kscans

Chapter 305 - Taming Investigation and Verification

Hayato and the others were proceeding through what appeared to be an underground research facility, heading for the lowest floor.

The monsters that appeared here were the same Raptors found on the surface of the Floating Island, so there was no sense of tension. They were strong, but thanks to the coconut juice Hayato had made and the weapons and armor crafted from dinosaur bones and hides, they had a special effectiveness against dinosaurs, and their progress was smooth.

In the first place, with the Demon Lord present, along with the members of the Black Rose under her command, they already had an overwhelming surplus of combat power. With the members of Kokuryu and the Genesis Dragons added to that, there was no chance of losing.

However, contrary to their smooth progress, Hayato was facing various problems.

One of them was probably the unmotivated Noat.

"People of old said something profound. No man is an island."

"...And the meaning of that is?"

"Give me a piggyback ride."

"Noat-san, perhaps you should apologize to the people of old."

"If I apologize, will you give me a piggyback ride?"

"Please leave this to me. Listen, Noat. Master wishes to give Ash-sama a piggyback ride."

"Esha, you apologize to me."

"Understood. In that case, I will be carried piggyback by Ash-san, who is being carried piggyback by Hayato-san. I believe this is a perfect plan that incorporates everyone's opinions."

"The reason Ivan disbanded his clan wasn't because of you guys, was it?"

It was less of a problem and more of a tiring situation.

In the first place, was it even necessary to bring Noat, who could further boost this already overpowered team? Not really.

Cecil's response to that was this statement.

"I can't stand it when I'm working and Noat is just lazing around."

Though it was a personal sentiment, this statement gained a lot of support. Esha, in particular, was fully on Cecil's side, and few people sympathized with Noat being brought along even though she wasn't needed.

For the time being, the problem was slightly resolved by giving Noat a donut. The fact that she was walking on her own could be described as a dramatic improvement.

However, all the other female members also demanded snacks, so he had to make them, but for Hayato, it was within an acceptable range.

The other problem was Maris and Surya. This could be considered a more decent problem.

Yesterday, their taming attempts on the Raptor had failed, and both of them were feeling down.

When they were about halfway through, they decided to take a break.

Hayato thought it was a good time and spoke to the two of them.

"Um, are you two okay? Why are you in such low spirits anyway?"

"We're still in the investigation stage, but we're having some problems with taming dinosaurs. And thinking about it, it seems like taming a Stegosaurus will be impossible too."

"Problems?"

Hayato tilted his head.

Maris and Surya were the aces of the Tamer Guilds in the Royal and Imperial Capitals, respectively. He couldn't imagine the two of them having pet-related problems.

Surya, who was with Maris, sighed.

"Yesterday, Maris and I tried our best to tame a Raptor, but it was no good at all."

"I heard about that, but isn't it possible that Raptors just can't be tamed?"

There are specific monsters that can be turned into pets. Monsters that can't be tamed will remain untamable even with a Taming Skill of 100.

Generally, it is known that boss characters, those with proper names, those that are too large, or those that are exclusively aquatic cannot be tamed.

Attempting to tame such a monster will enrage it like a raging fire, and a buff effect that increases the opponent's stats will be applied.

"Some guy tried to tame me once, so I killed him instantly," said Agres, one of the Genesis Dragons.

At Boboda Mountain, the Tyrant Dragon Agres Berion appears every two hours. Currently, a simple AI Agres Berion is rampaging, but back then, Agres himself was doing it. Naturally, some players would try, even if they didn't intend to anger him.

For some reason, the members of the Black Rose, including Rosalie, nodded in agreement with Agres's words.

Since the Black Rose members appear as rare spawns in the Demon Lord's Castle, Hayato had his suspicions, but he decided not to ask anything unnecessary and avoided making eye contact.

Putting that aside, there are cases where monsters that meet the conditions can be tamed, and conversely, there are cases where monsters that don't meet the conditions cannot be tamed.

From Hayato's perspective, it seemed like a simple case of the Pteranodon being tamable while the Raptor was not.

"You know the clan called Bandit, right? There was a tamer there who had a Raptor as a pet."

"That's the first I've heard of it, but that happened?"

"It seems the Allosaurus was a no-go. I think that one is too large to be made into a pet. But there's a precedent for the Raptor. And yet, Maris's taming couldn't turn it into a pet. She tried persuading it for nearly thirty minutes, but it was no good."

Maris looked even more dejected at those words, but Surya continued.

"There are a few possible reasons. The most likely one is that you can only have one dinosaur as a pet at a time."

"Is that a thing?"

"It is. For example, you can't have monsters that are in a predator-prey relationship as pets at the same time. Like cat-type and mouse-type monsters. For some reason, this happens even if you leave them at the Tamer Guild. I wonder if they can tell by smell."

Hayato accepted this, thinking it was probably a game setting.

