Disadvantages: Feelings of extreme exhaustion afterwards.
I shook my head to remove the pop up. Pop-ups sure were distracting at times. I didn’t care at all for the extreme exhaustion I would feel.
In a matter of seconds I reached the cliff end.
The tongues of the wolves lolled out, saliva dripping from them in anticipation of the upcoming meal.
“Come on, get me,” I said to them.
They leapt.
I too leapt sideways at that very moment.
The wolves only then realised that there was a cliff edge. They tried to stop, but due to their inertia, then went towards the cliff and down they fell. I meanwhile landed at the very edge of the cliff. My foot slipped.
And the next moment I knew that I was hanging by the edge of the cliff holding on to a tree root with my paws. I looked down, seeing as the wolves struck the rocks below. The rocks were immediately painted in crimson.
I felt a dizzy feeling come over me and the extreme exhaustion set as well. I was holding on to the roots with my nails. I knew that very soon, either my nail would break or the roots would and then I would meet the fate of the wolves.
And then her voice reached my ears. It was music.
“Kitty? Where are you?” Junaki cried. She was searching for me a good dozen metres away near the cliff.
“Over here!” I cried with the last ounce of strength still left in me.
Junaki gasped, seeing me in the dangerous position that I was in. Just as the root of the tree that I was holding to was about to break, Junaki grabbed my paws with her magically changed Human Hands . With much effort she pulled me up. I gasped for breath at the edge of the cliff. That had been one lucky escape. I betted that I wouldn’t forget it even if I died.
“That was close,” I said. I had never been more thankful to be alive. I looked at the world with a sudden new perspective. We were sure in such a beautiful place, weren’t we? The froth like clouds were like pieces of art. I had never looked at them in such a way before.
Junaki suddenly hugged me and sobbed.
Only then did I recall that my stomach had been bleeding, as when she hugged me pressure was applied to my stomach so that it pained.
“Ouch, you can hug me all you want later, but right now it is paining like shit,” I croaked.
Junaki immediately pulled back, her eyes wide in fear.
I lay down on the cliff side, so exhausted I was. My health was just short of being completely depleted. My vision started to get blurry.
“I am not letting you die,” Junaki said. She held up a firm human finger at me. “Do not die, idiot.” She ordered me.
And then she sprinted away. In a few moments she returned, carrying varying herbs, just as I was finding it difficult to breathe.
She put some herbs inside my mouth and told me to chew and swallow them. Even that I barely could, for chewing seemed to require boatloads of energy… energy that I didn’t have at all. Junaki shook her head desperately, seeing that I was failing to do even such a simple thing. She held my jaws and helped me chew.
“Swallow it now!” she said with anger in her tone. But I knew she wasn’t angry at all. She was fear stricken and was trying to control herself by trying to be angry. “I can’t help you swallow.”
And I did.
Next, Junaki grinded some of the herbs with stones and then poured their juice onto the wound of my stomach. The wolf had had a large paw and I reckoned some of the nails of the wolf had punctured my stomach, instead of just giving me surface tears which was why my health had dropped so fast and I was losing so much blood.
It stung when the juice of the herbs fell on my wounds.
I felt my vision going dark… A message appeared.
You have received heath herbs.
You will make a recovery, but it will take time.
And everything faded.
***
Chapter 8
Electricity danced on the surface of the pool.
My master fought with the bald man at the very edge of the pool and I was afraid that my master would fall into it.
The two men struggled against each other, both seeming to have hatred of the highest order for each other. And then my fears came true as both slipped and fell onto the pool.
I was afraid. I circled the lake, for the two men became absolutely still the moment they touched the water surface. And slowly, they were sinking towards the bottom of the pool. No, I couldn’t let my master die. What if he drowned?
I took a few steps backward. I had to save my master, the very person that had saved me from the world earlier. I leapt. The moment my body touched the water surface over which electricity coursed, my body became absolutely still. I couldn’t move at all. And then blackness took over.
The blackness faded, and there was Junaki sitting beside me, an earnest look on her face from what I could make out from the flickering light of the fire. Night had fallen and we were in a small clearing that Junaki had made. I was lying atop a bed of moss and it felt quite soft.
“I am sorry,” Junaki said as a tear rolled down her face. “I paralysed you.”
“No worries,” I managed to say. I still felt rather weak. My health bar was at 80% and my stamina bar was at 40%. I recalled that the last time when the rats had bitten me, my health and stamina had climbed back up a short while after the herbs had been applied. I put forward this question to Junaki.
“I think the claws of the wolf had poison. Didn’t you see how the eyes of the wolves were glowing? Those were not normal wolves for sure, for the normal ones are much smaller. Poison can slow down the recovery rate by a great margin,” Junaki replied. She rubbed her tears. “But why did you call the wolves to yourself? You don’t even know any offensive or defensive spell. The only defensive thing you have is that small knife of yours and it could have done nothing to the monsters. I at least had my sword and my spells.”
