This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange - Chapter 884

Chapter 884: Chapter 884: Reunion

After agreeing to meet up at a certain location, Kain and the others left the Queen and her son.

Usually, Queen Himiko would never leave the palace without an entourage or formal announcement—but curiosity, and perhaps a trace of hope, outweighed her need to follow such rules and procedures.

After dismissing her attendants, she stepped into her private dressing room and returned wearing a long, dark robe that covered most of her ornate clothing and veiled her face. Her son, the Crown Prince, followed suit with practiced ease, clearly familiar with this kind of quiet excursion.

“We’ll go ourselves,” the Queen said, her tone calm but the excited twinkle in her eye couldn’t be concealed. “If this young man’s method truly works, I want to see it with my own eyes.”

Meeting back up with her nephew and his allies in the designated spot in the back gardens, the group slipped through the rear gate of the palace, blending seamlessly with the early evening crowd. Within minutes, they arrived at one of the temples, and then, like all of the other travelling civilians, lined up to step into the designated whirlpool.

They each placed a few silver coins or a carved jade token into the basin as a temple offering when it was their turn. The whirlpool widened, ripples expanding until it resembled a doorway of liquid glass. The group stepped into it together, feeling a gentle pull as the water embraced them. In an instant, the temple vanished, replaced by the open air of another city.

This new city lacked the elegance of the capital. It was a hastily expanded settlement built to accommodate tens of thousands of refugees. The original residents had been relocated not long ago, their homes reinforced or rebuilt into shelters. The streets were packed with makeshift markets, food stalls, and families sitting together near the canals. It smelled of damp stone, sweat, and incense.

Takeru glanced around with quiet awe. “So many… all from the Rising Sun?”

“Most,” the Queen said softly from beneath her hood. “But there are others. Survivors from the fallen Jade Lotus Sect, the Cloudveil Monastery, and even the Emberling Kingdom. We took in everyone who fled the Abyss. and managed to reach our borders”

They walked toward the central square, where a crowd had gathered around a raised platform. At its center stood a man speaking passionately, his voice carrying over the murmuring crowd.

“—we are not forgotten! The light of the sun still burns within us! The ancestors watch and will one day guide us home!”

Kain felt faint ripples of emotion in the crowd—desperation, grief, and a fragile hope trying to hold itself together. Serena watched quietly, while Takeru’s expression shifted from curiosity to recognition.

“I know him,” Takeru whispered. “He used to serve in the palace guard. The youngest one. He was recruited only a few months before…before everything was destroyed.”

As they approached, the man turned—and his eyes widened in horror. He staggered back, pointing a trembling finger. “A ghost!” he shouted.

The crowd murmured, craning their necks to see, but when they noticed nothing overtly supernatural, their interest faded, going back to their individual conversations.

The young guard—Kaito, as Takeru suddenly recalled—stared in disbelief. “Prince Takeru…? It’s really you? I thought you—everyone thought you along with the other royals—were dead!”

Takeru smiled faintly. “I nearly was.”

Kaito’s voice faltered. “So many didn’t make it. The abyssals… they went straight for the most powerful tamers first. Like they were—like they were delicacies.” His hands shook slightly. “I only survived because I was weaker in comparison to the other guards, so they didn’t prioritize me.”

The words struck the group into silence. Even the distant hum of conversation seemed to fade for a moment. Kaito swallowed hard. “The others—most of the civilians that managed to flee here—should have been in a similar situation of being overlooked by the abyssals. But even without being their main targets, the majority of the ordinary citizens died anyway. The Abyss didn’t spare them for long. But here, at least, some of us can start over.”

Takeru’s expression darkened, but there was no bitterness in his voice when he spoke again. “Then we’ll rebuild what was lost. The Rising Sun may have fallen, but its light isn’t gone yet.”

