Chapter 184: Chapter 167 – A Lucky Find, and Monster Taming

"The field of monster taming is a rare one, owing to the inherent difficulties of the pursuit. Most monsters, once grown up in the wild, are utterly untamable, and even when dealing with infant monsters, it takes an experienced tamer to handle the beasts properly.

 

As a whole, the craft is rarely seen outside of Therian, Elf, and Merfolk hands, who had a more natural predilection to the craft for various reasons. A properly tamed beast typically bonded for life with either their tamer or someone their tamer made them bond to, and such a bond was typically only separable by death." - Dimitry Carr'uurg, veteran beast tamer, circa 426 FP.

Cal turned to see just what got Leila so happy, and Ying Xiao trailed behind her as she walked. Dan followed along, still working on healing the girl's pulverized internal organs, an injury that would have killed most anyone, which Ying Xiao had so nonchalantly ignored as she followed behind Cal.

 

They soon saw the cause of Leila's joyful exclamation: a grayish-green egg, oval in shape, the size of a human head, which stood upright in a depression in the middle of the drake's nest. Clearly the drake's spawn, and although Cal didn't know why her grand-niece was so happy about it, she did know that such things fetch a very pretty sum on the market.

 

"Why the jubilation?" Cal asked in the end, her curiosity getting the better of her. By then Leila has fashioned a sling out of a piece of cloth and carefully deposited the egg in the sling, where it rested against her chest.

 

"Oh right, aunt Celeysria didn't know," Leila said as she slapped her forehead with one hand, as if she had forgotten to tell Cal of something she should know. "Mom used to be a monster tamer when she was an adventurer, aunt."

 

"Used to be?" Cal queried, homing in on the wording Leila used just then.

 

"She quit adventuring when her beast died protecting her, is what she told me," explained Leila to Cal's query. "That said, she still does jobs related to taming beasts from time to time. And I've always wanted one that could fly myself!" A grin spread on Leila's face as she said she said the last sentence. "Ilena already got hers waiting for her, but I had no such luck."

 

"Wait… you mean your cat is…?" Cal asked, an eyebrow quirked.

 

"Oh right. Ida doesn't look it yet, but she's a Reaper Serval. I didn't even know their babies barely looked any different from a kitten till mom brought her home!" Leila said with some enthusiasm evident in her voice. The last time Cal saw the cat just the past winter she did feel like Ida had grown larger than she expected a cat to grow. "Dad had a stroke of luck, and found her being sold by an adventurer when she was still a newborn. That was when Ilena was like a month old or so, if I remember right."

 

"Anyway, mom said that if trained from such a young age Reaper Servals would be very loyal companions. I had wanted a flying one, so we had her bond to Ilena instead and let them grow together," explained Leila further, clearly somewhat familiar with the field herself. "I think aunt noticed how close those two are. I'm hoping this egg will get me something similar… but with wings!"

 

Cal did recall how close the toddler was with the cat-like beast, with Ilena at times riding the now larger beast around like a steed. She was familiar with the name of the beast Leila mentioned as well, as they were present in Al-Shan. Adult Reaper Servals were easily half again as large as a mature tiger, and while they were feared territorial predators, they almost never encroached into villages or cities, usually staying away from people.

 

She also knew that those beasts had natural blood affinity on top of their already intimidating physical size, and thus, she definitely could see the potential of having one as a bonded partner. Especially one that grew up from infancy with their partner, and they were supposedly long lived animals too at that.

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Since her little sister already has a pet waiting for her, Cal could definitely see why Leila wanted one for herself, though her desire for a flying beast that could carry her on its back made that wish a far harder one to realize. Until they stumbled upon this drake egg, at least.

 

Cal noticed that Leila was keeping the egg warm with some very careful application of her magic, and nodded, satisfied that the girl clearly knew how to care for the egg. In the meantime, Elaina and Sidonie, being more experienced at adventuring, were lecturing Ying Xiao on how to dismantle the drake.

 

The two half elven girls were deft hands with their knives and showed Ying Xiao which parts of the beast were valuable and whatnot. When they ran into tough areas, they let Ying Xiao try her hand and leverage her strength to extract the valuable bits of the drake.

 

Probably because of Cal's influence, the girls also made sure to store all the less damaged choice bits of the drake's meat. Most of the creature was harvester cleanly, organs which had value, plundered. The scales that were undamaged plucked clean, same with the underlying skin. As she had seen for herself how the drake could take punishment, Cal knew that they would be really good material to make light armor from.

 

Depending on the request, the materials from the beast might be the property of the one who made the request. In this particular case, however, the rancher had only requested for the drake to be "killed or driven off", which meant that any loot from the beast belonged to the adventurers who dealt with it.

 

That bit of legality meant that as long as the other girls agreed to it, the drake egg belonged to Leila by right, and Cal already saw that her nieces had no interest in the egg. They seem more interested in the drake's meat instead, which drew a chuckle from Kino.

 

Before long, all that's left of the drake were just damaged scales and worthless viscera, with every other bit neatly packed away in the girls' storages. Cal approved of their diligence, and led them out back towards the ranch to report their success. The drake's head should serve as plenty proof for it.

 

They had no plans to return to Assadun to report the request, as such requests were typically given to every guildhouse in the vicinity, so they could just as easily turn it in at their next destination instead.

 

All the way back, Leila cradled the drake's egg close to her bosom like it was a baby. To the girl's mind, it might as well be.

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