Chereads / My First Pet Is A Mouse / Chapter 29 - Kingdom Plans

Chapter 29 - Kingdom Plans

Kareen took James around her kingdom telling him of her plans as they went.

[I want to build a new mound and deepen the lake. To do both I need to continue to [Combine] more and more space pockets!]

"Ha! There is never enough room!"

James encouraged her.

Shaking her little mouse head Kareen said.

[But to do continue to combine more and more space pockets with our dungeon, I need more of my family to awaken their spatial skills.]

She looked at James knowingly and he had the impression that he was supposed to understand something. But he had no idea what she might be trying to convey.

"Right so in order to build a new mound and deepen the lake you need more mice with awakened spatial skills to [Combine] small space pockets. Is that right?"

Since he didn't understand what she was wanted from him he used an old communication tactic that his mother had taught him. Repeat what they said back to them so that they know you understood.

[Right! And to do that we need to evolve the moss. So you see what we need to do?]

The crucial bit of information he was lacking about the moss came out and a question emerged. Suddenly a few things clicked for James.

"Wait, what happened with the moss?"

[Oh! It was amazing! We all ate a few of your tamed moss leaves allowing us to evolve!"

Kareen was so happy, she danced a few steps spontaneously.

"Right, so the moss helps you evolve."

It was taking James a bit to catch up with this new development.

[Yes, we didn't change size or coloring. But another thirty mice were able to develop magic. And the bucks were able to gain a few skills, too!]

She looked up at him with round eyes, before she continued, before he could say anything about anything.

[We have already harvested a large batch of moss, but it is no longer providing any additional evolution possibilities.]

"Wait, what kind of magic and which skills were awakened?"

This was a really crucial point for James. He really wanted to know how his mice were doing.

[Oh, that is not important right now! What is important is continuing to work towards the next evolution.]

She quickly cut his question off and redirected towards what she wanted to talk about. And knowing that Kareen was inflexible and determined James could only shrug.

"Okay, so you are all as evolved as this moss can get you. A logical next step is to evolve the moss one time and see if it helps your mice evolve again too."

Trying to catch up to her way of thinking James felt like he was starting to understand even though he hadn't actually done anything through this process of evolution that they were on.

[Yes! Great, evolve it.]

Now Kareem happily asked for what she had been building up to all this time.

"Hmmm. Yeah, I can't just set up an array like I did with the contracting. Every pet is different so starting after the contract a trainer has to figure out how to evolve a pet or pay someone to evolve a pet."

Talking in a philosophical tone of voice James explained a few things to her.

[What is this pay?]

'Ugh, I can tell this is going to be a long journey training my pets.'

James had a thought after hearing what Kareen's question was.

"In the human society money can be exchanged for goods and services."

He said.

[Then what is money!]

She looked at him and asked so earnestly that James could hardly think he wanted to answer her.

"Money is something that can be earned for performing tasks or selling goods and services."

Trying his best to explain he knew that he could not explain very well at all.

[Humans, you make everything complicated! No, no no. That will never work, we have to keep ourselves secret!]

Eventually Kareen gave up.

"It is okay, let me worry about money and evolving. I can research this, but it will take me a while to figure it out. I promise I will make it work on my end you just work with what you can on your end. Will that work for now?"

Asking a question James hoped she would be content for now.

But she ignored him waving him off, saying.

[Sure, you go do your little research. I will keep on working with the moss and building the kingdom.]

"As you wish."

James respected her decision and refused to patronize her by giving his approval in some banal way. Instead he gave her the power.

Kareen beamed at him. James could feel it through the bond.

[Then I have one more request, come, take me to the lake!]

Sighing James realized that he had just reinforced Kareen's authority. If he wasn't careful she was going to start thinking that she had dominance over him.

For a moment he felt like he should tear her off his shoulder and teach her who was the master and who was the slave. Instead he just followed her instructions to go to a certain place on the bank of the miniature lake.

James knew that through the contract he had the upper hand. He could force her to do whatever he wanted. There was no need to get abusive about it and force her to do anything she didn't want to do.

What is more he felt like Kareen knew that had had the ability to force her, too. Yet she still pushed him around. It had to take courage and pride. And these were two things he loved about her.

