Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

"Have you considered talking to someone about this?"

"No," Larissa responded perhaps too quickly, the word escaping before she could moderate her tone or consider the suggestion. "There's nothing to talk about. I just... get distracted sometimes."

Her tutor sighed softly, the sound carrying years of experience with young nobles who carried burdens too heavy for their small shoulders.

"Do you want us to suspend the lesson for today?" her tutor offered gently, setting aside the etiquette diagrams.

Larissa opened her eyes wide and shook her head with an urgency that spoke to deeper fears than simple academic responsibility.

"No. I need... I need to stay busy. When I have nothing to do, it gets worse."

♢♢♢♢

Luna sat in silence in the center of the room, surrounded by Liora, Mayo, and Matilda, but feeling completely alone.

Her friends tried to offer comfort, but their words seemed to bounce off an invisible barrier she had built around herself.

The isolation was self-imposed but no less real for being chosen. Each attempt at consolation felt like it came from across a vast distance, filtered through layers of grief and anger.

Liora felt so bad she had even lost her natural curiosity. Normally she would have bombarded Luna with questions about her outing with Ren, dissecting every detail.

But how could she do that now when Luna remained dim and depressed, as if she regretted even being alive? The questions died in her throat every time she considered asking them, replaced by a careful silence that felt almost as painful as the original grief.

Luna's family situation was devastating. She had naively thought her uncles would take time to find out about her father's temporary absence, that things could be resolved discreetly before anyone else noticed his departure.

But those bastards had seized the first moment the seal went off to put their dirty hands on the 'star', which Liora knew seemed to be some kind of important family treasure, as soon as Sirius found himself outside the seal's protective range.

Even Mayo, usually armed with sharp comments and sardonic humor, remained unusually quiet. The heavy atmosphere had stripped even her of her usual attitude, leaving her without the verbal weapons she typically used to cut through tension.

Matilda tried to fill the silence with comforting words, but even her efforts sounded hollow in the dense atmosphere of desperation that had settled over them like a suffocating blanket.

"In the chaos now, with the city being attacked," Mayo whispered bitterly to inform Liora, her voice loaded with impotent rage that made her hands tremble, "it seems they're going to make bold moves to 'help' the city and gain better political standing."

Her hands closed into fists on her lap, knuckles white with the force of suppressed fury.

"It's unfair. They're going to try to use that star key to achieve accomplishments in the defense that will give them power they don't deserve, using troops that shouldn't correspond to them by right in the first place..."

Luna suddenly raised her head, her eyes focusing on Liora's words with an intensity she hadn't shown in days. The change was so abrupt it was almost physical, like watching someone emerge from deep water gasping for air.

Liora immediately realized her mistake and extended a hand toward Luna, trying to stop the thought she could see forming in her friend's eyes like a storm gathering on the horizon.

"Luna, no. Only adults can gain achievements and make real contributions in situations like this, we don't have permits. We are..."

But Luna was no longer listening.

Something had changed in her posture, in the way she held her head. The passive desperation that had characterized her behavior during the last few days had transformed into something more dangerous: determination fueled by righteous anger.

"Luna," Mayo intervened, recognizing the expression she knew all too well, the look that preceded Luna's most spectacular acts of defiance, "whatever you're thinking, stop right now."

Matilda moved closer, extending a comforting hand. "Your father will return soon, he said it would only take a few days. Things will resolve without you having to..."

"No." Luna's voice cut through the air, carrying an authority that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than teenage rebellion. "Things won't resolve on their own. And I can't keep sitting here while they dirty her!"

She stood with fast and angry movements, her shadow wolf materializing at her side. The beast's eyes reflected her own determination, creating an intimidating presence that filled the room.

"Luna, please," Liora also stood, reaching for her friend's arm with desperate urgency, "think about it carefully. Anything you do now..."

"What?" Luna turned toward her, her eyes blazing with intensity, "will make things worse? What could be worse than this?"

