EP.1 I Became a Companion -4 (Revised)
EP.1 I Became a Companion -4 (Revised)
A peaceful morning.
It was the hour that signaled the start of a refreshing day, but I couldn't actually enjoy it.
"I-It's cramped...!"
I clearly remembered giving my bed to my two Companion Animals before I fell asleep.
...So why were both of them glued to my sides?
Each Companion Animal hugged one of my arms as though it were a pillow.
They were sleeping so peacefully that I couldn't bring myself to wake them.
That said, I couldn't stay like this forever.
I tried to slip free by carefully drawing my arm from the smaller dragon's grasp.
"Husband, let's sleep together a little longer~"
But Miho's soft, fluffy fox tail stopped me midway.
"No, I have to get up soon."
"Even though you could hug my tail to your heart's content while you sleep...?"
I lay back down and wrapped my arms tightly around the fox tail swaying before me. Then I closed my eyes.
Not my mother's faux fur coat, but real fox fur.
The soft, plush sensation made my body relax as drowsiness washed over me.
Fluffiness was an absolutely irresistible trap.
***
"Someone who usually wakes up just fine, what made you sleep in so late?"
I was on my way to school after being forcibly roused by my younger sister.
Miho and the dragon, awakened along with me, followed us.
Of course, they were both invisible to everyone else.
"One of the dreams I'd always wished for was right in front of me. How could I resist that?"
"A dream...? What, did you dream about getting a Companion Animal or something?"
A dream about getting a Companion Animal, huh... Well, everything that happened yesterday really did feel like a dream.
I wished this whole situation I was in could be a dream.
"It was nothing. Forget I said anything."
Having a cute baby lizard and a lovely fox as my Companion Animals was great.
The problem was that they weren't ordinary lizards and foxes, but a Divine Beast dragon and a Nine-Tailed Fox.
Their presence had suddenly made me a target for other Divine Beasts.
And Divine Beasts were infamous for slaughtering humanity.
"Do you realize you've been weird since you came home yesterday? Talking to yourself in your room, suddenly shouting, and then when I came to wake you up in the morning, you were sleeping like some kind of mummy."
No illusion had been cast on me, so it must have looked like I was talking to myself.
I needed to be careful about that.
I turned to warn Miho, who was following behind.
But she was currently busy, engaged in a heated debate with the baby dragon.
"Do you understand? No matter what anyone says, I am my husband's first Companion Animal! That fact will never change!"
"Kyu-it! Kyu-i!"
"Because you were doted on first, that makes you number one? I absolutely refuse to accept that!"
"Kyu-i-it!!"
Their childish squabble made me wonder whether they were really Divine Beasts.
There was no need for me to butt into that fight. I decided to leave them be.
"What are you thinking about so hard?"
"Just thinking that maybe the days before I had Companion Animals weren't so bad."
"What are you talking about? You're still a loser without any Companion Animals."
"Haha, you ignorant fool who knows nothing."
If this had been the me from yesterday, my sister's provocation would have made me snap. But now, I could just let it slide.
Now I knew that I had Companion Animals.
"Are you declaring war on me right now? Me, your husband's number one Companion Animal?"
"Kyu-i-it!!"
I'd become immune to my sister's teasing, but seeing my Companion Animals fighting so hard made my stomach churn.
If they were ordinary animals, it would have been fine, but they were Divine Beasts. What if their fight leveled the entire area?
The thought made me so anxious that I could not sit still.
It was a morning where normalcy was nowhere to be found.
***
Today, I went to school normally instead of heading to the mountain behind the neighborhood.
Personally, after going through that commotion yesterday, I had no desire to go to the mountain.
Besides, I figured the government agency had probably cordoned off the mountain by now anyway.
The neighborhood had been bustling since morning, and I kept hearing residents mention agents. That all but confirmed it.
Running into an agent would have been awkward. It wasn't like I'd committed a crime. I'd just happened to pick up an egg.
But that one fact alone made the prospect of facing an agent uncomfortable.
They might think I was in league with the terrorists.
That was why I had gone quietly to school.
"Hwaa-ahm~!!"
Even so, class was still boring.
Schools these days felt less like they were teaching students and more like they were teaching them to compete.
There was nothing that sparked any interest, just a method of elaborating on sentences from the textbook. It had no substance.
Left with no choice, I opened my notebook to make the tedious time pass faster.
And on it, I started jotting down words, one by one.
"What are you doing?"
[Nothing much.]
I answered Miho's voice from behind me with a written reply.
I could not stop thinking about the conversation I'd had with my sister that morning.
