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Beast Tamer Who Got Kicked Out From the Hero’s Party Chapter 232

CHAPTER 232: THE CONSPIRACY

And thus three tests were now concluded.

As a result, the number of participants was narrowed down to eight parties and thirty people in total.

「…… Hmph, how utterly boring.」

Arios, who had been waiting in his personal tent, sniffed boringly at the current development of the Promotion Exam.

As expected, Rein’s party remained firmly in the competition, showing no signs of falling out anytime soon.

This was really so utterly boring.

If they had been flunked along the way here, at the very least Arios could laugh straight in their faces as he would bask in his triumph.

But not only was Rein’s party not failing the tests, they were also getting really good grades at the same time.

This of course gained them a whole lot of praise from the examiners.

Every time Arios would hear good things being spoken about Rein and his party, he felt as though he wanted to puke on the spot.

Just shut the fuck up already!

Stop spouting such stupid bullshit right in front of me!

「…… Ngh……!」

Arios was getting so irritated at the current moment that he almost ended up screaming those words at the examiners completely out in the open.

But he had to hold those feelings in. He had to remain strong.

If I did that, if he gave in to the temptation, his honor as a Hero would have been ruined on the spot.

But that would not have been all.

If he did that, it could have interfered with his future plans as well.

So he had to avoid that scenario at all cost.

「Say, say, Arios?」’

It was then that Rin came over to Arios.

There was no sign of Aggath or Mina at her side.

They were probably having a meeting with the examiners somewhere else right now, discussing the parts of the exam that were about to come.

「I know that it might not be a good time to ask, but why are we doing this?」

「Huh? The hell do you mean by “this”?」

「This whole examiner gig. Why did you agree to take on a job that’s such a hassle?」

「Do you have a problem with me accepting this job, Rin?」

「Hmm…… It’s not that I have trouble with it, or that I am against it, but I think that overall it’s not something that is worth the trouble. It’s not like we are going to get a whole lot of money from this, and it certainly won’t help to improve our reputation. So why would you ever choose a job with so little merits for us?

「Certainly, this job does not benefit us all that much, I’ll admit that.」

「Right?　So how about we back out from it right now? We can always lie that we were called in by the King to discuss some sort of urgent matter.」

「I would love to do that, but before we get to that, there is still something that I need to take care of here.」

「Huh? Something that you have to do? What’s that? Is it something THAT important?」

「Yes, it is. It’s VERY important to me.」

Arios then flashed a cold smile.

There was a near-madness swirling in his eyes at that exact moment.

However, Rin was unable to notice that detail about him.

「Alright, then. If you say so, Arios, then so be it.」

「Yeah, sorry for the trouble.」

「Oh, it’s okay, it’s okay. I mean, this job surely is a major pain, but we still have to lay low for a while, don’t we? So for that end, we are just going to sit tight and earn ourselves some good points while we are at it.」

「See? So you DO know what this is all about.」

「Oh man, I surely want to just get this menial work done and over with so that I can go back to strolling through town.」

Having blurted that out, Rin left the tent.

The one who came in as if to replace her was Monica.

「I’m most terribly sorry for the delay, Arios-sama.」

「How are things going on your end?」

「Yes, worry not. Everything is proceeding smoothly and without delay.」

Monica smiled gently and then held out a pair of glasses towards Arios.

「This is the item that I was previously telling you about.」

「Hmm, those are…… They look just like normal reading glasses.」

「Ys, that is the entire reason for them being that way. Otherwise, someone might find out what we are after here. But since they look just like that, they are something that you would easily miss or do not even pay any mind to, right?」

「…… Yes, I suppose that you are correct with this one. But what about the effects?」

「Yes, of course. I made sure that they would produce just the effect that we want them to have.」

「But for all that I am aware of, Rein has some sort of weird ability going on for him. Something that even allows him to negate the effects of the Instant Death Magic. What about that?」

「Well, when it comes to that, then…… Hmm, yes, that’s right.」

After making a thoughtful gesture for a moment, Monica opened her mouth once more.

「I don’t really think that this is going to become a problem. After all, the way in which this item works is to not directly harm its target, so its effect shouldn’t really be blocked by anything. It simply serves the purpose of observing its target. If his skills were to interfere even with that kind of small and harmless magic every single day, I highly doubt that Rein-san would be able to to carry on with his everyday life in a normal manner.」

「Yes, I guess that you are right about that.」

「Arios-sama, please put on these glasses and look closely at Rein-san. If you do, I am sure that your wish will come true.」

「Alright, I shall do just that.」

Arios then picked up the glasses and then his expression got a whole lot darker.