There would probably come a day when he would have to force her to obey, but today was not it. So he obeyed her to the last detail as they walked to very specific point of edge of the little mouse lake and looked down into the lake.

The lake was more like a small swimming pool to a human. But James humored her.

[See that?]

She pointed her little mouse paw out in a certain direction as she leaned way over and tilted her head so that one of her eyes was less than a centimeter from the surface.

"No, what? Where?"

[They are little fish, or something in there. Look!]

She pointed off in a different direction according to her new instruction.

But James was too slow and saw nothing.

[They are really tiny almost clear. There, there another one went by.]

Kareen called out another direction a third time.

Eventually he finally saw a blurry something in the water, but even before that James knew what she was going to ask him.

"You want to tame them don't you?"

The question came out with some frustration.

He didn't mean it with any anger, but as soon as he said it he regretted letting the emotion behind that question out.

Fortunately Kareen ignored the tone and just said,

[Yes, tame that fish!]

But James shook his head,

"I can't this time. I really can't I need to build my body back up and I need to figure out how my [Fertility] ability works before I tame any more pets!"

She looked at him like he was stupid and then shrugged.

[Okay, but we already know how the [Fertility] ability works. We have tested it out many times with mice from all over the human world.]

James' eyes almost popped out when he heard Kareen say those words.

"You 'tested' the [Fertility] ability out?"

He couldn't believe what was happening.

[Yes, we found that we had three or four more pups per litter if mating between mice who are your pets. And one or two more pups if mating mouse who is not one of your pets.]

She started explaining.

"But that doesn't explain, …"

James started.

[Child, I am not done. Females are more able to have pups and males are more infatuated with females. Those females who have an infatuated male are even more interested in having pups.]

"Weird I would have though that it would make males more interested in, well you know…"

James tried to say something without saying it exactly.

[Yes, it is strange. It would be more helpful, in the short term, if our males were more interested in sex rather than beginning relationships.]

She said confirming his own bias, yet then she continued saying something that made him stop and think.

[But I must say it has still allowed our society to almost double. If females are more interested in having sex then there is still a large immediate growth, but we project that as long as the females continue to be interested in having more pups we could sustain our growth rate.]

James was stunned, he had never thought about fertility from the perspective of female desire for pups!

"Your fertility will definitely increase! And because it is the females we can project that they will continue to be interested in their pup's growth over the long term as well. This is very fast.]

He didn't think that his fertility could have had this much of an impact. All he could see was dollar signs though. It was going to be extremely expensive to provide for all these mice!

Nodding James agreed with her and then asked a question.

"But why was I able to contract you and why was your whole family contracted with you?"

[That is what we confirmed with the moss. We had you contract the first miss that showed up in our world. If all the moss was contracted then it would mean that all the progeny of the creature you tame are also tamed.]

Just like always Kareen continued talking without give him a chance to process her statements.

[And you could tame me because I was a potential mate for your pet. Therefore the [Fertility] ability made it happen.]

"So as long as I don't contract a pet that can be considered a mate for one of my pets or a pet that has progeny there won't be any unintended side effects?"

[Yes, I believe that should be all the rules for the [Fertility] ability.]

Kareen made a guess and then continued.

[We assume that [Fertility] focuses more on mates and children. Developing strong bonds with mates and their children is more important to you [Fertility] ability than on just having more kids. Does that make sense?]

Not giving him time to respond she continued again.

[Because in the end having stronger kids will be more beneficial. And then those stronger kids will make more kids and so on generation after generation. Having stronger kids will lead to a higher fertility down the road, because there will just be more kids to have kids. However, we are still doing our best to test this.]

The matriarch harrumphed as if she was determined.

"So contracting a fish should be pretty safe. There is no juvenile or very few who can have progeny!"

[That is right. My plan was to contract a fish, let it grow up and then you could contract an adult mate.]

James nodded to her plan, but then had to let her down gently,

"I like that plan, I just can't do it right now. But if you need fish brothers and sisters then I will give you what you want eventually!"

[I will hold you to it!]

The matriarch said while her bright white teeth gleamed in the light. The mousy smile appeared again foretelling maybe more opportunities to grow in the future.