I was already treated like an invisible person in class. If I started talking to myself on top of that...
Wouldn't people see me as some crazy bastard with no friends?
[Naming.]
"A name? Ah, do you mean a name for this dragon?"
[Yeah.]
"Kyu-i-it?"
The baby dragon climbed up onto my desk, lured by the word "name."
She was staring intently at the notebook I'd been scribbling in.
Despite being young, she looked as if she understood everything I had written.
[Is there a name here you like?]
"Kyu-i..."
After scanning through all the names written in the notebook, the baby dragon's face fell, and her tail drooped down.
Unfortunately, it seemed my pitiful naming sense had disappointed the baby dragon.
Oh man, it wasn't like I'd ever done any creative work before...
It was an unavoidable result.
"My husband, if you don't mind, may I offer a suggestion?"
[Please do.]
"A name of a famous dragon from the Divine Beast world long ago came to mind. Have you ever heard of Tiamat?"
[No, first time hearing it. Anyway, so what? Are you saying I should name her Tiamat?]
"No, I think that name is far too heavy to give to a newborn child. So, how about taking just the first part and calling her 'Tia'?"
[Oh?]
It was easy to pronounce and even had a story behind it.
Personally, it was a name I wanted to adopt immediately, but I wasn't sure how the baby dragon would receive it.
"Kyu-it!"
The baby dragon accepted it with joy right away. My worries seemed to have been unfounded.
[Alright, from today on, your name is Tia.]
"Kyu-i-it!"
Was she that thrilled to have a name? Tia immediately rubbed her face against my cheek, openly expressing her delight.
Giving her a name had clearly been the right choice.
Thanks to Tia's joyful display of affection, Her delight made me happy as well.
"Huh?"
The moment passed, and then I felt something small stuck to the back of my head.
Wondering what it was, I touched the spot, found a small note stuck there, and promptly peeled it off.
Then, I unfolded the note without hesitation, and written on it were the words: 'Why'd you even come today, you retard?'
Only after I read the note did I hear snickering behind me.
It was a typical adolescent prank—and, after twenty years of discrimination, an ordinary part of my life.
I was about to laugh it off, but I had forgotten one important fact.
I had forgotten that the being who had nearly killed the man who hurt me the day before was nearby...
I only realized it when I saw the fox suddenly dash toward my back after reading the note.
Ah, it was too late...
-Kwaang!
"Have you lost your mind? How dare you commit such a vile act toward my husband right in front of me?"
-Kwaang! Kwaang!!
"Kyaaak!!"
"Wh-What?! What the hell is going on?"
Due to my Companion Animal's act of retaliation, screams and horrified shouts erupted from all over.
Despite that, Miho, who had grabbed the ringleader by the hair, continued slamming his head into the desk.
"That was brutal..."
How had I forgotten that my Companion Fox was terrifying?
Whenever someone hurt me, she became utterly merciless and stopped at nothing.
Still, I felt so gratified that I briefly considered leaving her be for a while.
But if I let her continue, someone might die. I had to stop Miho before she went too far.
"Kya-heung?!"
[That's enough. People around us are scared, thinking it's a supernatural phenomenon.]
"Y-Yes...!! M-More importantly, husband? If you suddenly grab my tail that hard..."
[I can't?]
"I feel like I might go into heat...♡"
[Sorry!]
I instantly let go of her tail at those words. Maybe it wasn't them who were in danger, but me...
It was an obvious thought, but doing lewd things inside school was extremely dangerous.
People could see only me, yet I would be doing something lewd with Miho. What if someone realised what was happening?
I would absolutely want to kill myself. I might end up throwing myself from the school roof...
"Kyu-it! Kyu-it!!"
[Tia, you stop that too now.]
Meanwhile, as though she refused to forgive him either, Tia kept smacking the unconscious student's head with her paws.
It was cute enough that I wanted to keep watching, but I hoped the baby dragon would remain a good kid.
[Both of you, calm down for now.]
It was true that I was subject to discrimination, but that didn't mean I was tormented every day.
Nine times out of ten, people treated me as though I were invisible. Unfortunately, one student had decided to bully me that day.
But since even that guy was dealt with, there probably wouldn't be any others who'd try to bully me.
That's what I thought.
"Uwaaak!!"
"Keo-heok!"
"Keu-euk...!!"
It did not take long for that naïve assumption to fall apart.
Apparently, the students were under far more academic pressure than I had expected.
Even the guys who used to just ignore me on a normal day had been itching to mess with me.
And every single one of them ended up facing Miho's bloody retaliation.
