Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons - Chapter 855 - Taming the Fifth Year - Hidden Depths - 2

Chapter 855 – Taming the Fifth Year – Hidden Depths – 2

The Qilin began moving through the tunnels with quick pace but allowing Zhao to follow without difficulty while guiding him toward depths where the discovery waited.

Despite not flying like Zhao, the beast’s movement was fast and elegant in the confined space. Each step placed precisely, never disturbing loose stones or creating unnecessary noise.

They moved for maybe 40 minutes at a pace that covered substantial distance.

They continued in silence broken only by the occasional drip of underground water.

And then Zhao saw light ahead. Not sunlight or torchlight but the distinctive glow of multiple high-rank tamers maintaining active techniques.

Julius was there, along with maybe 30 others from the exploration team. All focused on something Zhao couldn’t yet see.

“Zhao.” Julius’s voice carried through the cavern without being particularly loud. “Thank you for coming.”

“What did you find?”

Julius stepped aside, gesturing toward the huge door in the wall behind him.

And Zhao understood immediately why the messages had been marked urgent.

♢♢♢♢

While Zhao reunited in the depths with Julius and the search group that had been exploring Yino tunnels for years, Selphira found herself in a completely different environment.

She was in the castle, specifically in the private meeting room Arturo used for discussions requiring absolute discretion.

It was a space designed for conversations where walls had to be trustworthy not to transmit secrets to unwanted ears. Sound-dampening by dense mana enhancements woven into the stone itself.

The kind of room where you discussed things that could start wars if overheard.

And she was receiving news about Victor she simply couldn’t believe no matter how much the messages insisted on the written words’ veracity.

News so incredible her first reaction had been assuming a communication error or a massive misunderstanding about the real situation.

Because the noble faction that had been entrenched in the last piece of Goldcrest territory, that faction reduced to defending that small position instead of actively threatening… now alleged they held Victor hostage.

Victor. Dragarion’s first son.

A tamer with power comparable to his father in raw terms even if not in his refined experience. User of complete fusion with 2 beasts of Gold 3 and Gold 2 rank converting him into an absolute combat force of the kingdom.

And supposedly idiotic rebel nobles had not only defeated but captured and were keeping him captive.

It was as ridiculous as it sounded when articulated aloud.

The math didn’t work. Victor at full power could probably fight 40-50 Gold 1 tamers simultaneously. Maybe 90-100 if they were poorly coordinated. His beasts had been cultivated using Ren’s methods for the past 3 years, making them significantly more powerful than typical high Gold-rank creatures.

How did you capture someone like that alive?

Selphira touched her forehead with a gesture communicating exasperation and genuine concern, sighing in a way expressing multiple feelings she couldn’t cleanly separate.

She was thinking about how the hell they could have trapped that hardhead when Victor had such great power now, capabilities dramatically improved thanks to methods Ren had shared over years.

Victor wasn’t a prodigy of his father’s caliber, that was true.

But he was an exceptional tamer by any reasonable standard, a combatant who could eliminate dozens of lower-rank opponents without serious difficulty. Top 1 or 2 in the kingdom, easily.

And yet the messages insisted he’d been successfully contained.

Not necessarily defeated in clean combat, but trapped in a manner preventing escape or using force to break captivity.

Which meant either he was dead and the messages were lies designed to lure them into making mistakes, or the rebels had something new. Something that changed the situation fundamentally to the point of being able to fight even Selphira.

Neither option was comforting.

“What specifically are they demanding?” Selphira asked after processing the initial information, voice controlled but carrying an underlying tension that Arturo acknowledged as a signal that she was considering response options including considerable violence.

Arturo knew that look. Had seen it before, usually shortly before something exploded.

“They’re demanding ‘non-intervention’ in several specific zones to ‘keep Victor alive,'” he explained with a tone communicating skepticism about the promise’s sincerity.

He motioned toward the map spread across the table, marking 3 territories with his finger. “These areas, specifically. They’re claiming them as sovereign territory that we must formally recognize and agree not to enter for a minimum of 5 years.”

5 years. Long enough to solidify control, build defenses, establish infrastructure that would make dislodging them exponentially more difficult.

“They allege they’ll return him ‘pardoning his trespass of sacred ruins’ at the end of the term that starts once their territorial demands are formally recognized.”

Classic hostage pattern for political advantage. Except the hostage in this case wasn’t a defenseless civilian or minor functionary whose loss would be regrettable but manageable.

It was the kingdom’s most powerful military commander and tamer representing massive investment of resources and time in development.

