Feeling something damp on my cheek, I opened my eyes and saw fluffy fur.
"……"
What is it now?
Watching it for a moment, I quickly realized what it was.
A weasel.
To be precise, the Magic Beast, Blade Weasel.
……How is this thing alive?
Kyu.
Looking at my flustered face, the weasel raised one paw with a flourish.
As if to say, 'Hey there, friend. Looks like we both made it out alive.'
[With your keen Intuition, you have accurately guessed the Magic Beast's inner thoughts.]
[Trust of 'Blade Weasel' rises.]
Friend, my goddamn ass.
The moment I pushed away the thing clinging to me so annoyingly.
"Ah! Mr. Kaindel! You're awake!"
A familiar voice rang out.
Kazen, the mage.
Fatigue dripped from his face, which had grown gaunt in the meantime.
"……Where is this?"
"Don't worry. We're inside the train."
So it seemed.
The interior was a wreck, having been overturned once and then torn through by the Shadow bastard, but it looked like a minimum of tidying had been done. At least there was a roof, so it beat being outside.
When I sat up, the blanket that had been draped over me slid off.
For a moment my head throbbed and I wanted to lie down a little longer, but I forced myself to ignore it and opened my mouth.
"How long was I out?"
"Probably around an hour."
Thankfully not that long, then.
Which meant the darkness outside the window wasn't just due to the dark clouds—it seemed the sun still hadn't risen.
……Filthy long night.
"Just in case, I kept watch on the surroundings the whole time, but there was no suspicious movement. It seems safe for now."
"Safe? The archer should still be alive, right?"
Dorman's party was nearly all dead, but an archer named Reina still remained.
Meaning it wouldn't be strange for an arrow to smash through that cracked window and come flying in this very moment.
'The odds are low, but she could have gone to request support from another party.'
Of course, those bastards had played the Plunderers first, but words change meaning depending on who conveys them and how.
If that woman deliberately set out to screw us over, clearing up the misunderstanding wouldn't be easy anytime soon.
"You don't need to worry about that."
"Grounds?"
I felt a little bad for sounding like I was interrogating him, but matters of safety can't be brushed aside lightly.
The mage made a troubled expression.
"There are, of course, but how about you rest a bit more first and then we talk?"
"Why?"
"It'd be faster for you to see it directly than for me to explain in words, but I'm worried you'd still have trouble moving."
Faster to see it directly? That sounds ominous.
"I'm fine. Moving is no problem either. If anything, I don't think I could rest easy without confirming it properly."
"Hmm……. If that's what you want, understood."
Honestly, I thought my wounds had been fairly serious, but the pain wasn't severe—the first aid must have been done well.
If anything…….
'My body feels lighter than I'd expected.'
Is this too an effect of my improved physical ability?
It wasn't a bad thing, so I decided to check my condition later and, for now, followed the mage out of the train.
It must have been a passing shower, since the pouring rain had stopped in the meantime.
Treading through the sodden mud, I happened to notice Kazen's attire.
"That was impressive."
"Pardon?"
"Your skill with the bow, I mean."
"Ah."
Only then did he seem to remember the crossbow peeking out from under his sleeve.
"Isn't that more your aptitude than magic?"
I wasn't being sarcastic—I honestly thought so.
Landing a night shot from several hundred meters or more would be a difficult feat even for most archers.
The mage bastard scratched the back of his head sheepishly.
"It's just a hobby. I don't particularly like shooting bows, either."
"Enough of a hobby to make one yourself?"
"It's not that I could make it because it was a crossbow, specifically. I've just liked making all sorts of things since I was young. I was scolded for it being a vulgar hobby, so I could never immerse myself deeply in it……."
A vulgar hobby…….
So this guy is from a prestigious family after all?
'Surely he's not an actual noble?'
The odds weren't very high.
The noble bastards of FoS were, to a man, steeped in privilege, superiority, and elitism.
It was hard to think of someone who spoke politely even to a stoker, every single time, as a noble.
"Then I suppose I owe my life to that vulgar hobby."
"Pardon?"
"I'm saying thank you."
He stared at me blankly, then burst out laughing.
"Not at all. If anything, if it hadn't been for you, Mr. Kaindel, we'd be the ones dead by now."
He said so, but he looked quite pleased.
Like someone who had never been praised for something like this before.
['Kazen' feels a faint sense of trust toward you.]
Enough for a message like this to appear.
Anyway, I know the crossbow to be a weapon with a fairly complex structure.
