A Cat and His Human (League of Losers Book #1): LitRPG Series

by Atamanov, Michael

  Margarita froze mid-sentence as she saw the dark figures frozen fifty yards away from us behind a gleaming forcefield. A group of twenty people watched our arrival closely. I stared back at the welcoming committee. Big men, most in army uniforms, although some wore leather jackets or animal skins. The two closest held machine guns, the rest — all manner of weapons, from crossbows and hunting rifles to swords and spears. They talked quietly amongst themselves as they closely watched the passengers leaving the train car. What were they up to..?

  Choose the learnable skill Eagle Eye for your character?

  Uhm… This time the game system’s suggestion caught my interest. Sounded useful. Only I needed to know what exactly the skill would give me. As if in answer to my unspoken question, a hint window opened:

  Eagle Eye. A skill that improves your view range and increases your chance of detecting items and creatures in bad conditions (mist, smoke, darkness, camouflage, etc.) and allows you to read information on said objects. Upgrading this skill increases your view range and detection chance (+1% for each skill level).

  This skill sounded perfect for my Sergeant to compensate for the ten-percent penalty to vision range I got from low Perception! I was sold!

  Skill learned: Eagle Eye level one.

  2 of 6 possible character skills at level 1 chosen.

  Potential class removed: Sheriff.

  Potential class added: Watchman.

  More and more passengers emerged from the car. Nobody strayed far. Everyone stood by the train car and looked around at the new world we now had to live in. Badass was one of the last to climb down. His eyes found me and Margarita and he walked over to us.

  “I wanted to grab at least something useful from the car,” he said, explaining his delay. “I tried to break off a bunk and the metal door handles. I even tried to pull down the metal curtain rods. Nothing works. My hands passed right through it all…” Badass had also noticed the group of observers. He cast a calculating eye on the strangers, then grimaced in displeasure, grumbled vaguely about prison guards and turned away. “Hey, what’s that?” Badass pointed toward the horizon, where frequent flashes of lightning lanced down, illuminating the strange ruins of either an old city or an ancient fortress. “All my life experience screams to me that we’ll find something useful there! Only a couple of miles away. A half-hour stroll!”

  I suggested we not hurry to leave the illuminated circle, but first try to talk to the strangers and hear what they had to tell us. Then some bright text appeared before my eyes:

  ATTENTION! You must leave the starting area immediately! The countdown has begun!

  10 minutes… 9 minutes 59 seconds… 9 minutes 58 seconds…

  Judging by how all the people around me started to murmur and look around in doubt, they’d gotten the same warning. As if they’d been waiting for this very reaction, the distant observers finally showed some activity. One of the spearmen ran to the front, took a deep bow and offered an improvised megaphone made of rolled-up birch bark to one of the machine-gunners. The middle-aged soldier walked up to the barrier of light, raised the megaphone.

  “Testing, one, two, three!” his raspy voice echoed out, strengthened by the device. “Ahem. Come closer and listen carefully, newcomers! The countdown has begun. That means that the zone you are in will soon collapse. Anyone still within it will die immediately. Minus one of nine lives. Death in this world isn’t final, although it ain’t a picnic. Swim as a fish. Then you’ll get wiser and faster.”

  Alongside the other train passengers, I moved closer, stopping ten paces from the dour middle-aged orator. I had no idea what he meant by ‘swim as a fish,’ but I understood everything else he’d said so far. It took me a long time to read the speaker’s name and level, and those of his allies; the barrier bent and rippled space, distorting the text. But I finally managed to read the info of the spearman that brought the bark megaphone.

  KNUCKLES. Human. Male. Guild: The New Pharaohs. Level 22 Guardian.

  Eagle Eye skill increased to level two!

  The New Pharaohs? What a pompous, arrogant guild name! Their leader’s self-importance must have been off the charts! In the meantime, the machine gunner, whose name I couldn’t quite make out, had already come close enough to drop the megaphone and continue his speech.

