Chapter 116: Chosen Tamer

"Yes, so you absolutely must not tell anyone about this. If you do happen to reveal it, every employee of the Tamer’s Guild will come after you to silence you, so keep that in mind."

What? That’s terrifying! Qiu Nuoya’s face immediately stiffened. He would not tell anyone. Absolutely not!

The employee then gave him a teasing smile. "Well, even if you did tell someone, the door cannot be opened by anyone who doesn’t have the proper qualifications."

[ This place feels kind of nostalgic~ ]

Mochi hopped down from Qiu Nuoya’s shoulder and began bouncing around the area.

"You know this place, Mochi?"

[ I don’t know, but I feel like I used to live here. ]

"Then could this be your hometown?"

[ I don’t know, but maybe~ ]

As Qiu Nuoya and Mochi continued their carefree conversation, the guild employee once again stared intently at Mochi. "So you really can communicate with that slime. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a tamer who can communicate with a monster so clearly or perhaps that particular slime is simply an exceptionally intelligent individual?"

"Mochi might be a special individual, I suppose. It’s a Huge Slime now, after all."

"At that size!?"

"Mochi can freely change its size. This place is spacious, so Mochi, you can run around and play as much as you want."

When Qiu Nuoya called out to Mochi, it let out a delighted cry of "Yay!" and began swelling rapidly.

Before long, it split into several slimes.

"Wha...!? What is this!?"

"My slime is actually a fusion of multiple slimes. It’s like several individual slimes merged together with the original slime to form a single slime."

"WHAT!? I’ve never heard of a slime like that before! Tell me more about this!"

Qiu Nuoya explained everything he knew about Mochi and the guild employee listened intently, while taking notes with great interest.

Unlike the Adventurer’s Guild Master, who tended to immediately think of Mochi in terms of how much money could be made from it, this employee did not seem to view Mochi purely as a source of profit and Qiu Nuoya found that quite likeable.

"Slimes are common monsters that you can find practically anywhere, but despite that, their biology is still shrouded in mystery. They’re fascinating creatures. What you’ve told me is extremely valuable. Thank you." The employee bowed his head sincerely. He really did seem to have a genuine fondness for monsters.

Come to think of it, when Qiu Nuoya had first told him that he had a slime as his tamed monster, the employee had looked confused, but he had never laughed.

Qiu Nuoya had been laughed at countless times wherever he went for having a slime as his tamed monster, so the employee’s reaction genuinely made him happy.

"Not at all. If anything I’ve told you can be useful, I’m happy to help."

"Hehe. We at the Tamer’s Guild welcome tamers like you, so why have you never visited the guild before?"

"I never had any particular reason to. Besides, my main professions are adventurer and mage."

"What!?" Once again, the guild employee was left speechless by Qiu Nuoya’s answer.

Did he just say something strange?

"You’re not a tamer!?"

"I have the skill, but my main profession is a mage."

"No, wait! How can you have that much talent as a tamer and still be a mage!? That’s a complete waste of talent! It’s not too late. You should switch to being a tamer!"

"Even if you say that..." Come to think of it, someone at the specialized tamed monster item shop had said something similar to Qiu Nuoya before.

It was not as though there were any rules forbidding someone from being both a mage and a tamer. There was no reason he could not be a mage who also happened to be a tamer.

[ Someone’s coming... ]

"Huh?"

A voice suddenly echoed inside Qiu Nuoya’s head.

At first, he thought it was Mochi’s voice, but the sound gradually spread outward like ripples across a pond.

[ Someone’s coming. Someone’s coming. ]

"Who is it? Who’s coming?"

[ We have to welcome them. We have to get ready. ]

[ Hurry, hurry. ]

The trees and bushes around them began rustling noisily.

When Qiu Nuoya looked at them more closely, he noticed small monsters peering at them from among the vegetation.

They did not seem hostile or appear to be preparing to attack. Instead, they were all excitedly making a fuss about someone coming.

Who are they saying is coming?

Or perhaps they were welcoming him because he had arrived?

No. Somehow, that did not feel right.

"The monsters seem to be acting strangely. I wonder what’s going on?"

"It seems like the monsters are saying that something is coming here. Do you have any idea what it might be?"

"What? Don’t tell me you’ve already been chosen! What’s coming!?"

"That’s what I’d like to know. What do you mean by ’chosen’?"

The guild employee was visibly flustered and scrambling to make sense of the situation. "As I mentioned earlier, here, we don’t choose the monsters. The monsters choose us. When a monster finds someone it considers worthy of becoming its partner, the monster itself will approach that person. There are even tamers who come here and go for years without attracting the attention of a single monster. I can’t believe things are progressing this quickly!"

Even hearing that, Qiu Nuoya was just as surprised. He had no idea what exactly he had been chosen for, but judging by the monsters’ reactions, one thing was certain.

Whatever was coming was definitely not some weak little monster from the surrounding area. More importantly, the monsters living here were strangely talkative.

Qiu Nuoya had occasionally heard the voices of monsters before, but this was the first time he had clearly heard so many different voices at once.

Was this because of the special nature of this place? Or were the monsters living here simply unusual?

Mochi had just said that this place might be its birthplace, after all. It was entirely possible that this was a place where unusually special monsters gathered.