Cerberus And The Deep Forest

About three months had passed since Bella the Cerberus was summoned.

At first, Bella had not warmed to me at all—in fact, she had practically regarded me as an enemy—but in the end, she wound up yielding to me.

Not that we had fought a duel or anything.

I doubted she would actually kill me, but there was no way I could beat her either, so there would have been no point in fighting one.

So why had Bella yielded to me?

Simply because I was the one who prepared her meals.

I would never withhold food just because she was being defiant, but if she behaved nicely toward me, I gave her a little extra, and if she didn’t, then, well, she got the standard fare.

It also helped enormously that Garmon-san had told me Cerberuses had a sweet tooth.

Basically, as long as Bella got along with me, I spoiled her.

I’d always wanted a dog, after all, and if she let me pet her, preparing some honey sweets was hardly a hardship.

And once we’d grown closer, Bella, being a high-ranking magical beast with intelligence far beyond that of an ordinary human, was perfectly capable of gradually reaching a mutual understanding with me.

Not long after we grew closer, Bella seemed to realize that pinning her down the way I had was the only method I’d had of capturing her, and from then on, her attitude softened considerably.

Whenever she sensed something suspicious, she would often position herself as though shielding me.

If I thanked her afterward by giving her a sweet dessert and petting her all over, she’d wag her tail and rub all three heads against me, so I thought it was fair to say that Bella had submitted to me.

Though maybe it was actually the other way around.

Anyway, today I had brought Bella out into the forest surrounding the tower.

The purpose was to take her for a walk and gather food while we were at it.

Ever since Bella arrived at the tower, our food consumption had increased to a level that couldn’t even be compared to before.

That said, Garmon-san was wealthy, so we’d simply increased the amount we bought from the visiting merchants by a great deal, but I still thought it was better to save money wherever we could.

Besides, we were already out here for Bella’s walk.

Giving her some exercise put her in a better mood, and more importantly, as a watchdog, she could detect when someone approached the tower—her territory—even from a distance.

And above all else, the forest was full of astonishing sights that satisfied my curiosity, like enormous bees that looked nearly a meter long and gigantic trees that seemed to rise hundreds of meters into the air.

Incidentally, I was completely confident that if I ventured too deep into the forest alone, I would never find my way back, so Bella’s presence was genuinely invaluable.

I curled one finger slightly and applied gravity Magic for only an instant to a huge fruit overhead, one nearly large enough to fill both arms.

The added weight tore it free, and I somehow managed to catch the enormous fruit as it came hurtling down, staggering under the impact until Bella circled around and steadied my back with her snout.

“Ohh, thanks, Bella. All right, let’s taste it right away.”

I washed it with water using Magic, sterilized it, then cut it into bite-sized pieces in my palm with a blade of wind.

When I put one of the juicy pieces into my mouth, a crisp texture and refreshing sweetness spread across my tongue.

Ah, this was basically a pear.

There were a few slight differences, but the flavor was almost identical to the pears I remembered, and I smiled as I fed slices one by one into each of Bella’s three mouths.

Her tail wagged furiously, making it perfectly clear that she liked the fruit too.

After we’d completely finished the fruit, I dropped one more with gravity Magic as a souvenir for Garmon-san, stuffed it into my backpack, and started walking again.

The fruit was nice, but I had another objective today.

After walking a while longer with Bella’s nose guiding us, we reached a watering hole in the forest.

It wasn’t some special spring with unusual water or anything, just an ordinary watering hole.

But for the many creatures living in the forest, a source of water was an extremely important place.

There were exceptions—creatures that didn’t need water or could absorb moisture from trees and other living things—but we weren’t looking for anything like that today.

Many animals and monsters probably visited this watering hole regularly.

Which meant that if we followed the scents left behind here, there was a good chance we’d eventually find prey.

Of course, following the scent was entirely Bella’s job, but she was also the one who would eat most of whatever we hunted.

Therefore, whichever scent Bella wanted to follow was naturally the prey we ought to target.

With two heads keeping watch over our surroundings and the third lowered to sniff the scent left on the ground, Bella moved forward while I followed as quietly as possible.

When I glanced at what looked like tracks in the dirt, they were about the same size as Bella’s—or perhaps even larger.

Apparently, whatever we were pursuing was going to be quite a large catch.

We walked for quite a while through the forest.

At first glance, the scenery seemed repetitive, but if I paid attention, it was always changing little by little—or sometimes dramatically—so I never found it particularly boring.

Still, eventually I began to feel mentally exhausted by the simple act of walking.

But then it happened.

Bella, who had been leading the way, suddenly stopped.

I couldn’t tell at all, but apparently she’d found our prey.

“…Is it there? Then just like we planned, drive it toward me. And don’t hurt it too badly, okay?”

At my request, all three of Bella’s heads nodded at once.

The gesture struck me as strangely comical, and I couldn’t help smiling.

Now, there was a reason why I, despite possessing combat abilities but not being particularly skilled at fighting, had deliberately asked Bella to drive her prey toward me.

If all we wanted was to kill it, leaving everything to Bella would have been overwhelmingly more efficient, but her fangs, claws, and flames all had a tendency to leave hunted prey badly mangled.

As should have been obvious from the fact that controlling her food had helped us become friends, Bella was something of a gourmet.

If I finished the prey cleanly with Magic, making it easier to drain the blood and improving the quality of the meat, then there was no reason not to leave the final blow to me.

I prepared myself and hid in the shadow of a tree.

Though for someone like me, who could activate Magic with a single small action, “preparation” really just meant preparing myself mentally.

I steadied my pounding heart and held my breath, telling myself not to panic no matter what appeared so that I could activate my Magic immediately.

Bella’s roar rang out from somewhere ahead.

Since her barking came in triplicate, there was no mistaking it.

Then came the sound of something crashing violently.

I remained still, suppressing the unease in my heart as I waited.

I knew Bella was far stronger than I was when it came to actual combat, but I still couldn’t help worrying.

After all, unlike me, Bella wasn’t an immortal existence.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop myself from imagining the worst.

Then, in the next instant, the bushes shook violently, and a huge body came flying out from beyond them.

It belonged to an enormous bear.

And not an ordinary bear, either—it was unquestionably some kind of monster.

But because I’d prepared myself as thoroughly as possible, I wasn’t shaken by its appearance.

―WOOF!―

At Bella’s bark, the signal, I snapped my fingers and activated wind Magic.

The razor-sharp blade of wind struck exactly where I aimed, slicing through the side of its neck and severing the carotid artery beneath.

But it wasn’t over yet.

If I left it like this, there was a chance it would thrash wildly before bleeding out and dying, ruining its body in the process.

So I immediately snapped my fingers again and reproduced with Magic the binding chains Garmon-san had once shown me with sorcery, wrapping them around the bear monster’s body.

Bella looked at me with a faintly displeased expression, and… then I remembered that this was the same sort of thing Garmon-san had used when capturing her.

But what else was I supposed to do?

The only restraining Magic I could come up with on the spot was either these binding chains or gravity Magic.

In any case, the bear monster no longer had any way to escape.

Today’s hunt could definitely be called a great success.

Bella also looked somewhat pleased, and I was certain the bond between us had deepened another step.

Of course, the truly difficult part would come next—getting the dead bear back to the tower—but for now, I decided to celebrate our successful hunt together with her.