Chapter 6 - Contract Beast

Translator: Roshi

"Contract Beast?"

This was yet another feature I'd never heard of.

I glanced over at Cerberus.

Just like that.

Cerberus suddenly took a step back and sat down in perfect posture, stiff and at attention.

Wow. He looked like a military dog or something.

Where'd he even learn to do that?

Oh, right. He must have learned it while being abused.

A somber feeling suddenly washed over me.

I spoke with all the sympathy I felt.

"Relax, just relax."

Cerberus rolled his eyes around, reading the room nervously.

Oops. Was that like a senior officer showing up and telling a newly transferred private to make himself at home?

"I really mean it. Relax. Come here. You can wag your tail and all that, like you were doing earlier."

Kking!

As if my sincerity had gotten through, Cerberus came closer, his tail swinging in wide circles.

I stroked Cerberus and asked.

"You know that Contract Beast thing? If we go through with it, does it mean you'd follow my commands and stuff?"

Kking!

Cerberus nodded his head.

"Oho."

If that was true.

'This might actually be worth raising him.'

It would mean there'd be no worry about him going out of control and causing an incident.

And there was something the angel in my head had been saying that had been nagging at me this whole time.

Healing a creature that nearly got beaten to death just to siphon EXP off it, then sending it back to its doom...

If I'd sent him back without knowing, that would be one thing.

But I couldn't send this sweet guy back to his death when I knew what awaited him.

Even now, I could vividly feel him finding comfort and joy in each stroke of my hand.

How could I possibly send a creature like this back?

I asked Cerberus one final question.

"If I'm going to raise you, you can't breathe fire from your neck, and you'll have to hide your Mana. You'd need to pretend to be a normal dog. Can you live like that?"

Kking!

Cerberus nodded vigorously.

I could feel his iron resolve, as if he'd do anything so long as he didn't have to go back home.

"Whew. Alright."

Let's just go for it.

[Do you accept?]

'Yes.'

The moment I steeled my resolve and answered while looking at the Status Window.

Ding!

[Hell Hound Cerberus has become your Contract Beast!]

[You have achieved the Achievement 'Master of the Hell Hound'!]

[Your Contract Beast will follow your commands absolutely.]

[※However, protecting you takes priority above all else.]

Ooh.

I didn't know what it was, but I'd earned an Achievement.

And though the Status Window was usually unhelpful to the point of rudeness, this time it had given a comparatively detailed explanation for once.

'It follows commands absolutely, but prioritizes protecting me.'

Among Awakeners, some had skills that let them summon Summons.

I'd heard that those Summons operated under similar behavioral principles.

If Cerberus ever got found out, could I maybe pass him off as a Summon?

Well, I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.

'First things first, I should test whether the commands actually work.'

I tried giving Cerberus a few commands as a test.

"Sit."

Kking.

"Stand."

Kking.

"Jump!"

Kking!!

"Don't sit, stand. Not the front left leg, raise the back right leg!"

Kki...ng!!

I realized there was one problem.

I couldn't tell whether he was just being obedient on his own or listening because of the Contract Beast bond.

'Hmm, in that case.'

I held out my right arm and said.

"Bite my hand!"

Kking?!

Cerberus looked extremely confused for a moment, then shook his head.

Kking...

'Hmm, I think I sort of get it now.'

That confused expression just now.

It seemed like a conflict between my command and the principle of protecting me.

It wasn't simple confusion; it was more like he'd briefly lagged, like a glitch.

Given that the Status Window had provided this information, it seemed safe to assume it was working.

"Haha, sorry. I just needed to check something. I won't make you do anything like that again."

Kking!

Cerberus, looking relieved, licked the hand I'd held out.

Lick, lick.

"Whew."

I looked at the gentle Cerberus.

'I've gone and done it.'

In the end, I'd accepted the Hell Hound Cerberus as my Contract Beast.

There was no taking it back now.

Thinking of it that way actually put my mind at ease.

'Wait. But then what about the Gate?'

The fact that he'd accidentally crossed over from his home dimension...

Didn't that mean other species from there, especially the ones who'd been abusing Cerberus, could cross over too?

There hadn't been any signs of anything so far, but a belated wave of anxiety hit me.

I quickly asked Cerberus.

"Hey, buddy. Where's the Gate you came through? You must have come through some kind of Dimensional Portal."

Kking? Kking!

Cerberus shook his head.

"It's gone? Then how did you get here?"

Kking!

Cerberus suddenly spun around and trotted ahead of me somewhere.

Following him, I found myself at the hospital's storage room in the back.

"You came out of here?"

Kking.

Just as Cerberus said, the inside of the storage room was empty.

Normally it should have been stacked with various medications and supplies.

But since I could cure everything in one shot with my EX-rank skill, there was absolutely no need to keep anything in stock.

"So the Gate closed right after you came through?"

Kking.

Apparently so.

'What? Does that even happen?'

Just in case, I pulled up the CCTV app.

There wasn't a camera inside the storage room itself, but there was one covering the entrance. After checking the footage...

Cerberus had come out of a sealed storage room that he'd never entered.

On top of that, the CCTV feed had briefly flickered with static at one point, which suggested a Gate really had appeared and then vanished.

'No wonder. I knew I hadn't left the door unlocked, and the windows were shut, but he'd somehow gotten out so quietly.'

In any case, thankfully, it seemed I didn't need to worry about anyone from the other dimension chasing after the escaped Cerberus.

