WE SAW WHAT LOOKED LIKE A UFO
It started off as a wonderful day, so the kids—Falfa, Shalsha, and Sandra—and I went on a picnic.
Well, the house sat in the perfect spot for a picnic in the highlands already, so we just walked for a little bit to get there.
“Falfa thinks the air is much crisper than usual!” My oldest daughter was energetically frolicking across the fields.
The rest of us three walked behind her. Despite the event, the only one who felt like running around was Falfa. Apparently, photosynthesis didn’t give Sandra a lot of energy for running, so she didn’t do that much.
And Shalsha was reading as she was walking; it wasn’t something you did during a picnic.
“You need to watch where you’re going, Shalsha,” Sandra commented.
“Shalsha would, if we were in a crowd in the middle of a city. But there is nothing to run into here. Just a slime, at worst. Nothing to worry about.”
“Mmm, okay—but, Azusa, are you going to let her get away with that? You’re her mother. You need to raise her correctly.”
Now I was taking the blame…
“Well, I can’t really encourage her to keep doing it, but she’s right that there’s nothing to bump into, so… Not much I can do…”
I didn’t think I could out-logic Shalsha. And it was true it wasn’t really going to cause problems.
“But does it make for a good picnic?” Sandra asked sharply.
I’d been thinking the same thing.
“Well… If she thinks this is a picnic, then that’s enough to make it a picnic…”
“There is no need to worry. Indulging in nature and the pages of a book together is a perfectly enjoyable activity. A desk does not always make for good reading. Going on a walk is especially refreshing.”
No good mom shuts down everything her kid does, so I decided to let her do as she pleased.
“By the way, Shalsha, what are you reading now?”
“It’s called In the Shadow of Death.”
“That doesn’t sound refreshing at all!”
Well, considering her mental age, I wasn’t exactly expecting John the Puppy’s Big Adventure. And she did seem to be having a good time.
As we chatted, Falfa’s gallivanting came to a halt ahead of us.
“Mommy? What’s that?” She pointed to the sky, where something was flying in a straight horizontal line.
It looked small, but that was most likely because it was far away.
“Probably a bird. Dragons or wyverns would look much bigger than that.”
“But, Mommy, birds don’t move like that. It’s going zwoom, zwoom straight sideways.”
Her sound effects were rather apropos.
Whatever it was seemed to be floating rather than flying, and every once in a while, it would move, then stop, then move, then stop.
Falfa was right—it didn’t seem like a bird at all.
When I peered closely, the shape was rather ball-like.
At some point, Shalsha had closed her book and was staring into the sky with us.
“Hey! I think it’s coming toward us!” Sandra yelled. Now that she mentioned it, it did appear a bit bigger than before…
“It’s going away again!” Falfa called. “That way!”
Just as she said, the thing slipped behind one of the distant mountains and out of sight.
“I wonder what that was. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an animal like that in my three hundred years living here,” I said.
Falfa trotted back to us. “Is it a new type of bird?”
“It might be. Maybe we should ask an ornithologist sometime.”
“That wasn’t a bird, Sis. That did not match any of the birds that live in this area.” Shalsha looked angry for some reason—except no, that wasn’t anger. If anything, she was overcome with shock. Her body was even shaking a little.
She then declared in a loud voice:
“That was…without a doubt, an unidentified flying creature… A UFC!”
It was like a UFO!
“What? I’ve never heard of that.”
Sandra didn’t know what it was, either, so I hoped Shalsha would explain it to us.
Shalsha nodded. “Unidentified flying creatures…are flying creatures that have yet to be identified.”
“Exactly what it says on the tin!”
“Long ago, people learned of beings that flew in odd patterns, different from anything in the known world. An ornithologist five hundred years ago named them ‘unidentified flying creatures.’ People came to abbreviate it as UFC afterward. They say we still know nothing about them. That is what Shalsha thinks, at least.”
She was speaking faster than usual—a UFC encounter must have been very exciting for her.
“I see. Then I’m glad you got to see one.”
