Though it isn’t because she comes from the land of spiritualists and technique users Eioa, but unlike how she acts she has a very sharp sense when it comes to sensing someone’s true nature. It’s as if she could discern whether she could trust someone or not on instinct.
No matter what kind of deal you’d want to make with her, as long as you aren’t someone she trusts (doesn’t like) then it would never be possible and if you showed an opening you would just fall into a trap. In fact, at times when there are disputes between nations, Karen’s ‘instinct to see who she can trust’ has saved them many times.
To Karen, who began to climb on the Hornbear with her hands and feet, the Hornbear looked as if he was making sure she didn’t fall and supported her with his paw. Gaviik who saw this began to seriously think ‘Karen’s discerning eyes can even work on monster?’
“Captain! what’s happening?”
“Oh? The heck’s that girl Karen doin now?”
“It’s as you can see, it took a liking to Karen. Ref, I want to hear your opinion about this.”
“… I’ll go investigate it.”
While directing his magic sword to the ground he began to ask the opinion of the gathered members. Just like Karen she’s someone from Eioa, she has been entrusted with being the staff officer the attack specialist Refitia, and she was now preparing to use analysis type magic while stroking the top of her wand.
The wand she has is a special wand called the ‘Hand of the flow’ which lets her control the flow of magic power; it’s a high class wand that helps with controlling all kinds of magic. Even though she specializes in attack type magic she is also able to use the basics of technique type magic and healing type magic. Though the quality may drop since she doesn’t specialize in it, but Ref’s analysis was able to find out that there is another existence within the Hornbear.
“… That Hornbear is strange; the body’s conscious isn’t on the surface.”
“What does that mean?”
“… Another existence that possesses a strong force has dominated and controls its body.”
“Another existence? Isn’t it under the some kind of spell that makes it obedient or charms it?”
To captain Gaviik’s question staff officer Ref relates the Hornbear’s state to the existence that was in Barass’ dungeon ‘possession by an intelligent existence other than the collective conscious’ which was made her think about the state of this Hornbear.
“Barass’s intelligent existence you say?”
“Possessing a monster……”
Vice-captain Mandel and captain Gaviik involuntarily faced each other. They thought about a bitter memory which left them in red. The fake monster that was used to call customers to the town which they killed, the demon dog and the ‘intelligent existence’ which controlled it which was still a hard to believe story to them.
“Hm? I dun really get it, but it’s alright to think of it as an ally?”
“What! That’s a monster among monsters you know.”
“Well, it might be a monster, but it is liked by Karen and the staff officer says it’s intelligent so it must be, right?”
When Triton said that he couldn’t believe that a monster would ally itself with humans, Rippa who didn’t think about the hard stuff made a decision based on the facts. While they were doing things like that, Karen had climbed up the Hornbear Kou’s shoulder and began to wave at them, then she said something unbelievable.
“Hey hey, let’s take this one along, I’m gonna ride on him.”
“… It can be a ward against animals.”
“Yeah.”
What they gained from all this was that since this Hornbear was being obedient, letting Karen ride his shoulder which showed that it was likely that Ref’s hypothesis about how it was controlled by the ‘intelligent existence’ was correct, also, since it’s a powerful monster, small fry monsters wouldn’t come close which is a merit.
“There may be some that oppose this, but certainly at the moment the merits are good.”
When they arrive at the next town it would probably be past evening and be midnight. Even if it’s the highway, it’s dangerous to receive attacks from a herd of animals or a group of bandits. It’s good enough if the Hornbear just scared off the small animals in the surroundings.
“Are we going to take it along?”
“Ah, yeah, because it looks troublesome to take Karen off it and there’s also Ref’s analysis. Also, it’d be bad if we didn’t start moving out soon.”
The one who hired them and who they need to protect, lord Kizewashi asked what they were doing while talking in front of a monster.
Anyway, from what they’ve seen on the mountain road it’s highly likely that it would just follow them even if they left it behind. Then it would be better for them to keep it where they could see it so they could subdue it easier if they need to.
“But do you think that story about the demon dog that allied itself with the adventurers of Barass was actually real?”
“Who knows?”