We had returned to the parlor room. Suama and I were sitting on a sofa, and Dolhoi was sitting opposite to us.
Dolhoi, having finally seemed to calm down, spoke. “So, what exactly are you—”
“You’re not the one who gets to ask questions here,” I stated firmly.
“Y-Yes!”
“First, I don’t look like a tamed monster to you, right? Why’s that?”
“Why...? Anyone would figure that out the moment they look at your stats. A monster tamer records the number of monsters they own, each one also has the tamed status on it.”
“Oohh, so the plan was over before it began! But no one really raised a fuss on the way here. I wonder why?”
“That’s because you’re a mimic. Your ability also disguises your stats. If it didn’t, then you’d be found out right away when you’d try to disguise yourself as a treasure chest in a dungeon, right? When it comes to someone of my level, that sort of ruse won’t work, though!”
Ahh, he’s just started talking, but he’s already on his high horse. Oh well. It’s better than having him freak out over every little thing.
“Then what would we need to do to pretend?”
“Hmmm... You probably don’t need to worry about most adventurers, since you can only see the status by being a monster tamer yourself. If you want to deceive others like me, then you need to raise the level of your Mimicry skill.”
I see... My Mimicry skill, huh? I gained more forms after raising my level, but I wonder if that’s different from the skill level as a whole? I’ll have to ask another monster about that later. At least, if I find one that looks like they’d know.
“Next question: are mimics like me strange or unusual? I’ve been wondering for a while now...”
I had other comrades in the dungeon, but none of them could grow limbs. I’d also been getting plenty of stares in town. If my very existence was strange or unusual, then it could present a lot of problems down the line.
“I would say that you...barely pass as a mimic. Mimics tend to have a lot of subspecies, anyway. In your case...I would say your base is a treasure box. As for your limbs... Although I can’t guess their original purpose, maybe they’re meant to be like bait. That would sound plausible for monsters like you.”
Bait? Like the light from a deep-sea anglerfish?
“I see. So that means there’re mimics that aren’t treasure chests, then?”
“Many. They take all sorts of forms, such as vases, pots, or boulders. No matter what they camouflage themselves as, they always lay in wait for adventurers to get too close so they can attack.”
“Well, I’d still like to avoid being stared at and treated like something weird...”
“If you don’t like that, then just increase the number of tamed monsters. Most tamers have multiple, after all, and you wouldn’t stand out as much with others around you. Some prefer to summon their monsters only in battle, but if you’re trying to pretend to be a pair, then you’ll want to keep several around you at all times.”
Dolhoi taught us about how to capture, tame, and fight with monsters.
“That should do it, I think?”
“Yeah! Sooo I guess all that’s left is to take care of you. I mean, since you know who we are...”
“What?! But I told you everything! That’s just cruel!”
“Awww! But isn’t there just, like, no merit in keeping you alive? It’d be a lot of trouble if you reported us to the guild too...”
“I won’t tell anyone about you guys!”
Hmmm, well... If I kill him now, then the suspicion will automatically fall on Suama. That’d be bad too... But at the same time, I can’t just take him for his word.
“Then let’s make a contract. I’ll answer your summons once, Dolhoi. In return, you’ll keep us a secret,” I suggested.
There were two main ways for a monster tamer to tame a monster. The first was to force a monster to submit and enslave them. The second was to form a contract with them. Well, this was all information I’d just heard from him, though.
“As for the terms, well... It’ll be my choice whether or not I actually answer the summons. If I do, I’ll fight on your behalf to the best of my ability for one minute. After that, I’ll be returned to the place I was summoned from, got it? Oh, and you’ll need to bear the brunt of costs to summon and send me back. I’m not chipping in my souls for it. Also, if you breach the terms of this contract and leak information about us, you die. Okay?”
“Th-That’s so one-sided... Actually, I guess it’s actually a pretty good deal if it lets me borrow the power of a level 100+ monster, even if just once...”