Unlike a bow, whose form can be more or less made with just a limb and a string, it has mechanical structure added on.
Making that scythe in the middle of all that chaos too…… this guy's dexterity is no ordinary thing.
'What grade is his Art, I wonder.'
A character's dexterity scales with the Art stat.
With skill at this level, he'd surely receive considerable bonuses in <Gathering>, <Material Processing>, and above all, <Crafting>.
I suddenly grew curious about this mage bastard's status window, but unless I made him a proper companion, there was no way to peek at it for now.
I'd look into that in detail later…….
Passing a few broken train cars with these various thoughts, I spotted the sister.
"……"
Kria was crouched on the roof of a train car, looking down at something…….
Following her gaze, I found a corpse.
'Strong stomach on that one.'
The corpse was in a state gruesome enough to turn even an empty stomach, but the sister was staring at it without so much as a change in complexion.
Surveying the surroundings, I soon found a broken bow lying beside the corpse.
"The archer?"
"Yes."
"Did you two, by chance……"
"No. She was already dead when we found her."
I figured as much.
The corpse looked as if it had been hacked to pieces by something, in a state so gruesome its original form was hard to make out.
One look at that state told me these two hadn't done it.
If simply killing had been the goal, the corpse would never have ended up like this.
The archer's corpse had been mutilated after death.
'……What kind of bastard did this?'
Anyone who'd do this to a corpse is most likely mentally unstable.
Their Mental Contamination might already have reached a dangerous level, or they might suffer from traits like <Murder Addiction> or <Schizophrenia>.
"Hmm……."
I thought of a few famous lunatics among the Delvers in Cars 1 and 2, but soon realized it was meaningless.
The lineup of Delvers who board is always random to begin with.
Still, whatever the case.
'……It's really over.'
Dorman's party, which had threatened us, was wiped out.
That much, at least, was certain.
***
The flow that had been raging like a storm had stopped for the first time.
At last, time to catch my breath had been granted.
'Not exactly generous, though.'
Still, I'd secured at least the minimum leeway for regrouping.
The first thing I did after returning to the train car was, finally, to check my status window.
Player: Kaindel
Level: 17
Class: Tamer
Stress: 31
Stats
Strength: 10(+1) Agility: 10(+2)
Endurance: 10(+1) Magic Power: 10(+1)
Spare Points: 7
Talent
Body: D- Mind: D
Art: F Intuition: E+
Skills
<Taming>, <Scythe Mastery>
Traits
<Friend of Magic Beasts>
Looking at the status window, various emotions crossed my mind.
First, the positive part: my level was already 17.
The starting level is 10, so I'd risen a whopping 7 levels killing those Shadow bastards.
Most of that was probably the experience the octopus bastard gave.
'And the additional stats are thanks to taming the Blade Weasel.'
The additional stats totaled a whopping 5.
Meaning I'd gained, all at once, the stats you'd normally need to raise 5 levels to get.
From this alone, I could guess how broken the Tamer class was, but…….
'Tsk…….'
Something feels off.
I've never seen a game as clear-cut about risk and return as FoS.
If Tamer's advantages are this great, there must surely be corresponding drawbacks.
It was unsettling, but there was no way to figure it out for now, so I moved on…….
For the moment, I focused on the visible problems.
'As expected, Scythe Mastery manifested.'
In the early section, more skills are naturally better, but there's exactly one exception: <Weapon Mastery>.
Because the more you hold, the more sharply the efficiency plummets.
This is because the more kinds of mastery you've acquired, the more the required skill proficiency skyrockets.
'If the first mastery needs 100 proficiency, each one after that doubles the requirement.'
In other words, two is 200, three is 400, and from four onward it's a whopping 800.
Depending on class, some do learn three or four, but generally the standard is one, or at most two.
'There is a way to remove it.'
The cost isn't trivial, and above all, it's a function that doesn't unlock until you reach the <Royal Capital>.
Meaning it's a distant story for now.
'A scythe…….'
Setting aside how awkward it is to use, the concern is that there's so little information on this weapon class.
Never mind an endgame weapon—I know of no sources for equipment usable even in the early-to-mid game…….
'Ah.'
There is one, actually.
The hidden boss of the <Abandoned Graveyard> map.
Meeting its spawn conditions is brutal, and beating it down is even more brutal, but…….
Once you kill it, the drop rate is fairly high, and it drops a weapon with performance decent enough to last through the midgame.
Above all, the <Abandoned Graveyard> is a map well worth passing through anyway.
'Whew. Then the weapon is settled, for now.'
