Ren sat cross-legged in the forest clearing, sighing as he held out a piece of fruit to the panda-like beast. It eyed him with a suspicious glare, its spiral leaf hat drooping slightly as it sniffed the air cautiously.
"Look, you need to trust me now. I need to leave tonight so I can catch up for the tournament. Don't make this harder."
The panda beast stared back, squinting as if it could see right through him. Then, with a smirk, it reached out a paw – not to take the fruit, but to swat it clean out of his hand.
Ren groaned, wiping the juice from his face.
The panda beast grinned, seemingly satisfied with its victory, and shuffled a few steps away, plopping down on the ground and crossing its arms.
Ren sighed, watching it from where he sat, realizing this was going to be a long day if he didn't try something new. He glanced down at the stone in his hand, its faint orange glow signaling he was making some progress – but it wasn't enough. He needed green, a full bond, before he could hand over the beast to Alianna properly.
****
Meanwhile, in the kingdom. Mona is in a room, many books are scattered around and there is a man lying on the sofa across the room.
"Hey, help me with this."
Mona said to the man lying on the sofa. The man was wearing simple clothes, brown shirt and black pants, and his hair color was dark blonde, short and wild.
"Nah, do it yourself, I'm resting here."
Mona huffed, glaring at the man stretched across the sofa.
"Honestly, do you ever do anything but lounge around?"
"Why bother? You're always doing enough work for both of us."
For a moment, Mona wanted to shout at the man but she didn't continue because she knew she wouldn't get anything out of it. Instead, she continued to pick up the scattered books and put them on the bookshelves, until she saw a certain book lying on the floor.
The book is red in color and has a unique design engraved on it. A soaring bird intertwined with a crescent moon, looked oddly familiar. Carefully, she opened it, her fingers tracing over faded script.
The man on the sofa suddenly sat up, his casual demeanor gone.
"Where did you find that?"
Mona looked up, surprised at the sharpness in his voice.
"It was just lying here… you recognize it?"
"Nah, it's probably one of the old books."
Old books, huh? That's what he thought, but this book has a chain wrapped around it and a key entrance in the middle. Strange right? It's as if whoever wrote this book didn't want anyone to read it or wanted someone to read it.
****
Ren huffed as he tried yet another tactic, now dangling the fruit just out of his own reach.
"Alright, how about a trade? You can swat all the fruit you want if you just accept the contract already."
The panda beast merely yawned and rolled onto its side, eyes half-closed in blatant disinterest.
Ren let his hand drop with a sigh, glancing around the clearing in defeat. But as he turned to retrieve another piece of fruit, his foot caught on something hidden under the leaves. He barely had a moment to react as he stumbled, landing hard on one knee, pain shooting up his leg as his arm snagged against something sharp.
"Argh!"
Ren bit back a curse, pulling his sleeve back to reveal a line of thorns stuck in his forearm, small droplets of blood welling up.
"Who in the hell put that trap in there?!"
As Ren mutters about the mysterious trap, shadows shift at the edge of the clearing. Before he can react, three figures emerge from the brush, each clad in mismatched armor, faces half-concealed by scarves. One of them, a burly man with a scar running down his cheek, grins maliciously.
"Looks like we caught ourselves a tamer with a rather valuable beast."
The burly man had said, eyeing Ren's panda companion.
Without waiting, Ren rises to his feet, subtly positioning himself between the bandits and his stubborn companion.
"You'd better rethink that," he says, hoping his voice carries more confidence than he feels.
He felt the magic flowing through the two bandits was strange and they had a beast's stone in their hands. Just one call and they can summon their beast to fight him and take his beast.
Bandits are a type of beast tamer who steal beast from tamers to sell it or... they will make it fight in a fight pit and they will bet on who will win. They all have their respective guilds or dark guilds that they stay in.
Going back to Ren and the bandits. Ren is standing between the bandits and his beast, there's a hint of disgust in his face. He definitely doesn't like bandits, he hates them because of what they do.
"Don't look at us like that, kid."
"Just give us that beast, I'm sure we can train it better."
Ren clenched his fist, he'd heard stories –beasts dragged into pits, forced to fight until they could barely stand. Just the thought of it alone made his own blood boil.
His panda beast behind him is doing the same thing, it clenched it fist with hatred as if they had taken something from it.
"I'm sure we will never get on the same page like this again, but for now, let's take our time beating this pieces of crap."
The panda beast let out a low growl, the stone inside Ren's pocket glows faintly in green but he doesn't notice it, he's too distracted by the bandits.
"No one has to get hurt, kid. But if you want, we can play dirty."
The bandit on the left suddenly lunged, swinging a jagged dagger aimed at Ren's shoulder. Ren ducked low, feeling the blade slash through the air above him. Before he could counter, the panda beast leapt forward with surprising agility, ramming its weight into the bandit's chest. The thug staggered back, clutching his side as he gasped for breath.
