The swamp dragons sorted themselves out, while the Beast Rangers marvelled at Karl’s ability to give directions to a group of hatchling beasts that struggled to ever understand multiple word commands.
The advantage of having them bonded to a Ranger was that someone would naturally understand their wants and needs. But with Karl around, he could just directly interpret their language, and answer them as if they were speaking common.
And they understood him back.
At first, the majority of the Swamp Dragons moved to the "Demons smell funny" group, laughing at their own joke.
Then, they began to spread out, with over half opting to keep exploring on their own, and five of them coming forward to see who wanted to bond with them.
That wasn’t quite as many as they had eligible Rangers.
But that was five more than had Swamp Dragons yesterday, and Karl would likely be able to find a comparable subspecies in the other regions of the Tiny World.
The Swamp Dragons were the most obvious, but some of the eggs were likely from Drakes, as Karl had simply grabbed everything that was left after he cleared out the dragon riders encampment.
"Well, now’s your chance. Do your best to convince the little ones that you’re the right choice, and you can get to bonding." Karl reminded them as everyone stood around awkwardly.
"Right. Well, trying to convince them might not be as easy for us as it is for you. But I think that we can come up with something," one of the Rangers, a lanky Obsession Demon whose hair was dyed almost bubblegum pink, agreed.
She knelt down and brought out a selection of meats.
"These are my favourites. If you like the same ones, there will always be food ready." She explained.
The beasts looked dubious. Didn’t that mean that they would have to compete with her for food?
She wasn’t very large, but if they were allies and both wanted the same thing, there would definitely be competition.
"If we don’t like the same thing, that means we have to go hunting twice as often, so that we both get what we like. If we pick the same one, we just have to hunt more of the good stuff," she added, encouraging the dragons.
Karl relayed the message for her, as the dragons didn’t understand well.
She was using a skill to help attract the potential partner, but it wasn’t as good as what the System provided Karl as part of his class benefits.
Now that the swamp dragons understood the dilemma, they were much more agreeable about sharing the food.
Hunting for things that didn’t taste good sounded horrible.
Given the option between that and sharing the food that they did get, they would take sharing every time.
Karl noticed that one of the demons and one of the lizardfolk Rangers stepped back as the others placed their favourite options out for the hatchlings to pick from.
"Problem?" He asked.
"We’re both vegetarians. Putting out plants for Swamp Dragons, who prefer not to even have their food cooked, would be a mistake. We will hold off to see if there are other sub-dragon species that we can bond," the lizardfolk woman explained.
"Ah, that makes good sense. You’re already hunting meat for a Dire Wolf, so you might as well look for one partner that likes what you eat."
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