“Which weren’t working much either,” I commented.
Junaki looked away.
“I was afraid of the wolves. Their red eyes made me scared. Perhaps that is the reason why I couldn’t do any real harm to them. When you are fearful your spells don’t work so much. And you fail to deliver a strong blow with your sword as well… But at the same time you weren’t scared at all.”
“I was too busy thinking about saving you,” I said.
Junaki smiled. She held my paws.
“Thanks for saving my life,” she said.
“And thanks for saving mine.” I smiled back. Our eyes locked together. And I didn’t know how long we were such, but after a while I realised that my health and stamina had returned to hundred percent and I was sure that the two of us were lost in each other’s eyes for quite a while. Just then a message appeared in my vision. I felt a strange feeling of well-being suddenly take over my body. I almost felt like I was flying. What was happening?
Quest completed!
You saved princess Junaki from the wolves!
You receive the following rewards: You level up! You receive the Human Hands spell!
While I couldn’t understand why was getting the ‘quest completed’ message only now (perhaps it had to do with the fact that I had been unconscious?), I couldn’t help but be thrilled.
“I just levelled up for the first time!” I broke the good news to Junaki. She clapped and cheered. “And I also received the Human Hands spell!”
Barely had I said that when another message appeared.
You receive clothes!
Levelling up for the first time has given you access to clothes.
There was a flash of light all around my body, and the next moment I was dressed in leather pants and a jacket!
“Wohoo!” I cried aloud. “I no longer need to roam about naked!”
I began to jump up and down in my excitement. Then I decided I should try out the new spell.
“How the heck do you use the Human Hands spell?” I asked Junaki.
“Just say ‘Hum
an Hands ’and that will do,” Junaki said.
I said the words. As my hands turned into those like that of humans, complete with five fingers, a message popped up in my vision.
You activated the spell “Human Hands ”
You will lose 5 mana every 10 minutes as long as you use the spell.
“So that’s why you use this spell only at times?” I asked Junaki. “It makes your mana drop.”
“Actually any spell will make your mana drop. So you must use them wisely.”
“But it’s still cool,” I said, looking at my hands in awe. I picked up a rock. Doing so had been such a difficult chore in the past. Heck, doing any holding with paws was next to impossible.
I remembered my knife and quickly took it out from my bag. I held it and brandished it, making slicing motions in the air. I felt like a warrior.
Just then I noticed that I was standing straight up on my lower limbs. I gasped. I could move so easily on my two legs. Just like Junaki and the other cats in her kingdom. I pointed at my legs to Junaki. She flashed her teeth in a smile.
“The Human Hands spell comes with an added advantage. It makes you capable of standing up straight like a human. And it does not cost any additional mana. You can now stand up straight even when you do not activate the spell.”
Seeing that my mana was slowly dropping, I decided to be wise. I put my knife back in my bag and deactivated the spell.
I frowned at Junaki. I realised a few things about her didn’t make any sense.
“Wait a minute,” I said to her. I didn’t want to ask her very directly, for who knew it might hurt her feeling like the last time? “Can I ask you a question?”
“Go on,” she said, curious to see that I had become rather serious all of a sudden.
“You promise that you won’t freeze me if I ask you the question?” I said.
She raised a brow.
“Look, you just rose somewhat in my eyes by saving my life,” she said. “Don’t ask me anything that would end with you getting paralysed.”
I grimaced and turned to look at the fire.
“Oh, come on, I was just kidding,” Junaki said playfully. “Ask your heart out.”
“Freezing me or not?”
“I promise I won’t, even if you ask me something super weird,” Junaki assured.
“Okay,” I said, taking in a breath, “I just wanted to know… you are a player, right? Or are you a true inhabitant of Arun?”
Junaki seemed unsure how to reply.
“I might be a player,” she said uneasily, “but I really don’t know.”
Junaki’s eyes suddenly went wide, as if she had realised something.
“Wait a minute,” she said, “you are a true player, right? That bag of yours inside which anything could be kept… only true players are rumoured to have bags like that! Gosh, why didn’t I think about this earlier? And that’s why you couldn’t stand up like me before because you only entered this world a few days back!”
“Well… not really. I probably entered the world of Arun a long time ago. This is actually my second life here.”
“But the thing is, you remember at least something about your life in the world to which you originally belonged, right?” Junaki stared at me intently.
“Well, little bits,” I said. I recalled that kind man who had taken me to his home. I had always thought of him as my master in the other fragment of memory that had come to me the other night. So he was likely to be my master of some sorts. And he was probably someone from the real world.
Junaki gazed at me for a few seconds, as though I was some sort of a precious artefact.
“Stop doing that,” I finally had to tell her, “you are making me feel uncomfortable.”