To give you a few examples...
Sticking a leg out as I walked by.
—Crunch!
"Aaagh...!!"
Miho shattered his leg with a stomp, and he was carried away.
Next up, sticking a post-it note onto my back.
—Fwoosh!
"Ah! Hot!!"
Before the note even touched me, Miho burned it away and gave the student trying to stick it on me second-degree burns.
Then there was "accidentally" splashing water on me on purpose.
—Crash!
"Augh?!"
As the student approached to splash me, Miho kicked them in the shin and sent them tumbling over a desk.
Beyond those, there was wedging the chalkboard eraser in the door gap, stealing my textbooks, scribbling on my desk, and so on.
They tried every method imaginable to harass me, and every single one of them got brutally crushed.
After so many incidents, one would have expected them to grow suspicious. Did they have no ability to learn?
Every one of them kept coming at me out of sheer stupid pride.
"There are an awful lot of pests to deal with today."
"Y-yeah, we sure do."
The punishment had been so thorough that Miho's face ended up stained with blood.
The nurse's office was already packed, and there were even a fair number of students who'd been sent to the hospital.
The problem was that lunchtime had only just begun.
Even so, nearly half the students in my classroom were already gone.
If the other students started pulling this kind of thing in the afternoon too, I had a feeling it would go down as the greatest catastrophe in the school's history.
"It's already lunchtime. Let's eat together, husband."
"There's just one thing I wanted to ask you before that..."
"Don't hesitate—ask me anything!"
"After watching me get bullied all this time, how did you manage to hold yourself back?"
After seeing Miho's actions, which didn't show an ounce of mercy, I simply couldn't picture her holding back.
"How do you think? I had to bite my lip until it bled, and watch while shedding tears of blood."
"Just watching must've been pretty agonizing too, huh."
"Yes... But right now I couldn't be happier! Knowing I can catch every last one of the little bastards who made you suffer and completely ruin them gives me a thrill, you know?"
A shiver ran down my spine. This fox was my Companion Animal... I was not sure I could handle what came afterward.
"It's long overdue, but the bastards who made you suffer—I'll personally wipe every single one of them out for you."
Miho was clenching her teeth so hard they ground audibly. Her resentment had run far deeper than I'd expected.
Well, if someone I cared about was being viciously bullied, made to cry, and even got hurt, I'd be furious too.
But after watching that for 20 years, how much bitter resentment must have been building up inside her heart?
It must have been so immense that the old saying about a woman's grudge bringing frost even in midsummer wasn't just for show.
"Calm down. I'm okay, so... could you just stay quietly by my side?"
"Do you mean you want me to stay by your side for all the time I wasn't able to be there?"
"Huh? Uh, well, if I had to put it that way, I guess it could mean that too..."
"...I understand. I'll do as you say, husband!"
Miho gently leaned against my shoulder and nestled close.
The gesture was both tender and endearing.
In moments like this, she was a woman so beautiful it made my heart pound...
What would it have been like if there weren't things like the Divine Beast Rules?
If Miho had been by my side from the very beginning, would I only ever have seen this beautiful side of her?
It was not bad. Yet perhaps I had grown too accustomed to her madness, because part of me oddly missed it when it was absent.
Had I finally gone insane as well?
"Can't be helped."
"Are you going to stroke my head too? Please, stroke it as gently as you like."
As Miho's Human Companion, accepting her was the right thing to do.
I had been taught that an ideal Human Companion always kept their companion close and tried to understand them.
"This afternoon too, I'll diligently go around purging for your sake, husband! Unless I completely exterminate all these vermin, you won't be able to rest easy either! Isn't that right?"
Ah, this was hopeless. I wanted to understand my companion fox's actions, but I just couldn't.
As I had suspected, being an ideal Human Companion was far beyond me.
"Haaah..."
"Kyuu-ii!"
Miho spent the afternoon busily carrying out her bloody revenge.
Meanwhile, my other Companion Animal, Tia, had been playing quietly on my desk.
Maybe because she hadn't been born all that long ago, everything around her seemed to spark her curiosity.
[Tia, are you having fun?]
"Kyuu!"
Just watching Tia happily playing with a single eraser brought a sense of peace to my heart.
If Miho was the spicy flavor, Tia was the mild one.
It felt like nothing could be more soothing than petting a cute baby dragon's head.
"Kyuu-it!"
[You want to show me something?]
"Kyuu-ii! Kyuu-it!!"
Tia demanded my attention as if telling me to watch closely.
She wagged her tail side to side like a puppy, then soon struck the desk with it a few times.
