On a grassy hillock, the boy leaned against a tree, letting the warm summer breeze play with his soft hair. His blue eyes were calm and peaceful, and his whole body was filled with contentment.

He just raised his hand, and a torn scroll appeared out of thin air in his hand. The scroll moved automatically without wind and turned to the second page.

Then, a white shadow rushed out of the book——

The white shadow rushed out like an arrow, more than ten meters away, and then it braked suddenly and changed direction. This time the speed slowed down, and its figure could be seen clearly with the naked eye: it was a white-skeletal hunting dog, and as it ran, the bones on its body made a rattling sound.

It walked forward briskly until it got close to the boy, then suddenly slowed down, shoveled past him, and stopped in front of him.

The hound raised its neck and touched the boy's thigh with its front kiss, as if asking for caress and love from its owner.

The boy gently stroked its head and pinched its bony chin. It really looked like he was petting a dog.

This is the dog. It feels quite hard to the touch.

Jiuyuan tried to increase the upper limit of summoning, such as summoning two hounds at the same time, three hounds... However, five hounds was the limit.

He was in a small forest somewhere in Yahara. In addition to the small hill with a wide view, he wanted to test the forest. He had to see the performance of these children with his own eyes to understand.

So the boy tried to release the hunting dogs, and asked Hachisha to supervise them. Watching the hunting dogs sprinting out at high speed, Jiuyuan secretly calculated their power in his heart.

It would be great if there was something to hunt nearby - this thought occurred to him.

However, even the most evil villains were not so easy to find. One of the hounds grabbed a vine tied between two big trees and slid forward several meters. He actually pulled the thick vine apart.

“Not bad.”

However, due to inertia, the hound could not stop immediately, and because its body was too light, it slid backwards.

“Ouch!”

“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts—”

Jiuyuan: “…” You bumped into someone during the first test?

He stepped on the broken leaves and weeds and walked forward, and found that he was hit by two little monsters, one with one eye and the other with a horse face.

"It hurts, it hurts, what are you doing!" The one-eyed little monster pushed the hound away angrily. After the hound was pushed away, its bones made a crisp sound. Then it rubbed against Jiuyuan, and Jiuyuan had to reach out and touch it.

"Sorry, my child accidentally bumped into you. I apologize on its behalf." After saying that, he smiled at the two monsters, and did not forget to pet his little skeleton dog, and asked, "Are you two residents of this area?"

Unexpectedly, the two little monsters jumped back immediately when they saw him, shouting, "Don't, don't come over here!"

"...I have no bad intentions." Kuen said, "I just came here to look for a boy named Natsume."

However, this name seemed to trigger some switch, and the two monsters ran away.

Jiuyuan pinched his face in disbelief and asked the system: "Do I look scary?"

[System: You are very beautiful! The most beautiful person I have ever seen! ]

He was very pleased with the system's praise.

Is it possible that there is something else about me that scares them?

Jiuyuan thought about whether he had changed recently. The answer was that apart from adding points to his skills and strengthening his demonic power, he had not done anything. Could it be that his demonic power was too strong to be contained?

[System: ...Have you ever thought that they might just be afraid of dogs? ]

Jiuyuan: “…”

Just when Jiu Yuan wanted to talk to the system again, the hound under his knees suddenly bent half of its body and entered a combat state, baring its teeth and looking forward with its empty eye sockets -

A huge, unknown monster emerged from the bushes. It was wearing ragged gray clothes and had a pair of big black eyes that were spinning wildly in its weed-like hair.

"I see... You have something good in your hand..." His eyes fell on the summoning book in Jiuyuan's hand.

Kuen frowned.

This guy has such a strong blood energy on his body, it is obvious that he has eaten a lot of monsters... and it seems that he has eaten not only monsters, but also humans.

It let out a strange laugh, its body swaying and shaking uncontrollably, and soon it began to make sobbing sounds as if it could no longer control itself.

[System: It seems to have been cursed... It doesn't look very clear now.]

The system quietly reminded him: [Otherwise, he wouldn't easily provoke you... He may have lost his mind.]

As if to verify the system's words, the guy's hair suddenly stood up, and a dozen eyeballs popped out of his face, rolling around.

"Hehe... I didn't expect to find such a good thing... Hehe... Both the Friends Book and this thing will be mine...!"

As it said that, it ran straight towards Jiuyuan.

Seeing Jiuyuan standing still, the system quickly shouted: [Master, please use the eight-foot vest! He has a lot of blood!]

However, at this moment, the hunting dogs that were far away suddenly appeared from the surrounding grass. They jumped out and quickly bit the monster's body. One of them directly tore off a piece of its body, and a cloud of black mist sprayed out directly from the broken place.

The rest of the hounds followed its example and tore into the monster's body. One of the hounds even poked its sharp bone claws directly into the monster's eyeballs.

"Ahhh——" the monster let out an unrecognizable strange cry, and the eyeballs on its face unexpectedly changed. Each eyeball turned into a human or a monster's face, and then flashed back to the shape of eyeballs.

The hounds saw that the monster's eyeball was its sore spot, and they also turned to attack that area.

The sky was filled with blood mist.

[System: Ahhhhh Master, why don’t you get out of the way?!]

