Sergeant knew it too. He stopped beating his opponent, stood up heavily. Clenching his teeth in pain, he finally pulled out the bloody stiletto stuck into his shoulder. He examined the weapon that hurt him, then threw it hard. It sank into the trunk of a small tree ten paces from the fight. Then he extended a hand, offering to help the heavily breathing and bloodied Arvedo stand. The sherkh slapped it away.
“You’re still a corpse, human!” he hissed. “The poison will kill you! So I win!”
“Haha, sure, you win…” Sergeant laughed. The wounds on his cheek and shoulder had already stopped bleeding. “If poison worried me, I would have broken your neck and leveled up to heal it. Killing you would have been easy. But I didn’t want to kill you. I wanted to talk. I want to know why the hell you attacked me.”
The Scout clearly didn’t appreciate the scathing response. It seemed that Avedo had been hoping that his opponent would fall down in agonized convulsions and expire at any moment now from the poison. Nonetheless, the sherkh responded to Sergeant:
“I wasn’t attacking you, human, but the veich girl!” The sherkhs are at war with the veichs! To kill an enemy is a matter of honor!”
Finally, Arvedo had revealed the reason for his attack. But Sergeant wasn’t happy with the explanation.
“I bought Shelly from the veichs at Orshi-Ur village, so she’s with me now! She’s my companion, my friend, my woman. She lives with the humans in the river settlement. She minds her own business and this faraway war of yours is nothing to do with her. And it’s pathetic to attack an unarmed and naked woman from behind… You have a strange notion of honor, sherkh.”
“That’s it, enough!” the Swordmaiden interrupted the argument. “Human, explain immediately what you are doing here so far from your river settlement.”
In spite of the clearly implied threat, Sergeant took his time answering. First he gave the long-eared Swordmaiden a long look, then smiled and walked in a circle around her. The white-haired girl blushed from his studious attention. She placed her hands on the pommels of her blades.
“Answer my question! Now! Or I’ll kill you!” Avelia Un Ponar threatened. The threat seemed to have no effect on Sergeant at all.
“You’re beautiful…” my master finally said, smiling. “You ask what I’m doing here? Do you see my game class: Beast Catcher? That’s what. Look behind you,” Sergeant pointed at his armored river monsters crawling closer on the bank. “We came on these creeping crocodiles to tame giga-komodos for our settlement. We wanted to pick a bouquet of wildflowers to help make a sick friend of ours feel better too. But you and your brother killed all the giga-komodos for some reason.”
The long-eared Swordmaiden tore her eyes from the dangerous river beasts with difficulty as they crawled onto the sand. I suspected she was thinking hard about whether to disappear again, to avoid closer contact with the sharp-toothed river beasts. In the end, she decided to stay visible for now.
“Arvedo is my younger brother. If you had killed him, then I would have had no mercy on either of you. And your fate yet remains undecided. However, I wish to ask you something else. Do you chase every skirt you see, Sergeant?”
“Not every,” Sergeant laughed. “Only if the girl wearing it really deserves attention. Like you, for example!”
What the hell was he doing?! I sat next to one of the dead beasts, crouched and trying to remain unnoticed, and couldn’t believe my ears! Was Sergeant flirting with the fearsome Swordmaiden? She’d kill him for that kind of attitude! Although, I had to admit, my ‘second me’ had plenty of experience with girls in his past life. Sometimes it was exactly that kind of cocky confidence that helped break the ice. Sergeant seemed to know what he was doing in this case too. The Swordmaiden blushed more deeply, took a step back and rushed to change the subject.
“The giga-komodos had to be exterminated. The veichs learned how to tame them, and we couldn’t allow our enemies to grow in strength. But we didn’t kill them all. The most high-level and the fastest of all the giga-komodos ran off to the other end of the meadow. If you can, then tame it. My brother and I will leave and not disturb you!”
Both the sherkhs disappeared into invisibility at once, and judging by the sound of their footsteps, they moved off. Arvedo picked up his stiletto from the sandy ground, but didn’t even try to free the one deeply embedded in the tree. Sergeant waited for their footsteps to fade, then fell to one knee with a groan.
