This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

'Damn! This is why you should always keep a lab book with you?'

'I think it had something to do with patterns…on the fish's scales? Yeah that was it!'

Kain breathed a sigh of relief at not having the progress he made yesterday go down the drain.

'System by any chance do you have an ability to record notes?' Kain asked off-handedly without much hope.

*Affirmative*

'I figured you didn't…Wait! What?! Why didn't you tell me?'

*The Host did not ask*

'What other features are you keeping from me then simply because I didn't ask?!'

This time the System didn't bother to answer.

Kain made a mental note to interrogate his System once the beast tide was over. He could already hear most of the other individuals in the room getting up and preparing for battle, and so he joined them before heading out for breakfast.

Thankfully, possible due to all of the higher-quality spiritual creatures killed yesterday, that was brought back into the city, they had enough meat to provide bacon, sausages, and other sides with their breakfast.

Unfortunately, on the first day of the best tide with mostly white and red-grade spiritual creatures, few people could be bothered to enter the hoard to retrieve their corpses and they had to go meatless.

Kain could immediately feel his spiritual power becoming more active and guessed that the meat served was at least from an orange-grade spiritual creature.

'Back on Earth they said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day…and I couldn't agree with that statement more right now' Kain thought, as he stuffed his face with the welcome change from porridges and soups.

They headed back to their places atop the castle wall, but Kain could immediately feel a huge difference when compared to yesterday. A pressure from a large amount of spiritual creatures more powerful than him.

It looks like the majority of the remaining red-grade spiritual creatures were killed by the night-shift guards. Now the most commonly seen creatures were at orange-grade, followed by yellow-grade. Kain could also occasionally see green-grade spiritual creatures at a much more common frequency than previously.

One such creature, that Kain could see in the distance was a Glacial Leviathan, likely the same one that had killed 4 of his classmates previously.

"Due to the higher level of spiritual creatures today, first years will move in groups" Ezra began.

"Kain, Soren, and Kairos will be one group. Serena and Ranya another. Oliver and Jade, you two will be responsible for protecting each group of boys and girls respectively, in the event that they encounter a spiritual creature that they can't handle."

Kain figured that he meant green-grade, since if a group of them can't take down a yellow-grade spiritual creature then they have no place representing the school in the future.

Soren didn't look pleased with the assignments, likely preferring to partner up with Serena rather than Kain and Kairos, but he smartly didn't vocalize his objections.

The three still hunted orange-grade spiritual creatures independently and, when possible, Kain had the Vespirae guards try to carry the corpses killed back into the hospital. However, when one of his Vespirae was trying to bring back its harvest, a large hole appeared in its back, and tore off its wings.

With an ear-piercing shriek, it sank into the excited hoard of beasts below and was quickly torn into shreds.

"Damn! It's that same attacker from yesterday!" Kairos called out. It had been quiet after that initial attack yesterday and there were no reports of it attacking again during the night, they'd all thought it'd either been killed silently or was no longer in the vicinity.

However, they were clearly very wrong and it had a degree of patience much higher than the average spiritual creature to wait so long until they all lowered their vigilance before launching another attack.

"Serena!" Ranya called out nervously, "Can you sense its location right now?"

"It's currently around 9 miles Southeast of here, but that doesn't mean much since it can appear right before us in an instant," Serena replied calmly.

Normally, in a group Kain wouldn't feel threatened by a yellow-grade spiritual creature. Maybe if he were alone most yellow-grade spiritual creatures would be a threat to him, but he'd successfully managed to kill several with a partner. So deep down most of his caution when facing creatures two levels higher than Bea, and one level higher than the Vespirae, had diminished.

However, this was the first yellow-grade spiritual creature that really made him feel the gap in abilities. When it approached and launched an attack, neither Kain nor the Vespirae could even detect it before the attack occurred, much less counterattack.

Kain had only felt this helpless since entering college when facing the Glacial Leviathan. Although the pressure from the Leviathan was definitely leagues above this unknown creature.

Kain looked at his partners, since it was still at yellow-grade, neither Oliver nor Jade would step in to help.

"Any ideas on how to get rid of it?" Kain asked. After all, while this thing was lurking around it'd be hard to focus on their own battles. They'd always have to withhold a portion of their attention to guard against an ambush, which would be like having to fight with shackles on.

"I'm not sure how helpful this is," Kairos began. "But I noticed that it tended to launch an attack right when its target was finishing up with a battle and their guard is lower because they'd just successfully killed the enemy in front of them. It was like that for you just now, and it was like that yesterday for Alexei's contract and the targeted guards' contracts.

Maybe we can use this to lure it out?"

BAM!

"Arrgghhhhhhh!!!!!"

The contract of another guard was instantly killed by the unknown spiritual creature, and the cost of the backlash was immediately heard throughout the city walls.

"We NEED to get rid of this damn thing!" Kairos said in irritation.

Thankfully, this time Serena had been focused on the spiritual creature the entire time. Although it moved too fast to provide a warning in time, she did make a useful discovery.