Chapter 81: Construction

[Edited by: Arthur300000, deathbricks, Bunny, and ArchmageNaoki]

“Hello, what’s this little one’s name?” As we enter the veterinarian store, a woman in a doctor's coat asked me in a sweet voice as she took Mr. Fluffy from my arms and weighed him. The scale’s indicator said that he was only 3.8 Kilograms.

Finding a veterinarian center in this fantasy world wasn’t as difficult as I thought. With Skynet’s help we arrived here in fourteen minutes by taxi. Mr. Fluffy was also very cooperative with us, sleeping soundly on my lap the entire time. The only problem traveling here was that Barbara also wanted to hold Mr. Fluffy.

Because I didn’t know whether this fur ball was safe yet I refused to let go of him, so in the end we came to the agreement that while I got to hold Mr. Fluffy, I had to sit on Barbara’s lap instead. The downside of this arrangement was that Mr. Taxi Driver seemed to be distracted and kept looking at us the entire time.

“Uhm, he’s called Mr. Fluffy.” I told her our pet’s temporary name to the vet. However, the doctor stared at me.

“You know that she is a girl, right?” … Ah, so she is a girl, huh? I wondered how she knew that, this guy… this girl was too fluffy for me to find anything that could indicate its gender.

“Then, she’s called Ms. Fluffy.” I corrected my mistake. However, Ms. Veterinarian looked at me suspiciously while Barbara kept giggling like an insane person.

“And where did you get her?” She asked.

“Uh, in an alleyway-” I was going to explain what has happened but Barbara was cutting in.  “We found her near our house, starving. So we’re going to adopt it!” She proclaimed.

“... Yeah, she’s indeed suffering from malnutrition.” Ms. Veterinarian said after some squeezing Ms. Fluffy’s body. Maybe I should have fed her some of the Red Viper, the ambiguous energy drink, before I came here.

“Will she be okay?” I asked worriedly. It would be too cruel if she died on me a few days after adoption.

“She’ll be fine. But I would recommend postponing her vaccination for a week. Just give her plenty of meat three times a day and feed her this multivitamins after every meal.” Ms. Veterinarian answered and showed us a bottle with a tabby cat picture printed on it. I was worried that a cat’s vitamins might not work on its flying counterpart. Since she was a vet, let’s believe in her.

About what Ms. Veterinarian did for Ms. Fluffy, she removed fleas, mites, and all kinds of parasites from Ms. Fluffy with magic and also fed her two cans of cat food and taught me how to spike a spoonful of multivitamins in it. Since I let Ms. Fluffy stay on my lap for the entire ride, I asked her to cast the fleas removal magic on Barbara and me as a safety measure because I knew first hand in my past life how itchy a flea bite was. Anyways, the spell cost five credits each and it felt very ticklish.

Ms. Fluffy devoured her food with a big appetite. While she did that, Ms. Veterinarian taught me a few things about the flying snow leopard. It turned out that its raising method wasn’t much different from a cat. So, we bought a teaser stick made of snow rabbit fur, a litter box filled with magical adsorbents that looked like glittering marshmallows, and a big cat condo from this veterinarian cum pet shop.

The cat condo was a bit grandiose. It was about the size of my bed and a few feet taller than me. It had a sleeping zone, playground area, and maze. Barbara tried to dissuade me by saying that it was over her budget. But in my previous life, I had no chance to spoil my cat rotten. Also, I had a lot of money now, so it should be no problem to spend some on my pet.

“It’s alright, I’ll pay for all of this.” I told her as I paid for all those items, the fee and several bottles of multivitamins. It was whooping 2,070 credits in total. Well, I might have gone a bit overboard on the cat condo, but I had no regrets.

I also wanted to buy canned cat food from here, but the vet said that it wasn’t the best choice for Ms. Fluffys diet. “On the contrary to cats, this girl prefers wild meat. You should visit the butchery, there’s one a few blocks over there.” She pointed to the left of the store.

Another surprising thing I learned from her was that Ms. Fluffy was a rare domestic animal. Well, she wasn’t an endangered species or anything. However, because their natural habitat was inside a flying snow rabbit storm, their survival rate was very low when they fell or was found by their host. Moreover, due to the extremely low temperature inside the storm, people don’t usually go in there to capture them to sell. All things considered, we were very lucky to have found a stranded one.

“Uhm, one more thing, will it attack humans?” I asked. I don’t want to come back to the house and find out that mom or Cocoa was being attacked by a flying fur monster.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Normally, no. A carnivorous animal usually only attacks prey smaller than them, only those with a hive or pack will challenge bigger creatures. There are some exceptions though, like when they feel threatened or are trying to protect their children.” She answered while tapping her chin.

“What about a flying pig?” Now, I worried about Mr. Bobo.

“You mean Bobos?” I nodded at her question. “Don’t worry then, Bobos are stronger than they look. They can easily fend for themselves.” She answered… Is that harmless tiny pig who’s floating around the house that strong? It didn’t strike me as such.

“Also, if you want to bring her around the town, you need this kind of pet tag.” Ms. Veterinarian showed us a drawer with assortment of cute trinkets. I also spotted a red collar that looked like the one on Mr. Bobo in the pile.

