Chapter 5: I Thought It Was a Dog…
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Aaron stretched as he left the library, satisfied that he now had a vague understanding of at least two stances from the "Aetherwyn Body Techniques" manual. His legs were killing him. His back throbbed. His knuckles were swollen like potatoes.
"I've read enough. Maybe now I can do a perfect cartwheel," he muttered, nearly tripping over a fallen candle sconce on the carpeted stairs.
The manor was quiet. Suspiciously quiet.
Until a scream broke the calm.
"THE BEAST GOT OUT!"
Aaron flinched. "Beast?"
Before he could turn around, a maid sprinted past him with wide eyes and a broken broom.
"Run!" she cried. "The mana hound from the western cliffs is loose again!"
"…Mana hound?" Aaron repeated. "Wait, that sounds important."
He poked his head out the side hall and saw panic erupting near the stables. Servants ran in circles. Guards shouted orders no one obeyed. Horses neighed and pulled at their tethers.
And then he saw it.
A huge creature, shaped like a dog but twice the size of a bull, lunged through the garden wall with burning red eyes. Its body shimmered with ethereal veins, and mana poured off its fur like steam.
Aaron stared.
"That's… a dog?"
The hound locked eyes with him.
Then it roared.
Not barked—roared, like thunder cracking open the sky.
"Okay. Not a dog," Aaron said faintly. "Definitely not a dog."
The beast charged.
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Every rational part of Aaron screamed at him to run.
Instead, he grabbed a rake.
It was the only weapon nearby. His brain had clearly stopped functioning.
As the beast leapt, he did the only thing he could think of—he ducked and jabbed upward with the rake like a spear.
There was a blinding flash.
The rake split in half. The mana hound soared over him, flipping midair.
And crashed straight through the second-story balcony wall like a comet.
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In the courtyard, silence.
Then—
"Did you see that?! He deflected the hound mid-air!"
"With a rake!"
"I—I didn't even see the movement. Was it a divine technique?!"
"Did he… tame it with eye contact?"
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Aaron peeked through the wreckage, face pale.
"I was aiming for the belly," he whispered. "Why did it fly upward?"
The beast stirred in the rubble, whimpering now. Its violent aura faded.
Then, like a loyal puppy, it crawled toward him… and lay at his feet.
Aaron stared.
"...Did I win?"
The gathered staff slowly dropped to their knees in reverence.
One of the guards whispered, "So this is the true heir of House Aetherwyn."
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Later, Aaron sat on a crate in the stables, scratching the mana hound's ears.
"I named him Fluffy," he said proudly. "He tried to eat me once, but he's warming up to me."
A butler nodded, still trembling. "Yes. A... charming choice, Young Master."
"Do you think he attacked because I smell like jerky? I've been eating a lot of jerky lately."
The butler could only nod. No one dared mention that the hound was a predator ranked in the top 100 of the Empire's Most Dangerous Magical Creatures.
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That night, across the continent, magical beast tamers began whispering of the "Young Star Tamer of Aetherwyn."
They said he tamed a wild-class mana hound with nothing but presence. They said it obeyed him like a knight to his king.
Aaron, meanwhile, was just happy to have a guard dog.
"I'll sleep so much better now," he yawned, curling up in bed.
Fluffy snored beside him—glowing faintly with mana as strong as a natural disaster.
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End of Chapter 5