Relieved by the sight, I began going over the issues we needed to overcome.

  “Is wheat even safe for cats to eat, though?”

  Cats were prime examples of carnivorous animals, and I had heard that consuming carbohydrates could give them digestion problems.

  “Cats are supposedly able to digest and absorb gelatinized starch without any issues.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  Gelatinization was the process of breaking down starch molecules into a paste-like consistency by adding water and heat. Cats couldn’t digest starch in its natural form because it had such a dense crystalline structure, but if the starch was gelatinized, it became properly digestible. That meant you could likely even feed them cooked rice, in small amounts.

  “It’d be bad news if she has a wheat allergy, though...” Miyoshi added. “But we don’t have any way of knowing that.”

  “Would Appraisal help with that at all?”

  Miyoshi shook her head. I figured that meant it didn’t mention anything about allergies. If Appraisal had listed an allergy, that would’ve been definitive info, but not listing an allergy could’ve just meant it never displayed that kind of info in the first place, leaving us unable to tell one way or the other. The target might’ve still been allergic.

  If our understanding that Appraisal displayed results via a direct connection with the collective unconscious was true, there was no way we would’ve been able to tell if a specific stray cat had a wheat allergy in the first place. Nobody would’ve known that info.

  “It sounds like our only real option is to keep feeding her small amounts until she either gets a D-Card or starts showing an allergic reaction,” Miyoshi said, her brow furrowed.

  “If any cat lovers or feline experts hear about this, we’ll probably get socked in the face,” I muttered.

  “I mean, there are times it’s appropriate to use morphine on humans. In the end, anything is better than dying.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Besides...”

  “Hm?”

  “If worse comes to worst, we’ve got a seventh-rank cure potion. If she starts showing symptoms, giving her one of those will probably obliterate any allergies she may have.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. Did you already forget what you just said to me a few minutes ago?

  “You realize this is a stray cat?” I repeated back to her.

  “I sure do.”

  We stared at each other for a few moments, then burst out laughing.

  When it comes down to it, we’ve just got to do whatever we can with what we have.

  After that, Miyoshi began looking up the necessary info.

  “On average, it takes about fifty grams of flour to make one pancake. If we assume that a person weighs about fifty kilograms, that’s roughly a one to one thousand ratio,” she explained.

  “So if a cat weighs four to five kilograms, we would use...four to five grams of flour?”

  “That’s right—if we go solely by weight ratio, at least.”

  “And this isn’t exactly a medicine,” I agreed.

  If it turns out instead that a set volume of D-Factors is required, we might have to up that amount.

  “So how will we get her to eat the flour?” Miyoshi asked.

  “I wonder if cats like pancakes?”

  “The usual go-to is cat food, I’d imagine.”

  “Protein, huh... I wonder how well cats handle oils in their food?”

  Miyoshi swiped away at her phone.

  “Let’s see here. Apparently it’s fine in small amounts, up to one teaspoon.”

  “That works out perfectly, then.”

  A roux, the base for most sauces in French cuisine, consisted basically of equal parts wheat flour and butter. One teaspoon was more or less five milliliters, so I could add that to five milliliters of wheat flour to make the roux. If I decided to add some milk to that at a ratio of ten times the amount of flour, it would turn into a béchamel—or if I used some kind of fond instead, it would make a velouté...

  “If I add some minced fish to a roux, I could roll it up into something like a fish dumpling. I bet she’d eat that.”

  There were a lot of soft cat foods out there that cats tended to go after with a passion.

  “So would it be kind of like a quenelle that uses a roux instead of a panade?”

  A panade was a mixture of flour, water, and fat, and it was often made into something similar to a cream puff shell by adding egg. Traditional quenelle was made by making pike into a mousse, then binding it together by adding a panade.

  “I’ll need to chill it—though it’ll end up shrinking down a bit.”

  “Apparently it’s not a great idea to feed them butter, even if it’s unsalted.”

  “No dairy products, huh... I’ll go ahead and substitute salad oil, then.”

  “Fair enough. Nowadays they even make roux with olive oil as a base.”

  “Yup. Anyway, at least she’s out of the woods for now, thanks to that potion. Let’s feed her some wheat, get her a D-Card, and grow those hind legs of hers back with Super Recovery!”

  “She sure is getting some top-of-the-line medical treatment, isn’t she?”

  “Of course she is! It’s the least we can do, considering our client paid us—”

  After a short, dramatic pause, I put on a smug grin.

  “—every last yen she had to her name!”

  “That’s an even bigger rip-off than Dr. Hazama,” Miyoshi quipped.

  “Who the hell is that?”

  “Speaking of which, Megumi... Your last name doesn’t happen to be Kisaragi, does it?”

  Megumi shook her head. “Uh-uh. It’s Mutsuki.”

  “Darn, so close! Just one month off—January instead of February.”

  “Okay, now you’re really starting to confuse me.”

  ***

  After doing as much research as we could, in the end we decided to make about ten Japanese meatballs out of chicken tenderloin and roux. They were technically fit for human consumption as well, but they hadn’t been flavored with anything, so they probably would’ve tasted iffy at best.

