Returning to the dome with the Blackbellied Gibbons turned out to be easier than expected. Fortune was with me, and it didn’t seem to want to part ways, which I was eternally grateful for. I knew I had made a mistake by ignoring my surroundings when I tended to the wounded beasts, but my impatience and the desire to return to my parents with suitable Soulkins had been too strong. Fortunately, I did not have to pay for my idiocy.
My appearance at the outpost adjacent to the dome did not go unnoticed. Several Blessed looked at me. They studied Aureus but quickly turned to the Blackbellied Gibbons. Maybe they thought the gibbons were my Soulkins at first, but the illusion was quickly dispelled when I heard someone nearby mention the Seals. Someone noticed them, and others heard him.
All kinds of Seals existed, with the bracelets being the cheapest and the only ones I could afford. However, they were a necessity to return to the Bastion with beasts. The dome would register the gibbons as ‘amiable’ goods as long as they did not get rid of the Seals. If they did… well, I would be punished, as my negligence would result in a threat to the Bastion and its residents, and the beast would be killed by the defense mechanisms.
I was not quite sure how it worked or why I wouldn’t be allowed to put the Seals back on the beasts, or why I’d be punished if a malnourished 1-Star Wild were to escape the Seal’s confinements once we were inside the dome, but I didn’t plan to risk anything either.
“Are those Blackbellied Gibbons?” a stern voice rang out to my left as a middle-aged man stepped closer. “Malnourished and relatively weak, probably exiles then. No bloodlust either—that’s good.”
I stared at the man, my arms coiling more tightly around the gibbons until one of them shouted at me in pain.
“Sorry,” I said quietly, loosening my grasp ever so slightly. At the same time, the other gibbon snarled at the middle-aged man as he stepped closer. Aureus joined the gibbon and hissed.
“A little bit fierce, but probably still better suited to become an infant’s Soulkin. Beasts like Blackbellied Gibbons are loyal and will do everything for those they deem friends or family. A rare find indeed.” His greedy eyes put me on edge, and his fake smile didn’t dispel my suspicion in the slightest as he continued. “My clients will pay a high premium for them. How much do you want for them?”
Several heads turned to us, and I noticed two more Blessed approaching as well. Were they planning to buy the Blackbellied Gibbons from me like that annoying prick? I had no idea, but I was not planning to sell them to anyone, no matter how much they offered. Sure, the gibbons were probably worth a lot if my return to the dome attracted so much attention, but I was already attached to them. I would have never expected to reject the opportunity to earn a small fortune, yet here I was.
“I’m sorry, but I have to reject your offer,” I said loud enough for everyone to hear. My voice was so loud that the Blessed winced. He glanced around, clearly displeased, but I continued, “My clients need the Blackbellied Gibbons, and they paid a fortune for them.”
That was a half-truth, since my parents had sacrificed almost everything of value for my sake, for years, and they were my clients, even if they didn’t know that just yet.
The Blessed stared red-faced at me, but he didn’t utter a word as he looked around to see several pairs of eyes on him. He growled something incomprehensible and stepped back, his curses ringing in my ears.
I couldn’t quite tell if he was a delinquent or a bigshot, maybe both, but several Blessed working around the outpost smiled at our exchange. Considering how much they enjoyed the Blessed’s embarrassment, this wasn’t the first time the man had tried to force his will onto others to take their prey from them.
A con artist? I shook my head and watched the two men who had approached me a moment ago scurry away.
Interesting, but clearly dangerous if something like that happened regularly. I made some mental notes and decided to listen to the people around me, curious what else I had missed.
Most chats were far from interesting, but one particular group of older Blessed caught my attention.
“The rewards increased again,” a smaller woman said to her colleagues. She shook her head in dismay, but I caught a glint of what could only be greed.
“Berthold’s request? Don’t tell me you want to join the hunt,” a taller, gruff-looking man asked irritably.
“I’m not suicidal,” the smaller woman grunted. “The reward is great though.”
“Don’t even think about it. The Council should have intercepted his request. If something goes wrong—and we are talking about Berthold here, so something definitely would go wrong—we will be the ones suffering,” the gruff Blessed growled. He was irate and must have noticed me as I slowed near them to eavesdrop on their conversation. Our eyes met, and I accelerated once more.
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“Nobody will be stupid enough to accept Berthold’s request. The risk is too great, the reward not worth it,” said a third voice—a taller woman with great charm. She wasn’t even looking my way, yet I slowed again and stared at her like a fool. It took me a great deal of effort and distance to pull away from the woman.
My hair stood on end as I pulled away from the woman’s unnatural charm, and I shuddered.
“What in the Rulers’ names was that?” I grunted. Sure, she was beautiful—more so than most women I’d seen in my life—but for me to react like that? My body responded involuntarily, and I shuddered once more, my feet carrying me quickly through the dome.
It was time to return to my parents.
