“Hey, Simon! How have you been?”

As Simon left the receiving hall, he was called out to by Daiki who looked more haggard than usual. Now he had the look of Daniel who had continued to overfeed his monster girls.

Simon turned around and nodded at the blessed Tamer. While he still hated Daiki’s guts, he could appreciate the man’s strength. But the words to him were as sharp as always.

“I am fine. You look like you have not slept in days. Finally bonded a monster girl you can’t chew through?”

Daiki gave him a grin as he scratched his head and said.

“You could say that. I finally got approval to bond with a monster girl I had been trying to get for a long time. The process just turned out harder than expected.”

Simon could easily relate to this, given that he had been trying to bond Cydaea but the prerequisites for that made his eye water. A part of him wanted to bypass that and just bond with her even if it was against school regulations.

However, when he confided this to Flora she vehemently disagreed. So much so that Simon was quietly readily dissuaded from that course of action. The realization that a monster on the level of Merlin being your enemy would make anyone think twice.

“Oh… Wanna talk about it?” He asked.

“Nah… It is growing pains everyone goes through when they try to bind a legendary monster girl. I had thought bonding with four plant-based monster girls would give my essence enough oomph to make the process viable. I underestimated what 10 times the essence drain would look like.” Daiki said.

Simon whistled in surprise.

“A legendary monster girl!!!”

Simon was very recently acquainted with the power of a legendary monster girl and they were a force to be reckoned with. It would make sense that they had some extraordinary drawbacks as well. Simon wondered if he was even capable of bonding with a legendary monster girl and keeping her fed.

Daiki put a finger on his mouth and shushed him frantically.

“Keep it down! I don’t want the others to know!” He said frantically.

Simon nodded, he was very aware that being too special was making oneself a target. He himself was a prime example.

Daiki continued.

“You might have been out of the loop but most of the blessed already knew the date and location of the next Y.T.T.”

“Y.T.T?” Simon asked

“Young Tamer Tournament as we have taken to calling it. And, anyway, in this tournament, the minimum you need to be is a blessed one. However, the winners are almost always the ascended.”

Daiki answered.

“Ascended?”

This term felt familiar but at the moment he could not quite place it so he asked.

“Oh! Right! You are still not completely aware of the wider world. Ascended are those who are either tamers born to heroes or have become unbelievably lucky and bonded with a legendary monster girl as their first bond. The second one is much much rarer.”

Daiki answered, his words had a slightly manic edge to them as if he was slightly hyperactive despite his haggard look.

“Oh… Oh!!! Damn, how is that even fair? A single legendary monster girl annihilated my entire team quite casually! How are we supposed to beat those things?”

Simon asked, now very interested in the conversation. A gathering of such powerful tamers must be a sight to behold.

“Usually, by using a monster girl that directly counters them. For example, a titan is only capable of close-range combat, crippling their movement or high flight effectively makes them useless by themselves.”

Daiki absentmindedly answered.

“Huh… I did not think of it that way.”

Simon noted his answer.

“Yeah, but that only takes you so far. There is no way you have a counter for every different legendary monster girl that will be a part of the tournament.”

Daiki nodded absentmindedly.

“Will there be that many? You just said that ascended are very rare.” Simon said.

Daiki’s eyes started to look a little glazed over as he said.

“They are, but the tournament tends to bring most of them into a single place. Every generation there are like five to six of them. At least one has taken part every year. So, they have become a staple and are usually the favored to win. Not to mention, that some of the blessed get lucky and get a legendary of their own. And there are a couple dozen of us every generation.”

Simon felt that there was something off about the numbers.

“The number feels higher than it should be…”

Daiki said as if he expected that answer.

“Not really, if we take into the fact that about 30000 Tamers are born every day the number is very low.”

Simon could only blink at that number.

“30 thousand!?!”

Daiki shrugged.

“There was a time when over a billion people inhabited this continent. The people in charge are desperately trying to get our numbers back to those levels. Just so you know, the death rate of Tamers is also extremely high. No numbers were ever given, but they are high enough to be concerning.”

He said casually.

Simon held his hand up. There was still so much of the world he did not know and this did not feel like a conversation he wanted to have at the moment. The information that he found hard to process. So he decided to change the topic.

“I think we have gone a bit off-topic. Can we back to the tournament.”

“Yeah, Sorry. My mind is a bit frazzled at the moment. Where were we?”

“You see…”

Flora looked at the scene from within his necklace. Out of all his ‘friends’ which were currently Daniel and Daiki. She liked the green-haired boy a lot more. The boy was a lot more honest and upfront, which she felt could only be good for her master.