“Mom, there is nothing happy or sad about seeing one!” Shalsha was strangely angry with me. “There are some researchers who believe UFCs are intelligent life-forms that come from distant celestial bodies! We cannot ignore this!”
We really were in the realm of UFOs and aliens now!
“Don’t worry about it, Mommy. Shalsha just likes UFCs.” Falfa seemed annoyed. “Strange intelligent life from other planets doesn’t exist. Nothing like that can exist, and even if it did, then why would it move so erratically?”
Oh? It sounded like Falfa was a nonbeliever. It was unusual for sisters to be so divided on a subject.
“That’s absurd, Sis. If we assume everything we don’t understand doesn’t exist, how can we ever move forward as a society?”
“And you attaching UFCs to intelligent life-forms is a massive leap in logic. That doesn’t follow scientific thought.”
The two of them stood facing one another as they argued.
Uh-oh. I don’t want this to turn into a fight.
I stepped between them. “Okay, then why don’t you gather evidence to convince each other and use this opportunity to get a solid perspective on UFCs?”
Both of them were scholarly, so I decided to turn this into a study opportunity. Hopefully, a buffer of studiousness would keep this confrontation from getting too heated.
“Fine! I want to settle this in a public symposium!”
“Falfa accepts your challenge! Come at me!”
“Why don’t we hold the symposium in ten days?”
“Fine. I can collect all the data I need in that time!”
So much for softening the friction…
Now that I thought about it, Falfa had been focusing on the hard sciences, and Shalsha had been more focused on the humanities thus far. They had never had a real academic confrontation.
But for some reason, both of them were interested when it came to UFCs, and now they were butting heads on the matter.
“What are you going to do about them, Azusa?” Sandra, the outsider, was astonished.
“I don’t know… It’s not a terrible thing for scholars to criticize other scholars’ arguments, so let’s keep an eye on them for now.”
And maybe it was a good thing if Falfa and Shalsha had a real academic confrontation from time to time. What a wasted opportunity if the sciences and humanities stayed completely separate forever.
That was the conclusion I came to as their mother.
Falfa and Shalsha then flew around to various libraries and scholars’ offices across the land.
We had two dragons in the family, luckily, so their movement and ability to collect documents was fair.
They also asked Beelzebub to let them see some papers that the demons had.
And now, as we ate, they were reading books.
…No, this is bad manners.
“Girls, you can’t read while you eat.”
Both Falfa and Shalsha closed their books.
“Okay, Mommy.”
“Shalsha wants to have good table manners.”
Their spoons were moving at lightning speed; they probably didn’t want to waste any time that could be spent studying.
“This is so funny, Madam Teacher. Oh, maybe calling this funny is imprudent.” Halkara, who wasn’t involved in any of this, gave her impartial opinion.
“Well, it’s good to be serious about something. Their theories might even diverge after doing all that research, too.”
If anything, I had to thank the family for willingly going along with the girls without any complaint.
“It must be hard on you dragons. You flew all over the place yesterday, didn’t you?”
“It’s all right; everyone gets absorbed in their studies at some point in their lives. I am proud to have been able to help.”
Huh? Did I ever get “absorbed” in my own studies…?
“And I, Flatorte, am having fun helping in this competition! It gets me fired up!”
Battle-oriented as ever!
“Have you ever concentrated on your studies, Flatorte?”
“Never.”
“I’m sorry; ‘everyone’ was a bit of an exaggeration,” Laika corrected herself. Well, it wasn’t like her work ethic was the standard.
Meanwhile, there was another person in the family who was getting wrapped up in all this.
“Sorry and thank you, Rosalie, for watching the sky for hours on end every day.”
Rosalie the ghost would go outside to check if there was anything unusual going on. She was now floating near the ceiling.
“Oh, it’s really no different from just hanging around here and there. Even ghosts want to help some people out every once in a while.”
“Have you seen anything strange?”
“Yeah, I caught a glimpse of something jerking around out there once. I didn’t know what it was.”
Considering it came back, that probably meant the strange animal had come to live here. Or maybe the aliens were doing recon.
“Tomorrow’s the day of the symposium. I know this is the last stretch for you two, but take this easy. No all-nighters.”