"Dinosaurs start fighting on their own when different species are nearby, right? There's a possibility that because you tamed a Pteranodon, you can't tame other dinosaurs."

"That certainly seems plausible."

It was discovered that dinosaurs fight each other when they first came to the Floating Island. Hearing that, Hayato had speculated that they had special effectiveness against each other and had considered making equipment using dinosaur bones and claws.

In that case, Hayato thought that if they released the Pteranodon back into the wild, they might be able to tame a Raptor.

But he looked at Maris and dismissed the idea.

Because Maris would never release a child she had once made her pet back into the wild.

"Wouldn't it have been better if Surya-san had tried to tame it instead of Maris?"

"That would have been fine, but..."

Surya looked at Maris. Maris was staring intently at Surya.

"Maris won't approve of it. I have Garland, so no matter what child I tame, I'll end up releasing it back into the wild eventually. There's a limit to the number of pets I can keep at the guild, too. But Maris doesn't seem to like that."

"I don't mean to force you, but I'd rather you not do that, Surya. If you make something your pet, I think you should take care of it until the end. I mean, please do."

"You're subtly forcing me, aren't you? Well, I don't intend to do anything Maris dislikes, so don't worry. I also think it's not right to release a pet back into the wild right after taming it. Besides, we learned that Raptors can't be turned into pets under certain conditions, so that's good information in its own way. But we don't know what those conditions are..."

"Isn't the condition I just mentioned the correct one? That you can't tame a Raptor because you tamed a Pteranodon."

Surya shook her head.

"There are various other conditions for not being able to have a pet. For example, there's a rule that you can only tame one rare monster, a so-called superior species. Maris's Lancelot is one. You can't tame two Elder Griffons. The Pteranodon isn't a superior species, so I don't think that system applies, though."

"I see. So there are others?"

"Yes, for example, gender conditions."

"Gender conditions?"

"Only women can tame Unicorns, right? There's a possibility that the Raptor is the male version of that. The tamer in Bandit was male."

A Unicorn is a white horse with a horn on its forehead.

Its horn is said to cure all status ailments, and Hayato had often used it when making medicine with his Alchemy Skill. He had also used it as a material when making Relic's glove, "Requiem."

This Unicorn can only be tamed by female characters. If a male tries to tame it, he gets kicked away. And it escapes.

She was saying there was a possibility that the Raptor was the opposite of the Unicorn, and would not accept being tamed by a female.

"So there are conditions like that too."

"We hadn't anticipated that, so our investigation and verification on this island have become a bit tricky. The Stegosaurus will probably be treated as a boss character, and from what I hear, it's too large to be made a pet. We'll give it a try, though. Well, even if we anger it, I don't think it'll be a problem with this much firepower."

"I see... In that case, should we ask the tamer from Bandit about taming dinosaurs?"

Both Maris and Surya had a look of "Huh?" on their faces.

Hayato felt it was a bit risky, but since the two of them hadn't remembered their real-world situations, he thought it would be fine for just the three of them, including himself, to interact with Bandit.

"Actually, the leader of Bandit owes me a favor. I don't know if they'll tell us everything, and there's a possibility we'll have to provide information from our side as well. For example, telling them how we tamed the Pteranodon... It's more like an information exchange, I guess."

"Is that kind of information enough?"

"At least they were surprised when they saw Maris with the Pteranodon. They wanted to know how she did it."

"I can tell them that much anytime. In the first place, if you ask the Tamer Guild for information related to tamers, they should tell you various things... ah, I see. There are various ways to tame flying monsters. I guess the Tamer Guild doesn't know about that."

Surya sent a glance toward Maris.

"What do you think, Maris? Do you have any problem exchanging information with their tamer?"

"Not at all. In fact, if there's an opportunity like that, I'd love to participate."

"Then it's settled. Hayato-san, sorry to ask, but could you arrange a promise with Bandit?"

"Of course. By the way, is it okay if I participate too?"

This was for the purpose of follow-up. Jolto was very perceptive. It would be troublesome if it was revealed that Maris and Surya were human, so this was in case something happened.

He didn't want to participate in a conversation that felt like a battle of wits, and normally it would be better not to get close at all, but he resigned himself to the fact that managing this low morale was also the duty of a clan leader.

After getting approval from Maris and Surya and finishing their conversation to some extent, Esha arrived.

"Master, is it all right to end the break soon? Lunaria-sama is raring to go all the way to the lowest floor at once."

"I have a bad feeling when Lunaria-sama gets fired up, but it's about time, so let's get going."

Originally, the reason they had come to the Floating Island was to seal monsters in the Monster Sealing Encyclopedia. Furthermore, they were also planning to get the switch to deactivate the lake's barrier and go to the central building.

First, they decided to defeat the Stegosaurus, and Hayato's group headed further in.