“Sorry,” she said, “it’s just that I had never met or seen a true player before. You know, if you regain your memory you might be able to return to your own world.”
“Yes, I do want to regain my memory,” I said. “The turtle told me that if I keep making choices from my heart that were similar to the choices that I had made in my first life in this world, then I might eventually regain my memory. It’s the reason why I decided to help Ferrima. The decision just felt right to me. I understand you were angry with me over that, since it will delay you going to your uncle’s kingdom.”
Junaki placed a paw on my shoulder.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It was the correct decision to help her. Oh, darn it! I cooked some rabbits for you. They must have gone cold by now!”
Only then did I see some large leaves near the fire. She removed the leaves to reveal smoking rabbit flesh. It looked yummy for sure. My first cooked meal… in this life.
***
General Information
Name
Kitty
Level
2
Sex
Male
Race
Cat
Health
200
Mana
50
Strength
18
Stamina
17
Luck
20
***
Chapter 9
It took us three more days to reach the village where the said thief who had stolen the precious stone of the wizard lived. Thankfully, after the wolves that nearly killed us, we didn’t encounter any other obstacles in the remaining way to the village. The compass let us on without any problem.
But.
The village had a wall of stone surrounding it on all sides, except the gate.
It was a village entirely of a strange kind of creatures which had bodies of humans and heads of dogs. These were the dogmen, Junaki told me. They were among the biggest enemies of cat kind in the world of Arun apparently. I remembered that on the occasions when I received flashes of memory from my past life, I had seen creatures that were of a striking resemblance to the dogmen and I was quite sure that I had come across them in my past life. Perhaps even battled with them. Who knew, perhaps it was the Dogmen that had killed me in my past life?
At the gate of the village there were six dogmen. They were at least twice as tall as us, even the shortest ones.
“Can’t we just tell them about the thief?” I asked Junaki. It wasn’t a requirement to go fighting all the time. There were always peaceful means that could be used, even when dealing with enemies.
Junaki shook her head, looking rather amused, so that I felt foolish for making the suggestion.
“They are dogmen. If we go to their village accusing one of their villagers of having stolen something from us, cats, then do you think they will readily hand us the thief?” Junaki said. “Or do you think they would cut out our tongues for calling their fellow villager a thief?”
“I wish the first case was possible,” I said. I reckoned peaceful means weren’t always possible. “But I feel the second one is what is likely to happen.”
“There you go,” Junaki said.
“So you are suggesting that we’ll have to attack them?”
“Two cats against a village of dogmen wouldn’t have much of a chance,” she said.
“But we need to get in and get the thief.”
Junaki scratched her chin with her paw.
The sun was just setting and the last rays of the star made her look rather like a very wise and thoughtful cat.
“We will have to cross the walls and get to the thief’s home without anyone seeing us,” she finally said. “But…”
“But?”
“Dogmen have really sharp noses. Much better than us, cats, or even the normal dogs that are said to dwell in faraway lands.”
I looked around at the spot that we were in. We were in a higher land, and the dogmen village was at least a few hundred metres below. They lived in the plains and we were at the very edge of the very last hills. There were quite few different kinds of plants growing near us. Tress, herbs, shrubs. Junaki didn’t have a bad knowledge of the flora and this made an idea come to my mi
nd.
“Do you know of any plant that has a very strong smell and can be used to hide the scent of our bodies?” I asked.
She looked at me with a twinkle in her eyes.
“Why, that’s one good idea!”
“And, we can also use the cover of the night for extra protection,” I said.
“I know of some plants with strong scents, let me get searching.”
It took a good while to find the plants that had strong scents. It was quite dark by then. Junaki had gathered flowers, fruits and other plant parts. She said it would be best if we used a variety of scents and mixed them together so that the dogmen would get confused. We then crushed the various plant parts, and we rubbed them on our bodies.
After a while we were smelling what can be best described using the word ‘weird’.
“We’ll have to take a really nice bath later on,” I said.
The two of us went down the slope. We kept as quiet as possible and approached the village slowly. We didn’t want to roll and fall and create any noise that might alert the dogmen. Soon, we reached the wall of the village.
We climbed up the wall (it took me two tries, but I was able to do it on my own without requiring help from Junaki).
Most of the houses in the village were similar in looks and they were of around the same size. No house was too big or too small— except that of the chieftain. He had what looked like a small mansion and it towered above the houses of the other dogmen.
Quietly we leapt down from the wall and thus entered the village. I looked at the compass that Ferrima had given me. Thankfully, most of the dogmen were inside their houses. We could even hear the loud snore of a few.
We followed along the direction that the arrow of the compass was pointing. Very soon we reached a certain hut to which the compass pointed that was not very far from the mansion of the chieftain. Just to make sure, we moved around the house, but the arrow was always pointing towards the house.
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