It’d be pointless to just threaten him and leave. If I actually wanted him to keep a promise, there needed to be some sort of give-and-take.
“Fine, let’s do it. Contract Scroll!”
Dolhoi produced a large roll of parchment from nowhere and started jotting down the terms of the contract.
“Umm...are you sure about this, Harumi? What if he adds in some sort of wordy clause that’s hard to understand, but screws you over?” Suama whispered into my ear.
This girl’s so good at taking care of others!
“Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. There’ll be a warning if he does anything like that.”
I could see the terms written on the scroll; it had popped up in front of me. Everything had been written exactly as I’d specified—he hadn’t added anything, or left anything out.
[Agree to the contract? Y/N]
Up came the pop-up. If there was anything suspicious about the contract, I would’ve seen a warning here. That’s just how the system was! I clicked “yes” without hesitation.
The scroll glowed bright to signify the formation of the contract. The physical copy itself would be kept by the human side.
As for me, I could now view details about the contract from my status window at any time.
“All righty! To celebrate, give us something monster tamer—like. Suama only has her staff.”
“Wait now! How brazen can you get?!”
“Awww, don’t be so stingy! It’ll be a present for a cute junior in your field! Come on, look at her—her clothes are totally ragged, and they’re all she has! Don’t you feel sorry for her? Just give her a hand-me-down or something!”
From here on out, the contract was no longer in the picture. I just had to wring out as many favors from him as possible!
“Sure, but... What can a level 1 even use...? Ahh! There’s that!”
Dolhoi snapped his fingers, summoning a lamia. He gave her some instructions to retrieve a piece of clothing. The article itself was cute and girly.
“Oohh! Is this some sort of amazing equipment or something?”
“No, it’s just regular clothing. Though it is fairly high quality.”
“Booo! Booooo! How cheap can you get?! Give us something better!”
“I have equipment to raise a monster tamer’s abilities, but none of it would do anything for her.”
“Whaaat?! You can’t just get rid of the level restrictions?”
“Of course I can’t! I’ve heard rumors of that happening, but I don’t have the slightest idea how—or where—to even start such a process!”
Huhhh? I was told that’s what happened to the Crimson Rose I’m wearing, though. Does this mean that was an exception, not the norm? That’d mean that thief is something else... Well, that sure raises a lot of questions... Oh well. Not like thinking about it now will accomplish anything!
Dolhoi placed two rings on the table. “This is the real present: a pair of rings called the Bonds of Unity.”
“The red and blue rings form a single item. The level requirement is 30, but only one of the wearers needs to fulfill that.”
“So this would be for the two of us to use?”
“There can be even more users if you can prepare more rings. The effect is to allow the wearer of the blue ring to take any damage caused to the wearer of the red ring. This is something like a nice little trick, only available to us monster tamers.”
“Oh ho...so you’d force the blue ring onto a monster so that they’d take the hits for you? You’re pretty bad yourself, ha ha!”
“That sounds worse than it is, but you’re essentially correct. Even if you were to take fatal damage as the wearer of the red ring, you’d be completely unscathed. Meanwhile, the wearer of the blue would die instead. Even if they can’t absorb all the damage, any excess would just be canceled as the wearer dies.”
Sounds like this would be a forbidden item to use between humans.
“I see...that sounds pretty useful. Are you sure we can take it?”
“You’re the one that told me to hand it over... It’s fine, I don’t need it anymore.”
“Then we’ll gladly accept.”
Both my hands were occupied by Rings of the Greedy, so I removed the one on my left hand to make room for the blue ring.
Suama wore the red one.
“Oh, that reminds me—you haven’t eaten anything today, have you, Suama?”
“No. I’m very hungry.”
Dolhoi’s face twisted in surprise. “You’re going to try to weasel food out of me too?!”
“What? It’s already evening. I just figured we might as well stay with you till morning!”
Dolhoi looked like he absolutely hated the idea, but he didn’t tell us to leave.