Lately, Irapesha had been coming home later and much happier now that she took interest in something. Kerry and the Vandice Fire Department were willing to bring her on as a trainee while she was enrolled in a local fire academy to become a qualified firefighter. I couldn't be more happy for her. The funniest thing to me was that she was a dragonewt fighting fires.

Whether this was good for her mentally in the long run remained to be seen.

When I had brought it up to Ines, she thought it was a great idea. She even explained that many veterans ended up in law enforcement at the end of their service. The unfortunate ones might end up homeless or suffering from PTSD and other mental illnesses, so this made Irapesha one of the luckier ones.

"Hmm… Speaking of which, I haven't seen Ines all day…" I mumbled aloud.

It was a late Tuesday morning. Cresta, Irapesha, and Tamara left the dorm earlier, Remmy was still cooped up in her room, and I hadn't seen Ange during breakfast.

Once I finished mopping the kitchen floor, I decided to pay Remmy a visit in her room and carried a glass of milk and oatmeal up.

"Remmy! I brought you something to eat," I called, rapping my knuckle lightly on the door.

It opened with a gentle creek, and I walked in just as a tentacle retracted back to her body. She was playing a first-person shooter, mouse precisely flicking from one end of the mousepad to the next, and stared at the screen with the focus of a laser.

"Are ya winning, daughter?" I asked on the way in.

The slimy tentacle extended itself and slapped me square across the cheek.

"Gross. Please, don't say that to me. Gamer jargon and memes are so cringe, it makes my entire body shudder with disgust down to the very core," Remmy visciously remarked.

"O-Okay— Wait…" Something about her disposition and manner of speech had changed. "Gamer-Remmy?"

"Oh, looks like I lost the bet. He figured it out." The Remmy in front of me split into a second one that took a seat on the bed.

"That means you owe a new manga series to read," the new one said, only to split a third one which sat next to her.

"But I was… hoping we can play… a party game together…" The third Remmy sighed.

"Now that's the Remmy I know. What the hell happened? You guys can split again?" I asked into the room.

The three of them glanced at each other as if to come to a collective agreement on an answer to give.

"Since three days ago," they said simultaneously.

"Too many voices are echoing in my head and it's all Remmy!" I yelled, clutching my noggin in agony. "You're doing fine, right? Are you going through a rough patch? Do you need someone to talk to?"

My worry was coming from a place I had already helped Remmy out of. After all, we had the reason she split form was a defense mechanism against the trauma she faced as a living alchemy experiment by demons.

Manga-Remmy hugged her regular counterpart from behind and squished their cheeks together.

"Remmy's fine. I think she just missed us, that's all," she said.

Remmy nodded.

"Not that I mind. I keep seeing her make noob mistakes like keeping her crosshairs low. It frustrated me so much that I couldn't do anything about it. I can now though— Fuck these scrubs! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT BABY!" she roared into the computer screen after winning the match.

"I guess this room will be a lot rowdier from now on." I chuckled.

Remmy became amorphous to escape from her split's hold and reformed in front of me.

"Is it… okay?" she asked.

"Okay for what? For them to be here? Of course, it is! They're you, which makes them tenants of this dorm." I put a hand on her head like I did so casually with Cresta and Tamara, but all I got on me was a palm smeared with slime.

"She actually has something to ask you," the gaming addict said.

The girls glanced up at me with a request, but it was Remmy prime who spoke. "I wanted… to ask for a favor."

"Oooh! Look at all these physical games! I want them all. I want every single one to build a collection!" Gamer-Remmy exclaimed.

"Oh, god. I should have just showed home. Or stayed inside Remmy…" Manga-Remmy rolled her eyes.

On Remmy's request, we visited a video game store in person. The closest one I found was the store inside Vandice mall, the same one I had brought Cresta and Ange to buy clothes at. It wasn't very big, but really there weren't exactly department-store sized video game stores thanks to so many things going digital. The few that existed now sold older games or did trade-ins, and had been mostly converted into gaming lounges with a bar.

