Shin, who let the young fox sit quietly on top of his head, walked toward the town. After he told the fox “retract your claws back into your paws” repeatedly, the young fox finally settled down. The claws that struck his face until then caused him to stagger.
As a result of having followed the request of the orphanage girl, Millie, a massive amount of Skull Faces were defeated by Shin. And he saved the young fox from the Shinto shrine, which became a battlefield. The forest, after the battle ended, became full of noise from living things, unlike when he first came to the shrine.
Possibly when Shin headed toward the shrine, the group of Skull Faces were already approaching, and the animals went into hiding. But the crowd of Skull Faces were indeed too many for it to occur naturally.
The number of undead appearances popping from tombs or underground dungeon areas might be caused by hazardous swirling miasma. He sighed while advancing forward, because if he didn’t report this, it would be bad.
First of all, how to conceal the Element Tail…while thinking about that, he called out to the young fox which was leisurely resting on top of his head.
“Hey, let’s have a discussion.”
“Kuu?”
The bark with question mark came from the young fox. From the communication a little while ago, it was already revealed that the young fox understood what Shin was saying.
“Because it is bad if your true identity was exposed, do you want to form a contract with me?”
The contract in this case was the partner contract that tamers make.
――Taming. Unlike the summoner who was able to make contracts with numerous summoned beasts without restriction, the tamer was able to do partner contracts only up to 5 per person. However, for other jobs than tamer, it was only possible to do partner contracts once. Even though, he could only contract once, he thought that it was satisfactory as a pet and as a little support personnel. Because Shin had a lot of support characters, he didn’t need a monster partner. But Kashmir, the tamer and summoner of Rokuten, recommended it to him, which was half the reason Shin performed the contract.
Nevertheless. Shin never thought that it would be useful in such a situation.
“Although there is no bonus compensation because I am not a tamer…Your level and race won’t be exposed to other guys, and we will able to communicate without the need of items, too.”
In THE NEW GATE, when there was too much a difference in level and stats, the low-level players would not be able to see the higher level player’s stats. And they must able to see the stats of the player who was the master, before being able to see a monster partner’s stats. In other words, if Shin, who had overwhelming power in this world, formed a contract with the young fox, almost no one could see the stats of the young fox.
By the way, communication (telepathy) became possible between the master and monster partner. While it seemed silent when observed from the outside, the monster partner was given instructions via telepathy during a battle. This was how a tamer fought with their monster partner.
“Kuu!? Ku~Ku~!”
“Really!? I will do it!” as if it said that, the young fox unleashed its claws again. Shin somehow came to understand the young fox even before the contract.
“I understand! I understand so don’t move for a moment!”
He said as he held the young fox facing him while reciting the keywords together.
“I, wish to walk with thee.” “Kuー…”
The young fox answered to Shin’s words. In this case, the contract would be completed if the monster said “I, vow to be on thy side”. When the bark stopped, a tattoo in the shape of a falcon formed respectively on their left arm and left foreleg. This was the mark of the contract which the player created, it was intended to distinguish the difference between a common monster and a monster partner. The monster partner that was raised by a player was basically stronger than a common monster.
“Then, again, I hope to get along with you.”
“Kuu!!”
“Thank you!!” as if it said, the young fox raised its right foreleg and barked. It was a heartwarming scene that would make anyone smile.
“Now then, first thing to do after contracting.”
“Ku?”
“It is to decide your name. Because Element Tail is a race name. It is natural to think about a name for you when you became my partner, I guess?”
“Kuu!? KuーKuー!!”
“And it…calm down! Or I will shake my head!!”
“Really!? What is it!!” As if the fox said that. While calming down the excited young fox, Shin announced the name that popped in his head.
“Yuzuha, how about it?”
“Kukukuu…kuu!!”
The small bark from the young fox fell silent for a while, thinking about the name ‘Yuzuha’. And then it yipped with a noticeably loud and high-pitched “kuu!!”, as if it said that it was pleased with the name.
Rather than a male name, it was a female name that came to Shin’s mind. Because when the Kyuubi quest was accepted, the Element Tail most often appeared as a female figure to the players.
