"Alright, you're free to pass. Good luck with the exam!"
"Thank you very much."
I received a parting word of encouragement from the gatekeeper, who seemed to have slightly misread my nerves, and stepped through the East Gate.
Immediately, a landscape unfolded before me that was entirely different from the views at the north or south gates.
"So, this is what it’s like over here..."
Wooden fences lined both sides of the road. Inside the enclosures, I could see cows, horses, and even massive monsters I had never encountered before, all idling about. The atmosphere was exactly like a sprawling ranch.
A large building visible a short distance away was likely the Tamer Guild branch. With silo-like towers standing beside it, the place truly looked like nothing so much as a farm.
"Excuse me."
The interior also differed from the town's guild. Most of the people here were dressed in work clothes; without prior knowledge, I might have mistaken it for a breakroom. Even the staff at the reception desk just inside the entrance wore rough, functional attire that favored mobility.
"Over here, please!"
A woman at the counter called out to me, perhaps noticing my hesitation.
"Hello. I was told I could receive a Familiar Aptitude Diagnosis here. Here are my documents and guild card."
"I'll take those. Ryoma Takebayashi-kun... right, first time. The testing area is in the back. Just go straight down that hallway and enter the room at the very end. Hand these to whichever staff member is free."
"Thank you."
Following her directions, I circled around to the left of the reception desk and headed down the long corridor.
The room at the end featured rows of benches on the right and five counters on the left. It reminded me of a bank waiting room. However, there were clearly very few people here for a diagnosis today. Only two counters at the far end were occupied by customers, and the benches were completely empty.
"Ah, please take a seat at an open counter and wait."
One of the women currently assisting a customer rang a handbell, presumably to summon another staff member. As I sat down at the nearest counter, I heard a door open on the staff side almost instantly.
"Sorry to keep you wait—oh? Ryoma-kun, is that you?"
"Branch Master!"
For some reason, the person who emerged was Branch Master Taylor himself.
"What are you doing here, sir?"
"This is part of the Tamer Guild, too. I work here occasionally to keep an eye on things. If I don't get out of the main office once in a while, I lose touch with the younger generation and forget the atmosphere of the field. You're here for an aptitude diagnosis, I take it? Now that I think about it, I never did recommend it to you on the day you registered."
"I headed straight for the Adventurer Guild that day. Besides, I didn't have any intention of replacing my current familiars... I still don't, for that matter."
"That’s perfectly fine. But it never hurts to know which monsters you're most compatible with."
The Branch Master scribbled something onto the documents on his side of the counter, then gestured toward a door opposite the one I had entered.
"Let's get started. The monsters for the diagnosis are gathered through there."
Two doors sat side-by-side behind the counter. Stepping through one, a pungent, animalistic odor hit my nose. It smelled like a zoo... or perhaps a pet shop.
The room was filled with small cages containing a wide variety of creatures. There were slimes, of course, but I also saw the Small Rats and Cave Bats I’d grown used to in this city, as well as a Crew Bird, a species I had once contracted with before.
"This room is for small monsters. Further in, we have a space for medium-sized creatures, and even further back, we have a dedicated area for large-scale monsters."
Branch Master Taylor explained as he emerged from the other door.
"As you can see, we have various monsters prepared. I'll have you try to form contracts with them one by one... though we can skip the slimes and Rimur Birds. Are there any other monsters you've successfully contracted with in the past?"
"I had a Crew Bird once."
"Were there any issues during that time? Specifically, were you able to give instructions properly, and could you sense its emotions?"
I informed him that there were no problems and that I had even been able to share its vision.
"To be able to do that during your very first practice session... your compatibility must be quite high."
I caught a glimpse of the paper the Branch Master was marking. It was a table listing various monster names, and he was placing checkmarks next to them.
"Curious?"
"Yes, a little."
When I answered honestly, the Branch Master gave a small smile.
"This table tracks the success or failure of each contract and the 'feel' of the connection if successful, rated on a four-point scale. We look at those results to find common patterns and determine your natural tendencies. That’s why we keep a room full of monsters like this."
The prospect of contracting with every monster in the room seemed like it would consume a significant amount of time and mana. However, I was told that most people find their niche quite quickly.
"Most tamers only need to figure out which broad category they favor—reptiles, mammals, birds, and so on. It only takes a long time if a person is specialized in a very specific subset or a particular creature. Or, if they have some unique criteria... like the members of the Ducal House you know."
"If I remember correctly... Reinhardt-san's specialty is 'four-legged monsters.' Madam's is 'wolf-types.' And Reinbach-sama's is 'scaled monsters,' right?"
"Precisely. Lady Elise is a specialist in the wolf-type lineage, a further subdivision of mammals. If a monster belongs to that ancestry, she can almost certainly contract with it. Furthermore, her capacity—the number of creatures she can lead—is far beyond the average tamer. Young Reinhardt, meanwhile, can contract with any four-legged monster regardless of its species or category. Except for birds, that is."