Losing Victor would be a strategic catastrophe. You couldn’t just replace him now that the mutants were rampant.

And the rebels knew it. Were for some reason counting on it and not worried.

Selphira’s jaw tightened. “Sacred ruins. They’re using religious justification now?”

“Apparently Goldcrest and Starweaver extremists have declared 3 sites as holy ground that outsiders, meaning us, have no right to access. Victor entered the one they finally opened for us and they’re framing it as a religious violation requiring our withdrawal as penance.”

“Convenient theology.”

“Indeed.”

“I want to see him,” Selphira declared without ambiguity in her tone.

Not a request but affirmation of intention she expected Arturo to facilitate without unnecessary objections.

Arturo frowned, an expression communicating he’d anticipated exactly this response and had prepared arguments against it.

“It could be a trap, Selphira. Better to wait until Julius confirms we found what Yino and Goldcrest were hiding first. If you go verify the situation personally now, you won’t have negotiation chips, and you might be leaving the students more unprotected here. The exams continue and…”

“They’re no longer children,” Selphira interrupted with firmness not permitting disagreement.

Her eyes were hard. Not angry but resolute in a way that made arguing pointless.

“They have competent instructors supervising them like Lin and sufficient guards at the academy to handle threats. And you will come too since we need to perceive that hardhead’s real situation or we won’t be able to function well in future decisions we have to make with or without negotiation chips.”

It was logic Arturo acknowledged as valid even if he didn’t like the implied risks.

Operating with incomplete or potentially falsified information about Victor’s status would lead to suboptimal decisions that could worsen the situation instead of resolving it. Making policy based on lies was how you lost wars.

And if those nobles really had some containment method working against a tamer of Victor’s caliber, they needed to understand what it was before it got used against others one by one.

Knowledge was survival. Ignorance was death.

“Julius will be angry because he wanted to go too,” Arturo observed with a tone suggesting this complicated future logistics.

The brothers were protective of each other despite their differences. Julius would interpret being excluded from verifying Victor’s situation as either an insult to his capabilities or a dangerous solo operation Selphira shouldn’t attempt.

Both interpretations would generate conflict.

“If Victor’s genuinely in danger, Julius needs to know to respond appropriately… He seems like the more level headed of you 3 but when it’s about family, he is always at the front first. If this is a trap or exaggeration, we need to debunk it before Julius decides to go alone or does something precipitous those nobles can exploit too.”

Arturo sighed, recognizing Selphira would go regardless of whether he formally approved or not.

It was a characteristic making working with her both exasperating and effective… determination that didn’t stop at personal safety considerations when there were objectives she considered priorities.

But she’d survived this long precisely because that determination was backed by capability. She didn’t take stupid risks. Just somewhat calculated ones that would terrify more cautious people.

And while watching Selphira mentally prepare for the expedition that could be dangerous in multiple ways, Arturo thought with certain irony that the matriarch always spoke with notable roughness about Victor.

She called him “hardhead” regularly. Criticized his impulsive decisions. Complained about how he’d inherited the worst personality aspects from Dragarion without sufficient temperance from his mother.

“That boy rushes in without thinking,” she’d say. “Just like his father at that age, except Dragarion had the excuse of being actually invincible.”

“Stubborn… Won’t listen to any advice… Thinks raw power solves everything.”

“I’ve told him a hundred times… tactics matter more than strength. But does he listen? No. Charges forward like an elephant bull at a red flag.”

Criticism after criticism, delivered with tone suggesting frustration bordering on exasperation.

But clearly she cared considerably more than that superficial roughness would suggest.

You didn’t insist on personally going to verify a hostage’s situation if you didn’t genuinely care about that person’s wellbeing. You didn’t risk walking into a potential trap if the person in danger was simply a military resource that could be replaced.

You didn’t spend years training someone, correcting their mistakes, pushing them to improve, if you didn’t care whether they lived or died.

Victor was family in a sense transcending formal definitions.

He’d been trained under Selphira’s partial supervision for years. Had grown up in an environment where she was a constant presence providing guidance his busy father couldn’t always give.

She’d been there when he manifested his first beast. There when he achieved his first successful rank up. There when he made Gold 1 rank at age 20… young for that achievement, though not as prodigious as Ren.

She’d criticized every step, certainly. Pointed out every mistake, every inefficiency, every moment where he could have done better.

But she’d been there.

And now he was in danger, and she was going to verify that personally regardless of risk.

Because that’s what family did.