A full week has gone by when he started monster taming, and so far, it has been calm. Aside from first day, it has been mostly been park exploring and giving tips to passerby foster families, but nothing too notable.

  "Today, my training is over, and you will be joining a proper patrol group." Kat instructed, as they were taking their walk around station.

  "I see, so what group will that be?" Hiroshi asked in curiousity, before they arrived at the underground parking area. It didn't take long for him to spot familiar two faces. Azhar and Ingolf, who were loading up a van with some gear.

  "Hey, if it isn't our local girl magnet." Ingolf said in joking, as Azhar was quick to push his focus back to work on loading the van up.

  "Heard you three were decently close, so you get to join them for this week. They know what work will be up, so I will leave you be." Kat noted, before starting to walk away, leaving him to join the duo who were about ready to head out.

  With it, Hiroshi greeted the two. "Hey, didn't expect to be joining you two." he admitted, but kept his calm cheer up.

  "And it is good to hear you survived miss Kokkonen's training. She can be brutally strict when she wants to." Azhar spoke with a light cheer, seeing him doing fine.

  "Actually, it was pretty calm and fun." Hiroshi admitted with a light shrug.

  Azhar seemed calm about it as well, but there was clear cheesy grin coming from Ingolf as he went to gently elbow at Azhar's side. "Told you, big guy."

  "What do you mean?" Hiroshi asked, wanting to get at what the two were on about.

  "Well, when we go for break, we drive past the park. Az couldn't believe me when I told him you and Kat were acting like couple peas in a basket, sitting on your bench enjoying a meal. But you very much confirmed my observation." Ingolf gloated with his full chest.

  Azhar just gave a sigh and tired look at Ingolf. "It isn't that I didn't believe you. Just not likely. Edith's picks for training is always coin toss, and not to offend, but when I first saw you, you didn't seem like the kind of guy to be in good hands with miss Kokkonen."

  "It's fine by me. It was a surprise for me as well, she was so stern when I first met her, I felt like she would snap my neck... and I mean, she nearly has couple of times." He admitted, which got a good laugh from the two.

  "Anyways, unlike your patrol work, we are what is considered to be capture unit." Azhar explained. "Our job is to go to nearby forests to search for wild monsters, and we are to make sure if they are full grown and wild to stay away from city, but if they seem young or tamable, we are to allow them a chance to join society."

  "And that's why many of the monsters we get are not adults, since most of the desperate monsters that are willing and needing of social structure are often themself unable to protect themself, and only few special cases of adults are not as wild as they first seem." Ingolf continued, making sure all details are heard. "And that's why we have plenty of food, medical care and gowns at the back, ready to rescue those who need hands of man to see better future than rotting in the woods."

  With explanation finished, they got into the van, with it having enough space for three front-row seats. At first it would seem to be hard to fit into, especially with Azhar and Ingolf, but thanks to Hiroshi's smaller stature, seating was comfortable.

  After a good half an hour drive out of the city, as surroundings slowly turned from skyscrapers and bulky building, to urban housing and human infrastructure mixed with nature, before eventually becoming full forest surrounding them all around them.

  They came to an stop by an road stop, and with ease, they took out some gear out of the van, while Hiroshi was left to wait to see what was up.

  He got absolutely blindsided as he noticed both Azhar and Ingolf take out what looked to be rifles. "WOAH, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THOSE!?"

  Ingolf happily got to explain. "Just a safety measure tranqs. After all, it is risky job."

  Azhar also continued. "But considering this will be your first day, and don't even have your gun license, you will be working as the bait."

  "THAT DOESNT MAKE IT SOUND BETTER!" Hiroshi continued, clearly not liking where this is going.

  "Calm down, I have been doing this for a good year now, as long we keep watch, you wont be in any trouble." Ingolf tried to calm him down, but these was still the smug attitude in the air.

  "Usually we switch places on who will be the bait, and I assure you, it is as easy job as you did when patrolling, just with bigger risks." Azhar informed with comforting hand put on his shoulder.

  "And who knows, maybe you will get a third girl." Ingolf teased, having spotted him come to the station with Olivia in tow as she had classes on literacy at the station at during his work hours.

  "I'd rather not!" Hiroshi exclaimed. "I have had my share of needs for lifetime fulfilled." he felt much more confident to speak as honestly as he could with the two guys.