That comment reminded me of the time I had first contracted with the Rimur Birds. Back then, the young lady's birds had refused to even let Reinhardt get near them.
"And Reinbach-sama?"
"He... is in a class of his own. He's like a combination of Reinhardt and Elise's best traits. If it has scales, he can contract with it—from lizardmen to dragons—and his capacity is immense. Unlike his son, there isn't a single category he's unable to work with. He had a few minor weak points, but they weren't enough to be considered flaws."
I had heard Reinbach-sama could command dragons, but he really was an incredible individual.
"Did you not know? I thought his exploits had been published in books and spread across the entire kingdom."
"Really!?"
"It seems you truly were in the dark..."
"I'd heard that he performed great deeds in the military and that Madam was in a league of her own compared to me, but that was the extent of it."
"The most famous story is likely the reason. It’s a fact that he is peerless; you shouldn't use him as your baseline."
I wondered what he meant by that.
"In this world, there are special creatures called Divine Beasts that have received protection from the gods. Each is granted a mission to guard a specific land along with their divine power, and they have watched over their territories since ancient times. Their strength is on a completely different level from us humans, and even from monsters designated as S-Rank."
"...Considering you're telling me this now, don't tell me..."
"Reinbach has a contract with a Divine Beast."
I knew it.
"It’s a story from when he was a young man in the military. On one of this kingdom’s borders, there is a mountain range known as the Flame Dragon Mountain Range."
Branch Master Taylor’s gaze grew distant as he began to recount the tale.
"The Flame Dragon Mountain Range is a series of active volcanoes—a harsh environment for any human. Its heart is home to the territories of Divine Beasts and countless powerful monsters. However, it is also a treasure trove of resources: mana stones, gemstones, and rare minerals. Long ago, a neighboring country sent soldiers into the mountains to seize those resources."
As it turned out, the invaders incurred the wrath of a Divine Beast and were scattered in an instant. Ordinarily, the story would have ended with the neighboring country getting what they deserved, but...
"Borders are merely lines drawn by humans. The Divine Beast viewed our kingdom—which also shares a border with the mountains—as an enemy as well. The situation escalated until its dragon kin were rampaging across the borderlands. The military was dispatched to defend the country, and one of the units was led by Reinbach."
"And that’s when Reinbach-sama formed the contract?"
"Indeed. It was the only option left. It was a battlefield where they had to face at least ten dragons at once, even though slaying just one would normally cost many lives. Everyone believed that initiating a fight would mean total annihilation. But perhaps that was a blessing in disguise. As a desperate measure, they decided to attempt negotiation via taming magic rather than force. Reinbach, who had high compatibility and the right family standing, was appointed as the negotiator. No one actually expected him to succeed."
"He managed to negotiate with a Divine Beast..."
"Yes. Fortunately, it possessed intelligence high enough for speech. There were legends of such things, but he was likely the first to ever confirm it. Reinbach later told me the Divine Beast gave him an order: 'Deal with the humans who still seek to invade by your own hands.'"
The moment those words reached the ears of the command, the 'enemy' shifted entirely to the neighboring country. Everyone chose to fight soldiers rather than a pack of dragons they couldn't possibly defeat. Our soldiers' morale was high, and because they had prioritized negotiation, their losses were minimal. In contrast, the neighboring country had already lost much of its strength in the mountains, and their morale had bottomed out.
The outcome was obvious. The front didn't hold for even three days before the enemy retreated from the Flame Dragon Mountain Range.
"There was a lot of political fallout afterward, but the conflict with the Divine Beast and its dragons was successfully avoided. Furthermore, Reinbach was permitted by the Divine Beast to maintain the contract. Not only did he contract with the dragon kin, but he even secured permission to mine resources in other areas, provided we didn't disturb the Divine Beast’s territory..."
"That... must have been an incredible uproar."
"Uproar doesn't even begin to describe it," the Branch Master said with an exasperated chuckle. "Just securing a safe supply of resources from the mountains was a massive achievement. On top of that, he had gained a formidable military force by taming multiple dragons."
Consequently, Reinbach-sama’s influence began to affect everything from politics to the military. A man with his lineage and accomplishments became far too significant for any organization to handle easily. Eventually, he left the military.
"If he had seriously backed any one faction, it would have shattered the balance of power and caused absolute chaos. Besides, right around that time, his older brother passed away unexpectedly. He decided to distance himself from national politics and the military to focus on governing the Jamil Duchy in his brother's stead."
"What an intense life... I can't even begin to imagine it."
I meant that from the bottom of my heart. But more than anything, I now understood that Reinbach-sama was even more of a 'cheat' character than I was.