"Guess you're finally on my side, huh?" Ren muttered, feeling a surge of relief as he faced the next attacker.
One of the bandits, snarling, raised a stone in his hand. A smoky apparition of a large serpent beast coiled out of it, hissing as it slithered toward Ren and his companion.
The panda beast growled, its leaf hat bristling as it lowered itself into a defensive stance.
"Don't worry, I'll take care of the bandits, I won't get in your way."
Without responding anything, the panda lunged forward to the serpent beast with incredible speed, making it harder for the serpent to dodge. But just as the panda closed in, the serpent wrapped its own body on the panda, it tried to struggle out but the the serpent is wrapped tightly around it.
Back to Ren, he dodged another slash coming from one of the bandits, and then he punched the bandit in the stomach, making the bandit stumble backwards.
He then grab one of the thorns that was buried in his forearm because of the trap earlier.
"Let's see how you like it!"
He muttered, stabbing it hard into the shoulder of another bandit. The man's face twisted in agony, clutching at the thorn, and he stumbled backward, the poison from the thorn visibly taking effect.
Glancing over, Ren saw the panda beast fighting to free itself. The serpent was momentarily distracted by its handler's yell, and in that brief opening, the panda let out a powerful snarl and surged forward, snapping the serpent's grip just enough to gain the upper hand.
"We're getting somewhe—"
Before Ren could finish his sentence, a fist connects to the side of his jaw, making him flinch in response. He quickly regain his composure and stared back at the bandit who is now grinning wildly at him.
"Getting distracted in the middle of a fight?"
"Damn you."
Ren lunged forward, his fist clenched hard. The bandit dodge in response and quickly ready his own fist to counter. Just as Ren's foot stomped the ground, he quickly twitched his body to the side and makes his fist comes flying faster towards the bandit.
"Let me borrow... some of your power!"
The panda beast paused mid-battle, its gaze fixed on Ren, who had just delivered a powerful blow that left the bandit crumpled on the forest floor. For a fleeting moment, Ren's stance and the white glow on his fist struck a familiar chord, stirring memories that the panda had buried long ago.
In its mind, the forest faded, replaced by a hazy, distant scene – a vast clearing under a pale moon, where a larger, older panda-like beast with a similar spiral leaf hat stood, holding back an intruder with the same raw strength and courage.
It was younger then, watching from the shadows as its father faced a hooded figure cloaked in darkness. The hooded intruder sneered, pulling a blade from his cloak, its edge gleaming ominously in the moonlight.
The panda remembered how the air had crackled with energy, how its father's paw had glowed in a warm, fierce light, the same light now radiating from Ren's fist.
But the memory twisted, darkened. A sudden, brutal strike from the hooded figure, too fast to track, and its father staggered, the glow fading as it fell to the ground. The young panda had trembled, too small, too powerless to help, forced to watch as the hooded figure dragged its father away into the night, leaving only a crushed, empty silence in the clearing.
Back in the present, the panda beast clenched its paws, its heart pounding with renewed rage and sadness. Ren, standing tall and strong, his back turned as he faced the remaining bandit, looked almost like a shadow of the protector it had lost. The bond stone in Ren's pocket glowed green, pulsing faintly as if responding to the panda's determination.
"What should we do about you, huh?"
Ren said to the lone bandit in front of him, the bandit's shoulder was bleeding because of the thorn that Ren pierced in it.
"Damn you... just you wait, I'll comeback to teach you a lesson!"
Ren watched him stumble off, his fists clenched tightly. The idea of the panda being dragged into one of those brutal fight pits made his stomach turn. For a moment, he considered chasing the bandit down, but he held back, glancing down at the green-glowing bond stone in his pocket.
"No need," he muttered, as much to himself as to the panda beside him. "The town's guards will make sure he doesn't go far."
Ren felt a sense of resolve settle over him as he mentally prepared to hand the bandits over to the authorities. If these lowlifes thought they could terrorize beasts without consequence, they'd be in for a rude awakening.
The panda beast slumped down beside Ren, breathing heavily. Its leaf hat had slipped sideways, and a few scrapes marred its fur. Ren knelt beside it, pulling out a canteen and holding it out.
"Hey, good job back there."
The panda eyed him, still wary, but it didn't pull away as he poured a bit of water into his palm and offered it. After a tense second, it leaned forward, lapping up the water, its eyes softened slightly.
For the first time, Ren saw something in the beast's expression beyond defiance – maybe a flicker of gratitude or, at least, acknowledgment.
"Guess I'm not so bad after all, huh?"
He looked down at the bond stone, now a steady green glow, and felt an odd sense of peace settling over him. As if, somehow, they were finally beginning to understand each other.