Tamer Braian G. Moreiras (P.O.V.)

Day 6 A.F.P. (After Fluffals Pillars) 9: 54 PM

For two and half hours, I memorized the details of the mission plan while our Transport Drone flew over to Saint Petersburg. There wasn't a need for me to strain my eyes so hard on the files. I had been born with what some would call a photographic memory. It allowed me to memorize almost anything I forced my mind to record.

Yes, a natural recording skill is the best way to put it. I couldn't save everything I had seen or heard since I was born, but certain scenes could be replayed repeatedly in my head in UHD if I wished. I always thought everyone could do it, but I realized that no one I met shared that skill as I grew up.

It didn't make me a child genius no matter what my parents said to everyone when they wanted to brag about my unusual ability to memorize events. However, it did make it easy to pass subjects where memory is the main factor.

I was horrible in any subject that required precise calculations or creativity. Art, Physics, Chemistry, and Math thus became my weakest subjects. It was not like I couldn't pass an exam, but I did struggle a lot to get a good grade.

Whereas History, Civics, Geography, Language, General Knowledge, and Biology required hardly any effort to ace as the top student in whichever school I attended.

I had moved around the world because my father was an internationally acclaimed journalist. Because of that, I picked up many languages, but it also made me aware of how difficult it is to fit into society.

If I were to simplify myself, I would say I am an observer who is socially awkward and suspicious of people in general. I did not trust anyone to reveal their true self and knew that even I had to put on an invisible mask to create the illusion of a socially acceptable member of society.

I loved reading light novels, shonen manga, tentacle-harem hentai, and playing V.R. games while growing up. In short, I was your average Otaku! But after I became twenty-five, everyone began to frown whenever I shared my genuine interests. They said it was childish, inappropriate, and pathetic that a grown man did not seem interested in physical contact sports, real women, fancy vehicles, and toxic politics.

Those A-Holes were everywhere! No matter how many people I found who shared my interests, they would pretend to lose interest and mock me for not growing up in front of others who didn't share our views.

Even my fellow faculty members at the university I worked at as a History teacher said I should not disclose my childish interests to the students or anyone in general. By the time I turned twenty-nine, I had given up trying to show my true self to anyone.

I kept pretending to read the damn mission file even though I had already memorized it several times because that was what everyone else was doing in the flight deck.

What was so damn complicated? First, we would be divided into two teams. One will distract the monster's attention while the other sneaks in and rescues the albino kid from the St. Issac Cathedral, where his bunker is hidden.

Battalion Commander Ethan Johnson would be leading Zao Han Fan and Jia Li Wang, who were part of the distraction team. So that left Angel and me in the extraction team. Angel is the most perverted woman I have met who didn't bother hiding it even if everyone else asked her to stop with looks of disgust on their faces.

That is one of the reasons I respected her, and if I had to ask someone to marry me, it would be someone like her. So I couldn't hide my happiness when the mission file paired us two together. She is a twenty-year-old beauty Norwegian girl with light blonde hair.

What man would not get excited to be paired up for a stealth mission in the heart of a monster-infested territory where she can only rely on him to watch her back.

Is it too soon to ask her if she is single, divorced, or widowed? Damnit! Why did the Commander include only her monster app information in these profiles? Give me her relationship history, phone number, favorite color, and everything else you can find on her Instagram account!

Calm Down Braian G. Moreiras... I have until sunrise to impress her with my combat skills. That's right! Even though my Tamer profile shows everything as a beginner-level skill, I practiced using them every night for five days until they became second nature.

Five long sleepless nights... for an Otaku, that's nothing! But I sometimes wish I had monster skills that could work during the day. I love the skills the Monster App gave my monster Selene, but I wonder why it made it impossible for me to fight during the day.

So far, I haven't come across any other tamer who suffers from having only Mana skills that require the moon.

When the Commander asked for my skill list, I considered lying about it. But then again, why bother hiding it? I am a badass at night, and it gave me the excuse to sleep during the day.

I had my suspicions on Sander Dale, though. He never entered his combat style form at night and always used skills far beyond what the average Tamer could draw out at the second monster form. Also, the ruby crystals on his body always looked dull after executing that massive fireball barrage attack during the mock battles.

Dale rarely ever stayed below the clouds and avoided close combat engagement by using those mini jet engines to escape his opponent's reach. Not many Tamers noticed this odd behavior while the military battle instructors praised Dale for behaving how a bomber or a dive bomber should maneuver in battle.

All of these little details could not escape my natural recording skill. I was almost tempted to confront Dale about his weaknesses just to find out if my theory was correct or not. But then again, I also didn't want to expose my weakness to everyone until the Commander made it clear that my comrades in battle in this mission needed to know everything about my skills, strengths, and weaknesses in an emergency.

That logic didn't apply to Dale, though. The Commander was all hush-hush when it came to Dale's monster skill weakness in public. Apparently, since Dale took on the role of a lone heavy bomber, everyone had to assume his shortcomings were close combat and staying away from long-range attacks.

But that didn't answer why he could not operate at night. His skills are fire-based, and his monster is a phoenix of sorts. Unfortunately, he has only revealed two of his skills while the other three are classified.

This information alone gave me enough evidence that Dale was like me. However, he was my opposite, and one day, Dale and I will chat about our shared problem.

I wonder if there are others like us... the V.I.P kid Asher Williams is undoubtedly a candidate. The Russian military had stationed soldiers, and tamers specialized in observing the activities of the monsters in Saint Petersburg from a distance.

They are the ones who reported to the top brass in the U.G.P that the kid fought for five days and nights against all the monsters. That was the part that was made public during the Russian General speech.

In his announcement, the fanatic General left out that Asher would stand stationary like a statue, which created some weird forcefield that bounced back all the physical and elemental monster attacks.

While stationary, lightning would descend and repeatedly strike the trident horns on his head. Then, finally, after an hour of inactivity, he would come back to life and fight like Thor's reincarnate against the metal Garudas, whose bodies were, unfortunately, superconductors of electricity. No wonder they couldn't get near him and failed to block his attacks.

A white marble scale armor, precious glowing Orb made from gemstones, devastating lightning attacks, and a twelve-foot-tall Allosaurus-like body must have severe drawbacks. Otherwise, that monster of Asher's is broken.

I had to admit that Russian General knew how to make his monster and its skill look like the heavens were protecting the kid, but only normies would fall for that bull.

According to Soma Nathan, a pure lightning elemental skill wielder and a member of the Intelligence Wing of U.G.P. Asher was recharging his mana by converting the lightning that strikes his stationary marble body. He based this on the fact that the Orb Gemstones on Asher's Dino Marble body would start glowing only during this period.

They probably worked the same way the Lunar Tattoo plus Runes on my body drew power from the Moon and Dale's Rubies from the Sun.

Maybe Asher's monster body was made of marble to not be hurt by the lightning storm. Soma Nathan based this theory on his Monster Indra, a Cobra made from white marble. But Soma's body didn't turn into that stone since he chose the skill transfer combat style that didn't change his appearance.

Still, none of this explained how Asher could fight against so many enemies for so long without any combat experience. According to the reports, he lived in bunkers with hardly any human contact for his whole life.

Where did the kid get the experience of fighting monster hordes and having the stomach to eat their dead bodies when he was bored?

Ethan Johnson. "Times Up! Braian and Angel, get ready to jump out of the transport drone and hide out in the woods outside the city until we start the fireworks."