V1C18

Parsed with an automated reader. The content accuracy is not guranteed.

Alright, I’ve finished my daily task of hunting shooting beans, and I’ve figured out how to use my cargo hold. It’s a good time to head home, so I make my way toward town. After passing through the forest and coming out to the field, the wind carries an unwelcome voice my way.

“Come on! What are you doing? Don’t run from me! Stay still, dammit!”

The voice is as familiar as it is unwelcome. It’s Tarō’s. I turn toward the source of the irritating sound, and see, like I expected, the boy I left in Old Man Japan’s care last night. What is he doing out here making a racket all by himself? Usually, when someone’s screaming to the air like that, they’re about to cause a big problem.

Baffled, I approach to get a better look and find Tarō tearing toward me, trailing after a slime bouncing a few feet before him. I stretch out my hand, positioning my palm in the the slime’s trajectory.

“And caught!”

The slime lands perfectly in my palm, and I cup my other hand around it to keep it from escaping.

“Yo, Marron! That’s super helpful. I needed to catch that little rat to have enough to eat tonight,” Tarō says after coming to a halt, and he stretches his hand out toward my captured slime.

There’s no way he really thinks I’m going to hand it over. I caught it, not him. It’s mine, fair and square, and it annoys me that he clearly thinks otherwise.

I sigh. I don’t have any use for the slime, so I might as well give it to him. “Here you go. But, Tarō, that’s not how things work. You’re lucky I’m the one who caught it and not someone else, because they wouldn’t give it to you. They would be the one who caught it, and you would just be the person who ran around failing to catch it. If you try to tell someone that it’s yours because you were chasing it, the best you can hope for is that they just laugh at you.” I hold out the slime for him to take but make sure to very politely caution him as well.

He’s not too happy about that. “Are you being for real? You can just swipe someone else’s prey right out from under their nose in this world? That would never fly in an MMO. Haven’t you guys heard of manners?”

I can feel my teeth grind. I caught this slime, and I’m giving it to you. Would it kill you to just say thank you and shut up? Maybe I’ll drop the slime on the ground right here instead. In the first place, how are you going to call this your prey? It’s pretty clear to me that there was no way you were ever going to catch it. Pretty weird to claim that something you could never have is yours.

I take a deep breath. “I don’t know how things are where you’re from, Tarō, but there’s no way people here who make their living hunting slimes would agree that this slime was yours, if they were in my place. If you try to tell one of them to give you your slime back after they caught it, you’re only going to cause problems for yourself. They could all decide to gang up on you and beat you to a pulp, and you’d have no one but yourself to blame.”

Tarō frowns at my second warning, but I seem to have gotten through to him. “Okay, okay. Got it. When you’re in Rome, do as the Romans do, right? I’ll do what you tell me. I’m sorry for being a bother.”

He takes the slime from me and bows his head, obviously struggling with himself the whole time. I’m not sure what a “Rome” is, but he did apologize. I guess I can forgive him this time.

*****************

I remember what Tarō said about needing this slime for dinner tonight, so I decide to ask him about it, even though I can guess the answer based on the fact that he’s even trying to hunt slimes here. “Tarō, it looks like you’re having a hard time. Is that your fiftieth slime so you can buy dinner tonight, or do you still need more?”

He sighs. “There’s no way I could ever catch 1100 slimes a day, like Old Man Japan recommended. I’ve been here since this morning, and I can barely find any. When I do find them, they’re so damn fast I can’t even get them. I mean, look! This is all I’ve managed to get all freaking day!”

I peer into the bag he holds out for me. There are maybe twenty slimes clumped up in there. That’s just barely enough to buy a single rabbit skewer, which wouldn’t even slightly satisfy a boy Tarō’s age, with how much they seem to eat.

“So, Tarō… Did Old Man Japan forget to teach you how to hunt slimes? Or maybe it just slipped his mind that he also needed to let you know where to go to get them?”

I have to admit that I’m a little confused. When I was five, I could catch slimes easily enough. You just have to approach them slowly and quietly. Slimes, apparently, are really sensitive to vibrations in the ground, and they can tell a threat’s coming if you move normally. And that’s why, Dad told me, you need to be as sneaky as you can to get close.

Tarō rubs the back of his head. “Is there like some trick to it? I figured it’d be pretty easy, since even little snots like you can do it. Gramps looked like he wanted to talk about it, but I had to get out of there, you know? I can’t just sit around listening to every little, tiny detail. I’ve got a life to live!”

So he came out here before Old Man Japan could fill him in. Why is it so hard for this jerk just to listen to what other people are trying to tell him? Has he already forgotten how that got him in trouble yesterday?

I don’t have to help him. I don’t really. But if I don’t, he’ll probably starve. I hold up two fingers. “There are two things you need to know. First, slimes like moist places. So you won’t find many in a field like this full of grass. Second, slimes are very sensitive to vibrations. You have to sneak up on them. If you just walk up to them normally, they’ll run away from you. And you’ve been doing worse that that, pushing apart clumps of grass searching for them, which just gives them even more of a chance to get away.”

“Gah! No wonder I couldn’t get close to them! And I don’t know any moist places around here!”

No, yeah, I can imagine. You were probably stomping around, since you don’t seem to have a relaxed bone in your body. Plus, you’re the kind of person who has the nerve to say, without the slightest hint of shame, that you didn’t listen to your mentor and you have no idea where to go on your own.

This time I really could just turn a blind eye and go home. I should. But this idiot will probably wander into a rabbit den or a treant’s eager branches trying find a good hunting ground. That wouldn’t bother me at all, but Old Man Japan would be devastated to lose the only person he’s ever found from his homeland.

“Tarō, do you want me to show you a good hunting spot?” I ask, graciously extending him a helping hand. Not that I have much of a choice.