"Is he the reason why? This boy?", she asked the heavens as she watched the human sheepishly walk towards her.
She could see by the way he walked, the way he carried himself, the way he foolishly yet wholeheartedly produced all manner of medicines that could barely help with her condition, that he was only a pup.
And yet the stars lead her to him.
He was no great hero, no merciless killer and certainly no wise sage. She wasn't sure if this boy could train her son to reach the heights he was destined to reach, but that look of compassion in this human's eyes...maybe that was why the stars lead her here.
"He just needs a little push in the right direction...", she told herself as she came to a decision that would change both his and her son's lives.
_________________________________________________
Jordie approached the Tempest Minotaur with nervous hesitation in his steps.
He was already a bit on edge by the sheer power she was already radiating by virtue of being a high leveled monster, but there was something more to it.
The way she sat, a bundle slung across her shoulder that Jordie now realized was her baby, the way she looked at him with this oddly soft, stern demeanor and just how she seemed able to stare into his soul. It reminded him a bit of his own mother.
"Is this just a uni...multiverse thing?", he wondered as he got closer and closer to her. Eventually when he got within arm's reach of the Tempest Minotaur, she put up a hand as a sign for him to stop and gestured him to sit down.
Jordie initially sat in a cross-legged manner, but the Tempest Minotaur gave him a disapproving motherly look as he did. A moment later, he switched to a more formal sitting position with his ankles beneath his leg. The Tempest Minotaur gave a curt nod of approval.
"Huh...how motherly", Jordie thought to himself.
Jordie and the Tempest Minotaur stared at one another, her sizing him up, while he just sat there and tried to put on a brave face. After a minute or so of this stare-off, the Tempest Minotaur made the first move.
"What are you-oh... no wonder you refused the medicine...", Jordie said.
Slowly, she removed the knots that was holding the bundle to her body and revealed to Jordie the amount of damage her body had taken.
Deep lacerations upon her skin had taken on a sickly purple and black coloration, fragments of bone appeared to be randomly jutting out all over her body, unnaturally large perforations caked with dried blood could be seen dotting her chest. It was clear that these injuries were not something a handful of medicines could treat easily.
The Tempest Minotaur carefully positioned her arms, comforting the still crying infant until it was sufficiently pacified.
"Wah! Wah...Goo..."
A soft yet sad smile came upon her face as the baby finally settled down, a tiny hand reaching out to touch her face.
"I'm so sorry, little one", he heard her say to the baby. Jordie was so engrossed with the scene that he didn't even realize that she was speaking a language that he shouldn't even be able to understand.
The mother minotaur gave the child one more hug before extending her arms towards Jordie, presenting them for him to hold in his arms.
"You want me to-"
She nodded.
"Okay..."
Jordie carefully took the baby from their mother's arms and placed them into his own. A not-so easy feat given how surprisingly heavy the baby turned out to be, but Jordie managed.
As he readjusted his holding position, Jordie finally saw what the little one looked like and his heart melted at the sight.
"Huh...looks like the legend were quite wrong about how terrifying the original Minotaur was as a child...", he thought to himself.
The minotaur baby in Jordie's arms was quite possibly the cutest thing he had ever seen in this life or the previous.
He had soft, fluffy brown fur that reminded Jordie of chocolate of all things, a big head like a fluffy calf with cheeks that Jordie couldn't but want to pinch, big green eyes that seemed to want to drink in all that world had to offer, tiny little golden nubs upon his brow and hands and hooves so small that he could fit them both in the palm of his hand.
The baby minotaur stared at the strange human with his big green eyes, curiosity plain on his face. As he stared, he began to unconsciously stick out his tongue in the way that baby cows do.
If Jordie had seen such a small creature back home, he would've assumed that only a plushie could match this kind of cuteness.
The Tempest Minotaur mother stared at the human fawning over her child, warmth filling her heart at the sight.
"So be it", she thought as she pricked open two of her fingers using one of her horns. Jordie was a bit too preoccupied with the baby minotaur to notice the mother's unusual action. A moment later, the mother stuck her arm between the two.
Jordie thought the mother wanted him to give her back the baby, but she stopped him with a raised palm and a soft shake of her head. Instead of holding the child again, she took one of her bloodied fingers and drew a strange looking rune onto the forehead of the baby.
[No way,] the System suddenly piped up.
"What are you-", but before Jordie could finish asking, the Tempest Minotaur performed the same gesture on his forehead as well. However, she added one more symbol to his forehead while writing another on her own.
Immediately after the runes were drawn, the Tempest Minotaur made a hand seal and Jordie felt an inexplicable energy overcome as he felt a new consciousness connect to his own.
The consciousness was small, weak yet he could sense a great potential to it. He could immediately tell that this consciousness belonged to the little baby minotaur that he has holding in his arms. He looked down at the baby to see if it had undergone any changes because of this. The only thing different he see was that the rune on his forehead had disappeared.
"What did you just-"
[Quest: Contracting your First Beast has been completed. Please check your partner's status at your earliest convenience to determine reward status], the System suddenly declared.
Jordie was shocked. The System had given him a crash course of how contracts could be established between humans and monsters, but it didn't tell him that it could be established by outside forces!
"Why would you do this?", he asked the Tempest Minotaur.
But instead of answering, she did another hand seal and Jordie felt another strange pulse of energy connecting him to her...but it felt very different.
[...Quest: Slaying your first monster has been completed. Reward based on monster's level has been sent to in-box.]
The Tempest Minotaur that was sitting before suddenly began to slowly turn into little motes of light.