The next morning came rather quick, with loud happy grunts downstairs. Ker made himself ready and saw the reason for the morning tumult. The maid was feeding the little rascal with left sausage from yesterday. Ker just tsked at that, the maid reddened and excused herself profusely. Ker of course let that go, he was responsible for bringing home the boar young.


    At seeing Ker it let the food go and pumped into him with start-up. That didn''t even made him flinch but was so adorable that he squat down and pet the boar. Short after it returned to its unfinished sausage. Ker in opposition just started his morning meal.


    As his parents joint him on the dinner table they brought to subject what it meant to have a beast at home. With that they meant a tame beast in form of a familiar. Actually they were two versions of beasts someone could keep. One was the so called familiar, a bonded beast with a unique connection to its master. And then there were tamed beasts, who in contrast to its namesake, were most often not tame, but rather used to the presence of humans. The difference between those two were large.


    The tamed beast had to been hold in an appropriate stable, taken care of and approached with utmost care. It was pretty much a wild beast used to human environment with enough schooling to not outright attack every human. But technically someone could hold a completely wild beast in a cage and call it ''tamed''.


    That was historically speaking a very bad practice as a famous case demonstrated. A king thought it nice to hold a lion with golden fur in his palace. One day the lion was so annoyed that it hit the king over the head nearly decapitating him, but most certainly killing him. At least the legendary head knight and the entirety of his entourage was needed to subdue the lion. The directness and correct details hint that the story was just a few generations old.


    Looking at the boar he was certain that bonding it would be the right choice. But he was uncertain, maybe it missed being in the woods in the end. Or what was with its parents wouldn''t they miss it aka vice versa. He had to get a clear mind on those things. There was also still time, the boar was still young and he just met it.


    Besides that his parents had appointed a new sword and martial arts teacher. He would meet him after noon. That was enough time to report his finished quest to the guild and receive the reward. Something he was looking forward to. It wasn''t a lot of money, but it was his first sole done quest and a good first accomplishment.


    As he left his home, the boar grunted in towards him, he obviously wanted to accompany him. He caressed the hide of the boar and explained with a calm voice that he would only be away for short. It didn''t really satisfy the boar, so Ker ordered to the maid to pay with the young beast. That made surely her and the beast happy. While it was distracted Ker hurried away.


    It was nice morning walk to the guild hall. There was a rush to the counter, every adventurer looked to secure the best quests. After a short while a second queue opened to part the unruly adventurers and better process them. Ker used that to get to the top of the queue. That in turn lead directly to a confrontation.


    "Can you not see that we were in front of you. Boy go back in line were you started"


    The voice came from a man in the queue behind him. He wore heavy armor but looked like an adventurer in everything else. Ker couldn''t pinpoint it but this guy smelled strange, to say he didn''t trust appearance one bit.


    Years of practice in formal noble etiquette prevented him from clenching a fist or worse. He retorted lightly flippant. "That would be the case for the first queue. But this one just opened."


    "And? Just go back like everyone else, we secured this place."


    To that Ker simply raised one eyebrow. "You mean you ran forward and took this place like everyone else? Good for you, I just need to report my quest, your matters do not concern me."


    He could barely contain his smile at his own words. They arrived exactly as delivered, the adventurer started clenching his teeth into a grimace. But one look of the receptionist calmed him down. Fight were strictly prohibited inside the guild hall. Any further escalation would end in fines, withdrawal of current quests and could even lead to an outright ban.


    Ker was second in line and had therefore not long to wait. His report was relative short, everything was noted down. On his retelling of thousands of rabbits the receptionist looked surprised and outright skeptic at the claim to have finished the quest in one day. However according to his performances his reward was adjusted. Someone would be send to confirm his story and the money would be send to him.


    ?──?─?─?──??


    Back home he changed his clothes to his training attire. In one of the mirrors in his room he struck a sporty pose. At least he thought he did. It was short before noon. Time to get ready for his sword lessons.


