Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 586: Chapter 586 - Taming the Swarm

After several minutes where Larissa simply allowed herself to cry without restrictions in Luna’s arms, the latter began speaking to her in a low and soft voice, with what seemed like emotional maturity she had suddenly developed.

”Larissa,” Luna murmured, her voice loaded with an understanding that came from recent personal experience, ”I understand your situation. I understand your loss.”

She tightened the embrace slightly, as if trying to anchor them both against the storms they were weathering individually.

”I know you don’t like talking about what happened. I know it’s incredibly painful to relive it. Right now I think I feel very similar to how you’ve been feeling.”

Her own voice began breaking slightly with emotion.

”I lost something just as important as what you lost... And my family, their future... everything is at risk right now, so I desperately need to try to recover what little I can.”

Luna separated just enough to be able to look directly into Larissa’s swollen eyes.

”It’s time for you to overcome the suffering... face it and try to recover what little you can too... Even he,” her voice became firmer, referring to Ren though consciously avoiding mentioning his name, ”has been trying to recover it too. He’s been fighting constantly to find ways to heal the damage like a madman.”

She embraced her again, stronger this time, as if she could transfer strength and determination through direct physical contact.

”So again I think it’s time for both of us to stop simply crying for what we lost and start helping each other recover what we can. It’s time to do something instead of just suffering in silence.”

The enormous room remained in complete silence for a moment, while the other girls waited patiently to see how Larissa would respond.

Larissa wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but this time didn’t try to hide the fact that she had been crying or pretend she was completely composed.

”How much do I need to do so you can manage to confront them?” she finally asked, her voice still shaky but with a new intension that hadn’t been present in years.

Luna smiled, and for the first time in weeks, the expression reached her eyes.

”I need something like a legal loophole to have official documents that give validity to achievements earned by minors useful during family crises. Something with enough bureaucratic weight to counteract the political power my uncles are accumulating while my father is gone.”

She paused, organizing her thoughts carefully.

”And I think you know exactly what type of documents can achieve that, and more importantly, how to get them without having to go through normal bureaucratic channels that would automatically disqualify us due to our age.”

Larissa considered the request for a long moment, her mind already beginning to work through the specific possibilities.

”That... that could work,” she murmured slowly, her voice carrying the first notes of genuine interest. ”But achieving it would be extremely risky.”

♢♢♢♢

For the first time in many months of pure and unproductive pain, Larissa felt something that wasn’t simply suffering: she felt purpose, direction, and the possibility that her time could be transformed into constructive action.

María observed from her position, a small but genuine smile appearing on her face as she watched her mistress begin to recover something of the determination she had lost. The maid had witnessed too many days of listless grief not to recognize the significance of this moment.

Larissa straightened up more, her mind beginning to work through legal possibilities with sharp focus.

”There are some exceptions in the protocols that could work,” she murmured, organizing her thoughts while speaking. ”At any moment of crisis, protocols normally exclude non-combatant people from participating directly in battle.”

She stood and began walking toward a bookshelf full of legal codes.

”But it’s a system designed to save communities that would only be helpless victims, not to prevent valuable contributions. The purpose is to protect, not to limit...”

She pulled out a thick tome and began leafing through it with familiarity born of months of intensive legal education.

”In ’heroic’ cases of youth and ’weak victims’ who were cornered by circumstances, official recognitions have been given to those who ’acted to defend or attack in cases necessary for survival’.”

Luna approached, her interest genuinely awakened by the possibility of finding a solution.

”So there are legal precedents?” Asked Liora.

”Yes, in theory,” Larissa nodded, finding the pages she was looking for. ”We can probably circumvent many of the normal requirements for being ’called to fight’ with the right arguments. If you achieve something significant during the crisis...”

She stopped, her expression becoming more somber as the full implications became clear.

”The problem is that a truly large crisis that affects the entire city and merits substantial recognition doesn’t present itself easily. And it’s not like we’d want to have one...”

Liora frowned.

”What type of crisis would be sufficient?”

”Outside of long-range military operations with thousands of soldiers involved,” Larissa explained, ”Luna can’t do much with the underground attacks that are already being systematically controlled by established noble families. They have almost all the resources...”

Matilda approached the window, observing the patrols moving with increasing urgency through the castle courtyards.

”Well, things look pretty difficult outside...”

As if destiny had been listening to their conversation, the city’s alarms intensified dramatically. The sound changed from routine warnings of defensive shift changes to genuine emergency signals that penetrated even the thick castle walls.

The transformation was unmistakable, this was no longer a minor threat.

”What’s happening?” Mayo murmured, also approaching the window with growing concern.

They could see much more frantic movements in the castle courtyards, soldiers running desperate, and messengers arriving with alarming frequency. The organized calm of normal CSSO ’corrupted beasts sporadic swarm defense operations’ had given way to the chaos of genuine crisis.

”It seems the attack on the city materialized with much more force than anticipated,” Luna observed, feeling both terror and opportunity that made her pulse quicken. ”Destiny put us right at the beginning of a crisis so we could act.”

It wasn’t really the case, of course. It was just extraordinary coincidence, false ”circumstantial evidence”, but it generated the perfect situation for their needs. It fit them like a glove, exactly as they had needed.

”This is our opportunity,” Larissa declared. ”If we’re going to do something, it has to be now.”

♢♢♢♢

While the girls rushed to prepare their bureaucratic maneuvers and Ren was still traveling with Julius before facing the first giant creature, the city was being attacked by the first massive wave of mutants.

Selphira found herself on the main wall alongside Victor, both coordinating the defensive response to corrupt beasts...

The largest they had had to organize in decades.

And it wasn’t just that there were more of them. Now they were also updated to their version 2.0, more difficult to eliminate and without elemental weaknesses like the ’common’ ones.

”We need a wall!” Selphira shouted, extending her hands while channeling massive elemental power.

Beside her, Victor did the same, and between the two they began generating a barrier of ice and minerals that rose like an artificial mountain around a side of the city. Selphira’s ice provided most of the instantaneous structure, while Victor’s minerals reinforced it at key points with the option to function as the base of a new wall with long-term durability.

They had received Julius’s first message some time before, and had managed to control the first two lines of minor abominations with relative efficiency.

But then additional messages arrived that completely changed the nature of the crisis.

A third line of abominations had caused devastating chaos in Yino, the settlement on the other side of their new territory. Since the vast majority of inhabitants in that area were below Silver rank and hadn’t benefited from the updated information Ren had provided about cultivation techniques, the residents had suffered considerably.

Their impromptu resistance had been barely sufficient to initiate a desperate evacuation toward the defended side of the main city.

Selphira and Victor couldn’t know it, but things were going to get even worse.