Many years ago, there was a child named Kote on Estan Island.
He was a member of the Chirajet Clan, but unlike the other clansmen, he had been born smaller and frailer than children his age.
When he was five, a landslide took his parents' lives and crushed his left arm.
The clan's doctors barely managed to save his life, but that arm was gone forever.
An orphan who had lost his parents, burdened with a disabled body—Kote's standing within the clan plummeted.
The children did not want to play with him, while the adults looked at him with either pity or disgust.
He became an "outcast" in the clan, a marginalized existence.
Only one magical beast was willing to approach him.
It was a scrawny Doragon, with grayish-brown scales and amber eyes.
Kote named it "Nas."
Unlike other fierce Doragons, Nas was gentle and intelligent, as though it could understand Kote's words.
Man and beast became each other's only companion.
Every day, Kote took Nas deep into the forest, to the shore, and to his parents' graves to talk.
Nas always stayed quietly by his side, licking his face with its rough tongue and rubbing against his legs.
But to the clan, such a friendship was "depravity."
For generations, the Chirajet Clan had hunted and killed Doragons. They were nothing more than mindless beasts.
For a clansman to make friends with a magical beast was simply a disgrace.
The children began bullying Kote even more viciously.
They threw stones, shoved him around, and cursed him as a "monster's friend."
Kote never fought back. He only held Nas and endured it in silence.
His sole comfort came once a year, when the Hunter Association's transport ship arrived.
There was a young woman named Isabella aboard.
She was not a Hunter,