Both Falfa and Shalsha nodded.
They were on the same page when it came to things like that.
Then came the day of the symposium.
We had a little temporary auditorium set up outside the house in the highlands. There was a stage and seats lined up in front for guests. Fatla in her leviathan form had apparently brought those over.
Falfa and Shalsha had asked Beelzebub to set this all up, and she had obliged. Beelzebub would never say no to them, so she had reportedly been enthusiastic about it.
There were chairs for the speakers on the stage and a sign behind them.
If the Ministry of Agriculture was helping out, then that meant the demon taxpayers’ money was going toward this… Well, Beelzebub knew what she was doing, so I wasn’t worried. I wouldn’t be held responsible if they complained about government spending habits…
There weren’t any people left standing, of course, but many of the seats were filled—they must have heard about it somewhere. There sure were a lot of people interested in UFCs…
The time to start came, and Vania stepped onto the stage.
“Thank you for coming today. I am Vania the leviathan, and I’ll be your moderator today. I will also provide brief commentary on the proceedings. Now, let’s have our speakers come to the stage!”
It was finally starting.
Falfa stepped out from the wings.
“First, we have Falfa, one of the first people to spot the UFC. She disagrees with the stance that UFCs are intelligent life coming from other celestial bodies,” Vania explained as Falfa bowed. “Next, we have Shalsha, who was also there to see the UFC. She is of the opinion that UFCs are evidence of intelligent life from other planets.”
Shalsha slowly marched across the stage. She sure was determined.
After that, Beelzebub came up onstage. I thought she would say a thing or two as agricultural minister, or maybe she was an expert on crop circles or something, but she instead held something in her arms.
It was a slime, but it was ink black… I didn’t think many of those existed at all…
“Next, we have the demon minister of agriculture, Beelze—er, the Smart Slime, carried in by the minister of agriculture.”
The black slime was Smarsly, who lived beneath Vanzeld Castle!
A long time ago, when Falfa slept funny and got stuck as a slime, we’d gone to Smarsly for answers. After that, we’d gone to talk to the Wizard Slime (Wizly) and then the Fighter Slime (Fighsly).
I had no idea I’d be seeing it again here. Fate was a funny thing.
“I am Beelzebub, agricultural minister. This slime seems to know quite a lot, so I brought it along. I do not know much about UFCs, but I do think of myself as the girls’ caretaker.”
“I’m their caretaker!” I yelled to Beelzebub.
“Please save all questions and comments for the Q and A phases,” Vania the moderator stopped me.
Grrr… Beelzebub had no right to say that, but I couldn’t argue against her…
“Next, we have Miss Muum Muum, self-proclaimed queen of an ancient civilization.”
I was shocked to see Muu step onstage.
I thought she was trying not to attract undue attention?! But I guess no one would believe she actually came from an ancient civilization…
“I’ll speak me mind from me old civ’s perspective. Cheers.”
I had a feeling she was going to say whatever she wanted, which kind of scared me.
“Next, we have Miss Canimeow the fortune-teller and self-proclaimed moon spirit.”
Then came Canimeow, hunched over and poised to escape at any moment.
“Um, just because I’m the moon spirit doesn’t mean I know anything about aliens, okay? This is all a mistake, okay? Please don’t be disappointed by me, okay?”
She was super apologetic…
“And finally, we have one who calls herself Godly Godness.”
I almost fell out of my chair when I heard the announcement. They even got a goddess to come in!
“Please come to me after the symposium if you would like a virtue stamp card~”
She was easygoing, as always, and waved at the audience.
In a way, you could say that this was a quite an impressive panel, considering none of them were exactly “normal.” I doubted anyone in the audience knew how amazing this all was.
“So this may be a bit of a naive question coming from your moderator, but is there intelligent life on other planets? What do you think, as a goddess?”
It was a naive question, but I felt like it was getting very close to the meat of the matter. I mean, she was posing it to the divine.
“Oh~ Who knows? But I can say there are other worlds out there besides this. I would not be surprised if there was something out there on the moon or something~ It isn’t as though I made them, though, so I can’t say for sure.”