***
Unsure how the gibbons would respond to the Bastion’s sky-rising buildings or the crowded streets, I stuffed them into my backpack. They did not particularly like it, but Aureus silenced the malnourished beasts quickly. He froze the injured male and hissed at the young female, forcing them to stay in the backpack until I arrived back at home.
A pang of guilt reminded me how little time I spent in the ninth sector with my parents these days, but excitement soon filled me. I rushed into our building and ascended the flight of stairs with large strides. Once I reached the hallway leading to our apartment, I retrieved the gibbons. They shouted at me in anger while the male looked nauseous.
“Sorry about that,” I muttered, cradling the gibbons. It was increasingly more difficult to think of them as ferocious beasts. If anything, they acted like tame Soulkin. Then again, it was also possible they were too exhausted to attack me. Their bandages were soaked in blood, and I’d have to replace them soon, or my parents would store them in their Worlds once the gibbons bonded with them.
Taking a deep breath, I opened the door to our apartment and stepped inside. Dad sat at the dinner table, taking a sip of coffee as he read through the holographic newspaper. He didn’t notice me right away, but Mom did. She must have heard something as I approached the living room.
“Don’t be nervous. Those are my parents, so you better behave,” I told the gibbons in a firm tone as I placed them carefully on the dinner table. Aureus leaped from my shoulder and landed beside them, hissing, all while Mom let out a stifled scream. Dad leaped to his feet, but his knee struck the dinner table. He toppled over backward, crashing to the ground with his chair.
Chaos ensued as the Blackbellied Gibbons shrieked in anxiety. The female leaped at me, seeking protection, while the male jumped on top of my father. Aureus looked at the female for a moment and snarled, but decided against seeking vengeance. He jumped on top of the male and used Paralyse.
“Erm…” Heat rose to my cheeks as I held the shivering gibbon and kept Aureus from tearing the male apart.
I looked at my mother, who was still standing there stunned, trembling like a leaf in a fierce storm, and grimaced at her. “Surprise?”
***
It took us a while, but we calmed down. After Mom shouted at me for a good hour or so—actually, it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes, but it felt like hours to me.
One way or another, the gibbons had calmed down, and so had my parents. Only Aureus was still angry at the female gibbon, repeatedly asking me to paralyse her—or to bite her a little bit. Just a little.
Father was mostly silent, but he was at least as confused as Mom. Understandably.
I avoided their eyes, removed the gibbons’ bloody bandages, and applied more healing salve since their wounds tore open again in the chaos.
“Why did you bind new Soulkins?” Dad asked, looking hopeful.
“They’re not bound, Dad,” I said, trying hard not to smile when his features derailed into a smile. It looked like I was right; he knew what this was about. “You know I don’t have enough space to fit another beast. Not until Aureus evolves, and probably not for quite some time after Aureus evolves.”
Aureus looked satisfied at that, and I did not want to squash the little glutton’s dreams. The Zerogs mentioned something about procuring a beast egg for me to push my physique even further. I would struggle to keep up with the soul energy demands of two Soulkin, but I’d also gain a lot as long as I could strengthen the bonds of two Soulkin. Their soulshare would diminish the Soulkins’ demands and improve my gains drastically, including the portion of soul energy I would obtain from the bonds’ soulshares.
Still, I doubted my World would have enough space to fit another Soulkin, even if it was only a 1-Star Wild with decent potential. My training with the ethermist cube was highly efficient, but I had to split my time between refining the World and tempering my body. Sure, I could do both outside the ethermist cube, which was exactly what I did to keep up with the Zerog family’s expectations, but the results were still good, just worse than they could have been with the ethermist cube.
There was a reason most Blessed could only use the ethermist cube for an hour or two at a time before their ether channels would burn and tear apart. It was intense, dangerous, yet also incredibly useful.
“You brought wild beasts into our home without binding them?!” Mom glared at me, but she did not step away from the gibbon. Rather than that, she was struggling to wipe the smile from her face as the female gibbon accepted a treat from her. The female used her tiny hands to take the treat, which was pinched between Mom’s fingers.
She’d already fallen victim to the gibbon’s cuteness and had forgotten all about the possible dangers.
“I have been searching for Soulkins for a few weeks,” I said instead of answering Mom’s question. It was not like she expected an answer in the first place.
“So when we complained about all those hunts in your free time…” Dad raised an eyebrow at me.
“Yep. Well, I did have to hunt a little bit to purchase those overpriced Seals, but I was looking for Soulkins—your Soulkins.” I grinned brightly at my parents. “It took me a while to find something good enough, but here I am.”
Many 1-Star Wilds fit the criteria of my parents’ Worlds, but most of them were useless, to say the least. Their potential was burnt, their racial limit capped at 1-Star. Sure, using serums could elevate their prowess, but most 1-Star Wilds of the Windbloom Forest were not worth anyone’s attention. They were great for gaining access to ether, but they were not family material.
The Blackbellied Gibbons, on the other hand, were exactly what my parents needed. They deserved the best of the best—and more.