I couldn't figure out the meaning of the action, but since it was cute, I stroked her head.
"Kyuu-it!"
Tia puffed out her chest triumphantly, as if asking whether I had seen her feat.
I was about to write that she had done well.
But then—
—Crash!
"Ah...?"
My desk split in half and collapsed into a wreck.
"Kyuu-ii!"
That was right. Even this adorable child was a troublesome Divine Beast.
"What's going on?! Ah! Your desk, husband! Who did this...! I'll tear them limb from limb at once!"
"Kyuu-it?!"
My two Companion Animals were steadily eroding my sanity.
The destructive acts of my companions were eating away at my sanity worse than the bullying ever had.
It was the Divine Beasts who caused the problems—so why was I the one suffering?
No matter how many times I repeated the question, only one answer came back.
It had to be because I was the Human Companion to Divine Beasts.
***
The chaotic day was drawing to a close. And I had resolved never to come to school again.
Before, it had been because I simply had no reason to come. This time, I'd found a reason why I must not come.
In just this one day, they'd turned countless students into patients and destroyed a huge amount of school property.
All the achievements were racked up by my companion animals, and I was left to receive all the guilt.
It was absurd. So I simply decided not to come anymore.
"I feel so fulfilled! I was finally able to exterminate the pests who'd been tormenting you all this time, husband!"
"Kyuu! Kyuu-ii-it!!"
The actual perpetrators themselves were feeling proud of their handiwork.
How could I not lose my mind?
"I'm already looking forward to figuring out how to punish them tomorrow!"
"Kyuu-ii!"
Once I got home, I would look for another mountain I could visit.
I could not let Companion Animals I could not control loose in public.
"Ah, husband? Were you thinking of heading straight home like this?"
"Why? Don't tell me there's still someone you need to take revenge on before we go back."
"No. There was too much trash to deal with at once, so I decided to clean it up gradually."
"Then what's the matter?"
"It's nothing, really—just that there are a whole bunch of strangers at your house."
"...Is it terrorists?"
Miho shook her head.
That helped me calm down.
"They're people connected to the woman who got rescued yesterday. They probably came to get Tia back, don't you think?"
"I didn't expect them to track us down this quickly..."
I remembered that the only information they had was the brief glimpse the woman had gotten of my face.
So how had they found me already?
"What will you do?"
"We'll go back. I have my precious family at home, and trying to run from a government agency is reckless."
It wasn't that escape was entirely impossible.
We could just use Miho's ability, after all.
However, not only was there no reason to go so far as to run, but if everything had already been exposed, I needed to turn it into an opportunity.
If I told them the truth, they might place me under government protection.
For someone who never knew when other Divine Beasts might target him, a reliable ally was essential.
Asking them to protect me against Divine Beasts was probably asking too much, but I had to secure as much of the government's help in other areas as I possibly could.
"What do you have in mind once we return?"
"First, I'll come clean about everything regarding Tia, and do my best to get as much protection as possible."
Though I'd suddenly turned into a guy scheming to take advantage of a central government agency, what else could I do?
I was also a citizen who ought to receive their protection.
"There's really no need to worry so much. I'm more than capable of protecting you, you know."
"Kyuu-ii!"
"It's not that I don't trust you. I just want to have at least one more person who can help me if things ever go wrong."
Even if they were Divine Beasts, they were my companion animals, and I worried about them all the same.
What if my companion animals got hurt because of me?
Because that possibility worried me, I wanted to reduce the danger they faced.
That was why I fully intended to use anything I could—the government or whatever else.
"We're back!"
I would talk things through calmly and secure their cooperation.
"Seon-, Seon-ju! The government agents—they're here!!"
"I knew they were here before I came back. Don't worry, Mom—huh...?"
...Huh? Had my eyes gone weird?
"Huff...! Huff...!"
"He's here! He's finally here...!!"
The agents advanced on me with a boa constrictor in place of a rope, breathing hard.
The sight was just like...
"Didn't you call them agents just a moment ago?"
"Yes, I did."
"But no matter how I look at it, aren't those just perverts trying to kidnap someone?"
"They certainly do look like kidnappers."
"I'm seriously going to lose my mind!! Why does this kind of thing only happen to me...!!"
Sensing that something had gone wrong, my body naturally started stepping backward.
But a similar type of person appeared from behind me as well, blocking my escape route.
I was well and truly caught between a rock and a hard place.
"Huff...! Huff...!"
"S-stop...!!"
The government protection I'd hoped for had been replaced with kidnapping.