Beast Taming: My Beasts Grind, Die, and Respawn

Chapter 21: Come Home

Chapter 21: Come Home

Arthur stopped him before he could leave, catching Jin by the arm in a quieter stretch of corridor where the crowd had begun to thin.

His father said nothing at first. He studied Jin with the same careful attention he had given the incubator on the night the egg hatched. Something shifted across his worn, scarred face before he finally managed to speak.

"Jin, I’ve got something to say. I need you to hear me this time. Really hear me. Don’t just nod, then disappear back into your game."

"I’m hearing you, Dad."

Arthur drew in a slow breath.

"I don’t care which academy accepts you." He kept his voice steady and low. "Your rank doesn’t matter to me either. That entire hall could mock you and your... your tiny black lizard every single day for the rest of your life, and I still wouldn’t care." His grip grew firmer around Jin’s arm. "And I don’t care whether you become a Beast Tamer. Understand? I mean it."

"Dad—"

"This world already took my leg and my partner." Moisture gathered in Arthur’s eyes, though his voice didn’t break. "I’ve put enough people in the ground. Every night your mother works a shift, when you and Elsa are asleep, I lie there counting everything this world has taken from us. And I can’t put you on that list, Jin. I can’t."

It didn’t sound rehearsed. Arthur wasn’t trying to give some moving speech. He was simply a damaged man admitting that there was one loss left he could not survive.

"So I don’t care what happens during that exam," Arthur continued. "You can pass or fail. Finish first or come dead last. None of that matters. Come home afterward. That’s what I want. Nothing else. Just come home."

Jin tried to answer.

No words came.

He had spent his life collecting ways out of moments like this. A flat reply. A dry joke. Some easy piece of sarcasm that let him step around anything too serious.

None of them worked here.

His father had opened a space where Jin couldn’t hide behind any of that. His chest felt cramped and unfamiliar, and there was no point pretending otherwise.

He stayed silent and gave one slow nod.

It was small, quiet, and completely sincere.

Arthur watched his face until he found whatever proof he was looking for. Then he pulled Jin close with one arm. The hug was brief and rough, carrying the smell of warehouse grease and the apartment they called home.

Caught between them, Glitch made a soft chirp and pushed his warm little head against both of their chests.

Under Arthur’s sleeve, Jin could feel the raised edge of the old contract scar along his wrist. The beast connected to it had died ten years earlier, but the empty place it left still followed Arthur everywhere. It lived in his limp, his sleepless nights, and every warning he struggled not to make into an order.

Come home wasn’t the plea of someone who had spent his life avoiding danger.

It came from a man who had taken one risk too many and paid the entire cost.

Jin kept hold of him a second longer than he usually would.

"I’ll come home," he said.

Neither of them mistook it for a promise that nothing bad would happen. They both knew better than to believe in promises like that.

Jin was promising something else.

Getting back would be the objective. It wouldn’t be some bonus he earned after chasing a more impressive goal.

That night, once they were back at the apartment, Jin left the Engine closed.

He sat on the cot without turning on the light. Glitch slept curled against the pillow beside him, his small body rising and falling with every breath, golden eyes hidden beneath his lids.

Jin watched him for a while.

In the middle of that silence, something inside him settled into a different place.

Avoidance had been the reason he started.

That was what the ultimate slacker build was for. Train where no one could see. Conceal the truth. Stay unnoticed. Keep away from the wasteland. Survive by making sure the world never had a reason to look in his direction.

Power had only mattered because it helped him remain home, remain safe, and remain outside the reach of the world’s teeth.

That reason no longer felt complete.

Tonight, he wasn’t going to train just so he could become stronger.

He was going to train because a broken man had held his arm and asked him to come home. Because, for the first time across two lifetimes, someone had seen the actual Jin—the lazy, useless version he never bothered defending—and chosen to trust him anyway.

Power itself still didn’t interest him.

What he wanted was enough strength to walk back through the apartment door.

Every single time.

"...All right," Jin whispered into the empty room. "All right."

He reached for the phone.

The Training Instance opened, and the pale stone ring appeared across the screen. Glitch remained asleep on the pillow, but his body gave a tiny twitch as though he had instantly prepared for the session.

Nothing new appeared.

No mechanic had unlocked. There were no fresh features waiting for them. It was still only Jin, Glitch, the ring, and the practice dummy.

Tonight, though, they didn’t feel the same.

Glitch’s movements had become almost flawless. He dodged without pausing, each motion smooth and certain. The nervous, jerky reflexes from his first attempts were gone. Nothing was wasted anymore.

He wasn’t merely copying the movements Jin gave him.

They belonged to him now.

The avatar had changed too.

In the beginning, it always moved a fraction behind Jin’s input. Jin reacted first, and the avatar followed.

Now, the instant Jin considered a step to the left, the avatar had already begun to lean that way. It moved half a breath ahead, closing the gap before Jin finished deciding.

The avatar wasn’t simply following commands.

It knew what was coming.

Somehow, it caught the direction of Jin’s intent before the thought fully took shape. Player and character no longer moved like separate parts. They were becoming one action carried out through two bodies.

Jin swallowed against a sudden tightness in his throat.

He started another set.

Then one more.

The bond indicator at the edge of the screen gave off a clean, warm hum. Beside him, the real Glitch dreamed through the same movements, his tail flicking in exact time with every dodge.

At some point, Jin realized he was smiling.

He let himself keep doing it.

"Yeah," he murmured. "We’re actually getting good."

This time, he stopped long before reaching the overdraw line. That lesson had already hurt enough.

The stone ring disappeared, and the display returned to stillness.

One plain line appeared from the Engine. There was no fanfare, no prize, and no shower of golden numbers.

[Training Efficiency: 100%]

Jin gave a satisfied nod.

Maximum efficiency. No mess.

After a short delay, another line formed beneath it.

[Current Training Method Reaching Diminishing Returns.]

Jin stopped moving.

A third message followed.

[Recommendation: Seek Stronger Opponents.]

He stared at the words without reacting right away.

The quiet stone ring and its obedient dummy had already given Glitch everything they had to offer. A room filled with slow attacks and obvious windups couldn’t teach him anything else.

The loop was still working. What happened in the game continued feeding reality, and reality kept feeding back into the game.

But the wheel had run out of anything new to catch.

Further growth required something their safe little apartment could never provide.

Real opponents.

Jin lifted his eyes from the phone. His gaze passed over Glitch’s sleeping body and continued to the narrow window.

Beyond the glass, the shelter’s city lights shone coldly against the night. Somewhere past the East District, the examination hall waited for morning. Soon it would hold a thousand candidates and a thousand beasts.

Stronger opponents.

Hundreds of them.

And tomorrow, they would all be brought straight to him.

Jin’s smile returned, spreading slowly across his face.

"...That works out nicely," he said.