And.

'...Come to think of it, sending him back was never really an option in the first place, was it?'

If he couldn't go back the way he came, then the only choices were to turn him loose on the streets or take him in.

Well, I'd already decided to keep him anyway.

"Then shall we head to my place?"

Kking?

He seemed to be asking if this wasn't already my place.

"Nope. This is where I work. I earn a living by treating injured animals."

Kking?!

Cerberus suddenly looked anxious again.

It was as if he was saying, 'But I don't have any money!'

"Pfhaha. Don't worry. I won't charge you. Come on, let's go home for real. Cer."

Kking?

"It's short for Cerberus. Cer. I picked it as your name. You don't like it?"

Kking!!

At the word "name", Cerberus's eyes lit up.

His tail wagging, clearly overjoyed.

"Haha. Glad you like it."

I'd considered giving him a more puppy-like name, but I dropped the idea.

He was a Hell Hound, after all. It'd feel weird calling him something like Choco or Bori.

I grabbed a spare leash from the hospital and put it on Cer.

You might wonder what good a leash does on a Hell Hound.

But we'd agreed to pretend he was a normal dog in front of others, so.

"Alright, let's go! Want to take a walk around the neighborhood on the way?"

Kking!!

*

Kim Young-min, affiliated with the Hunter Management Bureau, was in charge of patrolling Gangseo District.

He was patrolling Gangseo District as usual, Gate Detector in hand.

'Yesterday really gave me a scare.'

An estimated S-rank Gate had suddenly appeared in his jurisdiction.

It was his first S-rank alert since starting his patrol job.

He'd frantically contacted headquarters and rushed to the scene, but.

The Gate signal had already vanished by the time he arrived.

The higher-ups at the Bureau couldn't figure out what had happened either...

'At least nothing came of it, so that's a relief.'

However, internally, the Bureau was speculating about the possible emergence of a new, powerful S-rank Hunter.

If such a Hunter existed, they needed to make contact before any guild and recruit them to the Bureau's side.

His superior, Kim Jun-o, had spent the entire night reviewing CCTV footage and had flagged everyone who'd passed near the area at the time the Gate appeared.

Among them was Jeong Shin-hu, not a civilian but an EX-rank Awakener.

-Keep an eye on Hunter Jeong Shin-hu too, just in case. With his personality, even if he'd gained an additional skill and become combat-capable, he wouldn't breathe a word about it.

Jeong Shin-hu was the only EX-rank Awakener, but because of the massive Penalty of being unable to heal his own kind, he wasn't active as a Hunter.

Yet he himself seemed perfectly content with that fact, running his Animal Hospital and living his life.

If a god appeared and offered to remove the Penalty in exchange for participating in Gate raids, Jeong Shin-hu would probably refuse on the spot and head straight to the Animal Hospital.

'Then again, he's the kind of guy who turned down the government's proposal to open an international animal hospital using his EX-rank healing to rake in foreign currency, choosing to quietly run his own little clinic instead...'

It seemed entirely plausible.

So Kim Young-min had patrolled past the Animal Hospital earlier in the day to see if anything seemed different from usual.

He hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary at all.

That's why he was now doing his regular patrol route as always, when.

BEEP!!!

"Huh?"

The detector suddenly went off.

"What the, it happened yesterday and again today? And the rank is...!"

A-rank Gate, no less.

Two Gates of A-rank or higher appearing back-to-back in the same area?

"Situation room! An estimated A-rank Gate has appeared in Gangseo District!"

After reporting the Gate to the Bureau, Kim Young-min rode his motorcycle in the direction the detector indicated.

BEEP BEEP!!

"This is insane...! The signal just got even stronger!"

Even within the same A-rank classification, a stronger Mana reading meant either more Monsters or an exceptionally powerful one.

Just as he was about to report that.

"What?? The Gate signal disappeared again!"

-What? Didn't it vanish even faster than yesterday?

"Yes, sir! I have no idea what's going on."

-Did you get the coordinates for the location?

"It disappeared too fast to narrow down the area!"

-Good grief... An S-rank Gate vanishes shortly after appearing, and now an A-rank Gate disappears even faster...?

Kim Jun-o let out a low groan.

-Got it. Patrol the area in that direction and report anything unusual.

"Yes, sir!"

Kim Young-min ended the transmission and stared at his detector.

"Tch. What is going on with this thing?"

Was it actually broken?

*

Cer and I took a lap around the park and decided to head home.

Cer followed beside me obediently on his leash.

Kking!

Perhaps because the scenery was so different from where he used to live, he looked around at everything with wide-eyed curiosity.

When we arrived at a quiet park with a nice nighttime view, Cer seemed even more excited.

A puppy's a puppy after all, huh?

He clearly looked happier now that we were on a walk.

I was walking around the park in equally high spirits when.

"Ugh, f*ck. The part-timer this time kept asking for my ID, it was annoying as hell."

"Right? What a dumbass."

There were some students smoking off to one side.

'Great. Better take the long way around.'

Getting into trouble with kids like that would only make my life harder.

They say Juvenile Offenders are untouchable, after all.

Absolute Shield or not, those were the type to punch someone and then throw a fit about their sore knuckles, then call the cops on you.

You don't avoid dog crap because you're scared of it. You avoid it because it's filthy.

Just as I was thinking that.

Crap. I made eye contact.

"Hey, what are you staring at, ajusshi?"