  “Pay no attention to the railroad car behind you — it’s just an illusion and will soon disappear. More importantly… From here, there are three exits from the starting zone. They’re all deadly dangerous. Over there,” he waved a hand in the direction of the lightning flashes, “is Hundred Skull City. A dangerous zone full of horrific man-eating monsters that respawn over and over. Below level thirty, without a well-trained and well-equipped squad of friends, I wouldn’t risk going there. Opposite from us, in the east, there’s a snowy pass with an icy wind constantly blowing through it. Cuts you to the bone. A mere forty minutes and you’ll be frozen corpses. And even if you manage to get through the mountain pass, on the other side is a town of werewolves. Monstrous man-eating creatures that hate humans and kill them on sight. And finally, the road to the valley…”

  Here the machine-gunner put the megaphone away entirely and gave some orders to his underlings, pointing into the distance. I peered into the darkness. On the road behind the welcoming committee, I saw two big closed carts, hitched not to the usual horses, but to strange giant reptiles the size of a hippo. I noted the progress bar had filled up a little — apparently I’d been actively using the Eagle Eye skill my character had just learned. The machine-gunner continued.

  The path to the inhabited valley is very dangerous. It leads through a forest filled with horrific monsters. No way will a level-one noob get through. So get in our carts, sit in them quietly and don’t stick your head out! These experienced soldiers and I will try to protect you and deliver you to a safe haven, where you’ll get a roof over your heads and work to suit your skills.”

  The people gathered around me, whose spirits had fallen noticeably at the mention of Hundred Skull City and the deadly snowy pass, immediately brightened up. Some even smiled. Encouraging remarks could be heard all around. The most impatient even began to step toward the shining barrier, planning to walk through it, but the speaker stopped them:

  “Wait, wait! Not so fast! First, our conditions: my people will search each of you for weapons and dangerous items. We’ve had more than enough uprisings, rebellions and panics, so your weapons will be taken. You’ll get them back on arrival. But most of all, we’re interested in some shiny magic cards — newcomers to the new world have a chance of getting one when they arrive. They are dangerous artifacts and completely useless to you — you won’t be able to use them properly anyway. The cards pay the fare for your entire group of noobs. Experienced soldiers in my squad can use them to protect our entire platoon from all kinds of danger…”

  “I have a magic card!” a middle-aged woman shouted, raising her hand high and proudly showing an opalescent green playing card.

  Wow! So I wasn’t the only one to get a magical artifact? The other newbies got cards like it too! Now I was finally able to read the info on our gruff machine-gunner:

  ☠ AXE. Human. Male. Guild: The New Pharaohs. Level 42 Overseer.

  Eagle Eye skill increased to level three!

  The strangest thing of all was that unlike all the other character nameplates I’d seen, AXE’s was blue instead of gray for some reason, and had a skull symbol next to it. Why was that? I couldn’t seem to get any hint to answer that question. Worse, the game system most rudely informed me that my Sergeant was too dumb to figure it out:

  Your character does not have enough Intellect to complete this action.

  Alright, forget the skull symbol and color difference between the names for now. I’d figure it out eventually. What about the Overseer class? That class made me think of prison, or slavery. At that moment, Badass distracted me by pulling at my sleeve.

  “You gonna keep listening to this punk, soldier boy? It’s clea
r as day; they ain’t planning on returning our guns and knives. They wanna disarm arrivals so they can take ‘em out without resistance later. We need to go another way! To Hundred Skull City or through the Snowy Pass. Think about it. If this is the spot where totally green players show up, then the neighboring zones can’t be that tough!”

  I admit, the old convict managed to sow some doubt in the truth of the gruff machine-gunner’s words, especially with the suspicions I already had about the strange Overseer game class. The intentions of these people didn’t seem good. Some of them even looked just like open bandits or slavers. I was no expert in reading faces, but I still felt treachery emanating from them. The entire welcoming committee was just waiting with barely hidden impatience for the newcomers to cross the barrier and fall right into their clutches! That was it. We had to leave another way! Only… My eyes found Margarita already in the queue of people going through the barrier and being searched.

