n

n

nCalming down, Greg seizured Artemis from head to talon, when his gaze returned back to Jason rather confused.

n

"Jason is this your soulbond? A snowflake owl…? Isn't that a little bit too weak??…

" Somehow Greg felt disappointed.

nHe hoped that Jason would find a good one-star wild beast to form a contract with, but snowflake owls were weak in their overall combat strength, while their speed was exceptional fast.

nIn comparison to other one-star wild beasts, their strength was way too weak without even considering their non-existent potential.

nJason understood Greg´s concern and he wanted to clarify the situation at least a little bit to him, when Artemis suddenly cried out visibly outraged, flapping her wings violently.

nHow dared this small fellow antagonize her strength and beauty(?)….

n

"Calm down Artemis...He doesn't mean it like that.

" Jason tried to calm Artemis down and it took him a few minutes before she squeezed herself back on his shoulder

nGreg didn't care about Artemis' outrage but Malia who was standing quietly behind noticed something, which shocked her.

nShe couldn't help but ask curiously

"Can she understand human language? That's not possible for one-star wild beasts!! Is her brain somehow mutated or something similar like that?

"

nComing closer to the two youths she even forgot to be wary of Jason as she had always been curious about beasts.

n

nHer family were well-known beast merchants and they also caught some beasts for other nobles in order to gain their favors, large sums of credits, or rare items, and it was important to know what kind of beasts were rare.

nFurthermore, it was necessary to figure how to detect advantageous and adverse mutations of beasts in the wilderness due to minute details.

nPotential was everything in this business and catching a beast with more potential would give them more credits, increasing their bounty.

nWhile her parents were really good at finding potential beasts, she wasn't as good as her parents.

nMalia was only 16 years old and still learning a lot about beasts.

nThere was more than enough time for her to catch up with her parent's knowledge and seeing Jason´s soulbond, she had to grow curious.

nJason was astonished and looked at Artemis asking himself if she learned human-language.

nBut that shouldn't be the case as there weren't enough instances where Jason talked to someone in her presence.

nArtemis looked at Jason knowingly as she transmitted through the soulbond that she could understand the rough meaning of everything said because of their connection.

n

nWithout Jason hearing the conversation, she wouldn't understand anything at all

nTurning his head to Malia he answered her question while looking into her big brown eyes.

n

"She can't understand human language. Throughout our connection, she can comprehend the meaning of Greg´s word.

"

nMalia tensed up for a second when their eyes met but she noticed that his eyes weren't intimidating this time.

nThis caused her tension to loosen up slightly and she looked a little bit longer into Jason´s eyes that looked somewhat gentle and full of warmth now.

n`Beautiful`

nBlushing, she turned away her head slightly and continued questioning somehow shy

n

"But she is still very intelligent and underwent an advantageous mutation, right?

"

nJason was standing between Malia and Greg and both looked at him full of expectations.

n

nMalia was curious and the red color of her cheeks receded slowly to her normally fair skin as she looked expectant at him while Greg also grew curious after listening to their conversation.

nLooking at Greg he began to defend Artemis with confidence, saying

n

"First of all… Greg, you might be right about normal snowflake owls but Artemis is special and not weak, okay?

nYour control over mana should be precisive enough to sense the strength of wild beasts and novice ranks,or am I wrong?

nShouldn't that be the first thing to do when you meet someone new?

nAnd with that you should have already known that Artemis is a two-star wild beast!

"

nJason felt proud and at the same time like a teacher because neither Malia nor Greg had scanned Artemis mana fluctuations as both were sure about her being a weak one-star wild beast.

nBoth were instantly embarrassed because their parents lectured them about the same thing before

n'Never underestimate anyone… never forget to find out who the person opposite you is and how strong he

/she is...knowledge is power….never let your guard down when you are with people you don't trust 100%...and so on.'

n

nBut that was not the shocking part.

nWhat confused them the most was the last sentence Jason said and both immediately released some of their mana in order to scan Artemis thoroughly.

n

"Huh? How?

