Chapter 8

 "HAA!" Bryan lobbed a fireball into the gaping maw of the large wolf in front of him, burning it from the inside out.

 "Carl!" Bryan yelled and the lizard roared in response and threw aside the beast he was battling to the side and opened his mouth.

 Carl had expanded to more than thirty times his own size, putting him at more than a meter long.

 He opened his mouth as fire type ether gathered in his mouth and he fired it as a concentrated beam of energy at the wolf Bryan was fighting.

 The wolf dropped dead with a burning hole in its head and Bryan somersaulted over Carl ass a wheel of flames formed in his left palm.

 The beast Carl was fighting was another wolf that was smaller than the other one. Bryan notes that as he swung the wheel on the neck of the wolf and separated the head from the body.

 "Phew." Bryan breathed in and cut off the flow of ether he was calling on from Carl and felt the sensation of power leave him.

 This was the fighting style that Bryan decided on. Beast tamers could call on the power of their contracted or tamed beasts and use it to fight. Their power was lesser than the beast but they could help in battle.

 "Nice work." Bryan called out as Carl shrunk down and the latter puffed out his chest and looked at Bryan with an expression that said he wanted to be complimented.

 "I'll do it when you start listening to me properly." Carl did listen to Bryan in battle but outside of that? Fat chance.

 Carl snorted and raced towards Bryan and wrapped itself around his leg.

 "Ouch! Stop that!" Bryan winced as Carl constructed the body part and Bryan plucked the lizard and dangled it in the air.

 "Try that again and no dinner for you." Bryan scolded and looked at the wolves they had killed.

 The wolves were not in the vest of conditions. One of them had it's head blown off with various other injuries on its body asides that and the other had literal sizzling organs.

 'Thank goodness that we aren't looking to sell them.' Bryan sighed and resolved to refine his killing techniques even further.

 "Time to clean up." He rubbed his hands like one of those villains you might see in a children's show.

 Carl grunted happily and a trail of fire wrapped around the monsters body sand lifted it into the air.

 Despite its heat, the fire did not harm the body of the monsters, merely lifting them up and nothing else.

 "Time to start cooking." Bryan removed a pocket knife and started on the wolf.

 Bryan was not that bad at cooking. At least, to his standards. Being a person with little to no friends, he needed a way to pass the time apart from his hobbies. Which was why he delved into the realm of cooking.

 "Thank goodness I decided to keep this one on my body." Bryan reached into his shirt and removed a small shaker. It was one of his homemade spices that served the purpose of numerous spices at once.

 "Time to cook." He had already finished preparing the wolf and huge chunks of meat lay in front of him.

 'I tasked Carl with the gathering of firewood. I should be able to cook it with Carl's flames but I'm not sure about our ability to control fire for cooking.' He mused as he started using the spices to prepare the meat.

 "Rawr." Carl growled in a way that would have been cute to most people. Unfortunately, Bryan could tell what the lizard really meant.

 'I've already gathered the wood. Hurry up and make me food, you incompetent owner.' was what Carl said in just a single sound.

 "I wonder how you can contain so much in a single sound." Bryan wasn't directly hearing what Carl was saying. Instead, it was mostly because of the bond that existed between them.

 "You need to start respecting me more." Bryan picked up Carl and lightly tugged on its tail, eliciting a growl of pain.

 Bryan grinned and was rewarded with a fiery slap to his face. The fire didn't burn him but the force did sting a little.

 "You little... You know what, I'll let it end here for today." Bryan shook his head and dropped the lizard.

 "Beast Call." Bryan muttered and felt the connection with Carl become stronger, almost as if they had become one.

 Power and emotions flowed hand in hand into Bryan and he almost grinned.

 'For as much as he disrespects me, he does hold quite the bit of love for me.' Under Beast Call, both the Tamer and their beast could sense the other's emotions to a certain degree.

 Bryan had heard tales of tamer and beast sharing information across entire regions. It was fear that required strong emotional connection, one that was currently beyond him.

 'I can think about that later.' Bryan shit the thought out and focused.

 From the connection, he called forth ether and it flowers from his fingertips as aline of flames that set the log of wood that Carl had brought on fire.

 He had intentionally left some of the longer ones to use as a spit and tripod and with expertise honestly between two lives he started cooking the meat.

 Half an hour later, he was finished and was currently enjoying the feast with Carl who was holding his own with his forelegs and and dug into it with surprisingly good manners.

 'He is a dragon so I guess that means nobility is built into him.' Bryan nodded convinced and finished off his portion of the meal.

 "Ahhh... That was enjoyable." It was almost enough to make him forget about the backpack he had lost. Almost.

 Before the could dwell on it, his ears picked up on the soft rustling of leaves. In a normal environment, this would simply mean the wind. In an area filled with wild beasts enhanced by ether...

 "Beast Call!" Bryan yelled and Carl expanded in size as they prepared to face off against another threat.