Was that something she could say so lightly?!
“Which means that one of your tenets is that there is something out there.”
“That there might be, to be specific. And whether they exist tells us nothing about whether they are actually here visiting us~”
That was true. Canimeow had wanted to leave the planet and go to the moon, but she couldn’t. Leaving the planet was basically impossible right now, as far as we knew.
So it was bordering on impossible for intelligent life to visit this planet from space.
But that was the whole theme of this symposium. It was time to listen.
“First, we will have Shalsha’s presentation: ‘Special Messages from the Beyond: How Do We Answer?’ The presenter has thirty minutes.”
Shalsha slowly came to stand at the podium.
Then a silent image with writing on it displayed behind her at the back of the stage.
It was like a PowerPoint!
“Oh, a quick comment from your moderator. These moving images use magic that has been recently developed by the demons. It is quite useful!”
It was a lot more like a symposium than I was expecting…
“Now, if everyone would kindly look at your handouts.”
Shalsha started speaking. Our seats already had thick stacks of handouts from all the speakers. If I’d still been in college, then I definitely would’ve fallen asleep…
When the thought crossed my mind, I spotted Flatorte sleeping already.
“Zzz… Boar and venison and intestine all together… Weird-tasting meat…”
She was having some kind of strange dream. Well, I guess this wasn’t very interesting to her.
I bet if a friendly alien showed up, Flatorte would immediately ask for a spar, and then we’d find ourselves in an interplanetary war…
Right, time to listen to Shalsha.
Shalsha delivered her arguments deliberately and carefully; her conscientious personality shone through.
“—In conclusion, the creature we saw recently did not move like any bird or dragon—or indeed any other species with powers of flight. It is also difficult to think that any creature we know could possibly move in such a manner. That said, it is hard to believe that an entirely new kind of organism has come to live here.”
Shalsha was insisting it was some kind of being from another planet.
But the biggest difference between here and arguments about UFOs I heard about in my past life was that these are unidentified flying creatures. They didn’t have to just be objects.
The slide behind her changed.
“Therefore, we can imagine the extraplanetary beings would look like this.”
It was a picture of a circular UFO, the kind that might carry some aliens inside it…
…With a smiley face on it!
“I believe this kind of creature came to pay us a visit. Its mode of life is unknown, but it is thought that it lives a life completely different from ours.”
Hmm… Sure, just because something was supposed to have high intelligence, that didn’t mean it was going to take on a human form… That was a bias we had from assuming our bodies were the standard.
But would a creature with such a weird shape be intelligent…?
“This concludes my presentation. Thank you for listening.” Shalsha briefly bowed and returned to her seat.
While I wasn’t sure if any of it was true, it was still a very interesting topic.
Oh yeah—Laika was sitting next to me, so I decided to ask.
“Hey, have you ever come across any weird flying objects before, Laika?”
Dragons spent a lot of time in the sky, so they probably spotted UFCs once in a while.
“No… I have never encountered such an odd creature… I would surely remember if I had…”
“Then you haven’t, either, huh.”
I kind of got the feeling that these mysterious creatures didn’t actually exist.
But it was plausible that they would be nearly impossible to find if they wanted to stay hidden. No one approached a dragon without good reason.
“All right. Next, we will be listening to Falfa. We will be taking all questions after the talk, okay? Her report is titled ‘UFCs Are Unique Clouds Formed in the Atmosphere.’”
There came an excited ooh from some members of the audience.
The idea of “unique clouds” was already making waves.
Her nose in the air, Falfa came to stand at the podium.
“Hello, I am Falfa! Falfa was so surprised to see the mysterious flying object! I knew what we had spotted was more interesting than a bird. But it is not logical to assert that it is an extraterrestrial creature right away. After collecting and testing various bits of scientific data, Falfa came to the conclusion that it was a cloud!”
It felt like I was seeing my own daughter in her hour of triumph.
Falfa had all kinds of data on her PowerPoint.