  I approached the girl, asked her to come with me and Badass to Hundred Skull City. I didn’t suggest going through the snowy pass; she was too lightly dressed for hiking through snowy mountains.

  “Are you mad, Sergeant?! No, of course not! I want to get to the shelter with the others as soon as I can!”

  Margarita didn’t even want to hear me out about AXE’s game class and the fact that the Overseer could be lying to entrap newbies. Hell, she even accused me of lying! She even snapped that I was trying to lure a defenseless and barely dressed girl off into a quiet place. That was no fun at all to hear. But what can you do? So our paths would fork. Shame; the girl was cute… I said good-bye and hurried after Badass, back at the train car for some reason. He saw the look on my face and tried to cool me down:

  “Don’t sweat it, soldier boy! That chick wouldn’t be any good to us, that’s why I didn’t even invite her. We’re gonna need gumption, courage. Women are women. Come on, let’s go, only four minutes until the circle collapses!” the recidivist convict hurried me along.

  He approached the car and kicked a metal wheel with the toe of his (formerly my) boot. And broke straight into a smile.

  “I told ya, that jumped-up machine-gunner is pulling the wool over our eyes. ‘Illusion’ my ass. Hah! He distracted us deliberately so we wouldn’t pick up any useful stuff. Now that the countdown has begun, this train is real as can be! Two minutes to grab something useful, then we bounce!”

  It was true; the items that we couldn’t touch before had become entirely corporeal! On the advice of my more experienced companion, I climbed into the train car, pulled the curtains off windows and made a bundle of the metal curtain rods — we could make all kinds of things from them. The cloth of the curtains themselves might come in handy too.

  “It’s time!” Badass said, putting an end to our looting. “Now we haul ass out of this zone, soldier boy!”

  I ran after my ally. Dropped a few materials, but there was no more time to stop and pick them up. We barely made it as it was. There were only four seconds left on the countdown when I jumped through the shining barrier!

  The circle of light behind us was gone, along with the train car and the rails. Nothing around but a snowy forest. It was night. Even the group of passengers were gone. It seemed like the space around us had changed somehow, and there was a fairly great distance between us.

  ATTENTION! This is a challenging and dangerous world! Any player who manages to survive their first days in the new world will get +2 character stat points!

  I read the highlighted hint and smiled happily. Plus two points! Not bad at all! After I caught my breath, I finally realized that Badass had run in the direction of the snowy pass, and I’d followed. Why not Hundred Skull City? I asked my more experienced companion. Still breathing heavily, he waved a hand:

  “We don’t have any decent weapons… If only we had something other than your axe, we could’ve risked it. As it is… the curtains will help us keep warm. We’ll get through the snowy pass, then take a look at that city. I don’t believe the place is full of werewolves that kill anyone they meet. If it is, then how did anyone get away to spread the word?”

  I nodded in agreement at Badass’s advice, crouched down to pack the scrunched-up curtains into my backpack, pulled the straps tight, and… I didn’t feel the actual hit on my head, or any pain. I just watched somehow as if from the outside while my body collapsed, its head cracked. Badass squeamishly threw away the bloody stone and crouched next to my corpse. He muttered to himself happily: “Fastest Murder. Haha! Fun achievement.”

  He dug around in my pack a few seconds, then swore and roared:

  “What the hell do I need sugar and nails for, Sergeant?! Why can’t I take your coat, axe and all the rest?!?”

  It seemed only a little loot had dropped. I didn’t see what my killer did next. My vision darkened until all I could see in the blackness was a bright red note:

  Your character has died! First death of ten in this world. You will revive in fifteen minutes.

  Achievement earned: Fastest Death. Your character died on second 51 of arrival in a new world.

  Fame increased to 1.

  Chapter 4 [Kitten]

  I have paws!

