Overlord Tamer: All My Pet Monsters Have God Potential

Chapter 218: Encounter With War Envoy

Dawn hadn’t fully broken when John felt eyes on him again. It was the same patient weight he’d felt two days ago, and he didn’t need to open them all the way to know who’d finally stopped watching from the trees.

"You’re early," he said, without moving from beside the dying fire.

’I’ve had two days to decide I was done waiting,’ the cat said, stepping into the open instead of half-hiding in the vines. ’Waiting rarely improves a decision. It only delays it.’

John kept his hands loose in his lap and mirrored the same open posture he’d used the first time they spoke.

’What decision?’

’You didn’t chain her.’ The cat’s tail flicked toward the far side of camp, where Vaelirash slept with her head tucked beneath one healing wing. Jibril kept watch beside her, still faintly glowing with the residue of a contract barely a night old. ’She was weak enough. Most of your kind would have called that opportunity rather than temptation.’

"Wasn’t a hard call," John said. "Wasn’t really a call at all."

’That is either very simple or very rare,’ the cat said. ’I have lived long enough to know those two things are usually the same.’

Behind them, the rest of camp was starting to stir. Yuna sat up with a groan, hair a wild tangle, and Emberlune yawned wide enough to show every one of her teeth before curling back into a smaller shape.

"Is that the cat?" Yuna whispered loudly, elbowing Jibril awake. "The cat’s back."

"I can hear you," John said, not turning around. "She can too, for what it’s worth."

’I am aware of the small loud one,’ the cat said dryly. ’She was not subtle the first time either.’

Azelis emerged from her tent last, rubbing sleep from her eyes, and went instantly alert the moment she spotted the cat sitting calmly beside John.

’That one reached for her weapon the first time she saw me,’ the cat said, meaning Azelis. ’Instinct, not malice. I noticed the difference even then, though I wasn’t certain it mattered until I’d watched her for two more days.’

Azelis crossed the clearing slowly and crouched at an easy distance, the way John had taught all of them without ever quite putting it into words.

"You’ve been watching us this whole time?" she asked.

’Every hour,’ the cat said. ’I watched you carry water to a creature that could have killed all of you and chose not to. I watched the small one sit beside her for four days asking nothing in return, and I watched the loud one make her laugh once, near the end, when laughing seemed impossible.’

Yuna, still half asleep, made a small proud noise at that.

’I have decided something in that time, and I do not offer it lightly. Nor will I offer it twice if the answer is hesitation.’

Azelis’s breath caught.

"I’m not going to hesitate," she said quietly. "I don’t know your name yet, but I already know I’d be lucky to have you."

’Vhastra,’ the cat said. ’It was my name before your kind or Dranvok’s ever set foot in this crater. It will remain my name after your contract, if you offer one worth accepting.’

Azelis extended her hand slowly, palm up. She offered it the way she’d offer it to someone she respected rather than something she wanted to own, and Vhastra pressed her crystalline head into it without further hesitation.

The contract-light that bloomed between them was pale and cool, like frost catching morning sun, and for a moment the whole clearing seemed to hold its breath around it.

"Welcome to the family, Vhastra," Azelis said, and something loosened in her chest that had been tight since the day her own family’s island burned.

’Family.’ Vhastra tested the word like an unfamiliar stone, turning it over slowly. ’I will need time to trust it fully.’

"That’s fair," Azelis said. "I’ve got plenty to spare."

Jibril wiped at her eyes, unashamed, and Vaelirash extended one wing far enough to brush against Vhastra’s flank in something that looked almost like greeting between kin who’d only just learned they were kin at all.

John let himself enjoy it, one full breath of quiet before the day demanded anything else of him.

They didn’t get much more than that.

...

Breakfast was simple, dried fruit and river water and Terravax happily accepting scraps from everyone’s hands, and for a little while the conversation stayed light. Yuna wanted to know if Vhastra could turn invisible. Jibril wanted to know if Vaelirash could carry two riders at once. Azelis mostly just watched her new companion eat, unable to stop smiling.

Then Terravax stopped mid-chew, and the stillness that followed wasn’t the gentle kind he’d used to find the Marrowvein.

"Big guy?" John was on his feet before he finished the question.

’Chain-bearers,’ Vaelirash said, wings still stiff from healing but her senses sharper than any of theirs. ’Many. Organized. And something bound and suffering, dragged along with them.’

’I feel it too,’ Vhastra added, ears flattening against her skull. ’Closer than they should be, and moving with purpose rather than a search pattern.’

John’s jaw tightened. "How many, and how far?"

’Fifteen, perhaps more. Less than an hour, if their pace holds.’

"Positions," John said. "We don’t wait for them to find the clearing first, and we don’t let them get close enough to use whatever’s on that chain before we’re ready for it."

They moved fast and quiet, Pymon carrying Yuna and Jibril up into the canopy while John, Azelis, and the ground-bound Monsters spread through the underbrush below. Rexion coiled low against a fallen log, scales dulling to match the shadows, and even Alfred, who preferred announcing himself, learned to hold still when John asked it of him.

...

The Dranvok column marched into the clearing before the hour was up, moving with a speed that told John the man commanding it hadn’t waited for confirmation before mobilizing, only suspicion and impatience over three beast-breakers who’d stopped answering.

Fifteen soldiers flanked a tall figure in dark ceremonial plate. A chain-whip hung coiled at his hip, etched with the same domination-runes John had seen burned into Vaelirash’s chains, and at his heel strained a massive wolf-like beast with six burning eyes, its body built for war rather than obedience.

"You’ve killed three of my men and stolen imperial resources," the War-Envoy called out, voice pitched to carry. "Godsgrave Expanse belongs to Dranvok. Surrender the beasts you’ve poached and I’ll consider letting you leave with your lives."

John stepped into the open, Alfred pacing beside him with his hackles already raised.

"Funny," John said. "I don’t remember Dranvok owning the people who live here."

"People," the War-Envoy said, his smile thinning, "is a generous word for livestock." He raised his whip, and the bound wolf howled before the sound even finished leaving his mouth. Some cruelty woven into the harness punished it simply for existing near its handler’s temper. "Kill them all. Keep the beasts."