Unfortunately, yes.

“John, what the hell?!” Emily shouted, smacking his shoulder.

“It fucking lunged at you!” he swore back, staying between them, but rubbing where she hit.

She rolled her eyes dramatically, waving her hand towards the mimic happily eating the pizza off the ground. “Because he’s hungry, doofus. You saying you wouldn’t lunge at a pizza if you hadn’t eaten in a few days?”

“I, uh,” he started, but Emily didn’t let him finish.

“Can we at least try to see if he’s friendly before attacking?” The witch actually put her hands on her hips, waiting for his answer, so he nodded. “Good. Now, little guy,” she said, kneeling again to talk to the creature. “Your name’s Chester?”

Chester stopped, a slice of pizza hanging half out of his mouth, and looked up at her with its big green eyes again.

“Think that’s probably a yes. I’ll bet you can’t speak, can you?” The mimic happily licked her hand, the pizza on the ground, forgotten. “Alright, alright. Go on and eat. I’m Emily, and this is John. You’re safe here.” She smiled at the chest, petting his wooden exterior as she got up to face John, their new pet back to scarfing up the pizza. “I love him. He’s like a puppy.”

The gamer felt his nose wrinkle. “He’s not a pet, Emily,” he sighed, already tired from the day.

“He could be. There’s no reason why you couldn’t keep him. Does he have any kind of abilities?” The witch’s eyes were lighting up brighter again with her excitement. That hidden magic glowing in her irises.

“Uh,” John paused, trying to remember what all had changed when he got Chester as a reward. “I think he’s technically an inventory expansion.”

“Right, right. The pillow,” she half murmured to herself. “Wanna try a few things? Chester, can you be good and promise not to attack us?”

The silly mimic bounded forward, licking her hands again as Emily laughed. “Alright, alright. John, what’ve you got in your inventory?”

“Actually?” he half grumbled. “Too much.” He pulled up his inventory sheet, hand in his pocket, and looked over all the junk he hadn’t cleaned out from the last few days. “Some drops from killing a boar, my school books still for some reason, random other things…” he trailed off as Emily nodded, thinking.

“Let’s pull out one of those boar things? I’ll have to get the story of that another time, but I want to see what happens if he eats it. Not sure you want to lose a book or something.”

“I get the feeling I won’t be using them much, but I doubt he’d consider a hunk of leather food.” The gamer chuckled, pulling the strip of leather he got from the boar in the woods out and offering it to the chest.

Chester looked at the offering, tottled closer, and hesitantly reached for it with his tongue before lunging forward and clamping his mouth over John’s hand.

“Shit!” Glad for his reflexes, the gamer jumped back, pulling his hand free.

The other two were completely ignoring his reaction as Chester ate the leather scrap and Emily was taking notes in her little journal.

Grumbling like a petulant child, John muttered to himself, “No, I’m fine, don’t worry about it,” low enough that Emily had no chance of hearing.

“Okay, did he get you?” she asked, looking up at him excitedly.

’Oh, I guess she did notice.’ “N-no,” he reassured. “Teeth didn’t touch me.”

She nodded, humming as she wrote more in the notebook. “Alright, and it is back in your inventory?”

John pulled up his inventory, a quick glance at the stacks confirmed that it wasn’t there. “No, but there is a button I don’t think was there before?” In the bottom right of the usual window was a new square that looked like wood grain and had the letter C on it. Curious, he clicked it and a whole new inventory page came up with the leather in it. “Nice! He has his own inventory I can access. That could be real handy.”

“That’s what I thought would happen. Okay, Chester,” she crouched down again, talking to the mimic like it was a kindergartener, “would you mind if you went back into John’s inventory so we could test a couple more things? We’ll let you right back out, I promise. And I’ll get you more pizza.”

It nuzzled to the witch’s hand before walking back up to John with its little bracket feet. ’This has to be the strangest thing I’ve done since getting these powers,’ the gamer thought to himself as he picked up the massive chest and carefully put it back into his inventory. Much more gentle with it than he’d been before.

Once the mimic was in his inventory, the leather appeared in his normal screen, the additional screen and button disappeared.

“Huh, okay.” He did his best to explain that concept to Emily before giving up and just sharing the inventory screen with her before pulling the ‘surprise mechanic’ back out.

The pair continued to discuss the new possibilities this could open for them as Emily fed Chester more pizza until the box was empty. “So you get your powers from Gaia herself, then she gives you a pet like him.” Her red lips pursed into a pout. “Some of you Abyssals get all the luck, I swear.”

“Yeah, says the woman able to do fire magic, summoning, and has this awesome training center,” the lycan quipped sarcastically.

Emily snorted delicately and rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah, every little bit of my life I’ve had to fight for. Then again, I guess I don’t know all of your back story either.”

“True,” John acquiesced, “I probably know more of yours than you do of mine. But there’s not much to mine. Just woke up one day with powers, fucked and got bit by a lycan, and now we’re here.”

“Wait, that’s really how you got your lycan abilities?” Emily paused, hand resting on Chester as she was petting him.

“I thought I told you that?” the gamer questioned, cleaning up the empty pizza box by tossing it into a fire pit in the training ground.