The Stubborn Light of a Dying Flame [Isekai - LitRPG]

"Can we keep him?" Helga pouted as she hugged the monster that she had chosen as her pet.

The massive canine wagged its tail, watching Patty with golden slit pupil eyes. His coat was a ruddy red color except for his snout and the tip of his tail, which darkened until they were black.

[Canus Maximus — Level 13]

"We are not bringing home a Dire Wolf!" Patty said in exasperation. "They won't let you bring that thing out of the tunnels, let alone in the city."

"Technically, it's called a Canus Maximus," Bob chimed in unhelpfully.

"That's obviously a bad translation of 'big wolf'," Patty snapped. "'Dire Wolf' is a better fit. Now, I don't care if you kill it or not but at least send it away so we can go home."

It wasn't that late in the day, but this was the third monster today that Helga was trying to adopt, and her least reasonable request.

This was becoming a frequent occurrence, not just for Helga, but also for several of the other Chosen who had learned that some monsters were friendlier than others. Sure, the majority of monsters were ready to rip your throat out at a moment's notice, but many were just protecting their nests or looking for food.

"Beth brought home a snake monster the other day and no one batted an eye," Helga argued. "And Charlie brought home something that looked like a supercharged porcupine."

The snake in question was small enough to fit inside a teacup and already an established pet variety by the Alathans. The porcupine, though creepy looking, was at least a prey-type monster. This monster, on the other hand, was neither a prey-type monster nor a pet, and Patty told Helga as much.

Helga shook her head. "It's basically a giant dog. This is way more of a pet than a snake."

"And if he gets hungry and tries to eat someone?" Patty asked, pushing the wolf's snout away as he tried to sniff the pouch attached to her belt. She kept snacks in there just in case the System glitched out and they couldn't make it to their food stores.

"Then I'll get him under control," Helga promised. "Come on, he's only a Level 15. Most Alathans could handle him in their sleep. I know Hoka won't freak out. She's still determined to figure out a practical use for the Friendly trait. We can pitch this as an experiment."

The three of them had all activated the trait already. The activation criteria wasn't clear, but it had to do something with befriending a monster or finding them cute. Whatever it was, a good twenty-five percent of the humans in Alatha had already activated it by accident. It seemed to have a calming effect that helped to deescalate what would have been dangerous encounters with animals. Unfortunately, it also seemed to make everyone want to bring home an exotic pet from the tunnels.

Patty was fairly sure that Hoka was jealous, but Hoka would never admit as much. She came with them on their level-grinding trips to 'study' their interactions with monsters. Six times out of seven, they were forced to work with Hoka peering at them through narrowed eyes.

Today was one of the rare days off.

Leveling had slowed considerably since the monsters stopped attacking first. Patty mostly focused on the hordes of spiders that lived in some of the deeper tunnels. The deeper one went, the less they acted intelligent. Patty figured that if she stuck to the creepy ones, her conscience wouldn't become a hindrance when it came to getting stronger. Even with this workaround, she had only made it to Level 45 and that was after a lot of grinding.

Helga was still Level 29.

"Why don't we do it this way," Bob said. "There's a group of people living outside the city because they refused to kill monsters in training. Maybe they'll take him in. You can drop him off there and go visit him on the weekends."

Helga looked hopeful and Patty couldn't say no to that face.

"Fine," she relented. "But if they don't take him, he comes straight back to the tunnels. Hoka will probably just kill him the first time he sleeps on her couch."

Helga accepted the plan without question, grinning as she scratched the Dire Wolf under his chin. "I'm going to call you Fluffy. Who's a good puppy? You are! Yes, you are!"

The Dire Wolf shook his back leg happily, raising his chin so Helga could better access his neck for scritches.

"Really?" Bob asked incredulously. "You're going with Fluffy?"

"Why not?" Helga asked. "He is Fluffy. Also, I'm hoping a classic name with help soften his appearance."

Fluffy wagged his tail too hard, accidently swiping Helga's feet out from under her. She fell on her backside, laughing so hard that she snorted as 'Fluffy' worriedly sniffed at her face.

"I'm fine!" she assured him. "Fluffy, get off, you're going to squish me!"

Patty dragged the Dire Wolf off of her before the monster did any damage to Helga's internal organs. She expected to have trouble with a monster this size, but as Helga had assured her, the Dire Wolf was too low in level to pose a danger.

The trek back to the entrance was mostly uneventful. Fluffy was on his best behavior, only growling at three passerby who brandished weapons until they realized he was a pet. The Alathans they passed looked horrified at the way Helga cooed at him as they walked, but the last month had taught them not to question anything where the humans were concerned, and no one wanted to get on their bad side.

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Their presence wasn't just tolerated anymore; it was getting to the point that they were being fought over. It was still only a theory that it was the humans presence that kept spells from going haywire, but the Alathans didn't seem to care how unfounded the claims were. They were inviting humans into their homes, hiring them to come on grinding trips and generally fighting over humans whenever they relocated.

There were more than five hundred thousand humans in Alatha and not many of them had ended up in Pillan considering Hoka's questionable training methods. She whined about it to no end.

"Another one?" Jinsha asked. The Azuranian was one of the guards who warned the cities in the event of monster rushes. "You're the third human today to come out with something that has more teeth than brains. Please tell me this one is already registered?"

"Registered?" Helga asked, looking offended by the 'more teeth than brains' comment. Patty thought it was an accurate description. "Since when do we have to register?"

"Since Lissa brought home a baby Arachne," he said flatly. "She's not even human. Talk to Orlan at the city gates. You folks are from Pillan, right? That'll be the western gate, then. They're setting up designated zones with enough wards to block a monster rush just in case you all aren't as good at beast taming as you think."

