“Regarding the mana-based connection I was talking about earlier,” Ingo continued. “It’s through this ‘bond’ that I can issue commands to the slime. For example: Circle around me three times.”
The slime proceeded to do just that, its gelatinous body bobbling across the ground and occasionally hopping into the air. It had seemingly heard the command loud and clear.
“Does it understand your words?” I asked.
“Not precisely, no,” Ingo said. “There are monsters that can understand language like a pet cat or dog might, but such comprehension is far from universal. Some monsters, like spirits, aren’t reliant on auditory perception in the first place. Ah, and as you can imagine, some are simply difficult to issue commands to verbally. Marine varieties, for example.”
“Are you saying that spirit type monsters possess no sensory organs?”
Spirit type monsters were another kind of undead, similar to Rentt except that they lacked corporeal forms. Despite their name, the question of whether they were truly the souls of the departed remained unanswered. They certainly acted like they were, but it was also theorized that they were nothing but residual thought impressions left after an individual’s death or lingering sentiment given form by mana.
Of course, if one didn’t wish to look too deeply into it, they did seem to simply be ghosts. Only a scholar who specialized in monsters would bother to delineate the difference. After all, who was the layman going to believe: The spirit that looked and spoke exactly like their dead acquaintance, or the academic who was rambling on about technicalities? As fields of study went, ghosts and spirits were not easy territory.
“That’s right,” Ingo said. “Although they behave like they can hear human speech, they’re actually ‘listening’ to a person’s thoughts via their mana. So when taming them, you’ll find that they often can’t comprehend commands in plain speech.”
“That’s surprising. I’ve always understood them to be capable of conversation.”
“It’s still very possible to communicate, of course. But don’t you often find yourself thinking that there’s dissonance in your conversation, as if their responses don’t quite match up with what you’re saying? That happens because the words we humans speak come out slightly different than how we imagine them in our thoughts.”
“I see. That makes a great deal of sense. What about marine monsters, then?”
“That’s much simpler. It’s just harder for sound to travel through water, so you can’t issue verbal orders, let alone hold a conversation. Not unless you had the right spell or a magic tool, anyway.”
“Right, of course.” It was obvious now that he’d pointed it out.
“They can always surface to receive your commands, but that’s limited to the minority of marine monsters that can remain above water for more than a brief period. It excludes almost all fish species, for example. And while turtles and the like can walk onto land, they’re often much less useful there. That leaves giving them commands in the water, which is difficult to do verbally.”
“How would you do it, then?” I asked.
“That’s where the ‘bond’ comes in,” Ingo explained. “We tamers can use that connection to convey our thoughts to the monsters. It takes some practice, though, and I don’t have a better explanation for the method other than ‘focus your thoughts in the monster’s direction,’ so you’ll have to work it out yourself via trial and error.”
“In short, there’s essentially no need to issue commands verbally.”
“Correct. My command to the slime earlier was just for ease of demonstration. Voicing your commands also has the added benefit of signaling your familiar’s actions to any of your companions that are nearby. Otherwise, you’d give them quite a shock, no?”
“That’s a good point,” I said. Ingo’s lindblum was a good example—if he’d silently ordered it to ascend while we’d been on its back, I might’ve actually fallen off in surprise. Vocalizing his commands was a good way to avoid any unfortunate mishaps like that.
“That about covers the topic of commanding the monster,” he said. “Your next question was about what to do with the monster after the taming, correct?”
“Yes. How to care for it, whether it needs to eat, and if it does, what to feed it—that sort of thing.”
“In that respect, monsters aren’t much different from regular animals. Slimes are omnivorous, so feed them whatever you wish. There are special cases, though, such as the spirit types we discussed earlier. They don’t consume food, so you’ll need to feed them mana. For other special cases, you’ll have to do your research on an individual basis. Starting out with a slime is probably best.”
“They do seem easy to handle,” I agreed. “Spirit types seem appealing in their own right, though.”
The lack of a corporeal body would make it easy for them to gain access to any place they wished. They could also conceal their presence and become invisible to the naked eye, so it wasn’t hard to see how well suited they could be for reconnaissance. Additionally, while I would never do something like this, they’d be highly useful for performing assassinations.
It was a good thing that Ingo’s taming method wasn’t widespread. I didn’t want to live in a world where assassinations by ghost familiar were commonplace.
“They have their uses,” Ingo said. “But it’s difficult to manage them. They’ll vanish after continued exposure to strong light, for one. That’s connected to your third question—a monster dying is one way it can cease to be your familiar. Though, as the tamer, you’ll be able to sense the loss of the bond.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Like...a hole suddenly opening up in your mind. You can get used to the feeling, but it’s quite the mental shock at first, so it’s best to take good care of your familiars. One tends to grow attached to them anyway, even something like a zombie.”
“Have you...tamed a zombie before?”
“Just once, out of curiosity. I even started thinking the easygoing way it shambled about was rather cute. The smell was awful, though, and it wasn’t exactly hygienic. There’s the whole desecration of a corpse thing too, so I quickly came to my senses, tossed holy water on it, and buried it.”
“I’m...sure that was the right decision,” I said, for lack of anything better to say.
Like foster father, like son, it seemed. Both of them appeared sensible, but dig a little deeper and you’d find something a bit off lying just under the surface...