Chapter 170: Stranded pet dog

This huge dog was someone’s contracted beast? Then where was its master?

One had to know that only a summoning mage who had reached the Master mage rank could form contacts with magic beasts and their contracted beast would usually follow them wherever they went.

So why was a contracted beast here but there wasn’t any summoning mage?

Alex was also puzzled by this, as he couldn’t sense any other mage nearby.

"Could it be that its summoner is dead? Maybe that’s why it looks like this?" Helen asked, suddenly feeling bad for the huge dog.

"That can’t be the case. If the summoner dies, the contract ends and the beast is set free. The fact that the contract mark is still near means that the summoner is still alive, it’s very likely that either they are trapped somewhere or have been captured." Selena explained, and everyone fell into silence as they thought about this.

What Selena said really made sense but how would they verify it? Now that they knew that this huge dog was a Mage’s beast pet and its owner was somewhere else, what were they supposed to do?

"Since it’s a contracted beast, it should have lived with people before, why don’t we try communicating with it?" Joan suggested.

Selena stared at the dog for a while before retracting her stare. She then slowly approached the dog and stopped after walking just a few steps. She didn’t forget that this dog was still a mutated ranked beast, she wasn’t stupid enough to get too close.

"Calm down, we aren’t here to hurt you; we want to help you." She said slowly while making hand gestures.

Alex was taken by surprise, not expecting Selena to be able to pull off such a move. He saw her as someone who would order others to do such things instead of personally doing it.

The dog glared down at Selena. It was still growling, but it wasn’t as hostile as before.

Looks like it was working which came as a surprise to the group.

"How did you get hurt? Where is your master, is he all right?" She continued to speak softly to the beast.

Hearing about its master, the huge dog slept on its belly and began to make whimpering sounds.

It was crying!

The group members were stunned and didn’t know how to react. The dog then pushed the egg that it was hiding behind its body in front of it with one of its large paws and looked at Selena.

Selena "..."

’What do you want me to do with it?’ she stared at the egg and then at the dog’s face, speechless.

"Do you want us to take it?" Phil asked as he stepped toward the egg but the dog suddenly jumped up and barked at him.

Phil was frightened to the point that his soul almost ran away from his body, he hurriedly moved back and hid behind Joan.

"Damnit, if you didn’t want to give it to us, why did you bring it out?!" Phil spat out in a loud tone, his heart beating wildly in his chest.

After scaring Phil away, the dog sat down and stared at Selena again.

Selena paused for a bit before asking if this egg belonged to its master. The dog nodded its head in approval.

Alex wasn’t surprised that the dog was able to understand what Selena was saying. He already knew that magic beasts could communicate after reaching a level of strength, and Alicia was proof.

Now that they knew who the egg belonged to, Selena then asked where the dog’s master was. The dog stood up after the question and went behind the tree where it was sleeping. It quickly returned, but this time with something stuck on one of its claws.

It tossed the thing on the ground and began to growl at it, showing obvious hatred and anger toward it.

Alex and the rest of the group stared at the item on the ground, it was a yellow robe.

But the yellow robe was a mess, with several holes and bloodstains covering it.

Alex instantly recognised the robe because he had seen similar ones before, and a name instantly appeared in his mind.

The Dark Union!

He wasn’t the only one who had realised this; Selena and the others also recognised this robe as a signature uniform for some members of the Dark Union.

And considering the reaction of the dog toward this robe, it was clear that its master had gotten into a fight with the Dark Union.

"Was your master captured?" Selena asked. The dog nodded in response.

"Did you escape during the fight?" She asked again.

The dog shook its large head, it slept on its belly and began to whimper again.

"Did he order you to leave without him?!" Joan exclaimed the next moment.

The dog turned to look at her, its eyes were watery and it nodded.

"So that’s why you’re covered in wounds, you must have escaped during the fight. Your master probably didn’t want them to get their hands on that egg, what type of egg is that?" Helen said with a sad tone.

It was normal for summoners to look for eggs and train them to be their contracted beast partners. This egg must be the egg of a very rare magic beast that this dog’s master had asked the dog to protect instead of staying back to fight with him.

"Where is your master?" Selena asked.

The contract mark acted as a special kind of link between the summoner and the beast, it could help them sense each other’s location.

As expected, the dog sat up and looked in a direction; its master was in that direction.

"All right, come with us back to the city. A stronger group of mages will be sent to rescue your master." Selena said after giving it some thought.

Summoning mages were literally walking armies since they could summon magic beasts to fight for them.

Plus, one had to be at the Master Mage rank to form a contract. If even a Master rank mage was captured in such a fight and a mutated rank magic beast was forced to flee, what chance would the five of them have to change the situation?

It was best to return with the dog and report back to the Union branch, they would take care of it.

But to their surprise, the dog shook its head and went back to sleeping at the base of the tree.

It didn’t want to leave.

"What do we do now? We can’t just leave it alone here." Helen voiced out.

"But we can’t keep staying here either nor can we help it to save its master. Let’s go back, we don’t have to worry about it harming the townspeople." Selena said strongly.

"Then what about the egg? Should we take it?" Phil asked, he was low-key curious as to what type of egg the dog was protecting.

Hearing Phil’s words, the dog picked up the egg with its mouth before closing them, and it then stared at him as if to say.

’Come get it.’

Phil "..."

"Fine, let’s leave it with it. It was protecting it before we came anyway." Phil grumbled.

The group turned around and left, and the dog watched them leave in silence. After they left, it closed its eyes and resumed sleeping.