“I want this!” Barbara picked up a pink ribbon which looked like one on a dress that Pristia gifted me.

“Do they have a tracking function?” As I realized that these cute little things were of magical nature, I began to wonder what it could do. Well, it was a different color, mine was blue and this one was pink. But for some reason something bothered me about it, maybe it was from my newly acquired Dragonborn intuition.

“Yes, aside from owner identification tags, it has a short ranged tracking function. Here, let me register it on your communication device.” … “Done! You can use this app to track your pets within a 50 meters radius.” She explained after she had set up Barbara’s and my communication devices. I was wondering about that dress though, maybe I should go back to check.

“Huh!? Doesn’t her body seem to be longer?” Barbara exclaimed as she attached the pink ribbons on Ms. Fluffy. Right, her shape didn’t seem to be a ball of fur anymore. Now, she looked ... ellipsoidal.

“This is her natural shape. Still too skinny though. A healthy one would be shaped like a capsule.” Ms. Veterinarian answered. The fatter she was the longer she became, huh? What a strange kind of animal she was. I left the shop while imagining a Vienna sausage with long white fur.

We visited the recommended butcher shop next. It was a mistake to sell all the monster corpses several days ago, but it was pointless to cry over spilled milk.

“Uhm, excuse me. Can we bring a flying cat into the shop?” I asked the shopkeeper as Barbara was holding Ms. Fluffy in front of the store. If this was on earth, it would be impossible to bring her into this kind of shop, I think. But seeing that Mr. Bobo went everywhere including a high-class restaurant in this world. I supposed I should give it a try. Huh? Was it not the flying cat per se? Well, let’s ignore the insignificant detail.

“It’s all right, missy. But you have to buy whatever it touches or flys over.” The bearded and bald shopkeeper answered. Hmm, it seemed this world was more lenient with pets.

The meat selection was very simple. We just walked past shelves after shelves and picked up the meat that Ms. Fluffy looked at with sparkling eyes. We got giant horned rabbit’s ribs premium grade, snow turkey’s drum, spider bear’s liver, and some monster meat with a name that I didn’t even know how to pronounce.

The most expensive one here was the ribs which cost about two panties per kilogram, so I bought it sparingly and filled the needed quantity with another type of meat she selected. I also bought the unpronounceable monster’s meat for tonights hot pot because the shopkeeper told me that it was a rare find. Yes, as you might’ve already noticed, I was a slave to the limited edition market scheme.

“That will be 172 credits in total.” Mr. Butcher told me and I was going to give him my ID card but Barbara cut in and she said she would pay for this. Please don’t overdo it with your budget, Barbara.  

We arrived home in a taxi again. It was a bit troublesome because there was no bus that directly connected my house to the veterinarian shop. This time Barbara also asked to pay. I tried to reject her because I knew really well how much money she had, but she vehemently insisted that she had to do it. She also said something like “My pride as a big sister is on the line.”

“Mom! I’m home!” I yelled as I unlocked the front gate with my ID card. It was a new security system that I asked Aunos to install. It’s supposed to be able to deter thieves who cross the boundary without permission and notifies the nearby police station at the same time. Well, I got a suit of powered armor and a flying shuttle in the garage, so it was reasonable to install more security measures, right?

“Welcome back. There are some snacks on the table, but don’t forget to wash your hands first.” Mom greeted me as we entered the house.

I introduced Ms. Fluffy to mom and Cocoa. They seemed surprised when I told them that she was a leopard. But after Ms. Fluffy rolled over on the carpet for a while, mom seemed to forget to be careful about that fluff ball.

Cocoa also quickly got attached to Ms. Fluffy. She seemed to compete for Ms. Fluffys attention with Barbara and played loudly behind me while I tried to concentrate on building the cat condo. Luckily, it was like ready-to-assemble furniture, and with Skynet’s help the condo construction went smoothly.

Mr. Bobo, on the contrary, didn’t seem to be excited about the new addition to the family. Well, he kept sitting up straight and glancing at Ms. Fluffy from time to time. Was he trying to act cool? I had no idea.

As I had almost finished the construction Mr. Bobo landed on the top perch. He seemed to like the place. I wanted to say that I bought this for Ms. Fluffy, not you. But as a former dude, I knew how a man feels. So, I just told him: “Make sure to share, alright?” And he visibly nodded. These magical beasts’ intelligence always amazed me.

“Done!” I proclaimed, feeling satisfied with the finished result. It looked a bit bigger than when it was inside the vet shop. Maybe it was because my house’s living room was smaller than that place. This thing took over a third of the space, so I had to move other furniture together to make way for it. I hoped my siblings or dad wouldn’t complain about this, but with my mom’s approval I think it should be no problem.

I turned around to get Ms. Fluffy to check on her new house. However, I saw Cocoa, Barbara, and her hugging each other asleep on the sofa instead. It was a picturesque scene that made me realize how blessed I am in this life. So, I asked Skynet to take a picture for me and prepare to jump in. However, my phone rang.

“Hello, Kuro. Where are you? There’ll be a test in ten minutes.” Pristia’s voice came from the phone… Crap! I forgot about my final test!