Chapter 175~Hope~ Waki Daisuke POV

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“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.

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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?」

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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.

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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.

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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.