The question hung in the air with the weight of genuine inquiry rather than rhetorical flourish. She seemed genuinely unable to conceive of a situation more unbearable than passive helplessness.

Mayo positioned herself between Luna and the door, crossing her arms. "Yes, definitely there's a lot that could get worse. And you know it!"

"Then let it get worse," Luna responded with a calm that was more terrifying than any emotional explosion could have been. "At least it will be because I did something instead of because I did nothing."

The other three girls exchanged worried glances, all recognizing the expression that meant Luna had moved beyond reason into the realm of action driven by principle rather than prudence.

"Luna," Matilda tried one last time, her voice soft but urgent, "your father doesn't want you to expose yourself to..."

"My father," Luna interrupted, "isn't here. And when he returns, if he returns, he's going to listen to me."

"Fine, I'll go with you!" Liora shouted, standing up with the resignation of someone who realized she couldn't change her cousin's mind. "But if we're going to do this, it has to be useful... Let's go to the castle, we need a legit permit."

Liora sighted in her mind… sometimes the only way to protect someone you love is to stand beside them in their foolishness rather than abandon them to face it alone.

♢♢♢♢

Back at the site where the mutant beasts were emerging, everyone was positioned and ready...

Ren had carefully marked the approximate location of the chamber based on his fragmentary memories, while Julius, the two guards, and Taro formed a perfect pentagon around the designated area. The formation was precise, each person positioned to maximize their earth manipulation effectiveness while maintaining the necessary geometric harmony.

"Does everyone feel the crystal chamber's resonance?" Julius asked, extending his perception downward through layers of earth and stone.

"Yes," Mako responded, her hands already glowing with energy that made the ground beneath her feet respond with subtle tremors. "It's approximately thirty meters deep."

"Although the signature seems... weak," Shizu added with concern that creased her professional composure. "It should be stronger for a crystal construction in a vein, even a small one, shouldn't it?"

Taro partially fused with his beetle, the transformation allowing him enhanced sensitivity to underground structures and density variations that human senses couldn't detect.

"I can feel the spherical shape of the chamber," he confirmed, his voice taking on the slightly distorted quality that came with partial fusion. "But there's something strange about the material density. It doesn't feel like the solid crystal vein under the school."

Ren positioned himself at his own side of the pentagon, touching the ground with both hands and feeling the familiar tingle of earth responding to his will.

"Julius, give the signal when you're ready."

Julius evaluated the positions one last time, ensuring that Zhao and Liu were prepared to attack anything that emerged from their excavation.

"Now!"

The five earth controllers activated their abilities simultaneously. The synchronization was crucial; too much force from one side would only make the chamber spin instead of pushing it upward. Ren could feel how his control intertwined with the others', creating a network of elemental manipulation that would have required exponentially greater effort for any of them individually.

The sensation was like conducting an orchestra where each instrument was a fundamental force of nature.

"Maintain constant pressure!" Julius shouted as a fissure appeared in the ground, the earth responding to their combined will with groaning protests that spoke to the massive forces they were channeling.

Tense moments passed while they worked to carefully extract the structure without damaging it. Sweat began accumulating on most of their foreheads as they maintained the concentration necessary for such delicate work at such massive scale.

And then, something unexpected happened.

A sphere that none of them was controlling emerged from the ground, rising from a slightly displaced area like a small mound pushed up by unseen forces. The movement was too smooth, too purposeful to be accidental.

"Look out!" Zhao shouted, preparing to attack whatever had emerged from their blind spot.

But when the sphere shed all its earth covering and rolled until it stopped, they immediately realized it was completely empty. It was simply a hollow crystal shell, transparent and fragile-looking despite its substantial size.

"What the hell?" Liu muttered, relaxing his combat posture as the anticlimactic nature of the threat became apparent.

The real surprise came when they finally managed to extract the main chamber.

The structure was the size of a small house, exactly as Ren remembered, but something was terribly wrong. The crystals that formed the walls, which had once been thick and brilliant, were now thin as paper, almost transparent.

"Something has been absorbing them," Ren whispered.