After that, Klad hunted down the gang that had seized power in the village.
The gang that had lived exactly the life Jake predicted consisted of five members, including the ringleader called “Boss.”
“Boss, huh. What a ridiculous title. Why don’t you just write ‘bandit’ on your forehead and walk around?”
“P-please, we were wrong.”
The gang couldn’t withstand even the very faint killing intent Klad emitted and begged for their lives with tears and snot streaming down their faces.
‘Only five of them.’
Jake was shocked as he watched them bawling. No matter how small the village was or how starving everyone had been, seizing control of an entire village wasn’t easy. Then how much had Father been involved to make this possible? His thoughts were complicated.
‘There’s a lot to resolve.’
The evil deeds Father had committed weren’t just one or two, and if you included what previous generations of West Dukes had done, they were too numerous to count. In the past, he would have consoled himself that he didn’t have the ability or time to care about such trivial matters and had to focus on his main mission for the greater good.
But now that was no longer necessary. While he couldn’t chase around every city and village erasing Father’s karma, he could now help the Empire’s citizens suffering right before his eyes.
Jake steadily watched Klad give the gang a thorough lesson.
“I guess this is enough. Let’s go.”
Klad, who had oppressed the gang while receiving the attention of the entire village, quickly moved away to distance himself from the people. Though he’d impulsively committed this act because he didn’t want to see Jake looking bitter, Klad found performing such childish behavior completely distasteful. He’d been so embarrassed since earlier that he wanted to enter eternal sleep. Standing before people and putting on a show claiming this territory was his. If those who knew him had seen it, they would have pointed and mocked him endlessly.
“Are we going to eliminate the sandworm now, Klad?”
“The plan’s changed. We’re not going to kill the sandworm—we’re going to use it.”
“Use the sandworm? How?”
“That gang is terrified right now so they’ll listen to me, but once I’m out of sight, they’ll go back to acting up like I said.”
“Ah. You said there was a better method. How is that connected to the sandworm?”
“The gang can’t handle even one sandworm, let alone me. If we have the sandworm monitor the village, they won’t think about tormenting the other residents ever again.”
“How can you make a monster do such a thing? Don’t tell me…!”
Jake, who had been moving his feet diligently to follow Klad’s quick pace, stopped right in his tracks. Klad, who had been walking ahead, also stopped in response to Jake’s movement.
“Monster taming?!”
“More or less.”
“Klad… you’re not just good at support magic.”
“Shouldn’t you have noticed that already?”
Monster taming was the domain of the chosen—even with tremendous effort, unless you were born with the talent, you could never enter this field.
To think a tamer, whose appearance once every few hundred years was considered a miracle, was right before his eyes. What an incredible thing this was!
“Let’s go right away, Klad. Right now!”
Jake pushed Klad’s back as if shoving him. To witness with his own two eyes the process of taming he’d only read about in documents!
***
“…This isn’t the taming I imagined.”
“That’s why I said it was similar.”
“You weren’t a tamer, Klad. I want to resent you for deceiving me, but strictly speaking, you had no intention of deceiving me and I fell for it on my own, so I’ll try my best to understand.”
Kiiiiik—
Three hours had passed since Klad gave the gang their lesson. That meant three hours had passed since the sandworm began wailing pitifully.
The monster taming known to the world meant making the monster feel favorable toward you and becoming friends. A tamer could make simple requests of monsters but couldn’t give orders, and if the monster didn’t feel like it, it could refuse the request.
But Klad’s taming method was so different it felt wrong to even call it taming.
Kieeeek!
It was the first time he’d felt sorry for the sandworm.
“Klad. Are you planning to show the gang how you handle the sandworm and instill fear in them so they won’t dare disobey?”
“It’s more effective than that, so don’t worry.”
“What I’m worried about isn’t that—it’s the sandworm.”
Kiieeee,
The sandworm, noticing Jake was worried, struggled even more violently.
Three hours ago, Klad released mana into the ground to lure the sandworm. Instead of killing the sandworm, Klad pulled it from the earth and poured mana into the body of the sandworm that was flopping about like a fish out of water.
“Does injecting mana really take this long?”