“Well, actually, there is no gender, but…”
The Element Tail was a monster that didn’t have genders, it could become either man or woman and not be tied to either one. Even though it was usual that it appeared as a female figure before a player, he remembered that a male figure appeared very rarely in a walkthrough site. But he never actually saw it.
“Kuu?”
“Nothing. I guess you will become ‘Yuzuto’ when in male mode.”
As in novels, manga, and anime, there was a story such as naked beautiful women appearing the next morning after hugging an animal in bed. He didn’t know whether the Element Tail in this world would appear the same as in the game, but he prefer it to be a female figure anyway. It would be a nightmare for Shin if he woke up only to find that he was cuddling with another man, as he looking forward to an enjoyable sleep.
(My LUC is low. I hope the time when it becomes a person will never come.)
“Kuu?”
“There cannot be a strange good luck…” Shin muttered, and the young fox, Yuzuha, tilted its head. For some reason, he was acting strangely while feeling a little uneasiness, then he stopped thinking about it. Even if it’s called an Element Tail, its body was still that of a young fox. Thinking about difficult things were not of his characteristic, as he was not good at it.
As usual, Shin’s forehead was lightly hit by its paw that had retracted its claws. Moreover, its reaction was like “What happened?”, called out to Shin. For a long time, to Yuzuha, who had endured poison and a curse, a trivial thing such as communication might be nothing but a joyful experience.
◆◆◆◆
“Hmm?”
As soon as he left the northern forest, a familiar electronic sound, “Pon!”, was heard by Shin. It was the sound of level up, incoming email, event announcement, and so on, which he often heard in the game.
Judging from Yuzuha, who wasn’t reacting, it seemed that it was heard only by Shin.
“Incoming message. From Tiera.”
The semi-transparent letters 『You have a message』 at the edge of Shin’s view became clear. The obvious unrealistic game characteristic, to Shin who already spent a few days in this world, brought the illusion that he was still inside the game.
“There is a feeling of something wrong because of this half-baked system.”
Although he didn’t feel odd obviously because having seen the game screen through the VR (Virtual Reality), when it happens in reality, the feeling of something wrong couldn’t be shaken off. Is this the feeling when game and reality are mixed? Shin frowned, but it was certainly a convenient thing. He sighed as he had no choice but to get used to it, and opened the message.
『To Shin
When I tried it, I was able to send a message to master.
Though I don’t know whether master has a message card or not, when the reply comes, I will contact you again.
P.S.
Is it possible to send items via the message card?』
Tiera, who was Schnee’s acquaintance in this world, seemed to able to send the message card without any problems. Since Shin was not able to send the message card to Schnee himself, he didn’t think about the possibility that Tiera could communicate with Schnee before.
“Well because she already contacted her, it’s a good thing.”
He convinced himself that it was alright while looking at an unused message card to reply as an attachment. The message card became drops of light and was sucked into the letter paper of the reply. It appeared to be possible to attach only light items, but it was satisfactory and convenient.
“…Is this happening because it’s this world? The attaching items was not possible in the game.”
The game and reality are not the same, and the inspection of other items was necessary, he made a mental note of this. There were unexpected things likely to occur in this world other than the game.
Given the number of items in his Item Box, it would require a considerable amount of time for the inspection. Shin, while thought about it, had a slight headache.
“If Schnee reply something, contact me immediately.”
He replied to the message which included the method for item attachment, then he continued walking. He was heading towards the east gate of the town.
He decided to report about the army of nearly three digits worth of Skull Faces to the guild, and leave out Yuzuha from the report, even if he had to lie.
“Yo Shin. This time you brought something strange again.”
It was Beid who called out by the east gate. There was no formality like when they met at the first time, probably because they encountered each other pretty much every day.
“This is my partner, Yuzuha. I would like to confirm something, when I take a monster partner with me, is there any restriction or something?”
Even if it was accompanied by a tamer, Shin expected that it would be difficult to just let a monster into the town.
“There are various restrictions in