Micky groaned. It had been a long night. Jimmy and Micky had talked about stuff till Micky’s dad came in and yelled at them. That didn’t stop them but it was in hushed tones now. Ricky came by to see what was up, but he couldn’t take the heat and passed out in the middle of a game. So Micky took the brat back to his bed with the other runts. But now he was paying for it dearly.

“Never again!” Micky moaned. He had to get to [Ranger] Tim’s eventually but luckily Tim was not much of an early riser either. Jimmy just stuffed a pillow in Micky’s face and told him to, in these eloquent words “Shut up!”. Micky agreed, daylight did not.

“Come on your highness, we gotta get up in this house. Even if my head disagrees.” said Micky, Jimmy just groaned.

Breakfast was some eggs from a few houses down, some leftover and reheated stew (That stuff never goes bad) and some random fresh greens that were scrounged up yesterday.

Micky tried to sneak a few pastries but was quickly caught and slapped away by mom. Only to look into Jimmy’s eyes and give them one each anyways. Jimmy was not even trying to get the pastries. He was just minding his own business. But he had this way with older women. It was probably his chubby ‘baby fat’ and babyfaced appearance, plus the fact he always talked in a smooth noble manner around women. But he could not go through the village without being called out by all the older women and at least propositioned twice. Of course when he got up the courage to finally accept one of those propositions she made a date, in 3-4 years. Jimmy never looked either so disappointed or relieved at once. Micky had to cheer him up by taking him to his favorite spot to peek at Mrs. Marrion bathing. She seemed to be taking an unreasonably long time to bath that time, it was great.

Eventually, Micky had to leave or he wouldn’t make it to Tim’s in time. Not something he was willing to risk. So he took his honeyed pastry and dragged Jimmy over to the lazy store owner. Micky wanted to see Jimmy’s face when he saw how ‘majestic’ Silver was.

Micky made good time over to Tim’s. He was actually pretty amazed at how he traveled unmolested by the village. There was one time when he was young that the village got a [Witch] class in its Divining. She was run out of town with pitchforks and fire. He was almost expecting the same treatment.

Micky was kinda disturbed by the time he made it to Tim’s. There was literally nothing that went wrong. Nobody attacked him, nobody said mean things. Nobody even threw something at him, and they did that to people they liked. It was so weird. “What’s happening with the village?” Micky asked Tim.

“Ahh, right, the talk of the village. Well my young friend you’re being shunned. The villagers have just realised they were wrong about you and aren’t sentient enough to admit they were wrong. They at least realize that throwing rocks at this problem will only make it worse so they decided to do the only other way they solve their problems. Ignore it until it goes away. Or at least until this whole mess is sorted out.” Tim snorted “They are going to wait and see if Bob kills you in cold blood, or has the wherewithal to make it ‘look’ like an accident.”

“Bob’s not a killer, probably. Yeah he takes things too far but he hasn’t killed anybody.” Micky said

“You’re going to bet your life on that? Bob’s a killer if I ever saw one, right turd that one is. He will never admit to a wrong and if he has to, he’d rather make that problem go away than apologize. And you my friend, are that problem.” Tim said

“I’m not killing Bob. I’m not a killer either. And I’m not going to solve my problems by killing them” Micky said, Tim just huffed, the discussion over. Silver decided to use this timing to play peacemaker with his entrance.

“Is that a [Silver Wolf]?” Jimmy practically squealed. “So Majestic.” He sighed contentedly, grabbing a fist full of fur and giving affectionate pets. Micky decided to join in too, to ‘Relieve some stress’, yeah that was it. It isn’t like he was jealous or anything. Silver gave an aggrieved look towards Tim, who just gave a cowing look back. At least until Jimmy found the right spot on the back of Silver’s head. Not to be outdone Micky found the muscle along the spine and started scratching up and down. Silver summarily decided that this wasn’t so bad anymore and gave Tim a judging look. “Such a [Dog].” Tim snorted.

After a certain point, Tim decided enough was enough. “Alright enough [Evolving] my wolf into a dog. Time for some real training.” Tim said. Jimmy looked awkward but Tim just herded them all out back.