“This sandworm is in a state of demonic energy addiction, so if I forcibly inject mana, it’ll burst. I have to gradually dissolve the demonic energy in its body and fill that space with my mana, which takes more time. About half remains now.”
Kyaaaaak!
The sandworm shrieked at the terrible news that half still remained.
“Can you only tame a sandworm by planting mana in it?”
“No. If it loses all the demonic energy in its body, it’ll become weak, making it hard for the sandworm to survive. So I need to replace that space with something else, and while I’m at it, I’m filling it completely with my mana so it can play the role of protecting the village in preparation for when the Duke comes.”
For the sandworm the Duke released to become hostile toward the Duke—even Klad thought it was an excellent idea.
“Then how is removing the demonic energy related to taming?”
“I have an ability to make other living beings feel ‘fear.’ Usually that ability works better on monsters that are simple and follow their instincts rather than humans who have complex thoughts and act flexibly according to the situation. If there’s demonic energy in the body, violent and impulsive tendencies become stronger, so I remove it beforehand to make the ‘fear’ last longer.”
“So you’re making this sandworm fear you and carry out orders.”
“That’s right.”
It was an ability that had nothing similar to monster taming from one to ten.
Kieeeek!
Whether it didn’t like Klad’s explanation or the purification process was painful, the sandworm struggled again.
“Endure it, sandworm.”
Feeling sympathetic, Jake patted the sandworm’s body. Then the movements of the flopping sandworm became much gentler. The first to notice the sandworm’s change was Klad, who was holding it so it couldn’t escape.
‘The demonic energy decreased.’
When Jake placed his hand on it, some of the demonic energy filling the sandworm disappeared.
Even for Klad, this phenomenon was a first.
Though he’d been stripped of his hero qualification, could the remnants of the power granted by Lord God affect the demonic energy? It was possible. Even if power that had formed one’s body suddenly disappeared, its traces would remain.
“Try it again.”
“What? You mean patting the sandworm?”
Pat- pat-
Jake patted the sandworm with a reluctant expression. It wasn’t a particularly satisfying texture.
‘The demonic energy really is disappearing?’
Klad concentrated to grasp the flow of demonic energy. The demonic energy that left the sandworm’s body was absorbed by Jake’s hand and disappeared without a trace.
For Klad, who had no divine power, to purify the sandworm required decomposing the demonic energy very slowly, bit by bit, which needed tremendous time and labor. But at Jake’s decomposition speed, it seemed the purification work could be finished in thirty minutes… no, in less than ten minutes.
“Can you keep doing that?”
“You mean patting it? It doesn’t require much effort so it’s not difficult, but…”
Jake frowned as he looked at the sandworm. Though he’d gotten swept up in the mood and touched it, he had no hobby of patting a giant worm monster.
“Do I have to?”
“If you do, it would be an enormous help. We can reduce the remaining time from three hours to ten minutes.”
“Help? Me?”
Persuaded in one go, Jake patted the sandworm with a bright face.
Pat, pat.
“You don’t need to pat hard enough to hurt your wrist. Just keeping your hand on it is enough.”
“Like this?”
“Good, you’re doing well.”
When Jake placed his hand on it, the demonic energy rapidly decomposed and disappeared. Klad injected mana into the sandworm’s body before the demonic energy permeating the ground could occupy the empty space.
Kiii…
Unlike Klad’s rather rough purification method of forcibly crushing and eliminating demonic energy, Jake’s method didn’t seem painful, as the sandworm stopped struggling and stretched out flat on the ground.
Separate from the much more peaceful purification site, the murmuring of the villagers grew louder. They had been hiding throughout the village watching this entire process. To their eyes, it looked like Jake had subdued the sandworm in one go, replacing Klad who couldn’t do anything for over three hours.
Someone who could accomplish as easily as breathing what even someone who could break wooden pillars with bare hands couldn’t do. Truly an amazing and frightening person.
The villagers trembled in fear of Jake and prayed to Lord God for the situation to be resolved quickly.
“That’s it. I’ll finish the rest, so you can take your hand off. Good work.”
“I’m very happy to have been of help.”
Jake was greatly satisfied with the fact that there were things he could do to help Klad too.
“I’m so happy to have been helpful.”
So proud was he that Jake repeated the same words twice.