  Perhaps thanks to the effects of the first-ranked potion, Mama ate the food without any fuss. Then, after consuming her fourth one—we had our first miracle.

  “Wow. Animals really can obtain D-Cards by eating dungeon-grown wheat...” Miyoshi said in an impressed whisper, staring at the card as she picked it up.

  “Who knows, maybe getting D-Cards for your pets will be the next big thing,” I replied.

  A lot of pet owners treated their animals like family members. If it was that easy to obtain a D-Card, I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if they started procuring cards for their pets “just in case.” In fact, I would’ve been way more surprised if they didn’t.

  “Take a look at this, Kei!”

  I turned my gaze to the D-Card Miyoshi was holding out, and saw the name Mama written on it.

  “I guess this is a ‘collective unconscious’ thing as well?” I wondered.

  There’s no way Megumi has a D-Card, so if ours ended up manifesting the name, the database they run on must update at an insane speed.

  “I’d be really interested to know exactly how names get registered for things that haven’t been named yet. If a D-Card starts out blank, would a name suddenly appear on it as soon as the animal gets named?”

  “Well, skills and party members get overwritten pretty easily, so it would make sense if the same thing happened with names,” I suggested.

  “But I’ve never heard anything about women’s surnames on their cards changing after they get married.”

  “Hmm, me neither... Hey, while we’re in the area, why don’t we go check out the pigeons at Yoyogi Park? We could probably—”

  “The rules say no feeding the crows or pigeons in the park, Kei.”

  “Damn. Well, we could always test it out on a stray cat somewhere around that area...”

  There were no laws that prohibited the actual act of feeding stray animals, but if doing so caused the animals to stay in the area and cause damage to the surrounding environment, the prefectural governor could give those who fed them guidance and recommend corrective action. If the situation did not improve, they could then issue an order stating that all related corrective measures must be performed. All this stuff was stipulated in Article Six of the Animal Welfare Act.

  “‘All related corrective measures must be performed,’ huh... They sure like to use scary wording don’t they?” I grumbled.

  “Legal documents in general tend to sound needlessly intimidating.”

  “No joke.”

  There wasn’t much choice in the matter when it came to strictly defined legal language, but for the phrase in question, I couldn’t help but think that it would’ve been perfectly fine to say “they could order you to take the recommended action” instead.

  “Besides, it’s always possible that someone might’ve already randomly named the stray cats or park pigeons,” Miyoshi added. “A lab mouse would be a much safer option. I’m sure Nathan would test it for us at the DFA.”

  ***

  After that, we loaded Mama up into a cage and took her into Yoyogi Dungeon with us. We had decided to have her use the Super Recovery orb on the first floor, just in case.

  When we placed the skill orb inside Mama’s cage, at first she just batted it around with her front paws for a while. After not too long, though, we saw the usage effect go off, and she let out a caterwaul that sounded like something we would’ve heard coming from outside on an early spring evening.

  “Whoa!”

  “I guess animals can regenerate limbs as well!” Miyoshi murmured in awe.

  “What’s her card look like?”

  “Just like we expected, ‘Super Recovery’ is listed and grayed out.”

  “We need to make sure nobody else sees that,” I stated emphatically.

  “People would lose their minds,” Miyoshi agreed. “They’d jump straight into accusing us of inhumane animal experimentation, guaranteed.”

  It certainly wasn’t possible to cut up Asha to study how Super Recovery functioned, but no doubt there were a fair number of labs that used cats for experiments. That being said, obtaining a Super Recovery orb and deliberately using it on an animal was an impossibly high hurdle. What if, though, a cat that already had the skill suddenly showed up? I didn’t even want to think about how that might end up.

  Miyoshi and I decided we would tuck Mama’s D-Card safely away inside Vault for all eternity. Before we did, though, there was something we absolutely had to try.

  “This will be a huge matter of importance for every pet owner in the world!” Miyoshi said, clenching her fists in excitement.

  No kidding. This might well turn every single pet out there into another Anubis. And it’s not like it’ll be hard for someone to get their pet a D-Card—all they’ll need to do is feed it a little wheat.

  I placed Mama’s D-Card on top of mine and spoke the word “admit” in my mind. That’s right—we made her a member of our party.

  If this somehow allows us to speak to each other—no, even if it just lets us convey simple emotions, all the pet owners in the world will start making their way to their local dungeons in droves, crying tears of joy the entire time.

  I took a deep breath and started trying to communicate telepathically.

  Can you hear me...? Can you hear me...? Mama... Mama... Right now... I’m speaking directly into your mind...

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “That’s how you’re supposed to deliver it when it’s someone’s first time!”

  “A cat isn’t going to get your weird references, Kei.” Miyoshi was in the party as well, so she knew exactly what I was going for.

  Mama...

  “Meow.”

  “Huh?”

  “Meow.”

  The noise Mama let out was the exact same “meow” both telepathically and out loud.

  “I guess it wouldn’t be that easy, would it...”

  Cats most likely only expressed their feelings via body language, without any concept of actual vocabulary. Telepathic communication couldn’t really convey feelings, much less incorporate body language.