But Falfa was more of the science type, so hers had a lot more mathematical formulas than Shalsha’s did. It was too complicated for me to understand…
Flatorte had fallen out of her seat, fast asleep. A bit rude to the presenters, but at least they’re family…
“Falfa’s presentation is now finished!”
There came the applause. I clapped, too.
I could hear even some of the pro-alien people saying, “I hate to say it, but that was a good presentation!” She did so well even people on the opposing side admired her work.
I shouldn’t be picking out who was doing better between my twin daughters, but Falfa’s presentation had gone over much better in this battle—I think.
“Now we will start our question and answer session. If anyone in the audience has questions, please raise your hand.”
Vania was old hat at emceeing…for some reason.
The arguments themselves were animated, but the information was too specialized for me to follow. This was getting a little tedious, honestly.
All I understood was that neither camp had any intention of adjusting their own theory.
It’s clear that a unique life-form has come to us!
No! She proved that it was a cloud!
And so on and so forth.
“Lady Azusa, this will go in circles forever… Neither side will step down because none of them will accept that they are wrong,” Laika said. Wisdom from a neutral party.
“Yeah. All of them have done their research, so I don’t think any of them will accept defeat easily.”
“That’s all the time we have for now,” Vania said to wrap things up, “so it’s time for a break! In the latter half, we will hear what our panelists have to say.”
Great, I’m glad she stopped things before they got too unfriendl—
“There are no bathrooms in this area, so please feel free to use the ones in the house in the highlands.”
“Hey, Vania! You should at least ask me beforehand!”
This wasn’t just a few friends coming over to visit!
Meanwhile, one member of the family had seen an opportunity and taken it.
“Edible UFCs! Delicious edible UFCs! Take some home to family and friends!”
Halkara was selling sweets!
She had a tray hung from her neck and was walking down the aisles.
“You never miss an opportunity for business, do you?! You sure you won’t go in the red making a new product just for this event?”
“It’s not a new product. We simply changed up the packaging a bit, that’s all.”
Wondering what she meant, I looked at these “edible UFCs.”
They looked exactly like my own invention.
“These are just edible slimes without the faces!”
“Madam Teacher! Please don’t speak so loudly! I decided to give it a go because they looked exactly like UFCs.”
I doubted her for a bit, but they sold relatively well, either because they were perfect souvenirs or because topical merch got people to open their wallets more easily.
Break time was over, and the second half of the symposium started.
“Now then, it is time for us to hear what our four panelists have to say. First, we have Miss Muum Muum, self-proclaimed queen of an ancient civilization. Please, take it away.”
“Right, name’s Muum Muum of the Thursa Thursa Kin’dom. Know a lot ’bout ancient stuff, I do. Ask me anyfin’.”
Of all the regular people who were here, I doubted any of them believed she was actually the queen of the Thursa Thursa Kingdom. She sure was up-front about it…
“Ah, well, as the moderator today, I must ask you what everyone’s thinking, Miss Muum Muum. Were there any unidentified flying creatures back in your era?”
“Nah. We studied all flyin’ fings extensively. Dunna, wha’eva, innit.”
“Then what do you think about the hypothesis that it was only a cloud moving erratically?”
“Didn’t get to see it meself, but that unidentified flyin’ wotsit moved horizontally, yeah? Do clouds move in straight lines like that? Sounds like it’d gone against the direction of the wind, so can’t be sure. Dunna, wha’eva, innit.”
Her “I don’t know, whatever” tag at the end was damaging the credibility of her statements.
“I see. Shall we end this here, then, Miss Muum Muum?”
“Yeah, go on, then. Dunna, wha’eva, innit.”
Just say yes!!
“Our next panelist is Goodly Godly Godness, self-proclaimed deity. From a divine perspective, what do you think of UFCs?”
“Let’s see~ I believe that life is more interesting with more unknowns.”
She was dodging the question with fluffy platitudes. Even if she knew the truth about aliens and UFCs, then she probably couldn’t just make that known to everyone else from her position.
“Do you have anything else to add?”
“Believers will be saved!” Goodly Godly Godness gave her evasive answer with a wink.
“Hmm, we got two completely useless opinions in a row.”
On the other hand, Vania was being a little too honest.