  "Either way, you will be the one taking first contact, as we are in the back. You don't need to worry too much, even when there is risk, it isn't any hospitalizing injuries." Azhar assured, as the two were prepared and geared, easing Hiroshi of the weightload of carrying the heavy resources stuff and the additional rifles.

  However, he made sure to take one can of food for safety, as they headed into the forest.

  Terrain was partly hard to cross, but thanks to their outfitting, it was built pretty well to handle it, and even if Hiroshi was used to the usual pavements, the scene did remind him of the park, which eased him keep his calm. Mossy, grassy ground, with some bushes up to knee height having to be gone around.

  'But they sure could at least try to be closer' thought Hiroshi, as Azhar and Ingolf were happily following long distance away, having multiple set of trees between each other.

  Keeping his guard up, eventually he heard some rustle coming from nearby bushes, so with light anticipation, and two preparing for danger, he looked behind it, hoping it wasn't another common animal like his first day on the job searching for the werecat.

  To his surprise, it was an young lamia, shyly trying to curl in self-defence, staring at him while trying to intimidate with set of long fangs. By the colors on the tail, he could presume it was an adder snake. 'Of course first one I get is venomous'.

  He tried to take it slow and calm, moving hand close but quickly pulled away as it tried to lunge to bite him. 'Yeah, pretty wild one for sure, but what is a kid doing by itself?' he thought, but considering it was an lamia, maybe they treated their young similarly to normal adders.

  He was about to call the guys for assistance, but he quickly got tackled from behind, taking everyone by surprise.

  The two tried to run, aim and stop the tackler, only for it to get away faster than they could full on sprint to Hiroshi's location... and Hiroshi isn't nearby the spot he supposedly got tackled onto as well.

  "Welp, I guess he was better bait than I guessed." Ingolf said with light worry, as the two started to rush after him.

  Meanwhile Hiroshi wasn't fully sure what was going on, he knew he was being snatched, with the ride being smooth, but he couldn't see anything, and felt his head to be in way too soft of a spot than to need to guess why.

  He tried to scramble some attempt to get snatcher's grip off him, but he didn't have enough strength for that.

  With great struggle, and having to push himself further against the kidnapper, he was able to reach and with careful precision, pushed on a pressure point on the neck, startling the kidnapper, and with feeling going down their body, causing them to stumble and shortly making them scramble onto the floor, but to Hiroshi's misfortune, launched him against a tree head first.

  Blacking out for a short moment, before slowly coming back into it. He noticed he was laying on the mossy floor, and as he was getting feeling back of his body, he took note the kid lamia he spotted before was curled around his torso, giving a mean look towards him.

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  Before he could question what the kid wanted, he felt his leg get tugged, and shortly pulling him up into the tree, with short careful rhythm, as if the puller was climbing as well alongside carrying him.

  He couldn't bend to see who was carrying him up thanks to the kid wrapping around him, and keeping staring at him with hungry eyes that didn't ease his mood at all.

  Eventually after couple accidental hits on branches, the climb up ended and as he was carefully maneuvered and gripped by larger snake tail, he was raised in front of what he couldn't presume to be anyone else than mother of the lamia kid, and gargantuan one at that.

  He could feel the hunger-filled stare from her as well, but his eyes couldn't help but explore, making him fluster up crazy. Before he's went full panic mode, reminding him that they don't act on human basis, so he is very much in danger if he doesn't get their hungry gazes away from him.

  Carefully wiggling, he tried to nudge the kid off him, which wasn't effective at all, especially with the mother keeping eye on the two, that was until the kid took notice of something in his pocket.

  Taking curious sniffs and trying to claw into his pocket, he remembered that he took can of food for safety, and good call on his part.

  He carefully tried to get kid's attention on the pocket opening, however on first tries, he gave a dangerous look as he tried to move closer, but as he took it slow, he was eventually able to show it, which after he took distance from it, kid went to explore and eventually got the can out and started to inspect it in curiousity.

  Mother started to give curious looks as well at the can, while kid tried to gnaw at it, only to whine in annoyance, and with only way to get out of this, he gestured for the kid to hand it him.

  Kid was guarding the can heavily, and not trusting him or not knowing what he meant, but as mother took note, and seemed to know better than the kid, after couple hisses that he wouldn't have any basis of knowing what they meant, the kid very carefully handed it to him.

  Then as keeping eye to make sure the snakes didn't strike him, he carefully pulled on the tab and opened the can in proper, seeing it was meatballs, sauce and macaroni.