    "Ker, lunch is ready" came a way too familiar shout from downstairs. It was of course from his mother. Nothing against good nourishment before a fight or training. Then again his family didn''t want him to eat in armor, but since he already wore it – so it couldn''t be helped.


    His mother wore frown on her face. "It is not necessary to wear armor on the table. The eat doesn''t bite any more."


    "Mom, I already gone through the effort of putting on the training armor, how would I be prepared for training later?"


    "I think I have another talk with Dad later, you can be too prepared for training you know."


    There was a hint of amusement in her voice. Their lunch conversation interrupted by questioning grunts, the boar young was still hungry and asking for more. Ker filled its bowl full and happily stoke the hide of his new companion. There were many ambiguities about this actually, but he rather didn''t care about that right now. He learned from his father and sword teachers that focus on the now was often better than worry about later outcomes.


    He trained several simple sword strikes as well as repeated the lessons he learned in Mundor Leandris. Until his new sword teacher finally arrived several hours passed and Ker found himself resting again beside their estate. The boar was busy running around and wallow on the ground near his training area.


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    In the distance an outline became visible. It had the frame of a man with a hat and something hanging from his back. It definitely did not look like a sword. It had a bulging belly, a slim neck ending in a head obscured in the light shining over the rooftops. The man, now becoming ever more visible, sauntered offside the walkway oblivious to any time of the day. His robes, of fine quality, casual like the rest of his style were a symbol of his entire being. On his back, now better visible, a Quinerne (an early version of a guitar).


    Ker, unusual to him, had a frown on his face. His so called sword teacher appeared late, with just some instrument on his back. He didn''t know if to laugh or to cry. If he was unhappy about this, then his parents would be angry. How could someone have such a lackadaisical approach to fencing. Ker was used to the more military type of teacher. Since his teacher from before had a military background and a fitting straight forward attitude. Something like hour of coming too late would be inexcusable.


    His new teacher was oblivious to such thoughts, in general as it seemed. He greeted Ker with wave and a likewise wide smile.


    "Good to see that you are prepared. Always ready" As the man arrived before Ker, he could not other but asked incredulously.


    "And who are you, sir?"


    "Of course" the man bowed with his right hand before his chest and his left outstretched, like minstrels before their audience.


    "My honors, I am Sagenfeld of Behlem. From a land far away, visiting to train a young aspirant in the deadly game of bladeswork. And who are you, my Lord."


    Sagenfeld made a step back as to give Ker the stage of introduction. Ker was a little confused and started to get irritated at these weird antics. However, for now he played along. "I am Ker of Eldoria. Son and heir to Juno and Hellena of Eldoria."


    Still Ker could not get rid off his doubt to this so called tutor, who were supposed to further educate him in fencing. What could such a phenomenon be teaching him? How to fence to him playing the string instrument?


    "And how exactly are you planing to tutor me? With your Quinerne?"


    Ker didn''t expect to reap a grin, a devilish one a that, from the man.


    "But what an excellent idea! To fence to fancy tunes we shall!"


    Sagenfeld unstrapped his instrument from his back and put one foot on the other knee to support his instrument on top of it. There he stood ready for his stringed battle of training. Ker nearly scoffed at that. He didn''t hold any illusions to be better than any good soldiers and most definitely not elites. But this man''s behavior was just too much for him.


    Skeptically Ker picked up his blade and positioned himself across the tutor. He faced away from Sagenfeld to have a free space to train. Sagenfeld meanwhile started to pluck the strings of his instrument. Every note was emphasized, clearly distinct from each other. Ker started to swing his sword. First he focused only on his blade, but soon he felt something was wrong.


    He missed the tone. His timing was off.


    So he adjusted his timing and narrowed down the margin of his misses. After some time his swings were synchronous with the tones. And then Sagenfeld picked up the pace, increasing the speed of the tone until they started to become a tune. Ker had to put considerable afford in to keep up with the tune. At some point his swings couldn''t match with the tune anymore and the strikes were neither cutting nor had any power behind them. He was becoming sloppy.