I had an inkling that the reason Remmy wanted to come out here was because she couldn't find a specific game online, and a physical store was the last place to check. For her to fidget and glance around the place made it pretty evident.

"What are we looking for anyway? Can I help look?" I asked Remmy.

She shook her. "It's okay."

Remmy began to split into more clones. Two, four, eight, sixteen… All of them fanned out across the store in search of a game. The employee on shift rushed out from the counter and stop her.

"E-Excuse me! Please, don't create more copies of yourself! I don't mean to single out a netherfolk, but we have other guests around and too many people in the store is a fire hazard," the college-aged employee explained.

"Sorry…" All of her clones returned to her body except for the two that came in with us.

"If you need help finding something, you can always come and ask me," he said.

"I was… hoping you can find… this game…" She held out a small piece of paper which the guy squinted at.

"Hmm… Oh! That's a rare game you're looking for since it wasn't very popular. Maybe someone traded it in at some point. You can look through this pile of games here." The employee led us to a waist-high box where grocery stores normally put a load of watermelons into. It was instead filled with used and worn games from decades in the past that no one played anymore.

"What is it, Remmy? I can help you find it," I offered, but she pushed me away.

"Eh?" I felt betrayed. Even though we were similar in age, it was like having a daughter telling me to get out of her life.

While she searched through the piles with dozens of tentacles helping her, I wandered off to the lounge and found Gamer-Remmy challenging people to Smash.

"This idiot's been playing since the moment we got here," Manga-Remmy said.

"Oh, come on. You guys suck! We can do 3v1 and you still wouldn't win," she taunted the people around her.

"Why are you patronizing them? Most Smash players are casuals—"

Someone shoulder checked me as they walked by. A large dude with thick-rimmed glasses snorted in my direction.

"Smash isn't casual. God, I hate when people call it a party game," he growled.

"Oh, no. I'm not getting into this talk. I don't care what you guys have to say about Smash," I said.

The guy put a hand on my shoulder and made me face him. "It's the most competitive video game ever made. You trying to doubt me?"

Tendrils of slime wrapped around the man's arm and pulled him off me.

"Hey, Fatso. If you're looking for a fight, sit down and put a controller in your mouth instead!" Gamer-Remmy sneered.

"Fine, but I'm not going easy on you just because you're a netherfolk and girl! Just so you know, I'm a three-time tournament champion around these parts."

Despite talking a big game, he lost. Badly. Gamer-Remmy's controls were too precise and mechanical. She systematically slaughtered him, leaving the guy in tears and walking away in shame

"Looks like the three-time tournament champion just got three-stocked. Loooooseeerrrr!" She bursted into laughter.

"I never knew Remmy had such a toxic side when it came to video games…" I put a hand to my face and groaned. "We should get back to her. She might've already found the game she was looking for."

"Fine." The toxic gamer tossed the controller onto the couch and hopped off.

However, when we got back to Remmy, she was being bullied around by the guy who just lost at Smash. He had something in his hand, held high over his head. Her tentacles tried to grab at the game case, but she appeared afraid to fight back.

"Not so tough now, huh? You were so cocky earlier, dumb bitch!" He spat at her face, causing Remmy to choke up.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing!" I shouted, coming between them.

Before he could say a word, a dozen slimy tentacles wrapped around his body and forced him to the ground. Both Remmys came to her defense by incapacitating the guy and taking away what he held in his hand.

"Sore losers are even worse…" they said together.

"Are you okay, Remmy?" I turned around to a shaken slime girl.

Remmy nodded.

One of her copies handed her the game case. It was a cute-looking game with varied colors of slime blobs on the case cover, smiling happily and bouncing around a field. The description read that it had a multiplayer component to it, which made her really excited.

The others were happy for her, too, and it warmed my heart to see them interacting so casually.

"Aren't you glad your friends are back?" I asked, catching their contagious excitement.

The slime flashed a smile and giggled. "I am."