“Shelly, open my backpack and take out the medkit. I didn’t want to show it while they were still here, but I can feel that poison. It’s getting hard to breathe, and my left arm won’t move. I have high poison resistance, but it got through my defenses. I need an antidote injection.”
The Huntress hurried to open the backpack hanging from Sergeant’s back and handed him the medkit. The big human quickly injected himself with the antidote, then sank back into the sand with exhaustion. I saw the human’s arms shaking; the fast-paced battle and displays of bravado after it weren’t easy for him.
“You called me yourrr woman?” Somehow I knew that Shelly would hone in on those words in particular.
“I had to, so they wouldn’t kill you. But… I guess you have your answer to your question yesterday. I tend to stick to my word.”
The furry Huntress sat down on the bank next to the human and put her head on his shoulder.
“Thank you forrr saving me again. Counting last two times, this would have been my final death. I am verrry grrrateful to you, Serrrgeant. I know perrrfectly well that not all humans will approve of yourrr choice — you arrre man, and I am veich. If you wish, you do not have to tell anyone. Ourrr secrrret. I will behave distantly when humans nearrr.
“I don’t want that,” the boy said, hugging the girl even as he grimaced from the pain in his left shoulder. “You’re my girlfriend. Everyone should know.”
I listened to their cooing and twitched my whiskers in displeasure. The cunning Shelly had managed to make an impression on my master after all with her feminine wiles and flirtation. I had to admit, I didn’t approve of the big oaf’s choice at all. And it was nothing to do with race. Although that was a factor. I just happened to like Varya a lot more than this loser huntress, and I thought my ‘second me’ would too. On the other hand, since the extraordinary army girl was now single, I could suddenly imagine a bright future for Whiskers… I had to hurry and level up so I could transform into a human!
In the meantime, the two lovebirds’ caresses moved from the verbal to the physical. They embraced. Kissed. Even with one arm injured, Sergeant somehow managed to pull Shelly’s vest off, and Shelly eventually figured out how to do undo the boy’s belt. I hurried away so I didn’t have to watch. Gross. My kitten needed to eat, and there was plenty of fresh meat around. I walked behind one of the farthest giga-komodo corpses, but even from there I could hear the lovers moaning and sighing.
Radar Ear skill increased to level thirteen!
Great, now I could hear even better. Was I in some circle of hell? I understood, of course — Sergeant had been so long in the army with no women, sustaining himself with thoughts of his girlfriend waiting for him, counting the days until they could meet again. Then, as soon as he got back, Karina stabbed him in the back. After such long abstinence, the young and physically fit man was ready to jump on anything that moved in this new world, I suspected. Alright, that might be an exaggeration.
A whole eternity passed before the two had their fill of each other. But finally, they got tired of their romantic games and remembered they had a job to do.
“It’s midday already. Time to go see your packmates.”
“You do not want to tame final giga-komodo?” the Huntress asked with surprise.
“If it’s the last one and the fastest of them all, it’ll take even longer to tame than Dinotard did. We won’t have time before nightfall. Anyway, my stamina is low after that poison. I might not have enough. We’ll tame it next time.”
“We go on foot to Orrrshi-Urrr? Thrrr
ough forest and marrrsh?”
“No. We’ll ride the creeping crocodiles. We can’t leave them here alone. I think we went wrong from the start — we needed to take the left turn. But first, let’s cut some of those armor plates off the giga-komodos and load them onto Katy and Tick-Tock. I want to try and make myself some strong armor from them. If I can’t do it myself, I’ll ask the Engineer to help out. The other villagers at Pan’s Landing could use some armor too. And let’s take some meat while we’re at it. You grab that blond guy’s dagger — it’s sticking out of that tree over there.”
Well, this time I was in full agreement with Sergeant, both with regard to the creeping crocodile and to the need for strong armor to replace his scorched and now useless jacket. And he might need my help to recover Stamina Points. I hurried over to the big oaf and his girlfriend. Girlfriend with a capital G — the information was even in Sergeant’s profile now. On the same tab where it said, under the Relatives section, that Julia Sinitsyna was his sister.