    "That''s good, fine enough. Let us rest for a moment"


    While Sagenfeld adjusted the strings on his Quinerne, Ker catched some breath. He also had to re-evaluate his opinion of this tutor. The tune seemed to be a good practice to find the maximum speed he could reach with proficiency. What would come next and how would his tutor qualify his prowess or his strength?


    As it turned out Sagenfeld had a tune for everything. Next was his cutting with the blade. For whatever reason his tutor was not plucking put edging the strings. This lead to Ker following the tune as best as he could and therefore to cutting motions. He could feel every time he was amiss. Normally he would just take sticks or planks to test his cutting. That worked fie enough, but showed only the outcome, it did not measure his motions. Soon enough Ker realized the tune could also guide him and help him while in motion.


    This way they continued until his father showed up to watch the training.


    "Brings back memories."


    Sagenfeld shouldered his instrument and nodded. "And how have you been? A nice house with a good family as I can see."


    "It played out well enough. How is you profession going?"


    "As you can see, I even got hired by a well respected family to nurture their youngest as well to full proficiency"


    A smirk played at the corner of Sagenfeld’s lips.


    "I see you didn''t lose your edge. Will you stay for dinner, we invite you. No worries this time there is better than cooked-through earth lizards"


    Ker was interested what this was about. He followed them inside just to be send to clean and redress himself. After cleaning the grime and sweat from him, Ker joined them at the dinner table. They started to talk again about earth lizards. This time more for him, but also out of banter. Juno started to tell the story how they ended up at the foot of a mountain with barely any food, because of lack of planning. The had to resort to hunt and cook earth lizards. Some of those had flesh equally as tasty as earth and sturdy as leather.


    Hellena and their acquaintance Sagenfeld joined the telling by throwing in fitting comments. Their antics brought a smile to Ker''s face and made him wonder if he should look for a group too. Maybe his friends could catch up. With some work it should be possible. Of course he didn''t want to bring them into any risky situation.


    His eyes wandered between his parents and Sagenfeld. Without knowing how to ask he breached the topic. "How did it come that you went adventuring? How did you start out as a group?"


    "Well" Hellena answered "We didn''t start out as a group. Some of us wanted to venture out alone others were in different groups with very different goals. It was more a series of -"


    "Mishaps", did Juno throw in.


    "And entanglements", added Sagenfeld.


    "- Well that is one way to put it. However, we started from different situations and found us in a group that worked quite well together."


    "Like butter and grease" Sagenfeld stated. That brought him an amused side-eye from Juno. "I heard they burn quite well together..."


    "And don''t let me remind you that we didn''t earn a penny from that quest too" Hellena groaned.


    "Back to your question, the point is that you can find adventurers who fit to you no matter where you and they start now. You surely will find people you can venture out with now and then."


    That encouraged Ker to help his friends. After all he could at least try.


    ?──?─?─?──??


    In the evening he could but only wonder how is prior partly evolution changed him. It did not seem to have many effects yet. Maybe that just needed time or maybe was he growing? The little boar most definitely was and ate accordingly. He also ate a lot. Just a day ago he would be annoyed to have to eat so many eggs in the morning and so much flesh every lunch. But today he had even ordered their staff to make more eggs and eaten additional bread to his breakfast and his lunch. He also had eaten the most at dinner. They were complimenting him to be such a good eater, that he would surely become a great man and warrior.


    He had chosen that his heart would evolve instead of growing bones, but if he kept up the amount of food intake he wasn''t so certain anymore about not becoming a giant.


    He also did not figure out how to use his evolutions best or actually how to utilize them at all. Maybe his new tutor could help him, but could he be trusted with that. He didn''t even tell his family yet. Then again he could simply ask how he could utilize himself at best with no mention of his uniqueness. He could also ask how beasts were doing what they were doing, like creating elemental magic or suddenly enhancing their bodies.


    It would show what his choices brought him.