A Home With Bonded Beasts

Weiss regained consciousness and shouted as he was carried off on a stretcher.

“B-Black Panther! Attacking your owner makes you unfit to be a pet! No—you’re ‘expelled’! If you don’t want to be put down, disappear from my sight!”

But the Black Panther still ignored him completely.

Monaka and Kotone were rubbing its belly, and it was purring and wriggling around in bliss.

“Uwaaaaaaaaah!! I’ll remember this, I’ll remember this sooo well!!”

With a scream that sounded like his entire body was being torn apart, Weiss vanished into the school building.

Partway there, he finally seemed to realize where they were taking him.

“N-No! Stop! Don’t take me to the infirmary! If I get ranked down any further, I—I…! Gwaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

As the Sage’s screams echoed, the vice principal also tried to slip back into the school building.

“Well then, I shall have lunch, zansu.”

“Hold it.”

Someone said, grabbing his shoulder.

“W-What is it, zansu? Instructor Domanna.”

“The prize ceremony isn’t finished yet, you know.”

The vice principal flinched so hard he practically blurted it out loud.

“W-What are you talking about, zansu?”

“Don’t play dumb! You said you’d give a prize to the student I acknowledged, didn’t you!?”

“I already explained it, zansu! That prize was meant to be awarded to Weiss-kun—!”

“Yes, you asked me to help you punish a failing student. You said it was a failing student, so I agreed. But Leopin-kun isn’t a failure—he’s the most outstanding Tamer of them all! So I’m giving the prize to Leopin-kun. And if you refuse, I’ll just happen to mention this to the Board of Education—”

“Gyaaah!? P-Please don’t do that, zansu! Ggh… grrrr…! F-Fine! I’ll give it! I’ll give it, alright!!”

And so, on the spot, a prize-awarding ceremony for me was hastily held.

The vice principal, apparently too resentful to bear it, had bloodshot eyes and clenched teeth so hard he looked ready to pop a vein as he thrust a certificate ledger toward me.

“G…! G…! G…! I-I will not… let this grudge… go unavenged… zansu…!”

It didn’t sound like congratulations in the slightest, and even when I tried to take the ledger, the vice principal refused to let go.

At that point I thought, if he didn’t want to give it, fine—but Instructor Domanna wouldn’t allow it.

“Enough already, Vice Principal! Accept reality and let go! Monaka and Kotone—and Leopin-kun—pull on that side! I’ll pull the vice principal over here with Mark-kun! Black Panther! You bite his foot and hold him down!”

With four people and two animals working together, we finally tore the ledger free.

At that moment, the Asset Rankings board probably updated.

But only three people celebrated me.

“Congratulations, Leo-kun!”

“My heartfelt congratulations, Master!”

“Leopin-kun, you can become a one-in-a-generation Tamer! I guarantee it with a boom! So keep coming to my classes! And then I’ll give you cuddles—with bonus puff-puff!”

“Kwon!”

“Pyaa!”

Oops—three people and two animals.

Monaka tilted her head.

“What are cuddles with bonus puff-puff?”

After finishing my morning classes, I parted ways with Monaka and Kotone for the moment.

Because I needed to take Mark and the Black Panther home.

It seemed the Black Panther had been ‘expelled’ by Weiss, so I decided to keep it.

As I walked beside the residential district with two pets in tow, I spotted students here and there collapsing in tears.

“Ugh… ugh… my house… my houseee…!”

“A huge boulder-like thing rushed past at crazy speed and wrecked everything…!”

“I-I thought I finally got a house that wouldn’t collapse this time…!”

Apparently Mark had destroyed their houses.

Several of the advanced classes’ wooden homes had been reduced to rubble.

A pet’s mess was the owner’s responsibility.

I considered rebuilding them into even nicer houses as an apology, but…

“Ugh… we finally got houses, and we were going to smash that jobless trash’s house next!”

“We were going to go at lunch and wreck it together!”

“And now my house is wrecked instead! Waaaaaah!”

I heard cries like that everywhere, and my guilt evaporated.

On the way back, I thought about names for the Black Panther.

“Alright… how about Tom?”

The Black Panther raised a paw pad and cried, “Pyaa!”

“Good. Then from today on, you’re Tom. Nice to meet you, Tom!”

A protesting chirp came from my shoulder.

“Chuu!”

A sewer rat was there—apparently it had crawled out from my coat pocket.

“Oh, I completely forgot about you. You’re… let’s see… how about Jerry?”

The sewer rat squeaked indignantly, like it was saying, “How rude!”

“Nju!”

“Oh, you’re a girl! Sorry, sorry. Then… how about Jewelry? It means ‘gem,’ so it suits a cute little thing like you, right?”

Jewelry stretched upward with a “Chuu!” and pressed against my cheek like a kiss.

And just like that, flirting with my pets the whole way, I returned to the forest.

My home welcomed us back with a warm glow.