Chapter 28 [Sergeant]
Orshi-Ur
I DON’T KNOW how many bone armor plates Shelly and I managed to cut off and load onto the creeping crocodiles. We loaded up at least four hundred pounds, as much as we could tie onto Katy and Tick-Tock with ropes. We also cut off three times that number of armor plates and put them in a pile under a memorable forked tree, so we could come back some time and pick up the valuable material. What was interesting was that carving up the bodies for the sake of the scaly plates was a good way to level up the Item Crafting skill. I got it up to level ten, and Shelly made some nice progress in the skill too.
On top of that, all this hard physical work increased my Strength by one point, to eighteen. That was a total surprise, and an encouraging one. I’d heard from the other players that character stats could increase over time. But it was one thing to hear it, and another entirely to feel it. It felt good! As my Strength increased, the maximum weight Sergeant could carry also grew to eighty pounds. My maximum Stamina increased too, along with damage dealt in close combat.
But that was it; we were done loading the chitinous plates and it was time to ride off. Shelly was already waiting for me on the bank with a big bouquet of wildflowers. We’d picked the fantastic spray of color together for our mutual friend Varya, to help the injured girl recover. Shelly had tried harder, although I’d done my part too. I took the bouquet and tied it onto Tick-Tock’s saddle.
“Serrrgeant, could I try to ride one of the crrreeeping crrrocodiles on my own?”
The furry Huntress’s question put me at a loss. The river monsters only listened to me, and any attempt by the other villagers of Pan’s Landing to make closer acquaintance with them had failed. The creeping crocodiles didn’t attack the people of the village, but completely ignored them all except my younger sister; they ate from Julie’s hand and allowed the little girl to wash leeches and mud off their armored bodies, even gave her rides around the lake on their backs.
In Julie’s presence, the creeping crocodiles allowed Varya to approach them too, but they still considered the Engineer’s daughter a stranger. They were nowhere near letting the level 33 Scout climb on their backs. I tried to hand over Katy to Varya as I’d once promised, but ran into an unexpected problem; I couldn’t create a trade contract. The game system told me that I needed the Trading skill. As it turned out, Varya didn’t have the skill either, and neither did any of the villagers I asked. We’d put it on hold for now.
“Give it a try. Although I doubt it’ll work.”
To my shock, Katy not only let Shelly mount her; the female creeping crocodile even obeyed her command to move into the water. That was more like it! I didn’t know why the furry Huntress enjoyed such exclusive privileges. Of course, it occurred to me that in the eyes of my pets, Shelly had gotten a significant promotion in the hierarchy after I declared her my girlfriend. And after, ahem, some of the other things Shelly and I had done. But I couldn’t see any changes anywhere — not in Shelly’s game info, nor in my own profile — so I could only suspect. For what felt like the millionth time, it occurred to me that there might a lot of information I couldn’t see because of my low Intellect. But there was nothing to be done about that.
“Serrrgeant, let’s see who is fasterrr!” Shelly said, laughing in joy and steering Katy downstream. I commanded Tick-Tock to catch up.
I thought I’d catch up to my long-tailed girlfriend in a flash — after all, Sergeant had the Riding skill, and at level twenty-five it increased my pet’s speed by a full quarter. But the distance between me and the girl almost didn’t close at all. Soon she even took an even bigger lead! I only figured out why after the first fork in the river, where Shelly slowed her toothy sixteen-foot-long mount to wait for us.
“Did you see, Serrrgeant?” my furry girlfriend gasped with excitement. “My game class changed!” Now I not Hunterrr, but Rrriderrr! I feel like I am much betterrr at contrrroling animals than hunting them! And I just got to level twenty-five! So now I will always be Rrriderrr. It won’t change! Awesome, don’t you think?”
I hadn’t noticed until Shelly pointed it out. She was right. Level twenty-five and a new game class. But what did the Rider class give her? I asked Shelly the question. She opened up her character info and read aloud:
“Can now firrre frrrom the saddle. All skills rrrelated to contrrrolling crrreatures level up fasterrr. Perrrmanent +30% bonus to speed and stamina of contrrroled pet.”