“Our third is Miss Canimeow, who claims to be the moon spirit. She runs a fortune-telling house that is often praised for its accuracy. Can we have some comments from the moon spirit regarding aliens?”
All eyes fell on Canimeow.
“…I—I wish we had the technology to go to other planets!” she shouted. “I’m the moon spirit—so I would love to visit the moon myself! But I can’t! It’s impossible! If there’s someone here from another planet, then I want a ride!”
“So do you affirm the existence of aliens?”
“I hope they do exist! And they don’t have to be aliens. I just want someone out there who has the technology to travel the cosmos!”
This was all personal!
I could hear some people in the audience saying, “All these panelists sure are sticking to their themes, huh?”
“This symposium was put together really quickly, so I suppose they had to fill the time with character actors.”
Sorry, they aren’t character actors. That was a real queen and a real spirit and a real goddess…
They probably picked out the wrong people. But it’d only been ten days since they saw the UFC buzzing around, so it was plausible that they could only find people they knew.
“All right, and our last panelist is the Smart Slime, also known as Smarsly. I doubt any slime, no matter how smart, would know anything about aliens, but do you have anything to say?”
Vania was getting a bit irresponsible about this.
“I am Beelzebub, agricultural minister. Smarsly cannot speak, so I shall speak for it. First, change the background to the appropriate image.”
The slide changed to an image of a keyboard.
Smarsly sat on the table, then hopped over to the keyboard.
Oh, right—it spoke the same way before.
Smarsly slammed itself into the letters.
That was how it made words—it couldn’t speak, after all.
“I shall interpret. Hello—I—am—Smart—Slime—Those—were—good—presentations. Those panelists were tedious, though.”
That last part was Beelzebub’s personal opinion.
Smarsly continued to slam itself into the letters.
“I—am—fascinated—by—people—from—other—planets—But—I—gleaned—something—from—the—UFC’s—movements. Oh-ho, it seems Smarsly knows something.”
A murmur rippled throughout the audience.
Were we going to make a new discovery?
Shalsha sat frozen, and Falfa had both hands to her mouth.
Smarsly continued to throw itself against the image to spell words.
I was holding my breath now, staring intently at what it was spelling out. The whole audience was concentrating on its every slightest move.
“If—I—may—make—a—guess—it—is—in—fact—”
What was it?!
No one was speaking. The squishes and slaps of Smarsly bouncing were oddly loud.
“—a—flying—slime. It seems our mysterious flying creature was a flying slime.”
Who was expecting a slime?!
“That’s weird, Miss Beelzebub! Shalsha has never heard of flying slimes!” Shalsha stood up and argued.
I got why she wanted to say that. I’d never seen a slime in the air, either. Wasn’t jumping how they got around?
Some people in the audience were even shouting, “Slimes don’t fly!”
But Smarsly paid no mind to that reaction and continued to do its slam typing. It was probably the most levelheaded…thing out here.
“I—see—you—are—not—satisfied—I—understand—And—so—I—have—brought—proof. Ah, I brought along this slime after speaking with Smarsly earlier.”
Beelzebub then pulled out a single slime from her bag—but it looked perfectly normal to me.
It wasn’t an ink-black color like Smarsly was.
“Go on, then. Move about as you like.”
She threw the slime into the air—and as a top-ranking demon, that meant she threw it well over a couple stories high. Good thing that wasn’t a baby.
Common sense dictated that gravity should eventually bring it back down, but—it was hovering!
“Aaaaah!” “Something’s happening!” “Is this magic?!”
Chaos rippled throughout the symposium. The slime hung perfectly still in midair.
And then—
It started darting from side to side. Zwoom, zwoom!
Like it was gliding along a floor none of us could see!
“That’s what Falfa saw! That’s how it was moving!”
Falfa stood from her seat. She couldn’t keep herself sitting still.
* * *
“That is exactly…what Shalsha saw…”
Shalsha’s face was going pale.
While this was all going on, Smarsly was slamming itself against the image. It was probably used to all this… It didn’t make any facial expressions or complaints, but I knew it was a hard worker.
