Misjantie, on the other hand, seemed to be reeling a little from her failure.
“I really thought if we just took a stab at it, we might get permission… Guess it’s never that easy, man… We’ll have to think up a new way to make money now…”
I wish you wouldn’t act quite that distraught. You’re making me feel like I did something wrong… But anyway, no more plans that put my life of leisure at risk! I’m not budging on that! If I let this one little project slide, then for all I know, the Witch of the Highlands Village will have sprouted up around my house just a couple years from now. I really wouldn’t put it past those two…
At that point, Misjantie and Fighsly’s business with me was, in a certain sense, concluded… But before they could say their goodbyes, I noticed something hopping toward us from behind them. Four somethings, specifically, and when I took a closer look, I realized they were slimes.
They looked like the sort of perfectly average slimes you could find literally anywhere, but for some reason, they struck me as oddly familiar. There were only a small number of slimes I was personally acquainted with, and considering the context, only one explanation made sense.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh, hey—if it isn’t Free Tuition 1, 2, 3, and 4!”
✦ ✦ ✦
The four Free Tuitions lived at Fighsly’s training gym. They were, for all intents and purposes, her pets.
“That’s them, all right,” said Fighsly. “Seeing as we came all this way, I thought I’d take them out for a walk.”
“Well, someone’s certainly taking good care of her pets!” I said.
“I can’t really walk them around my gym, after all. Too many waterways. I might lose one of them again, or end up with even more…”
“Right, yeah… It’s tiring when you can’t take your eyes off them for a second.” And no matter how much she loves her pets, even Fighsly would hit her limit eventually if she ended up with a new one every single week.
“Plus, if one of them does end up going out and getting lost, there’s no way for me to tell which one it was. It’d suck to lose one of them and not know which, right?”
So even Fighsly, a slime herself, can’t tell the four of them apart? I really have to wonder if there’s any difference between them at all, at that point…
“But when I’m traveling, unless we happen to go somewhere with slimes that have a really similar color scheme to theirs, I can go out and about with them and have a nice, leisurely stroll without worrying about them getting lost,” Fighsly concluded.
The Free Tuitions were all bouncing around very enthusiastically (as far as I could tell). They seemed like they got a lot more exercise than the wild slimes that lived around here (again, as far as I could tell). If the disclaimers aren’t making it obvious: It was really hard to tell what sort of physical condition a slime was in.
“And hey, I bet the Free Tuitions like having the chance to get out into the countryside and take it easy sometimes,” I said. “They’re from Vanzeld, so I bet they get those city-slicker urges from time to time.”
“True enough. They’re not my pets or anything, but taking them with me doesn’t cost me, so no reason not to,” said Fighsly. She was always very stubborn about insisting the slimes weren’t her pets, even though she clearly lavished them with affection in her own sort of way.
Around that time, I heard a noise that was somewhat similar to the slimes’ bouncing, but slightly distinct. It was a bit duller, overall. I turned around to find Mimi was jumping around with its mouth—or, well, box—wide open.
Suddenly, I had a very bad feeling. “Mimi, no! Stay over there!” I shouted.
Oh no—it’ll be a disaster if Mimi decides to attack the Free Tuitions! Slimes like them can’t survive a mimic attack!
The only reason why we were able to let Mimi walk around freely was because nobody else ever came to the highlands, meaning there was nobody around who it biting would be a huge problem. If outsiders were present—and, worse still, present with very fragile pets in tow—then the situation was suddenly much more dangerous!
“Oh? You’re keeping a mimic as a pet? You have pretty weird taste in animals,” said Fighsly.
“It could make for a good security system if you keep it next to your valuables, man,” noted Misjantie.
The two of them were taking the mimic’s presence very casually, but I didn’t have that luxury. The situation was getting worse and worse by the second: the Free Tuitions were bouncing their way directly toward Mimi!
“Free Tuitions, no! Not that way! Don’t you have any sense of self-preservation?!” I shouted, but my cries fell on deaf ears. The Free Tuitions drew closer and closer to Mimi…