Scilica was one of the rare «Beast Tamers» in SAO, or perhaps it was
more accurate to say 'was once'. Her familiar, the symbol of a beast
tamer, was no longer here.
A beast tamer wasn't a class or skill given by the system, but a term
used by the players.
On rare occasions, aggressive monsters would show interest in
players. If you didn't miss the chance, you could successfully tame the
monster by giving it something to eat. The monster would then
become the player's «Familiar» and serve as a valuable ally who
supports the player in various ways. Players referred to those who had
succeeded in doing so as beast tamers with a mix of praise and envy.
Of course, not all monsters can become familiars; only a very limited
variety of small monsters could. The conditions to trigger the event
weren't all that clear, but the only one that everyone was sure about
was that the event wouldn't occur if the player killed too many of the
monster type.
This was a rather hard condition when you think about it. Even if one
tried to get a familiar by repeatedly meeting them, the monsters were
aggressive and the player can't avoid entering a fight with them. In
other words, if one wished to become a beast tamer, they would have
to keep meeting with the monster, and if the event didn't occur they
would have to keep running away. It wasn't hard to imagine just how
annoying all that would be.
You could say that Scilica was very lucky on this matter.
With no knowledge of this, she had entered some forest without any
reason on a floor she visited just because she felt like it. The first
monster she had met didn't attack her, but merely approached her. She
then gave it a peanut that she had bought the day before without much
thought, and it just happened to be a food that the monster liked.
The monster was a «Feathery Dragon». Its whole body was covered
in soft, pale blue feathers, and it had two long feathers instead of a tail.
The small dragon was a very rare monster to come across. Perhaps
Scilica had been the first to succeed in taming it, as it immediately
became the subject of much interest when she went back to her
hometown «Friben» on the eighth floor with it sitting on her shoulder.
The next day, countless players had attempted to tame a Feathery
Dragon after listening to Scilica's information, but none of them
managed to succeed.
Scilica had named the small dragon «Pina». It was the same name that
she gave to a cat she had in the real world.