“A—rare—subset—of—slimes—can—fly—They—are—not—generally—known—so—are—mistaken—as—new—species. So a flying slime seen from afar is often mistaken for an unidentified flying creature. There are not many of them, so I suppose they would be difficult to find.”
Beelzebub flew upward and caught the slime again.
“We found this one in the demon lands. I suppose a similarly spontaneous mutant has appeared in the area.”
Oh yeah—I guess the obvious shape of a UFO and slimes were somewhat similar. If I saw one of those from afar, I might mistake it for a UFO. It certainly wasn’t a bird or a dragon anyway.
Shalsha meekly raised her hand.
“Shalsha would like to concede that the UFC I saw was indeed a flying slime… I withdraw my argument.”
Then Falfa stood up.
“Falfa will also rescind her theory that it was a cloud anomaly…”
Both of them seemed a little disappointed, but I thought they both had done an outstanding job.
“You’re amazing, Falfa and Shalsha!” I clapped.
The speeches were basically all over, so I was going to speak freely now.
“You need courage to acknowledge that you were wrong! It’s so much more difficult than arguing your own point. And you both have done that. Outstanding, both of you!”
Laika and Halkara would understand that. They were applauding, too.
And then the applause eventually spread throughout the audience.
“And it leaves the possibility that aliens are involved with UFCs—and that some UFCs are clouds,” added Beelzebub. “All this does is prove that the recently sighted UFC was a slime. Be proud of what you do, girls. Very well done!”
“Hey, Beelzebub, don’t take the best parts away from me!”
“I am a panelist, so I may do as I please! Raise your hand if you have something to say!”
Dammit… I knew she would use her position as speaker to claim parenthood of my girls…
And so the UFC symposium came to an end.
The UFC experts, who had come all this way for this event, started back to their lodgings. It seemed like a good number of them would be staying in Flatta inns, so hopefully it would boost the economy a bit.
We broke down the chairs and the set and efficiently put them away on Vania, who was in her leviathan form.
As the girls’ mother, I had to keep an eye on them—but there hadn’t been any need for it.
Falfa and Shalsha were facing each other.
“Sis, Shalsha was wrong to say it was an alien without sufficient evidence. I won’t do it again…”
“Falfa was completely in the wrong, too, so we’re even. Science is about finding the truth, not about winners and losers—but we ended up competing anyway.”
They both reached out to one another and shook hands. Good; they’d made up.
They say that rain only hardens the ground—a small fight like this would only strengthen the love they had for each other.
That was when Halkara gleefully approached me. “Madam Teacher, Madam Teacher! I was right!”
“What? Right? You hadn’t made any arguments— Oh.”
My eyes dropped to the packaging she was holding, and that’s when it hit me.
It said: EDIBLE UFCs! WHETHER YOU BELIEVE IN ALIENS OR NOT, YOU WILL ENJOY THIS TREAT!
“I was right to change the packaging and sell them as edible UFCs!”
When it comes to this stuff, it’s always the one who makes a joke who gets it right in the end.
Of course, it wouldn’t get scientific recognition without strict study, but reality did sometimes coincide with a random spark of inspiration.
“And I am surprised to hear about flying slimes… There is more to them than meets the eye!”
That was when I realized something.
“Maybe there are even more slimes out there that have even rarer qualities…”
There were so many slimes all across the world.
Considering how many there were, it was possible that something miraculously unlikely might happen.
“Maybe I should keep an eye out when I go out to kill slimes.”
Maybe there was one kind of slime out there that was super valuable.
Meanwhile, the slime hopped over toward me.
“Hard to kill you at a time like this… But it’s also my thing…”
Falfa came rushing toward me. “It’s an evil slime! Kill it!” With a single punch, the slime became a magic stone.
She then looked up at me curiously. “Mommy, it’s okay to kill the evil ones. The other slimes will be upset if you leave it be.”
“I still can’t tell them apart!”
They were apparently darker in color, but I could hardly tell the difference.
If Falfa, the slime spirit, was going to dispatch them, then maybe I should take this as permission to keep killing slimes…
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