"

n

"Unbelievable

"

nSensing Artemis mana fluctuations at the two-star wild beast rank caused both of them to look at Jason with an open jaw.

nIn his opinion, both looked extremely foolish, causing him to smile lightly

nJason felt Artemis's confidence soaring and her pride overwhelmed his feeling as his facial features turned slowly into one of pride.

nIt was the first time for Jason that he was influenced by the emotions of his soulbond.

nWith pride it was fine, but was If this would happen with bloodlust or Lust?

n

nJason wasn't sure how he could handle it, while it was definitely something nice to share with positive emotions.

nOpening his mouth he turned to Malia.

n

"Your name was Malia, right? I hope you don't mind me calling you by your name. To get back to your question about her having an advantageous mutation.

nIt's pretty obvious that she unterwent a mutation or at least that she isn't an ordinary snowflake owl but, to be honest, she was labeled as an adverse mutated snowflake owl with a high chance of being born with a disease like blindness and so on which was the reason she wasn't noticed by others.

"

n

"But as you can see she is healthy and even stronger than normal snowflake owls as her problem was fortunately rather easily solved.

" `Except her Gluttony` Jason sighed inwardly.

nGreg listened to Jason quietly thinking about something, while Malia was deep in thoughts scanning through Artemis as if she was a memory stick.

nIt made Artemis feel uncomfortable and she hid behind Jason.

nMalia averted her gaze when she noticed that Jason finished his speech.

nJason called her by her first name which she didn´t notice at first.

n

nDuring the mana outbreak, many cultures appeared and vanished, while some traditions were mixed with others.

nAnd one of society's unlisted laws was to speak politely to prodigies and nobles, which included calling someone by the Family name.

nAfter she finished her deep thoughts, she only began to truly understand that a man, except her brother and father called her by her first name which hasn't happened since her soul awakening and she was about to get angry when their eyes met.

nHer rage subsided and she couldn't even think about becoming angry and she immediately changed the theme back to Artemis as a thought entered her mind.

n`Well...it's fine…but wait!.`

n

"Why did you pick an adverse mutated one-star beast? I saw your soul awakening and your chances to get another beast with your soul energy were minuscule in the short term.

nYou might be lucky but wasn't that too risky?

"

nShe was way too confused about the weird but good-looking youth in front of her, causing her to ask straightforwardly.

nGreg had the same thought and he also exclaimed loud, after hearing his sister talking about that.

n

n

"Yeah!! Why did you pick an adverse labeled beast as your soulbond?? Wasn't that too naive??

"

nHe roared out vigorously.

n

"GREG!! You should be the last person to say something like that! Haven't we already talked about that with you!! You're the most foolish in our whole family…

"

nThe rage just came out of Malia as she noticed his brother talking about naivety while he himself picked a verified weaker beast as his soulbond just because Jason told him so.

nLuckily the non-elemental bull calf had a hidden and sealed bloodline of a lesser minotaur race which was a strong bipedal beast.

nMalia and her parents didn't believe that Jason knew about that and only thought of this as a lucky encounter, as they scolded Greg a lot.

nGreg began to pout which looked extremely ugly and Jason thought that he would begin to sob any moment when Greg suddenly shouted out

n

"How can you say that?!?!? TAURUS IS MUCH BETTER THAN YOUR FIRST SOULBOND...YOUR JUST JEALOUS!!!!

"

n

"GREG!!!

" Malia turned red from rage.

n

nJason thought it was funny to see the sister pair clashing with each other and it took them quite a while before they calmed down...

nMalia and Greg had completely forgotten about Jason´s existence.

nWhen they saw him smiling happily at them they felt embarrassed.

nIt had been a long time since he had been happy while being with others except for Artemis.

nThinking about the last time he had been with others, Jason noticed that he never had a friend except his mother.

n`Are they my friends?`

nScratching his head awkwardly, Jason was also slightly embarrassed.

nHowever, it would be more embarrassing if he asked them if they were his friends now so he avoided this question.

nJason didn't know what to say right now and the whole situation was awkward.

n

nClearing his throat, he asked

"Where are your parents? I have to show them that I've accomplished my task

"

nHe tried to change the subject with this and technically it was the only reason he came to the mansion.

nSomehow they changed subjects since the beginning without considering even the reason for them to talk about the main subject.

nMalia regained her senses before Greg and sat up with a straight back before saying seriously

n

"They´re outside catching a certain magical beast but I'm not sure when they´ll be back.

nMy mom gave me the responsibility to look after your task.

nI should only report your rank including soulbond and so on to them.

"

nBefore Jason could say anything else, Malia looked into his eyes, without being scared anymore when she asked seriously.

n

"Can you show me the five five star corpses or the awakened beast corpse, please? My mom told me to record everything to review it for herself.

"

n

n