  IT WAS THE GREATEST shock of my life. I was a cat now. A little kitten even! And I had a new human master with a name that I used to use not so long ago! This was very hard to believe, and even harder to accept. I tried to enter the new world to check with my own eyes that these changes were real, but the same message kept appearing before me:

  ATTENTION! You are a pet and dependent on your owner. You cannot enter the game world until your owner is in it.

  I whined helplessly and hoped that this was just a bad dream, that I’d wake up in my familiar human body. But all I could do for now was look at my character information. A ragged ginger kitten looked back at me from the stats screen, with a broken back-left leg tightly bandaged.

  Name undetermined *

  ATTENTION! Your master may come up with a name for you until you reach level 5.

  Otherwise, you will be given the default name Whiskers.

  Kitten. Male. Pet of Andrei Bestuzhev-Kislyakov

  Level 1. Class undetermined

  ATTENTION! Game class is determined automatically at level 10 based on the skills you gain and your play style. Your class may be updated/corrected further until you reach level 25. After level 25, your class cannot be changed and you will no longer be able to use skills incompatible with your game class.

  Currently suggested class: Troublemaker, Pussycat, Birdhunter

  Character stats:

  Strength 8 (-30% damage dealt in close combat)

  Agility 20 (+30% movement speed, +30% reaction speed, +30% action accuracy) * Your high Agility gives your character special abilities (temporarily inactive)

  ** Due to an injury, Agility is temporarily reduced to 18, bonuses received from Agility stat reduced

  Intellect 18 This high level of Intellect for a creature of the Cat species allows you to see the expanded stats of creatures and items and gives additional information on classes and game skills

  Perception 18 (+20% range to vision, hearing, sense of smell)

  Physique 14 No effect

  Luck Modifier -3 * Your extremely low Luck gives your character special abilities

  ATTENTION! You can redistribute up to three stat points

  Character stats:

  Health Points: 61 / 61

  Stamina: 138 / 138

  Magic Points: 0 / 0

  Carrying capacity: 2.2 lbs * Inventory unavailable

  Mutagens used: 0

  Fame: 0

  Character skills:

  Hand-to-Hand Combat 1 * Mutagens not used

  Attention! 1 of 6 possible skills at level 1 chosen

  Character’s special abilities:

  Little Furball * Innate ability of creatures of your species

  +30% defense against cold due to fur. Creatures of large and very large sizes ignore you

  Hardy Brute *
Ability available to creatures with significantly negative Luck

  +10% resistance to cold, heat, poisons, radiation and other aggressive effects

  Nocturnal Predator * Innate ability of creatures of your species

  No penalty to vision range at night, automatic Soundless Step at night

  You cannot eat vegetation

  Everyone’s Favorite * Innate ability of creatures of your species

  +20 to reaction from any cat species, +20 to reaction from males, +50 to reaction from females of all intelligent species.

  Complete protection against aggression from any cat species until level 10

  Clawed Paws * Innate ability of creatures of your species.

  10% chance on hit to make enemy bleed

  Unable to use tools

  Daredevil * Ability available to creatures with Agility at 20 or above **

  Ability to climb vertical surfaces, fit through narrow gaps and cracks and jump ten times the length of your body

  ** Ability temporarily unavailable due to injury; recovers in 30 days

  What was I supposed to do with that?! Hope that this was just a bad dream, that I’d be a man when I woke? But what if that never happened? Did I have to play THIS?!

  I calmed down a little, then more carefully read the stats of this furball toon I had to play. Hmm… No fighter, to put it lightly. With that huge 30% penalty to damage dealt with claws and teeth, my kitten would barely be able to handle anyone alone, and the ten percent chance to make the opponent bleed was scant solace. I was tempted to boost my Strength at the cost of some other stat to improve my combat abilities. I tried to add a point to Strength, taking away from Agility (thankfully you could play with the stats as much as you wanted before confirming) and found out that each additional point to Strength adds +5% to damage dealt in close combat. That meant that even the maximum possible three points extra to Strength would only reduce the penalty by 15%… Not exactly a thrilling boost. Especially when I thought about my character’s other problem: the kitten’s extremely low Luck modifier. What did that mean?