Kaito blinked, then frowned, skepticism plain on his face. “Rebuild? With what? You may be alive, Your Highness, but…” He hesitated, remembering all the nights he’d dragged a drunken prince out of trouble—covering for Takeru when he started drunken brawls at noble banquets, bribing innkeepers to stay silent after he shattered priceless décor, and even personally escorting him home after he’d passed out in a fountain. In only his short less than a year tenure as his guard, Kaito had spent too many nights cleaning up the prince’s messes and offering excuses to furious officials. With memories like that, he had little to no faith in Takeru’s ability to lead. “…you are the only royal remaining. How do you plan to bring together and lead the people who aren’t even aware of your identity?”

‘Not to mention that you are an unawakened that would probably lose in a fight with a chicken,’ but the guard kindly didn’t say that out loud.

Instead of getting angry, Takeru reached into his coat and revealed a small, glowing spiritual creature resting on his palm—the Sunset Beetle. Its wings shimmered with orange-gold light, faint ripples of spiritual energy flowing outward.

“I awakened,” Takeru said simply. “And I’m not the same man I was.” He met Kaito’s disbelieving eyes with quiet determination. “I can help others awaken, too. That’s why I’m here.”

Kaito stared, mouth half-open, as the beetle’s light reflected in his eyes. “You… you really mean that?”

Takeru nodded. “I do. Now tell me, Kaito—do you know anyone among the ordinary citizens who still has the will to fight?”

———————

Although he was skeptical, Takeru’s status as a beast tamer was undeniable, so Kaito decided to take a leap of faith.

An hour later, Kaito led the group of five through narrow backstreets until they arrived at a closed-down shop whose signboard was faded and half detached. Likely previously owned by one of the original Azure Serpent residents that was moved away to make room for the refugees.

The windows were boarded, and the faint smell of dust and oil lingered in the air. Inside, ten people—nine men and one woman—stood waiting. They ranged from mid twenties to middle-aged, dressed plainly, yet every one of them stood straight with the alert posture of trained guards.

Takeru’s brow furrowed. According to the laws of the Rising Sun Kingdom, only beast tamers could serve in any military or guard role. But these people were ordinary. Even without extending his senses, he could tell none of them possessed any spiritual energy whatsoever.

Still, there was something else about them—a quiet, hardened aura, the kind that only those who had faced death again and again would possess.

He asked Kaito about their origin, and what he revealed shocked him.

They were once bakers, fishermen, merchants, smiths, and labourers—ordinary citizens whom Kaito had helped lead out of the Rising Sun Kingdom during its collapse.

Along the way, they had been attacked by low-grade abyssals again and again. As one of the few tamers in their group and only at five-suns, Kaito could not protect hundreds of civilians all alone.

Terrified but desperate, several among the crowd had taken up makeshift weapons—farm tools, broken blades, sharpened poles—and fought beside him. These ten had been the first to do so.

It wasn’t courage born of confidence but the kind born of having nothing left to lose. They learned to strike, to work together, to push back the monsters that outnumbered them.

Fortunately, the most threatening part of low-grade abyssals is the large numbers they typically come in, their lack of fear, and their strong contamination ability. But the physical strength of the lowest-grade abyssals is not strong and manageable to most reasonably fit ordinary people.

Kaito later forged these ten, and ones who would later join, into a disciplined unit through constant drills and training. Now, where once stood civilians, there were hardened fighters who carried a faint killing intent and the scars of real battle.

As Kaito recounted their story, the ten stood silently, their gazes flicking toward the strangers beside him. None spoke, the strict military discipline Kaito had ingrained in them prevented them from questioning him, but confusion and curiosity were written across their faces.

Kaito was someone they had bled beside—someone who never acted deferential to anyone.

Not the Azure Serpent nobles who would occasionally come to look at the refugees out of curiosity. Heck, even the queen not far away was someone that Kaito had met before so he knew her identity, and yet he wasn’t being as deferential to her as he was to Takeru.

But now, he stood a half-step behind the young man with him, his tone and stance subtly respectful.

Perhaps seeing their confusion, Kaito revealed Takeru’s identity as the youngest prince of their kingdom. At the revelation, shock rippled through the room. The ten immediately dropped to their knees, bowing low until their foreheads nearly touched the floor.