Scythe Mastery I'll let slide like that.
Now it's time to check the class skills and traits.
Tamer
Combat Type: All-Rounder Weapon: ―
Main Stat: Magic Power Main Talent: Intuition
A Tamer can tame beings that satisfy specific conditions.
Combat type: All-Rounder?
Meaning I can fill the healer role, beyond tank or damage dealer?
'……It's not entirely unreasonable, is it?'
Beyond receiving additional stats from tamed beasts, I'd become able to use their skills too.
If I tamed a beast specialized in combat support, I might be able to at least imitate a healer.
'No particular recommended weapon, main stat Magic Power, main Talent Intuition.'
Magic Power aside, I'd almost never seen a class with Intuition as its main stat.
That's a characteristic mostly found in sub-class lines like <Gambler>.
Taming
You may tame beings that are not hostile to you. The success rate of taming is affected by trust with the target.
Currently Tamed Individuals
1 / 1
Tameable Species
Beast Type
Pressing the tamed individual, I saw the Blade Weasel's status window I'd seen before.
'The number of tameable individuals is structured to increase by one every 10 levels.'
In that case, the number of tamed beasts I could actually command is on the low side even among summoner-type classes.
Only natural, considering Magic Beasts' exceptional combat power.
'Just 3 more levels and I can tame one more.'
I also realized that tamed beasts have different rulings for <Incapacitated> and <Death> from other summons.
'Come to think of it, the other summoner-type classes all had different words for death too.'
For undead, it was <Soul Annihilation>; for golems, <Complete Destruction>. For spirits, where the concept of death doesn't exist, it was <Contract Termination>. For beasts, it seemed to be simply [Death].
With this, I'd also learned why the weasel had survived.
'Lastly, the trait.'
Friend of Magic Beasts
You have received the favor of the Beast God. Most Beast Types will no longer be hostile to you, and you may occasionally receive special missions from them. Upon taming failure, you may attempt once more.
You may periodically need to prove your ability to the Beast God……?
So that was it. The reason the die rolled once more even though taming failed.
'This is a little—no, quite good.'
For someone with luck as wretched as mine, an extra taming attempt is fairly precious.
If I'm on the fence, I'll only attempt taming at 70% or higher, so the odds of failing twice in a row should be nearly nil.
'But what's this "prove" business?'
Tapping the text didn't reveal any further information on this one.
Unsettling as it was, I suppose I had no choice but to let it go for now.
'So I've faithfully walked the path of a jack-of-all-trades character…….'
A hidden class I'd never seen, a bizarre trait, and a scythe—a weapon I'd handled only a handful of times…… a chaotic party, in the most literal sense.
And the two who looked like companion candidates…….
"……"
Not quite defective, I suppose.
Their aptitude as mage and spirit summoner was dismal, but their combat sense wasn't bad.
And it didn't seem right for me, who'd nearly died to a Grade D, to keep treating these two as defective.
'Still, three feels a bit shaky.'
Of course, in <FoS> I'd stuck to a playstyle of thoroughly never making companions, but the situation was different now.
Now that this is reality, even mobilizing every means available would fall short.
Tap, tap.
As I thought that, I felt something scratching at my trouser leg.
I looked to see what it was—the weasel. Somehow it seemed to be saying, 'Friend. Planning to leave me out? That's a bit hurtful, isn't it?'
[With your keen Intuition, you have accurately guessed the tamed Magic Beast's inner thoughts.]
[Trust of 'Blade Weasel' rises.]
……Honestly, what an easy thing to read.
Of course, considering the weasel's combat power, it would more than pull the weight of a typical party member.
'So four, then?'
It'd be nice to have just one more.
The Delvers in Cars 1 and 2 had probably entered the forest long ago.
Even if any remained, they didn't seem likely to join a party as ramshackle as this.
Still, thinking I'd check anyway, I was about to leave the train car when Kazen asked.
"You're going out again?"
"I want to check the surroundings a bit more."
"Aha! Your body must be fine now."
At that, I checked my overall condition.
Feeling around the wounds from the battle with Dorman, and the abdomen where the arrow had lodged.
"Hm?"
Astonishingly clean.
As if there had never been a wound at all.
I'd thought only rough first aid had been done.
"Was there a potion left?"
"Pardon?"
"There's not a single wound mark left."
Kazen spoke with a puzzled expression.
"Were there…… wounds? We simply moved you to a safe place after finding you collapsed in the forest."
"What?"
"I mean, from the start, you had no wounds, Mr. Kaindel."
What is that supposed to mean?