In the far outer ring of Orenth City, where the stone roads cracked more often than they were repaired and the buildings leaned suspiciously like they were whispering secrets to each other, a boy sat behind a wooden stall with a sign that had clearly seen better centuries.
Painted in uneven strokes and nailed on with a bent spoon, it read:
> "REI'S HERBS – Guaranteed Not Poisonous (Mostly)."
It was the kind of sign that inspired curiosity and immediate caution.
Rei Valen, seventeen, skinny, and always looking vaguely tired even after a full night's sleep, sat on a stool behind the counter. His clothes were patched but clean, his straw hat tilted forward just enough to shield his gray eyes from the morning sun.
On his shoulder, a white furball snoozed contentedly, snoring like a tiny sawmill.
A child passing by tugged his mother's sleeve. "Mom! Look! A bunny!"
The mother snatched the child's hand, alarmed. "Don't point, dear. That's the failed tamer."
Rei smiled politely and waved. He didn't mind.
Actually, he preferred it that way.
The nickname "failed tamer" had stuck ever since his third—and final—attempt at the Beast Bonding Ritual had ended in what looked, to the public, like the most pitiful outcome in recorded history.
His three bonded beasts?
A squirrel.
A frog.
And a bunny.
A triple threat of disappointment.
In a world where elite tamers rode wyverns into battle and commanded elemental lions with a flick of the wrist, Rei was the joke of the guild registry. Most people thought he was a soft-hearted beast lover who couldn't bear to part with his childhood pets.
None of them knew the truth.
That squirrel, "Nib," could cause mass deforestation in under an hour and once scared off an alpha forest drake by chewing through its tail in five seconds flat.
The frog, "Croaky," sang in a tone so high it shattered enchanted barriers—and once melted a bandit leader's armor clean off mid-charge.
And the bunny currently snoring on his shoulder?
That was Fluff.
Short for Fluff the Endbringer, one of the last known Primordial Calamity Beasts, sealed in this adorable form to prevent it from erasing countries by accident. Emphasis on by accident.
Rei glanced at the sleepy ball of fur. "Still pretending to be useless?"
Fluff snored louder and drooled slightly down Rei's shirt.
"Good boy."
Life had been peaceful lately. His herb stall brought in enough silver to afford meals and tea. The slum rats respected him—largely out of fear that their leader might vanish mysteriously again. And best of all, nobody with a shiny badge or a noble crest had come asking about his past.
Yes. Peaceful. Predictable.
Which meant disaster was overdue.
Rei felt it before he heard it.
A flicker in the wind. A spiritual disturbance in the air. Fluff's ear twitched.
Then someone screamed, "Make way!"
The crowd parted violently as a girl stumbled through the street, clutching a bloodied cloth bundle to her chest. Her violet hair was matted with dust, armor cracked and scorched, and her eyes—wild with panic—locked straight onto Rei.
"Please!" she cried, staggering forward. "You—You're a tamer, right?!"
Rei blinked. "Depends. Are you asking for legal or medical reasons?"
She didn't laugh. Instead, she slammed the bundle down on his stall. It twitched. Growled. The cloth wrapping pulsed with unholy light.
"I need help," she gasped. "It's bonded to me. But wrong. It's—it's breaking me."
Rei tilted his head. "Ah. You brought me a cursed beast. Lovely."
Then she collapsed face-first into his herb basket.
Fluff opened one eye.
Rei sighed.
---
Later, In the Back Room of the Herb Stall
Rei lowered the unconscious girl onto a worn cot inside a curtained storage area that doubled as his "treatment center." The room smelled of medicinal roots, old wood, and mild despair.
The bundle sat on the table. It growled again.
Rei carefully unwrapped it—revealing a creature no bigger than a housecat. It had crimson scales, three unevenly spaced eyes, a feathery mane, and a scorpion-like tail that pulsed with corrupted mana.
"A voidborn hybrid," he muttered. "Rare. Dangerous. Unstable. Probably spat out by a wild mana rift. Maybe cursed by something dumber than itself."
It snapped at his fingers. Rei poked it with a spoon. It hissed.
"Rude."
Fluff yawned and hopped onto the table. The voidbeast immediately recoiled, curling into itself like a dying flower.
Rei glanced at him. "No eating guests. Not even cursed ones."
The bunny huffed.
A groan from the cot made Rei turn.
The girl had woken. Her gaze was weak but focused.
"Did it... escape?"
"Nope," Rei replied, handing her a steaming cup. "Still angry. Still spiky."
She hesitated, sniffed the drink. "What's in this?"
"Herbs."
"Which ones?"
"The numbing kind. Also the calming kind. And maybe one that might trigger mild hallucinations if you're allergic to sunflower seeds."
She drank it anyway.
Rei sat across from her. "So. Care to explain why you dragged a volatile soul-linked beast into my humble place of nonviolent commerce?"
The girl wiped her mouth. "My name is Ellyn Rowe. I was part of an expedition to the Whispering Hollow. We were ambushed. There was a rift. I... I reached into it."
Rei raised an eyebrow. "That's dumb."
"I know!" she snapped, then winced. "It felt like it called to me. This thing came out. It bound to me on instinct. But it's... eating at me."
Rei studied her. "Let me guess. You're not Guild-certified."
She shook her head.
"You didn't use a stabilizing charm before the ritual."
"I didn't know I needed one."
"Ah. Adventurer logic: 'poke first, regret later.'"
She looked away. "I heard... rumors. About you."
Rei stiffened. "What kind of rumors?"
"That you tamed a drake just by staring at it. That no beast under your care ever goes berserk. That your bunny..." She looked at Fluff, who blinked innocently. "...made a mercenary captain cry."
Rei sighed. "I sell herbs."
"You bind beasts."
"I fix bad ideas. Like yours."
She looked at him with desperate eyes. "Please. Help me. If I go to the Guild, they'll brand me as cursed. They'll exorcise it—and me."
Rei stared at her. Then at the beast. Then at Fluff, who was trying to climb into a jar of dried lavender.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Fine. But I'm charging you."
She smiled weakly. "How much?"
"Fifty silver."
"Fifty?!"
"It includes not dying."
---
An Hour Later – Binding Circle Activated
Inside a glowing seal drawn in chalk, herbs, and spiritual ink, the voidbeast writhed and screeched. Ellyn knelt behind Rei, her hand linked to his by a thread of spiritual energy.
"This hurts more than you said," she hissed.
"I lied," Rei replied. "You would've panicked otherwise."
Fluff sat beside them, munching a peppery root.
Rei channeled his energy carefully, weaving the beast's unstable spirit thread into a cleaner anchor, borrowing a method he'd learned from a forbidden grimoire sealed beneath an abandoned shrine.
(He'd taken it by accident. Kind of.)
The circle pulsed. The beast shrieked one final time—then slumped.
Ellyn gasped. "Did it work?"
Rei fell back, exhausted. "It's stable. Mostly. You'll still need to avoid full moons and certain flute solos."
She laughed. Then cried. Then did both at once.
Rei leaned against the wall. "You're lucky I was bored."
"Thank you, Rei."
"Don't thank me yet. You owe me fifty silver, and now the Guild's probably going to come knocking."
"Why?"
"Because," he said, already dreading tomorrow, "I'm apparently becoming interesting."