unlike Fio and the others, they were talking to each other with grave expressions.
Kelly then turned to them and said,

“We cannot say anything for sure yet. As a scholar, I should say that I still don’t know…”
“No, you were a great help. It is now our job to prepare for any outcome.”

Victor answered with a smile.
He was a veteran, and not shaken so easily as the others.

Providing confirmation academically would be quite challenging, and take a considerable amount of time.
Days of additional investigation, and perhaps weeks of testing.
That was too long, considering the situation we were in.
And so even if just a theory, it was really helpful for us to know.

I turned to Ije.

“Ije. Is the large boar a Chimera?”
“Chimera. Never heard of that. What is it?”
“Well, I don’t know what Chimeras are like on this continent…”
“What are they like on Theo’s continent?”
“They have the head of a lion, body of a goat, and tail of a snake. A large monster.”
“…Scary.”
“Yes, they are very scary.”
“Hmm. Never heard of or seen such thing.”
“I see.”

So, this giant boar that Ije was talking about was quite different then.
While the two-pronged hoofprint did look like that of a boar, goats were the same as well.
And Chimera’s had the body of a goat.

And so we would have to think of ways to deal with such a vicious monster.
That would mostly be up to Victor.
I then turned to him.

“The Chimera…what will you do? Victor?”
“It’s not someone you want to fight head on.”
“Indeed.”
‘Hippolius will do best!’
“Thank you, Hippolius. We’ll be counting on you.”
“Kyuo!”

Hippolius was the strongest out of our fighting force.
And so Hippolius would be the most important part of our countermeasures.

“But it’s difficult to plan ahead, if we don’t know how different the Chimeras on this continent are.”
“Have you fought Chimeras before, Mr. Victor and Mr. Theo?”
“I have. Though, it was not solo.”
“As have I. Though, I carried baggage. So I wasn’t fighting it directly.”

I had been the carrier in the Heroes party.
So I mainly offered support and did odd jobs.

“Mr. Theo. Can’t you just tame the Chimera?”
“Hmmm. That will likely be too difficult.”
“It will? Even for you, Mr. Theo?”
“Indeed. To put it simply, there are three steps to the taming skill.”

Step 1. “Communication of intentions.”
Step 2. “An equal and cooperative relationship.”
Step 3. “Turning them into a familiar.”

“Hippolius, Kuro, Roro, Ruru, and Pii were all turned to familiars at the last step.”
“Shiro is Fio’s familiar!”

Fio said proudly while petting Shiro’s head.
Shiro sat good-manneredly and wagged her tail.

“That’s right. While making demon wolves your familiar is very hard, Fio is a genius.”
“Ehehe.”

Upon hearing this, one Adventurer tilted his head.

“But isn’t Hippolius very strong?”
“Kyuo?”

Hippolius immediately reacted to this.
It looked at the Adventurer and wagged its tail.

“You can tame an incredibly strong Hippolius, but not a Chimera?”
“…Could it be that Hippolius is weaker…”
“KYUUOOO!! ‘Hippolius stronger!!’”

Hippolius sounded quite offended at the suggestion.

“Indeed. I think Hippolius is stronger as well.”
“Kyuo.”

Hippolius squeaked with satisfaction and then rubbed against me.
And so I patted Hippolius on the head.

“As for that, I suppose I should explain when taming is easy.”

The Adventurers and Kelly all listened with serious expressions.
Ije also seemed to be interested, as she listened quietly.

“As you all know, stronger creatures are generally more difficult. Especially since the amount of magic energy they take is proportionate to their strength.”

Fio also stopped to listen.
Even if she was naturally good at it, she was still curious about what I would say.

“Unless you are strong, the monster might not even want to talk to you.”

They made decisions based on instincts.
If they thought that they could win easily, they will likely not think it worth negotiating with you.
However, if it would be a difficult battle, or they thought that they might die, then they might be open to negotiate.

“That being said, aside from strength, personality is also important.”
“…Personality, huh? Like whether or not they hate to lose?”
“No, their intelligence, aggressiveness and feelings towards humans is more important.”

Kelly nodded in agreement.

“Now that I think about it, the earthworm monsters were weak but difficult to tame!”
“Exactly. As they have low intelligence, I cannot even do the first step, which is talking to them.”

At the very least, they had to be able to understand me, or we could not communicate.
Still, as they were weak, we could make them work by force.
But as it used up magic energy, I did not want to do it very much.

“Since Chimeras are intelligent, we should be able to communicate. But on the other hand, they tend to be very aggressive.”

Just because you could talk, it did not mean you could come to an agreement.
It was the same with humans.

“In the past, I tried the first step with a Chimera. And it just told me to ‘shut up and die.’”
“Even after telling it the conditions? I know what Chimera like…”

Kelly had a great wealth of knowledge.
If you knew what the monster liked, then it would definitely give you an advantage during negotiations.

“Normally, you would use things like that when negotiating… But with Chimeras…”
“It doesn’t work?”
“Aye. Not only are they too wild and aggressive, but they just hate humans.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t just that particular one? Maybe humans killed their parents.”
“I have tried to tame ten Chimeras so far. And they all told me to shut up and die.”
“I see.”

And then Victor, who had been listening quietly, said,
“I think we better plan under the assumption that we will be fighting the Chimera then.”
The other Adventurers nodded.

Next Chapter

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