Jiu Yuan was still standing less than five meters away, watching everything in front of him. Hearing the system's cry, he said, "I didn't know you had a cleanliness fetish."

[System: I feel dirty... Let's stand further away, Master.]

"No hurry." Jiuyuan put the summoning book into the system's storage space. "I finally got a new toy, I have to try its performance first."

Besides, isn't it a waste that his new skills can only be used to play dog-raising simulation games and put on wedding turbans for himself?

Jiuyuan said softly to the system: "Look, this place is deserted, aren't you afraid that I might slip..."

【System: What’s wrong? 】

Soon, he knew what Jiuyuan meant.

Jiu Yuan stretched out his hands and made a shooting gesture without any instruction.

The largest eye on the monster's head was red and seemed to be congested, and it kept turning.

To outsiders, this scene is both disgusting and frightening.

On Jiuyuan's side, the dark red light condensed into a physical energy bow, but the power did not seem to be gentle, and it seemed like it was about to explode at any time. The light flickered in his hand.

After all, it is a simulated magical bow and arrow, so there are no rules for shooting.

He closed his eyes, then loosened his fingers and shot out the sword——

This time he aimed at the big eye on the monster's head and used up 90% of his remaining magic power.

In just a moment, the light spread out, and the surroundings seemed to be only black and white, and the world was almost frozen.

It was like an arrow of light from the scorching sun, which evaporated the monster into ashes.

All that was left was a distorted and strange cry.

Jiuyuan relaxed again, stroked his chin and said seriously: "...I didn't expect my aim to be so good. Could it be that I actually have a talent for this?"

How about trying other weapons later? They are made of demonic power, so they won't break and can change shape.

He thought, if he had enough magical power, could he become a Gundam...?

As the only "eyewitness" present, the system looked at Jiu Yuan's appearance again after listening to his refreshing speech. The unknown aura around the boy became three times thicker. The remaining demonic energy seemed to have not completely dissipated, and a small part of it was still lingering on his body.

The system silently changed the value without telling Jiuyuan.

[Darkness value: +3]

…

…

There was also chaos on Natsume's side. The two intermediate monsters he was familiar with blocked his way again.

One hand grabbed his sleeve, the other pulled his trouser leg, and with tears in his eyes he begged for help: "Natsume-sama!!! It's dangerous!!!"

Having become somewhat accustomed to their exaggerated style, Natsume sighed: "What's wrong?"

"A-A scary monster came! He said he was looking for you!"

Natsume subconsciously thought of the friend book in his bag.

He knew that the most valuable thing he had was the friend book left by his grandmother. Once he had this magical book, he could use it to control the monsters that left their names.

Is this another ambitious monster?

"I told you to hand over your friend account to me sooner rather than later."

The cat teacher's round body emerged from the bushes. "As long as I show my true colors to that guy..."

"Mr. Cat, let's first ask them what the situation is."

After dealing with similar things many times, Natsume has gained a lot of experience.

After calming down, the intermediate said, "That monster looks like a half-demon. The aura on its body is very strange, but it gives people a very unpredictable feeling."

"Hmm!" echoed the Horse-Faced Demon beside him, and he made a gesture with his two front hooves to coordinate with the One-Eye Demon.

As Natsume tried to understand his overly abstract gestures, One-Eye continued, "He also has many dogs! We ran into him in the forest over there, with his hounds released. He must have been searching for prey! Look, these are the scars they left behind!"

After saying that, he immediately showed his arms - nothing.

Natsume: “…” It looks like it has healed.

Madara simply ignored the two's funny behavior and asked in order to get more clues: "What does that guy look like?"

"It's in the shape of a human!"

"besides?"

"No more!"

In the eyes of monsters, anything that can be called "appearance" is a very recognizable feature, especially since they are not good at remembering people who look like humans, and usually they only judge by their aura.

Madara originally wanted to get some clues from these two intermediate monsters to determine whether the other party was a monster he knew, but now it is impossible.

"Teacher, if he is targeting the Book of Friends, he will find us soon, right?"

Natsume clenched his fists. If he was targeted, he might bring harm to the people around him. Madara couldn't tell what he was thinking, so he said "hmm..." thoughtfully.

However, to outsiders, it was just a cute, round cat circling around the boy.

Quite cute.

At this moment, a loud noise suddenly came from not far away. Although ordinary people could not see it, Natsume Takashi clearly saw a dark red light flashing in the forest. Without thinking too much, he knew it was a monster.

The two intermediate monsters nearby hugged each other and shouted, "It's him! It's him!"

"Tsk." The cat teacher dived into the bushes nearby and motioned for Natsume to follow. They recovered to their original form in a place where no one could see them and protected Natsume from being caught up by the other party.

But when Natsume followed Madara into the small woods nearby, a young man fell from the sky in front of them.

There were some grass clippings on the boy's hair, but overall he looked... wait, something didn't seem right!

"Sorry, sorry, nice to meet you, Natsume-san..."

"Natsume!"

With a flash of white light, the cat teacher had returned to his original form and threw Natsume onto his back. "Hold on tight, there's something wrong with this guy in front of you!"

Jiu Yuan looked at the huge monster in front of him, but what he thought in his heart was:

...I want one this big, too.