“This time you’re going to grapple Silver to the ground. Some creatures will require that you treat em’ nice in order to [Tame], Some will require you to earn their respect. The easiest is if you pick em’ up when their young and they expect ya’ ta’ tame em as is only right an proper. I found silver as a young pup an’ that’s how I did it. His pack had been devastated by another group of monsters, or adventurers, or both. He at least got the monster pack good an’ [Dead] anyway.”

“You expect me to wrestle a middle ranked monster?” Micky asked.

“Yes” Tim said

“Ok just wanted to clarify.” Micky said cowed.

“Alright come on, it’s not so bad even for a [Pink Mage], you can use your spells and abilities but no items. Also don’t try to hurt each other that goes for you Silver. I doubt a [Pink Mage] can really pull your hair.” Tim said, though that was pretty much the all of Micky’s strategy.

Micky got in a stance, Silver stared at him. Micky circled around Silver, Silver stared at him. Micky… *Bark* jumped back. Silver looked over at Tim exasperated. “Get in there already, he’s not gonna hurt you but a monster is. The quicker you learn how to subdue a monster the better.” Micky jumped in when Tim yelled at him. And was unceremoniously knocked over. Silver pinned him with one paw, Tim facepalmed. This was not going to go well.

Silver let Micky up and Silver bowled him over again, and again and again. Micky finely got ahold of Silver and grabbed Silver’s hair. Silver yelped and growled in surprise. But then with a shared look between Tim and him, he looked down at Micky trying his best. Sweating all over, shirt soaked through, something in Silver switched, an instinct he didn’t know he had. Silver dropped down and raised all four paws in the air, tongue hanging out ‘[Dead]’. Micky stared at silver.

“You won kid, you earned his respect, or at least his pity. Now try to [Tame] him.” Tim said.

Micky used the modified [Charm] he’ed been working on and felt himself rebuffed. He took a step back like he took a metaphysical punch, exactly like a metaphysical punch actually.

“That kid, is what happens when you try to tame someone else's [Pet]. There’s a lot of nuance to it, and it is possible to steal a [Tame], actually pretty popular amongst noble folk, especially if some uppity commoner thinks they are allowed to have a better [Pet] then their betters. So be careful because anything you tame can be easily stolen. Not that it’s a popular or legal pratice but nine tenths rules kid. Your not a noble so nine tenths of you belong to them and the rest belongs to the king.” Tim said

“But I’m a [Citizen]!” Micky declared

“Keep telling yourself that kid.”

Micky seemed perturbed by this discussion. Luckily his hands found fuzzy relief and salvation. Jimmy’s soon joined his and Silver was dog again.

Eventually it was lunch time, Micky and Jimmy brought out their treats and Tim kicked em’ out because his store was ‘Busy’. Micky saw all of no costumers and so decided that the store was as busy as it ever was, he must leave so that Tim could get back to work and not be fired by his boss. Micky rolled his imaginary eyes.

Micky and jimmy decided to go out and hunt some slimes. He wasn’t going to level by being lazy and he had spent the last few days doing just that. Almost dying has that effect on people. True it was much slower than the dungeon but Micky didn’t have a death wish, or a good enough party to harvest that wonderful XP. If he did he would already have all his base [Class] spells, or at least most of them. Unfortunately he was not going to be leveling fast anytime soon. Maybe when he [Tamed] Pepperoni, all three of them could go out leveling, maybe four, Pinky seemed to be alright. But he was still Bob’s crony so maybe not.

Finding slimes wasn’t all that hard. The village still didn’t take good care of it’s slime pits so there was another not slime cave nearby on the other side of the forest. Micky would enrage a slime out of the dozens bouncing around to pull it from the group. Jimmy would tank the first hit before Micky would strike down at the slime. Jimmy would then finish off the slime. They kept this strategy up until it was time for Micky to go hunt some grub for the ever present stew. He felt that squirrel would make for a better stew this time around. He has had seafood? Why do they call it seafood if it doesn’t come from the sea? Freshfood? Anyway, fish, for the last few dinners and figured that it was about time he changed his protein.