  He gave light note of disgust considering eating right out of it, but he saw as the two lamias got hungrier with the raw smell coming from it.

  The kid looked more than happy to bite into it meanwhile the mother was more suspicious, so to ease her means, he took a small scoop and ate some, before handing the can to the mother.

  With couple more careful checks, and looking at Hiroshi who with light struggle swallowed the scoop of food, she decided to eat some, and as she got to taste the food, she was more than happily gorging handful down, before giving some for the kid.

  Both of them seemed to beam in joy, eating food that felt like luxury to them, and he could tell both of them were appreciative of the offering, as lamia's tail placed him to relax on opposite, as kid happily got onto the one that the mother was staying on.

  'You know, they don't look so threatening when you get to their good side.' He thought to himself, slowly leaning back... "WOAH!"

  Without him realizing, the mother lamia had eased her grip on him, and with some attempt to get his balance back, his attempts at leaning back for relaxing ended him falling down with multiple hits between branches all the way back onto the mossy flooring, hitting the ground hard.

  'I... can't lose my guard.' he thought to himself with heavy amount of embarrassment, getting up with pain on his back and everywhere else, as lamias looked at him worried from the branches they were sitting on.

  As he got his senses back in order, he noticed a werebeast Stout going around sniffing the air just behind some trees, not too far away from him, before it's hungry eyes targeted at him.

  'Wait, what?' he wondered, not sure how to take the stout's attention before remembering 'No! I dug my hands into the food, it is smelling me.' he realized, as cold sweat came over him as it didn't take long before the stout started to sprint towards him.

  "DAMMIT!" he shouted with worry, as he didn't want to stand around to find out what kind of diet the stout had, as he sprinted in hopes it didn't care him that much, only to see it chasing after him.

  Continuing on weaving between trees, he could start feeling dizzy and warm liquid running down his head. He didn't have time to worry about it, as he kept on running, as his gaze started to get hazy.

  Before long, his vision started to get too blurry and unable to think straight before with stumbling run he ran into something soft, knocking him down on the ground and slowly trying to understand what was going on around him, as his body was too tired to run anymore, and giving his head enough blood to process his surroundings.

  He could feel ticklish on his hand, as when his vision returned, it seems the stout was just interested to lick away the food leftovers left on his hand, making him feel embarrassed from getting scared by it, as he saw the thing he crashed into was an Elk demibeast, surprised by the crash, but big enough not to get affected by him too much, looking at him in confusion.

  Right before he could get strength to move, he could note that the lamia duo were chasing after on top of the trees, and as they reached the branch above them, an ominous crack could be heard, before they crashed on top of him.

  Couple minutes of searching from the duo with a tracker in hopes of finding where Hiroshi ended up, they spotted the grouping of monsters, and as they slowly approached, they saw them looking at Hiroshi confused and lightly worried, as he was very much bleeding from his head and he has had some of the worst experience they couldn't have imagined.

  Hiroshi woke up in cold sweat and panic, hitting his head against Ingolf who was tending to his wounds.

  "Well, you woke up fast!" Azhar commented with surprise, who was nearby feeding the wild monsters who had followed them and were given gown's to wear, as Azhar and Ingolf had brought Hiroshi back to the van.

  "You tell me that again, I thought he would be out for couple days if that lamia well on him." admitted Ingolf, who was rubbing his forehead. "But you should be mostly patched for now, but we still need to go to the hospital."

  "Why is that?" Hiroshi asked in confusion, as he felt bandage tightly wrapped around his head.

  "Look at your foot, man!" Ingolf shouted with slight anger. And as he did, it seems he had dislocated his knee joint, leaving his foot dangle like a wet noodle.

  As he gave a moment of silence looking at it, he calmly looked back at him. "That's pretty easy to fix."

  "WHAT DO YOU MEAN! DISLOCATION ISN'T A JOKE!" Ingolf started to get extremely mad at how calm he was acting, while Azhar was feeling uneasy how Hiroshi was acting.

  Then without words, Hiroshi prepped himself properly, seated on the van's open doorway, and carefully setting his foot aligned, and before Ingolf could stop him, Crack, Pop and all kinda unpleasant sounds was heard as in one swell move, his foot was back in it's location, as he let his body hit the van's floor as he took the brunt of the pain that was enough to make him stop breathing for a moment, before he got control of himself again.

