Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

“What’s wrong with you?” Ren turned toward her, now more confused than ever. The familiar bold girl he had known for months seemed to have been replaced by someone completely different. “And why did you run away?”

“I didn’t run away,” Liora protested, though her defensive position by the window suggested otherwise. “I just… need a moment to…”

“It’s for your own good,” Ren insisted, beginning to walk toward her again, though now faster a and with more determination. “The fusion will make you much more powerful.”

“I know!” Liora shook her head vigorously, her hair catching the light from her Will o’ Wisp. “But that doesn’t mean it has to be now!”

“Why not now?”

Another flash of blue light, and Liora appeared next to the door.

Ren stopped, finally beginning to realize that catching her would be more complicated than he had initially thought. The girl who had fearlessly explored dangerous caves with him was now fleeing from a simple magical procedure.

‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘I have no idea. You’re not mana creatures, so many of your behaviors confuse me… Good luck with that,’ responded the small mushroom with what might have been amusement.

“Liora,” Ren said slowly, his voice taking on the careful tone of someone trying to solve a delicate puzzle, “is there any specific reason why you don’t want me to activate it for you?”

Liora’s blush intensified to the point where Ren was genuinely worried she might faint. The red in her cheeks seemed to merge with the blue of her fire in an anxious purple, it was so bright it almost seemed to glow with its own light.

“It’s not that I don’t want you to… I mean, it’s not bad, it’s just that… Argh!” She brought her hands to her face, covering her eyes as if she could hide from the entire situation. “Can’t you just do it from a distance?”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Ren explained ‘patiently’. “It needs physical contact.”

“What kind of physical contact?”

The question was asked with such intensity that Ren blinked in surprise. There was something almost desperate in her voice, as if the answer would determine something of vital importance.

“What kind?” Ren thought for only a second and said the first thing that came to mind… what he had just done moments before. “Well, just… contact. Like when I hugged my parents.”

Liora made a sound that might have been a muffled groan of despair.

Another luminous jump. This time Liora appeared behind the large bed that had Lin peacefully sleeping in one side of the room, using it as a barrier between them.

Ren felt his desperation to “help” mounting, so he jumped over the unsuspecting teacher with the determination of a kid trying to catch a particularly elusive but cute small creature.

Yet when he reached the table’s edge, Liora had already jumped again, appearing with another flash of light near a bookshelf.

“Actually,” she said from her new position, her voice slightly breathless, “maybe we should wait until I return with the elders and leaders of my faction… and you activate them first.”

“Liora,” Ren sighed, now beginning to feel genuinely exasperated by the entire situation, “what is happening? Five minutes ago you were perfectly normal.”

“I’m being perfectly normal!” Liora protested, though her jumping behavior around the room suggested otherwise.

“No, you’re not. You’re bouncing around the room like… like…”

“Like what?”

“Like you don’t want me to touch you,” Ren finished, finally verbalizing what had been bothering him.

It was very strange. Liora pushed or grabbed him during training and often hit his shoulder to “make avoiding detection harder and funnier” when they explored the caves together… Although in recent weeks, he realized, those casual touches had become less and less frequent.

The silence that followed was so dense Ren could have cut it with Isaac’s dagger.

“It’s not that I don’t want…” Liora murmured finally, her voice barely audible, “it’s that…”

“It’s that what?”

“It’s that I’m not ready!” she exploded suddenly. “Okay? I’m not ready for my… for you to… for my…”

She stopped abruptly, bringing both hands to her mouth as if she had been about to say something she absolutely shouldn’t.

Ren looked at her for a long moment, his mind trying to make sense of what he had just heard.

“Your what?” he asked gently, his voice softening instinctively.

“Nothing,” came the muffled response through her hands. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Liora…”

“Nothing!”

Another jump, this time toward the door. But Ren had anticipated the maneuver this time.

“Oh, no!” he said, also running toward the door with renewed determination. “You’re not getting away like that!”

“I’m not escaping!”

“Yes, you are!”

What followed was a chase that would have been hilarious if Ren had been observing from outside instead of participating in it. Liora used her Will o’ Wisp to jump around the room, appearing in unexpected corners while Ren tried to anticipate where she would reappear next.

The room became a battlefield of misunderstanding, furniture serving as obstacles and cover while blue light flashed intermittently like lightning in a storm.

“At least let me put a finger on your hand or shoulder!” Ren shouted, chasing her around the table in what was becoming an increasingly absurd situation.

“No…! My what?” Liora asked, stopping suddenly in surprise and nearly causing Ren to crash into a chair. “Did you say just a finger?”

Ren stopped, breathing slightly heavily from the exertion.

“I don’t understand what the problem is. It’s just physical contact.”

Liora looked at him with an expression that mixed exasperation, embarrassment, and something else that Ren couldn’t completely identify.

“The problem,” she said finally, her voice carrying a frustration that sounded almost like longing, “is that you don’t understand that there’s a difference between touching your parents and… and touching your…”

She stopped again, biting her lip in a gesture that made her seem suddenly much older than eleven.

“Touching what?”

“Nothing!” Liora jumped again, this time landing near the window with practiced grace. “Just forget it! I’ll take the fusion later!”

But Ren wasn’t willing to give up so easily.

“No,” he said with determination, rolling up his sleeves as if preparing for serious work, “we’re going to resolve this now.”

And the chase continued, with an increasingly less flustered and more genuinely amused Liora using her Will o’ Wisp to stay out of reach of an increasingly determined Ren who simply wanted to understand why his friend was behaving so strangely about something that should be simple.

Neither realized that their shouts and the sound of running footsteps had attracted the attention of several castle servants, who now listened from the hallway with expressions ranging from amusement to concern about what exactly was happening in that room.

Though due to what Selphira had asked and suggested with one of those mischievous but dangerous smiles, they wouldn’t interfere with that “valuable friendship” if they didn’t want to be severely scolded.

The castle had seen many strange things over its long history, but the chase between the young prodigy and the Ashenway heir would definitely be added, albeit a bit exaggerated, to the stories that would be told for years to come.

Outside the room, one elderly servant nudged another and whispered with poorly concealed amusement, “Young love is always so complicated… and energetic.”

The other servant smiled knowingly. “Lady Selphira will be pleased when she returns.”

The other, more well informed servan lost the playful smile and thought. ‘If… she returns.’