  The fact that telepathy made foreign languages sound as if they were in one’s native tongue was no doubt because the process skipped right past converting phonemes into words, and instead relied on the language knowledge of the collective unconscious to swap out vocabulary directly.

  I stood up, holding the cage carefully in my hands, and we made our way back out of the dungeon.

  ***

  “Is Mama all better?”

  “She sure is. She’s gonna be fine now.”

  Megumi and the two kittens had been waiting at the entrance to Yoyogi and were there to greet us when we came out. When she saw Mama resting comfortably, Megumi started jumping up and down again in excitement, sporting a huge smile.

  ***

  For some reason, Mama ended up living in our yard after that.

  Apparently they weren’t able to keep her in the old apartment building where Megumi lived. With no other options, we decided to take care of her for a while, and before we knew it, she had made herself comfortable in our office yard, patrolling it as if she owned the place. Sometimes she would sit across from Cavall in our garage in a pose like an Egyptian cat statue, glaring at him like a disapproving grandmother. It was kind of amusing to see Cavall hanging his head helplessly in the face of Mama.

  Despite being a supposed stray, she always seemed to eat the food Miyoshi gave her, and she even made a little sleeping spot for herself in the corner of the garage. Not only that, she had no problem using the litter box Miyoshi had set out for her. The latest cat litters contained not only sand, but Powder as well, which made them both easier to use and more hygienic.

  Powder, which had been developed for the important but relatively minor field of dealing with human waste inside dungeons, had become a best-selling product worldwide for a number of reasons: Not only could it be used for normal campsites, portable toilets, and motor homes, but there was also a high demand for it in the realm of pet supplies. Though it had started off as a humble bathroom product, Powder had already become the go-to companion for people who walked their pets, replacing plastic bags and scoopers.

  “Oh, I guess it’s about time to feed Ai,” Miyoshi said, pulling out her phone.

  The latest automatic pet feeders could be checked on and operated using mobile apps. It felt a bit like you were letting it extract all the info it wanted from your phone when you connected directly like that, but convenience would always be king. We’re only human, after all.

  The most we could probably do to combat the issue would be to get a dedicated phone solely for connecting to household appliances, basically using it as a glorified remote control. With Storage, it would always be at arm’s reach, making things super convenient—as long as we didn’t rely on any functionality linked to its internal clock.

  “Ai?” I tilted my head slightly at the unfamiliar name.

  “The mommy cat is named Ai, and the two kittens are now Noir and Nero.”

  “What was wrong with Mama? I thought it was pretty cute!”

  “Using a common noun as a name can end up kind of problematic sometimes, don’t you think?”

  She made a good point. Even the two of us had gotten the wrong impression from her name at first.

  “Besides,” she continued, “‘Ai’ supposedly means ‘mother’ in Marathi too!”

  Apparently Mama had come up in a conversation Miyoshi had with Asha, who had ended up providing that tidbit of info.

  “I figured it was something like that,” I said upon learning that fact, offering a wry smile.

  She did the same thing for the kittens’ names: “Noir” is French, and “Nero” is Italian, but they both mean “black.” They’re about as simple as you can get—or maybe I should be nice and call them “easy to understand.”

  Since the cats were living with us, sometimes Megumi would stop by to play with them. After spending some time with Ai and the kittens in the garage, she would head into the kitchen with Miyoshi and eat some sweets. Ai, for her part, was always willing to play with whatever cat toy was waved in front of her, despite the perpetually annoyed, lethargic look on her face.

  “What are you gonna do, Kei?”

  “About what?”

  “Megumi thinks you’re some kind of magical doctor.”

  “Huh... I’m, uh, honored, I guess?”

  “Though you don’t have a license, and you demand exorbitant fees from your patients.”

  “I did take every last bit of cash she had to her name. I’m even worse than Black Jack.”

  Miyoshi had ended up explaining to me later that “Dr. Hazama” was Kuro Hazama, Black Jack’s real name. Black Jack was an older manga and I didn’t remember many of the details, so I had decided to give it another read. Considering its age, the fact that I was still able to just walk into a store and purchase the revised edition kind of blew my mind. Thanks to that, I was also able to make sense of Miyoshi’s mysterious Kisaragi reference.

  After some time had passed, Megumi came back to us to ask one more favor, clutching a whopping 120 yen tightly in her fist. Apparently she had been diligently saving up her allowance. Her new request was as follows: “If anything ever happens to Mama, please save her.” Megumi and her mother lived alone and probably wouldn’t have been able to do much in an emergency.

  Obviously I took the job. We ended up getting first-rank potions on the tenth floor fairly often, and we still had our treasured seventh-rank cure potion, so we were certainly good for it.

  “I swear, Kei, sometimes you end up doing things that make me question whether you’re all there in the head.”

  “I don’t mind. It’s our job as adults to protect the dreams of children like her.”

  Miyoshi flashed me a smile—the kind that more or less said You’re hopeless—then, after giving me two firm pats on the back, she headed to the kitchen and started heating up some water, humming a cheery little tune.

  ***

  After that, it would still be a bit of time before Megumi and her mother were forced to move out of their apartment building due to how dilapidated it had become, and Miyoshi would end up arranging for Megumi’s mother to work for D-Powers.