Oh, and fun fact! Kriss, someone who didn’t even need to pack anything, had actually been the first one done. But then she had jumped right into taking care of Mary and the others, and that was why she ended up being the last one to settle down. By the time she’d finally cooled off, she was holding a dimension bag and a magic bag stuffed with gear, food, and basically all the necessities for our livestock.
“So yeah, the behemoth mom’s not coming to the capital,” I reiterated. “And if she does want to see me, Namitaro will give us a heads-up first. I’ll go talk to her then. I really don’t think it should be a problem.”
I mean, I’d never actually seen a full-grown behemoth before, so I couldn’t be certain of that, but Namitaro had said they were smarter than humans and totally reasonable.
“Well, I guess we’ve got no choice but to trust Namitaro on this one. But tell me, Tenma... Why does that baby behemoth keep clinging to you so much? It won’t even let us get close!” Gramps asked, and everyone else nodded in agreement with him.
“I dunno, maybe it’s just my charming aura?” I joked. Everyone glared at me in unison. Meanwhile, the baby was rubbing its head against my hand, asking for more pets. “Seriously, though, it’s probably ’cause I gave it a ton of mana. The same thing happened with Solomon. Once he hatched, he latched on to me right away but growled at Amy.”
“So if Solomon bonded with Tenma and growled at Amy, then...yeah, the magic theory makes sense. If it were about his personality, that’d mean the opposite.”
“All right, Kriss. Then what happens to someone who doesn’t have a charming personality or strong mana? Would the baby just eat them?” I asked.
“Biiiii!” The baby let out a cry like it was agreeing with me.
“Tenma! If that thing ate Kriss, it would get sick!” Amur jumped in to tease her, but since she was standing nearby, Kriss grabbed her immediately.
I was safe, and the baby was still snuggled up to me, so Kriss couldn’t even get close to me.
“All right, comedy act’s over! Bon, time to get back to Mama... Ow!” Namitaro reached out to get the baby but got slapped by its tail. “You can’t stay here forever, Bon. Let’s go see your... Ouch! Gaah!”
“Biiiiiiiiiii!”
After whacking Namitaro with its tail a few more times, the baby let out a high-pitched shriek. Its cry was more than just loud—it was like a sonic attack. Nearby tables, chairs, and dishes shattered instantly.
“Oof...” Amur said.
“Argh, my head...” Leni groaned.
“Awoo!”
And of course we had gotten hit too. The beastfolk girls and Shiromaru were suffering the most because of their sharper hearing. They had almost been knocked unconscious.
“O-Okay, this is too much... Sorry!”
“Bii?”
If I didn’t do something, things were only gonna get worse. While the baby’s back was turned, I pulled out a spare dimension bag and shoved it inside.
“Damn... Even as a baby, a behemoth’s no joke. My head’s still spinning.” Namitaro had taken the full brunt of the shock wave, but somehow, he had come out of it with just a mild concussion. The rest of us who had only gotten hit by the aftershocks had actually fared worse.
“All right, Tenma. Hand over the bag with Bon in it and I’ll take him straight over to Hii.”
He reached for the bag, but...
“Why are you holdin’ it where I can’t reach?”
“If I hand it over just like that, I’m gonna get blamed too. And I don’t want that. One scapegoat’s enough, and that’s your job, Namitaro.”
There was no way I was going to let that baby hate me for handing it off.
“You two can work it out between yourselves,” I said.
“Wait, huh? What?!”
The second Namitaro froze, I used Guardian Giganto to shove him into the dimension bag with the baby.
“There. Now Namitaro can do all the convincing.”
“No way! Listen!”
“If he pulls it off...”
“Tenma, he’s not gonna make it.”
“Yeah, there’s no chance.”
Just as Namitaro stuck his head back out to argue, I shoved him right back in and finished my sentence. Jeanne and Kriss immediately shot me down with zero hesitation.
“Tenma, it’s no use! Bon’s not budging at a—”
Namitaro popped his head out of the bag again, so I shoved him right back in.
“Hey, Tenma...”
Shoved him back in again.
“Tenma...”
And again.
“Peekaboo!”
That one might’ve been some kind of joke, but I ignored it. “Cut it out already!” I said.
But this time, Namitaro was pissed. “At least acknowledge that I’m funny, man!”
Or maybe he wasn’t angry?
“So? Did you convince him?”
“Nope, he just keeps sayin’ he doesn’t wanna go back and that’s that! I’m out! It’s your turn! Later!”
“Wait, hold o—”
He flipped on me before I could even get a word in and shoved me into the damn dimension bag.
“Biii! Biiii!”
At first, the baby mistook me for Namitaro and started growling, but once it realized who I was, it ran over to me, looking thrilled. I guess it wasn’t mad about being stuffed in here.
“Look, I get that you hate Namitaro and you don’t wanna go with him, but your mom’s waiting for you,” I told it. “You can’t just stay here.”
“Biiii!”
I tried reasoning with it, but the little guy let out a squawk like Nope! Not happening! No matter what I said, it kept refusing. I buried my face in my hands, totally at a loss. It really looked like it had no intention of leaving. Maybe, since it had come here while it was still in the egg and had been born here, it saw this place as home, caring about that more than a mother it hadn’t even met.
“If that’s the case, this one’s my fault, I guess.”
Well, technically, it was on Namitaro. But now wasn’t the time to point that out, not really.
This baby had a mother. A real, living mother... One who was probably dying to see her child.
That meant...
“Listen to me.”
“Biii!”