「Kukuku…… Now I can finally pay this bastard back for all of the humiliation that I had to suffer! Watch it, Rein, because vengeance will be mine……!」

***

After the latest test we were given another break.

It took about an hour to grade the test, so we could rest our bodies and minds during that time, but……

Apparently the examiners must have had a lot of preparations to be done, since the next test was going to be the final one.

They all seemed to be very busy, walking back and forth all over the place at a fast pace.

Well, getting a break was never a bad thing, so I surely wasn’t going to complain here. Because of that we were able to rest accordingly and take things easy.

「Suu…… Suu…… Suu……」

「Kuu…… Kuu…… Kuu……」

Sora and Luna were napping while they were leaning against each other.

And since we were resting inside of a small makeshift tent, the reys of the sun were not hitting them directly.

They were sleeping so comfortably, without a single care in the world.

It was somewhat amusing to see them together at a time like this, but it was also a sweet sight.

Kanade and Tanya, on the other hand, were nowhere to be seen.

So while we were waiting, they went to explore the ruins because they were bored.

They told me that I could look forward to the souvenir that they were going to bring back with them, but……

Just what on earth were the two of them going to bring back here?

「Rein, this…… This feels so good……」

「Oh, come on now, Nina. Surely you are over-exaggerating. But that look on your face, does it really feel that good?」

「Y-Yeah. Rein…… You are really good at this……」

「Oh man, this looks simply amazing! Now it makes me want to experience something like that myself.」

「Tina, but…… You don’t have a tail……」

As for me, since I had some free time on my hands, I decided to spend it while brushing Nina’s tails.

Apparently it was really hard to take care of them since Nina was so small, not to mention that she had not only one, but three of them to maintain.

And because brushing her tails daily was so much work, there were simply times when Nina would leave her tails alone and not even touch them at all.

But since that kind of behavior was simply unacceptable, I decided to help her out, and so I was now brushing Nina’s tails.

Incidentally, I have learned all sorts of different brushing techniques in order to get along better with various animals I was taming.

With a comb in my hand, I slowly, carefully and gently combed through Nina’s bushy tails.

Nina seemed to enjoy that immensely……

And Tina was watching the entire procedure closely.

The atmosphere around us was so quiet that it was hard to believe we were in the middle of a Promotion Exam.

「Hey, hey, hey! Why is there a small child in here?」

A wild-sounding voice rang out, breaking the relaxed atmosphere around us.

I looked in the direction of the voice and saw that the rest of the parties present in the tent were looking at us.

There were people there who were smirking in a nasty way as they did not look all that friendly.

「This is the site of the A Rank Promotion Exam, man. Little kids should scram back home before they get hurt.」

「Man, this is so out of place. It’s just so irritating to see people like that mingle with us serious Adventurers.」

I guess that without even doing anything, we got tangled up into something really nasty.

I really did not expect to find people like that in this day and age, and certainly not in a place like this……

At first my reaction was that I wanted to walk up to them and say something here, but then I decided not to do that. It would have been way too much of a hassle to deal with, so it was better to just stand back. However……

「Those guys look like trouble, and they piss me off…… Want me to dispose of them?」

Tina looked really sullen as she whispered those words to me.

「No, it’s better to just stand down here. We don’t want to get ourselves involved with that kind of crowd if we can help it.」

「Yeah, I know. I don’t want Master Rein or my precious Nina to get infected with their idiocy by accident.」

「You assholes…… You know that we can hear you, right?」

「Are you saying that shit on purpose?」

The two men’s expressions turned really furious.

I could see that they both had really short fuses, which was not exactly a good thing here.

So it would seem that we wouldn’t be able to exactly avoid some kind of confrontation here.

「I’m really sorry. My bad.」

I really didn’t want to make a scene here, so I decided to lower my head in hopes that this would take care of it.

However, it only made the other two feel exceptionally full of themselves.

「Ha, I knew that you were a coward! You certainly look the part!」

「Oh, I know! We are going to be extremely generous here and forgive you for acting so cocky, but…… Only if you leave the kid right there with us. Now that I get a good look at her, she’s a member of the God Tribe, huh? So she’s bound to fetch us a hefty sum once we sell her and……」

「The fuck did you just say, asshole!?」

I said while I grabbed the man by the shirt on his chest.

I don’t care what happens to me personally, but I absolutely cannot allow scum like that to get involved with my precious friends.

「G-Guh, t-this little shit…… How come he has so much power in his hands!?」

「If you’re going to mess with Nina, then I am sure that you are ready to face the consequence of doing something so stupid, HUH!?」

「…… Now, now. How about we just calm down here?」

The one that stepped in between myself and that man was…… Arios.