  Azhar and Ingolf were left mouths agape looking him deal with it like it was no issue, before calmly sitting up and saying "There, issue fixed."

  ...

  "Man, you are an freak of nature" Ingolf spoke up, still not believing what he saw in front of him, but sure as ever, Hiroshi stood up, slightly weak on the leg, but still standing.

  "What? It's not like my first time dislocating bones." Hiroshi continued casually talking. "ANY AMOUNT IS FREAKY!" Ingolf got angry again, but Azhar couldn't help but laugh at their playful banter. "You no doubts would have great tales to tell over drinks." he happily noted.

  "Oh, I don't drink." Hiroshi explained. "Well, more as I have never before considered to try alcoholic drinks."

  "Then how about joining us on next friday. You can bring your girls if you want, but we could keep it to be an guys night a thing as well." Ingolf offered, and Azhar thought of the same. "Yeah, it is nice to decompress away from dealing with women... but I might have to cancel if things come up with Helga or the fosters."

  "You know what, that sounds nice." Hiroshi decided on it. might as well try it out, he hasn't had much time in city aside from work and shopping.

  ... "WAIT, THERE MIGHT BE STILL INTERNAL BLEEDING!" Ingolf came back to his senses, worried for his health.

  He undid the uniform enough to show his stomach, and there was no marks. "I mean, even if she is big, she is pretty soft." Hiroshi informed. He knew it thanks to her tail handling him earlier.

  Ingolf started to internally growl, but gave up. "Fine, head wound was the worst you had, thankfully it was very minor bleeding anyways, there shouldn't have been any major injuries or blood-loss problems from what I saw."

  "Oh, I did get hazy on my run away from the stout... actually, it's nothing." Hiroshi stopped midway, thinking he shouldn't talk about his blood donation for now, as Ingolf was starting to feel like he could start strangling him any second, as Azhar couldn't help but laugh harder.

  "Alright, I think we had enough action for now. How about we go for a break? We have some monsters to deliver anyways." to which both agreed to, and as with some light motivation using food, they were put at back of the van, even if it was slightly tight, and they got on to drive out back to civilization

  After dropping the monsters off at station, Edith decided to meet up with them and ask how it went.

  In the heat of the moment and already noticing the bandage on Hiroshi's head, they just noted it went without much issue and quickly went for their break.

  "Man, if she knew even half of it, she would freak out." Ingolf sighed, enjoying his burger. "You don't need to tell me. After the truck incident, she was restless, so who knows how she would have taken these news." Azhar continued, relieving his own stress, enjoying chicken burrito.

  "Wait, she was restless?" Hiroshi noted. He knew she was a tattletale, but restless was another thing.

  "Yeah, Kat argued against her pretty hard day after in front of everyone. She looked like walking zombie, not having gotten any sleep night prior." Ingolf explained, taking a bite of his meal.

  'She did care for me that much?' Hiroshi thought, he still felt he had lost the hope with her, especially after sunday where she was business casual with him.

  "But anyways, dude to an dude, I want to ask you something." Ingolf said, putting hand over Hiroshi's shoulder, and getting intimidatingly close

  with a whisper, he asked. "What's the secret with you?" and upon hearing it, Hiroshi got extremely flustered, before quickly breaking free from his hold. "What secret?!" clearly not comfortable with whatever he was implying.

  "How you pull so many girls. You keep snatching eyes left right and center. Hell, even wild monsters find you good enough for snatching." Ingolf noted with a cheesy smile, clearly wanting to know for his own gains.

  "Sorry, but I don't have secret behind that." Hiroshi noted, which made Ingolf disappointed.

  "Come on, there has to be something! You freak of nature." Ingolf kept complaining, but Hiroshi couldn't much ease his mind either.

  "I have heard it's about the spirit." Azhar spoke up, seeming to ease him and getting both of their curiousity.

  "There are many believes and historical records about someone's spirit or soul dictating how they are in life, sometimes they are obvious details, and others are much more subtle." Azhar finished, leaving Hiroshi partly confused but Ingolf understood it no problem.

  "So essentially whoever you can attract, depends who you are born as." Ingolf said, and as seconds ticked before he realized what he was implying, leaving him to growl in place, partly for Azhar's trick working on him and for him falling into it.

  "Come on, that was cheap of you. I am just unlucky." Ingolf complained, as Azhar had a good laugh against Ingolf's incompetence with women.

  Hiroshi couldn't help but join into the laugh, and with their break over, they kept on their work.