Awesome was definitely the word. I wondered what bonuses my Beast Catcher character would get when the game class finally turned permanent at level 25? Or would my profession change yet again?
* * *
The creeping crocodiles scrambled up the now shallow river with great difficulty. Shelly and I had to dismount and walk along the bank on our own two legs. We didn’t have long to go anyway — I saw the waterfall on the outskirts of Orshi-Ur village just a quarter of a mile away. Shelly confirmed it:
“Yes, now I rrrecognize land! The veich village is above that waterfall!
We started climbing up the rocks of the sheer slope. Now that she was nearly home, Shelly remembered too late that her packmates had practically banished her. They might not be glad of the return of their ‘walking catastrophe.’ And according to my companion, veichs weren’t too welcoming of humans either. They rarely let them into Orshi-Ur. So Shelly kept expecting fearsome voices from above to tell us to turn back. But time passed and nobody stopped us. We climbed higher and higher. It was very strange.
As we reached the end of the arduous and exhausting climb and emerged right next to the nearest house of Orshi-Ur village, we learned the reason. The big stone house stood empty! The strong iron-bound door was wide open. Inside we saw no veichs, no furniture, nothing.
“Serrrgeant, what’s happening? Where are the veichs?” Shelly dropped down to all fours in alarm and ran as fast as she could to check the other houses of the village.
I didn’t stop her, though I already knew what had happened. The veichs had left Orshi-Ur. And, judging by the still warm ash in the house’s kitchen stove, they’d left that very morning.
Tracking skill increased to level eight!
After looking around the house — a round, stone bungalow with a good foundation, with a kitchen at its center and four separate rooms around it, — I went outside and examined the tracks on the ground nearby. There were many. By all appearances, the veichs had marched out all together. Southeastwards, to the forcefield. Weighted down with as much as they could carry, judging by the deep impressions of the many clawed pawprints and the few clearly defined chains of giga-komodo tracks. Not just two giga-komodos, but far more — they had seven or even eight of the mighty beasts. That meant the veichs had put the knowledge I gave them to good use and started taming the armored riding beasts themselves.
I checked the cooling forge and smithy and the covered storehouse, which the inhabitants had completely cleaned out. The villagers clearly had no plans to return. But what about Shelly?
The furry Rider had already reached level twenty-five. She could have gone through the forcefield alongside the other veichs. If we ran along the clearly visible tracks right now, then we might catch up to the Orshi-Ur pack by midnight.
But it would be awful if Shelly’s packmates rejected her once again, and that seemed the most likely outcome to me. Anyway, Shelly was with me now. She’d have to get used to living among humans. Not all the people of Pan’s Landing would like that, but I’d stand up for my furry girlfriend!
I walked around the abandoned village some more. There was some unfinished construction — the veichs had begun to dig a channel from the lake, apparently planning to pipe fresh water straight into the houses. I examined something like a mill mechanism, also unfinished. I walked around a large area covered in sand and carefully leveled out. It had stones of various heights on it in an intentional order. Some bore notches and strange lines. It seemed to me that the wise ones of the Orshi-Ur pack were making a solar clock or a map of the night sky, but they never finished the job. My overall impression was that the veich’s decision to up sticks and leave was fairly spontaneous.
Eagle Eye skill increased to level fifteen!
Tracking skill increased to level nine!
Your character is now level fifteen!
Reward: three skill points (total available: nineteen) and one mutation point (total available: ten).
Another level-up! My Stamina Points were fully restored and all signs of my poisoning finally passed. My wounds healed up too. It felt so good to be at full health! Well, I’d already completed my main mission from Max Dubovitsky — to find out whether the veichs were planning to leave Orshi-Ur. That meant we could go back to Pan’s Landing with a clear conscience and tell the others the news. There was Shelly on her way back to me now.
A Cat and His Human (League of Losers Book #1): LitRPG Series Page 24