Chapter 175

Chapter 175~Hope~ Waki Daisuke POV

“Pathetic” .

There was no better way to express how I was feeling right now .

This feeling had been bubbling up inside me ever since we entered this forest…no, since I left the castle with Satou and the others and fought in our first battle .

All the guys other than me could fight, and I stood behind Tsuda’s shield with the girls .

The animal trainer was fundamentally a noncombatant occupation, but that was not the case if I could tame monsters .

Even so, currently, I could only tame an animal .

If I don’t raise my level, then I couldn’t tame them .

However, it couldn’t be helped that I would get restless .

Even if I raise my level, those other guys would raise theirs even higher during that time .

We were in the same party, but no matter what, there would always be a difference in levels between those who fought in battles and those who didn’t .

Even if I raised it during training, it’s inevitable that fighting against monsters would give a large amount of experience .

Up until now, I’ve given many such excuses .

「Even so, there’s nothing I can do . 」

The one who dealt the fatal blow in the battle against the whale monster was Hosoyama .

Despite the fact that the cleric was an occupation whose base status values were supposed to be lower than mine, she defeated a large monster with a single finger .

The excuses became futile .

The excuse that I’ve been telling myself up until now, that it was due to the difference between the occupations, could no longer be used .

If the cleric Hosoyama could do it, then there was no way that I couldn’t .

I should be able to fight, even if I didn’t have the skill『Gluttony』that Hosoyama used .

「…but I’m an idiot . 」

Junior high school and senior high as well, were not places for me to study, but rather the place that I go to to attend club activities, so other than the assignments that were passed out during the period where extracurricular activities were halted before a test, I’ve never studied .

In particular, I wasn’t good at subjects that required flexible thinking .

「Waki-kun, what’s wrong?」

Tsuda, who was washing the utensils that we used to cook the meal in the nearby river together with me, heard my murmur and looked up at me .

Come to think of it, this guy was right next to me .

During class, he didn;t have much of a presence, or rather, it wasn’t as bad as Oda, but it was still difficult to sense his presence .

Or perhaps I should say, I don’t really remember ever talking with this guy .

On top of that, because he tilted his head to the side with that girly face and looked at me with upturned eyes, I felt strange .

「No, nothing… . 」

「Ah, are you worried about what Hosoyama-san said about her skill?」

He interrupted me, and furthermore, hit the bulls-eye .

I’m right, aren’t I!, Tsuda was looking at me with sparkling eyes and I tilted my head to the side in confusion, wondering if he had been this kind of person .

No, it might be that I didn’t see it and that this was what he was like towards close friends .

He was surprisingly friendly .

Right now, I strengthened my resolve and wondering if I should try asking him for advice, I started to speak .

He was surely smarter than me .

「If the noncombatant cleric can steal the vitality of monsters and defeat them, I thought that there should be a way for me to do so as well . I’m not that smart, do you have any good suggestions?」

「U–n, a way for an animal trainer to fight… . 」

Tsuda folded his arms and was earnestly thinking with his head tilted to the side .

I gave a small laugh and looked at him .

I had never expected that Tsuda, who usually quietly stayed in the corner of the classroom, and me, who fooled around, would be traveling together .

I was unexpectedly satisfied with this lifestyle .

If asked if I wanted to go back home, there were times when I missed the food cooked by my mother, but I was relieved that I didn’t have to listen to her loud complaining all the time .

I worked so hard every day during club activities, and now that this happened, I was probably dropped from the regular line-up, and in the first place, it wasn’t guaranteed that the flow of time here and there were the same .

The tournament that I had been working hard towards might’ve been over as well, and there was also the possibility that several hundred years had passed just like for Urashima Tarou .

TN: Urashima Tarou is the protagonist from a fairy tale who saved a turtle . As thanks, he was invited to the Dragon Palace under the sea and entertained by Otohime herself . He spent what he believed to be several days there, but when he returned home, he realized that at least a hundred years had already passed .

There were other worlds, so this wasn’t out of the realm of possibility either, right .

「In my opinion, I don’t think that animal trainers are suited for killing monsters . 」

I hurriedly raised my head .

Come to think of it, I was in the middle of asking for advice from Tsuda .

「Why do you think that?」

Feeling that something had bumped into my foot, I looked down, and the cat that could be said to be my partner was rubbing its head against my knee .

I had tamed it at the castle, before the monkey .

I held the cat in my arms and gently patted its head .

The cat started purring .

「I’m just saying, but an animal tamer tames animals and monsters, or rather, that’s what the occupation entitles, right? That’s why, what Waki-kun should be thinking about is not khow to kill monsters, but how to tame them . 」

I tilted my head to the side in confusion .

Then, that went back to what I was thinking before .

My level wasn’t high enough yet and I couldn’t tame monsters .

In the end, what should I do?

「What an animal trainer can do, I don’t think that it consists only of taming animals . After all, this child trusts Waki-kun from the bottom of its heart and followed you all the way here mon . It’s because it wasn’t forcibly tamed . Is it impossible to do the same for your first monster partner?」

TN: the ‘mon’ doesn’t really mean anything . It’s sometimes used at the end of a sentence to sound cute, usually used by girls .

I too gradually understood .

In short, I could deal a blow to the monster using the magic that was built on the trust between the cat and I .

Just coaxing it would be impossible, but I could use magic, couldn’t I .

When perfected, it would most likely be closer to brainwashing .

「Magic is a means to make the impossible possible . The more detailed your thoughts are the better the magic . That’s what the knights who taught me at the castle said . 」

Finding hope, I smiled .

Then, I finally realized that I hadn’t smiled in a while .

I may have worried the others as well .

I clapped Tsuda on the back with the hand that was not holding the sleeping cat .

Tsuda was delicate just like a girl, so of course, I went easy on him .

「Wah!?」

「Thank you! Thanks to you, I’ve got it!」

Carrying the cat in my arms and holding onto the utensils that I’ve finished washing, I stood up .

「Also, you’re a guy, so it’ll be better for you to stop using ‘mon’ . It suits you, but you wouldn’t want that, right?」

I wasn’t concerned with it back in the classroom, but after coming to this world, we were living together .

Everyone’s efforts, as well as what they were striving for, I understood at a glance .