Helga grinned at Patty. "See? They're getting systems set up for this. There's no reason for me to send Fluffy back."

Patty let out a long-suffering sigh. "Maybe we can train him to join us on hunts."

Helga's grin vanished.

"Come on, Helga," Bob said. "You've gotta start grinding eventually. Pacifism doesn't work in video games."

"First of all, I'm not a pacifist," Helga snapped. "I'll smack you around any day of the week. Second of all, I picked a crafting Class. I can level up just fine without killing something cute."

"That's the slowest way to level," Bob objected. "Why do you keep coming with us if you don't plan on at least trying to find something you're willing to kill?"

"Because if I wasn't there, you would have killed Fluffy," Helga accused. "Besides, I don't see why we're all following the System's lead on this. Monsters are just animals that the System has demonized. They don't deserve the level of hate they get."

"Hunting animals has a purpose as well," Patty said. "You're from the Midwest, you have to know the effect the deer population would have on society if we didn't have hunting season. The monster population has to be controlled, or it will overwhelm the cities."

Helga frowned. "I'm from Chicago. That stuff happens outside the city."

"Just do what I do," Patty said. "Go kill the creepy crawlies in the deeper tunnels. Those are the ones that turn into hordes anyway. I'm sure Fluffy would enjoy ripping through some spider legs."

Bob nodded. "Exactly! There's a nasty beetle one on the south side that spends all of its time coating the floor in sticky slime to try and trap its prey. They even eat each other." He shuddered. "I'd have no qualms eradicating the lot of them if I could, but the breed too damn fast. It makes for great grinding, at least."

Helga grimaced. "Sounds gross. How deep is it?"

"About a mile in, past the warning signs but before the danger zone. We went last week while you were working on that potion for Hoka. Most of the tunnels leading up to it have already been cleared this week, so there shouldn't be many monsters on the way either."

Helga sighed. "Fine. In the interest of staying ahead of Fluffy's progression, I'll deal with the bugs."

* * *

They registered Fluffy with the new familiar registry that Pillan had set up outside the western gate. It wasn't a very involved process. The city just wanted to know the monster species, their approximate current level and approximate C-level, and the level and C-level of the player that was registering them, as well as a name to put on record and where to find them if the monster went berserk.

"Do they do that often?" Helga asked nervously.

"The answer should be yes," the clerk said. "But somehow, it's no. There have been three instances of familiars acting out in the several hundred monsters that you lot have brought back, and two of those instances involved a prey-type monster that was housed too close to a predator."

"So, poor planning, in other words," Bob said.

The clerk narrowed his eyes at Bob. "The issue has been rectified, so assuming your monster is mild mannered, and you properly used that nifty trait you all seem to have, you should be fine. It's worth noting, as well, that the problem would not have existed in the first place if you people weren't treating every damn monster you see as a pet."

"Oh, calm down, Orlan," Hoka said, strolling out of the western gate. "We don't want to antagonize our—" She cut off as she caught sight of Helga's new pet. "Is that a Canus Maximus?!"

"We're calling them Dire Wolves," Bob said, grinning in amusement at the woman's surprise. "Has a better ring to it, don't you think?"

Patty sighed. "I couldn't talk them out of it."

She should have known better than to turn to Hoka, of all people, for sympathy.

The woman burst out laughing. "Why would you? This is the best one yet! I thought that Arachne spiderling was good. How the hell did you calm this one down long enough to tame it?"

Hoka came over and scratched Fluffy behind his ear. He didn't seem as happy with her presence as he was with the other people in the room—probably owing to the woman's much higher level—but he settled when Helga patted him reassuringly.

"He was injured," Helga said. "Got his foot stuck in a crack in the floor. I think the rest of his pack abandoned him. I healed him since he didn't seem to be hostile."

Hoka whistled. "You humans are nuts, and that means something coming from me. Canus Max—you know what, you're right, 'Dire Wolf' sounds better—Dire Wolves are solitary creatures, they leave their family as soon as they're old enough to hunt. If they stay too long, the older ones will kill them to keep food from growing scarce. Can't say I'm comfortable around these guys at a higher level, but you seem to have this one pretty well adjusted already."

Patty couldn't help but wonder how bad it had been before they showed up that the people of Alatha were so ready to accept this level of eccentricity from the humans. They obviously used magic since Hoka had done so during their introduction 'test', but from what Hoka had said, it was barely usable before Patty and her group had showed up.

The effect of the humans presence was made even more obvious by their growing numbers.

Altogether, Alatha had received about two hundred thousand Chosen in the first wave, which they split up amongst their ten largest cities. Since then, the bordering countries seemed to have decided that the unclaimed territory beyond the wall was a perfect dumping place for the unwanted newcomers and that number had grown to over a million at last count.

The last group to be discovered was actually a tutorial set that was overlooked in the first wave. They had somehow managed to go unnoticed near the shield that wrapped around the western side of the territory. Apparently, Hoka had won the right to host them for the first week in a drinking competition, after which time they would either decide to stay in Pillan, or they would move on to the next city in the tour.

Why Patty's group hadn't been given a choice in whether or not to move on was still a mystery to her. She supposed she couldn't complain. They were well established, protected enough that even those who didn't want to fight were steadily growing and all Pillan asked in return was that they help out in emergencies. It was a pretty sweet gig, if Patty was being honest, albeit not the most ideal of situations.

Then again, judging by the confusion that the banished Chosen showed at Alatha's warm welcome, Patty was fairly sure the situation wasn't great on the greener side of the wall.

"If you're done getting—" Hoka glanced at Orlan's paper. "Fluffy? Seriously?"

Helga shrugged. "I was trying to soften his image."

"Fine," Hoka said. "If you're done getting Fluffy registered, there's someone I want you three to meet."